U. S. at War

Sirs: CONGRATULATIONS ON "U.S. AT WAR," YOUR ISSUE OF DEC. 15. THIS IS THE FINEST PIECE OF NEWS REPORTING THAT I HAVE EVER READ. RALPH P. BELL Director General of Aircraft Production Ottawa, Ont.

Sirs:

Congratulations on a magnificent job in including all news up through Monday the 8th in the issue of TIME that I received and read on the 10th.

Being familiar with what had to be done, mechanically and physically, to accomplish this, I salaam in amazement to your organization. It represents a feat I would have considered absolutely impossible. TIME is wonderful. L. D. RAMBEAU White Marsh, Md.

Sirs: Heartiest congratulations on your issue of Dec. 15, giving a fuller story of the outbreak of war than I thought possible. You had much to work with and little time to work in, but it seemed to me that the story gave as comprehensive and accurate a picture as can be found in these days.

L. BARTINE SHERMAN Princeton Broadcasting Service Princeton, N. J.

Sirs: Congratulations on the most masterly example of precise journalism I ever have seen. . . . Breaking when it did, the war must have necessitated the rewriting of every story in most departments. As a newspaperman I can appreciate what TIME'S staff was up against and how well organized your office must be to turn out such a comprehensive survey of the situation in so short a time. . . . CARLTON J. SHAMO The South Bend Tribune South Bend, Ind.

> TIME'S publisher can respond with thanks to these bouquets and others, where modesty might hobble TIME'S Editors. TIME'S editorial staff had about 36 hours to write its first issue about the U.S. at war. TIME correspondents within eight hours after war's outbreak turned in a nationwide roundup of U.S. reactions and thereafter kept it up to date hour by hour.

TIME'S printers accomplished a notable mechanical job in printing a four-color cover of Admiral Kimmel (over a million copies) after the war broke. Only way it was possible to deliver TIME on schedule in the East was to charter two transport planes to ferry 300,000 copies of the cover (five tons) from Chicago to Philadelphia.--Publisher.

Excitement Sirs: Hell broke loose over WSOY on this unusual Sunday afternoon . . . after the Kings Gospel Quartet had finished singing in our big studio. . . . Solid, red-faced Charlie Bruce was in the control room running a transcription of Chuck Foster and his orchestra while I sat quietly in the adjoining studio wondering how I would announce the next tune. We were in the middle of Blue Champagne when Bob Bruner, hat & coat on, dashed into the control room, waving a foot-long strip of teletype paper. Before I could get out of my chair, Charlie Bruce had pulled the control-room mike in front of him and had shut Blue Champagne off the air. Startled at such unusual action, I flung open the control-room door, just in time to hear Charlie mutter: "Japanese bombs have fallen on Hawaii."

From there on out we flashed bulletins, before, after, and in the middle of programs. The news was hot so we plastered the bulletins on the window in front of our building and hooked up a radio above the sidewalk outside. Small crowds gathered up close and read them with wondering eyes all afternoon.

But it was jovial, lazy Bob Bruner who first got wind of the story. Despite the fact that Sunday was his day off, he was at the station, doing nothing in particular. Bored, perhaps, with inactivity, he climbed the old stairway to our "newsroom," where our one stanch teletype machine pounds out the news. There, at 1:24 (C.S.T.), he noticed a simple statement, "White House Says Japs Attack Pearl Harbor." He pushed back his hat and blurted out the single word, "yippee." From there on, pure excitement reigned.

There were quick dashes upstairs for last-minute bulletins which left me so out of breath I could hardly read them. Bulletins, scratch paper littered the floor, the telephone kept ringing, most of the staff came to the station, announcers slipped cat-like into the studio with late flashes while you were on the air, and besides all this--the shows had to go on. And they did. . . .

Fear? Worry? Not a bit of fear or worry was there. It was excitement--like a big football game, or a Kentucky Derby. . . . JIM SANDERS Announcer WSOY Decatur, Ill.

Cure for Juramentado

Sirs: "Terror in Jolo," reported in your issue of Dec. 1, brings memories of doings in that island when, more than 40 years ago, I was a young soldier serving thereabouts.

The "workable formula" ascribed by your reporter to General Pershing . . . was first applied there by a General Blanco, the last Spanish commander in that district before it was abandoned by the Spanish army, to be occupied some months later by U.S. troops. ... He put into operation two small, shallow-draft steamboats, lightly armor-clad and armed with small rapid-fire guns. ... It was one of these that "ran amuck" in juramentado style. These vessels were taken over by the U.S. Army and used by it in the islands for a number of years.

U.S. soldiers . . . had a pretty good cure for Juramentado activities. Knowing the horror of the Mohammedan for any contact with swine, and particularly with its blood, these American roughnecks, when they had killed a Juramentado, held for him a very public funeral. The body of the defunct bad man having been deposited in the grave, a pig was brought, stuck, its blood sprinkled freely over the D B M, the dead pig thrown in with him, and the burial completed. This was very effective, and might well have put an end to running amuck. However, about that time the anti-Imperialists (a strange Boston sect who were the isolationists of that time) began raising hell with the Army because of this and other practices which had been found expedient in dealing with the wily Malay, and, probably because of this, the Juramentado has been permitted to continue his forays. J. R. McKEY Miami, Fla.

Gun Crank Sirs: As a gun crank of many years, and one who has owned and shot every make and caliber of American revolver and pistol, and most of foreign-made ones, I was interested in the account of the Moros running Juramentado (TIME, Dec. 1).

The sad defection of the .38-caliber pistol in the Philippines as a defense weapon was as much the Government's fault as anyone's. They were ordered from the Colt company with a barrel so overbored that a bullet could be dropped right through the barrel without sticking. Add to this the fact that they were furnished with a quite hard bullet, sharp on the point, it is easy to see why they pierced flesh without delivering the shock they could have given if made blunt or square-shouldered. The English furnished their .455-caliber with a hollow cup blunt end, and when one of these struck it was curtains for the victim.

I must take sharp exception to the statement as to the .45 as later furnished nearly "kicking a man's arm off." Any boy of twelve to 14 years of age with a fair amount of intestinal fortitude can shoot one with no harmful results. I have two now and neither one kicks so hard but that small game can be shot with them. I have owned a .45 weighing only 21 ounces and even that was not too much of a blow to the ego. WILLIAM B. PARKER Albany, N. H.

> Let readers beware, nevertheless, of treating the .45 as armament for small fry. -- ED.

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