THE NOME NUGGET
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MEMBER OF ASSOCIATED PRESS
Worthy of Our Soldiers
The Army’s chief of ordnance, Maj.-Gen. Levin H.
Campbell, Jr., has gone to some length answering crit
icism of the guns and tanks being built for use of Am
erican and other United Nations soldiery.
His recent discussion at Salisbury, N. C., deserves em
phasis because he was as specific as, under war condi
tions, an Army spokesman could be asked to be.
For that reason he was convincing. And this is a
time when we want, and need, to be convinced that
“our weapons, ammunition and tanks are worthy of
our soldiers.”
“America’s collossal war production effort, excelling
as it does in quantity and quality the output of our en
emies, is turning out the finest tools ever placed in the
hands of fighting men,” generalized General Campbell,
and then he became specific.
Our machine guns are still firing when the enemy
has to stop and change barrels. Our tanks have heavier
guns, heavier armament and greater speed. Our tank
guns out-range the best the enemy has. The Garand
rifle speaks for itself wherever it is used.
These things are reassuring. But even more reassur
ing is General Campbell’s discussion of certain arma
ment items about which ugly rumor had been disturb
ing the public.
It is not true, said this expert flatly, that the German
Mark IV tank carries an 88-millimeter cannon. The
gun is a low velocity 75-millimeter weapon. The high
velocity cannon of equal caliber in our own M-3 tanks
can be fired while the tank is in motion —which the
Nazi weapon cannot—and will blast big holes in a Hun
tank at distances at which enemy weapons cannot reach
our tanks at all.
The “new” German 88-millimeter anti-tank gun says
General Campbell, “is about as secret as a water pis
tol. It as been known to us and our allies for at least
10 years.” The novel feature is the Nazi strategy of hid
ing the weapon and trapping unwary British attackers.
“We outmatch this gun with several of our field and
anti-tank guns. We, too, have double purpose weapons.
They are heavier in fire power, they posses higher muz
zie velocity and carry greater explosive charges than
the German 88-millimeter gun.”
This is the sort of news which can properly be given
to an anxious public without aiding,the enemy.
After all, as General Campbell remarks, “guns are
machines. Nobody in the world makes better machines
than are made in the United States. You wouldn’t be
lieve Germany or Japan could make better automobiles.
Don’t believe they can make better guns. They can’t.”
—Anchorage Times
The bats which infest Carlsbad Cavern in New Mex
ico have started coming out an hour ahead of their cus
tomary schedule. Will some officials of the government
go out there and explain to them how necessary it is
that everyone cooperate in the new war time?
0)1. Denson
Promoted To
Briir. General
c
Stars will soon replace
the eagles on the shoulders
of Col. Kiev P Denson, com
mander of the Seattle Port,
of Embarkation.
He was among a group
of colonels nominated by
President Roosevelt to be (
brigadier generals, and
will get his new rank when
the senate confirms the ap
pointment. j
Colonel Denson took
command of the Port of
Embarkation, which in-!
eludes Fort Lawton, last
January 1, coming from
Fort Bliss, Tex., where he
had been in command after
tour': of duty on the Atlan
tic Coast.
A native of North Caro
lina, Col. Denson was ap
pointed 1o the military ac
ademy in 1905 and wac
graduated in 1909. When
the World War broke out
he was a first lieutenant,
but was soon promoted to
captain.
He went to France with
the Third Division and lat
er was on the staff of the
Twenty - eighth Division.
For this work he was
awarded the Distinguished
Service Medal. When the
armistice was signed, he
had attained the rank of
lieutenant colonel and had
acquired three bars on his
Victory Medal, each bar de
noting participation in an
engagement.
During his service Col.
Denson has been graduat
ed from many special
scohols, among them the
Field Officers’ Course, In
fantry School, School of
the Line, Command and
General Staff School and
the Army War College. He
also has served in the
army’s general staff.
While the amount of ton
nage handled by the Port
of Embarkation, and the
number of troops which
have passed through are
naturally military secrets,
:t s no secret that there
has been a tremendous
growth in all of the activ
ities under his command in
the ten months which have
followed Pearl Harbor.
It is understood that Col.
Denson was in Nome re
cently on a mission.
Native Who Made Grade
Returns to Alaska on \isit
Nutchuk to his Eskimo friends and relatives, Simeon
Oliver to New York concert audiences, a 40-year-old
son of the smoky seas visited in Juneau recently on his
way to his homeland in the uniform of the United Stat
es Army.
He is the same little Nutchuk, who 35 years ago was
running around in his rompers at the old Jessie Lee
Mission home at Unalaska, and who attributes his start
as a top-notch concert pianist to “fooling around with
the piano” at the old mision home as a boy.
Although he wouldn’t talk about the khaki rompers
he now is wearing, (Oliver is visiting Alaska on a con
fidential mission), the son of a full-blooded Eskimo me
tier and James Oliver, Norwegian, of Chignik, told a
story of success that few white men have equalled.
Reared at Unalaska
His mother died two years after he was born, and
the youth was reared in the Jessie Lee Home, since
moved to Seward. He received high school training in
Unalaska and left there in 1921. anxious to expand his
start as a musician. After two years at North Central
College in Illinois, he entered Chicago Musical College
on a scholarship and proved his worth.
From 1925 to 1933, his fame as a concert pianist
took him on tours of the United States for both stage
and radio. He was married to a descendent of Franz
Liszt, famous Hungarian composer and pianist, and he
and his wife toured together. When she died in 1933,
he gave up concert work and began lecturing on his
homeland.
Backed by Junior Program of New York City, and
Junior Town Hall of Boston, Oliver has appeared all
over the United States, telling audiences of the folklore :
of the Aleutians and the Arctic coast, and of the native
music.
.Study Native Music
Since 1921 he has made six trips to Alaska, doing,
research for his work. He has captured many of the ;
native melodies in his own compositions and hopes
some day to use them as a background for a story of the
Alaska natives.
Lately, he also has spread his talents into the literary
field, and his first book, “Son of the Smoky Seas,” was
published last November in New York. It was the Ju
nior Literary Guild selection for November. The
book has had large sales in recent months due to the re
newed interest in the Aleutians.
Oliver has two daughters, now staying with their
grandparents in Illinois. Both are concert pianists. His
home is in New York.
Russian Relief Raees Snowfall
SEATTLE, Sept. — Working against time — know
ing an unknown ship may sail at an unknown hour —
volunteers are sorting, mending, packing, crating tens
of thousands of garments for Russian refugees.
The nip in the air serves warning of the bitter Rus
sian winter ahead. Dispatches tell of the desperate
need. They don’t talk much about it, these men and wo
men in the sewing and packing rooms at 113-117 Madi
son St. They just work—faster and faster.
“1 believe this is by far the greatest clothing drive,,
the most tremendous response Seattle ever has seen,”
Mrs. O. F. Lamson, acting chairman of the Russian
clothing drive said. “Everyone has given.”
In a corner of the warehouse Capt. Martin Osis, port
captain for Soviet Union ships, checked over the sturdy
crates. “No cardboard cartons,” he warned. “These go
a long way.”
“And a cold way,” said white-haired John Gronaas,
as he slid another garment into the sewing machine.
He’s a retired Norwegian tailor, learing the trade from
his father, following it in Stockholm and Oslo, then to
New York, and on to Seattle.
“Can’t fight—can sew,” he muttered and the ma
chine hummed.
Every day, often nights, he has worked, along with
William J. Harrington and William Embach, men who
thought their working days as carpenters were done.
But they were there, making crates, in the rear of the
room where groups of women mended and sorted and
packed the mountains of clothing.
“Those five boxes over here came from the Canadian
Legion,” Mrs. Lamson said. “The Red Cross sent those
watch caps and those stacks of children’s underwear.
Two tons of clothes, all clean and mended, came from
the Ladies Relief Society. The Seattle-Tacoma Ship
building Corporation gave us those strong crates. Stim
son Mill made us 100 new boxes. The cleaners and dy
ers and laundries have cleaned thousands of garments
; for us.”
The drive was for clothing only. Funds for Russian
War Relief will be raised in the Seattle-King County
War Chest campaign October 15-31. And most of the
money raised then for Russian War Relief will provide
! medical and surgical supplies to put Russian soldiers
i back into the fighting line.
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Alaska Forms Guerillas
To Defend Homes
Governor Describe* t'nit As
•Fighting, Shooting Outfit’;
Special Experience Needed
JUNEAU, Sept. UP) — Alaska’s
Sourdoughs are being organized
as “fighting guerillas," equipped
with World War I guns and uni
forms. to defend their homeland.
Gov. Ernest Gnuening describ
ed the new organization as “a
fighting, shooting" outfit that
“will play the same part in Al
aska that the Minute Men of ’76
played in our War of Independ
ence.”
To become a member of!
"Gruening’s Guerrilas,” an Alas- j
kan must "know how to shoot,”
be exempt from tJhe draft, and
should know the North country
from living off the land on at
least one prospecting or trapping
trip alone.
They constitute the new Alas
ka Territorial Guard, a military
organization authorized by con
gress under the act creating the
state national guards which have
now been incorporated in the reg
ular army.
Specially Trained
Although technically they are
n’t guerillas, Ajt. Gen. Jay Wil
liams of Juneau says they will
be trained to carry on guerrilla
warfare. Each unit will be drill
ed to cope with conditions pe
culiar to the terrain and weather
conditions of each locality.
They will be called to meet
any invasion attempt in their
own communities, General Wil
liams said, and in emergencies I
will fight along with members of
the regular army.
Most of them are old time A1
askans and many furnish their
own rifles, although the war de
| partment issued obsolete uni
| forms and rifles along with am
i munition. The antiquated equip
ment has a familiar feel to many
of tlhe guerillas—veterans of the
last war.
Combat /one
i “For the first time in history
Alaska is a vital combat zone,”
| commented Governor Gruening.
j who as commander in chief od
j the guard, is on an organization
trip through the territory. “Alas
ka looms up increasingly as the
key to the strategy of the Pacific,
' as the bulwark for our entire
hemisphere against attack from
the west, and, we hope, soon it
will loom as the great spearhead
of our attack against Japan.
“Here in Alaska, the enemy for
; the first time has occupied Am
i erican soil. If we let him, he will
j attempt to advance further to
j ward the mainland of Alaska. To
prevent this and to drive him
from the foothold he has secured
(in the Aleutian islands), our
armed forces will do their part.
Repel Attacks
“We are mobilizing the civilian
population so that it, too, may
take part in repelling any inva
sion attempt.”
The governor said formation
of the fighting civilian organiza
tion grew from a “desire for the
closest cooperation in our com
mon effort for the all-out de
fense of Alaska and for laying
the groundwork so that our Al
aska civilians enrolled as fighting
guerillas may play their part in
whatever offense originates in
our territory.”
Details of exactly how and
where the units were being train
ed, and the size of the forces,
were regarded as a military se
cret.