WESTINGHOUSE PRESENTS, Nov. 29, 1944

WESTINGHOUSE PRESENTS

"TOP OF THE EVENING"

TED MALONE ... SPEAKING FROM OVERSEAS

NOVEMBER 29, 1944

ANNOUNCER: From the European War Theatre WESTINGHOUSE presents

"Top of The Evening" with Ted Malone, bringing you human interest reports of life and events with
your men overseas. Long a best selling author and radio personality, Ted Malone is winning new
fame as WESTINGHOUSE overseas correspondent, with a type of reporting that brings us all
closer to our men at the front. Now, Ted Malone's recorded shortwave broadcast from the
European Theatre of Operations.

MALONE: Hello, there! This is Ted Malone overseas. The other evening, just before dinner, I
wandered into the snack bar and pilots' room of a Thunderbolt bomber base up near Brussels. It
was empty except for a slender, dark-haired young Lieutenant sitting at the piano in a nostalgic
mood playing "Star Dust." The ceiling was concealed by two multi-colored parachutes draped like
canopies from the four corners. The walls were covered with several rather intimate murals and
dozens of elaborate names and signatures stenciled from flora moldings, until the end of the room
resembled the back of an enormous Sloppy Joe jacket. It was the club room of the Thunder Bums,
Thunderbolt fighter pilots who with their buddies, the Panzer Dusters and the Preying
Angels spelled with an E, are bombing in close support of the infantry and artillery, smashing open
the Siegfried Line around Cologne.

Waiting for my two pilot hosts, Colonel John Haesler, of Loop City, Nebraska, and Colonel Paul
Douglas, of Paragould, Arkansas, who flew Captain Leo and myself on our first Thunderbolt flight, I
introduced myself to the young musician at the keyboard. He was Lieutenant Donald Campbell, of
New York City, a newly arrived pilot from the States -- no missions, no combat hours as yet. With
the class of forty-five at Dartmouth College, Don had been leader of the Dartmouth Dance Band. He
was sure he would like the Thunder Bums, but he would miss the winter festival this year in New
Hampshire.

Big, ruddy-faced Johnny Haesler ambled in about then and announced we were bound for a
barracks across the base, where the Panzer Dusters were throwing a farewell banquet for a couple
of pilots who had finished their tour and were going back to the states. After living on Spam,
English wartime sausage and

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Brussels sprouts for six months, a banquet of steak sounded all right, and I went, but not before
getting a pleasant surprise from another young pilot who had just strolled into the snack bar --
Lieutenant Charles R. Foltz, twenty-one, of Oakland, California. Charlie, it seems has a
grandmother in Ottawa, Kansas, Mrs. John Dial. She writes to him regularly and blithely ignoring
the fact that there are several million fellows over here and a lot of correspondents, Grandmother
Dial has several times insisted that Charlie look up Correspondent Malone and tell him hello.
Lieutenant Foltz has been pretty busy with his sixty combat hours and twenty-six missions, and
never having heard of Malone anyway, hadn't been able to fulfill his grandmother's request. That
night, surprised to learn Malone was on the base, he hunted me up with Colonel Haesler, was going
to take me over to the banquet.

Foltz has been with the Thunderbolt Panzer Dusters since they began bombing and strafing
German lines back in the Normandy invasion. He doesn't carry any lucky piece, but he's been
pretty lucky, and he's hoping his luck will hold out so next Christmas, if not this, he can be back in
the States for some of those wonderful

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pies and cakes his Grandmother Dial always makes.

Two other officers who played an important part in the Thunderbolt Invasion of France are Colonel
Lemuel R. Gorrell, of Greensboro, North Carolina, Executive Officer of the group, and Major James
R. Wernli, of Sioux city, Iowa. Both are married and Colonel Gorrell has a seven-months-old baby
girl, Irene, back in Aldenville, Massachusetts, whom he has never seen. Colonel Gorrell is
responsible for all ground activities at the base, engineering, barracks, mess, installation, all the
headaches, as he laughingly says.

Major Wernli has a sense of humor, too. Aware that I was after a story, he struck a dramatic pose
and in mock seriousness began, "Dere was I, with shot and shell bursting all around." Then with a
laugh, he tried to brush me off, but I didn't brush. Colonel Johnny Haesler helped me. It was
Wernli's raiders who came in on an LST boat with the Normandy invasion was on and set up bases
for the first Thunderbolt fighter groups on the strips along the beaches. He and his men are the
ones who have moved forward with the lines to open base after base for their flying buddies. This
sounds easy, but it means that they used to come in to smashed Nazi flying fields, while enemy
fire still

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swept the aerodromes, and night after night they had to sleep in mud and rain-soggy foxholes,
because their advance positions were strafed every night by the remnants of the Luftwaffe. 9th Air
Force Thunderbolts have operated in close support of ground troops ever since the invasion. In
addition to strafing Nazi front lines and supply convoys, they have served as flying artillery to blast
open holes for the infantry to push through.

Colonel Haesler will never forget one of those Normandy missions over by Cannes when four of the
Thunderbolts were jumped by about fifty Nazi ME-109's and 190's. "What happened?"

"Well," Johnny said, "you can see we got back, but I can't tell you how; I don't know."

Johnny Haesler's most exciting ride was another one, however, his first mission after D-Day, a
fighter sweep across France. That day he was not only hit, his ship was shattered. Nazi tanks dug
in along the road blasted his plane with all the shells they could shoot at him. They shot away his
controls, shot holes in his wings and his tail. When the ground crew saw the tail of the ship, they
just ripped it off and put on a new one. Then with typical fighter pilot understatement,

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Johnny said, "You know, I haven't seen anything like that since the corn-husking national
championships back in Nebraska," whereupon we started for the banquet.

Lieutenant Campbell was still playing the piano as we left the snack bar. He is a Thunder Bum, and
this was a Panzer Duster banquet. It had been arranged as a farewell for two pilots who had
finished their tour and were going home. I told Colonel Haesler that I wanted to see them, and he
grinned. "It's a funny thing," he said, "you know, they won't be there. One of them is weathered-in
over in England and the other left this morning; but they are happy -- they are going home. And we
are happy -- we are having steak." So we are not calling off any banquet just because the guests
are gone."

"I'll introduce you to a kid named Matthews who just got here - took him two years to catch us -
quite a story."

And we left. The banquet was one of the adventures that are a part of war - a half hundred fellows
around the table together, rugged, raw, honest and rich with fellow-ship that men come to feel for
each other who know that their lives depend on the teamwork and training of everybody around the
table,

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fellows who know, according to the statistics, they won't all be there at the next banquet, and
somehow reach a basis of understanding, a plane of living a little above the petty worries that clog
most lives.

"Troubles?" Huh, when the enemy is only twenty minutes away by air, when you are going to be
flying over through flak and gunfire in another few hours, there isn't any time for pettiness or
jealousy or hypocrisy, or sham. Life gets pretty basic at the front. All that is best in a man comes
to the surface; all that is false, blows away.

It was a good banquet, and I did meet Matthews, and I'll tell you his story, but first a word from
Westinghouse in New York.

ANNOUNCER: Yes, life is basic wherever men face danger, with the pilot in the skies - the diver
beneath the sea. Men like these feel an odd sort of affection for the thing that stands between
themselves and death. The pilot feels it for his plane - the diver for his light. For next to life-giving
air, a diver' greatest concern is light. His lamp must be extremely brilliant and penetrate the inky
blackness - super-strong to withstand terrific undersea pressure which would crush ordinary bulbs.
So WESTINGHOUSE produces a thousand-

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Now, back to Ted Malone, overseas.

MALONE: I don't think that anyone anywhere would ever insist that war is desirable, intelligent or
the necessary way to settle the troubles of men on this earth. Nobody likes or wants war. All the
Allies - England, France, China, Russia and America - stayed out as long as they could. But once
in, we've all joined to finish the bitter task as quickly and as completely as possible. Regardless of
blame or bungling, we are committed to fight because we believe the peace and security of a
decent world depend now upon victory. This same challenge has faced every individual man. Some
have chosen to meet it one way, some another. As far as I am personally concerned, men working
in defense work at home are fulfilling their part as fully

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as any men in battle lines overseas. It is not always easy for fellows over here working day and
night, seven days a week, for a few dollars a month, losing their arms and legs and lives for
America - it is not always easy for them to see why some of their neighbors back home sometimes
walk out when they are asked to work less than half as long, at many times as much money and in
comparative comfort and safety; but there is less bitterness about this than you may imagine. The
great majority in America and overseas are doing their full part. Victory is the most important thing
on earth tonight, and they will be proud the rest of their lives that they never once delayed it.

The great majority in America and overseas are working proudly and unremittingly for victory. A
vivid example of this tireless determination is the story of a twenty-nine-year-old boy from
Haverford, Pennsylvania - Lieutenant Hugh Matthews. He has a brother, Joseph, somewhere over
here, another brother, John, flying somewhere in New Guinea. Back in June, 1943, Hugh Matthews
joined the Air Corps. He wanted to fly a Thunderbolt fighter bomber. All went well until training for
high altitude flying, something happened. Five miles in the air, Matthews blacked out, lost

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consciousness. His ship went into a dive and he almost crashed before he recovered and pulled
out. For that, Hugh was grounded, forbidden to fly again. Doctors put him through a long series of
tests in oxygen chambers. He passed them, but the blackout still stayed on his record, and when
the group came overseas, Matthews was kept home. Obviously, he could have settled down in a
safe, comfortable job back home, but Hugh Matthews wanted to join his buddies, and so he went to
work. He began needling the doctors for permission to fly again. He took special examinations,
special training. Finally, after a series of satisfactory tests, he was granted the privilege of flying a
small Cub training ship at low level - quite a comedown from the powerful Thunderbolt fighters. But
Matthews didn't quarrel or walk out. He flew the Cubs and went on working. He took more tests.
They raised his altitude limitations to 20,000 feet. That was better, but it wasn't enough. He
couldn't get overseas until he had qualified at 38,000. His superiors told him to forget it, take it
easy, and sent him to gunnery school to teach. Matthews went and taught, but all the time kept
asking for new tests.

Once again his restrictions were lifted, this time

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to 30,000 feet. A year had passed and many fellows might have given up, but not this boy. He felt
he could be of greater service as a fighter pilot, and anything less than the best that he could do
was not enough. So he kept on trying. Finally, last September, he convinced those responsible that
his trouble had been due to carelessness in adjusting his oxygen and not due to any physical
incapacity on his part, and on the 24th of September, he was granted permission to fly unlimited
ceiling and thus join his Thunderbolt group in Belgium.

He arrived the afternoon of the banquet, after hitch-hiking half way across France. It had taken him
almost two months to get over. He had a ten days' growth of beard on his face, his baggage was
gone; everything he owned he had on him. But he wasn't griping; he was glad. He was reporting for
duty - 9th Air Force Thunderbolt Pilot Lieutenant Hugh Matthews ready to work, day or night, one or
six miles in the air, flying through flak and enemy gun fire. He was on the job for you.

That is the spirit of the great majority of Americans at home and overseas. And that is the spirit
which will bring us victory.

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This is Ted Malone overseas wishing you "Top of the Evening," and returning you now to New York
and to Westinghouse.

ANNOUNCER: Keeping fit in order to keep on the job was never so important as today. That's why
we urge that you have ample light whenever you read or work or study. For poor light is the chief
cause of eyestrain. WESTINGHOUSE Mazda bulbs give bright, long-lasting light. Next time you
buy light bulbs, be sure they give you plenty of light for see-ability. Look for the name
WESTINGHOUSE - pioneers yesterday, leaders today, trail-blazers tomorrow, in the field of light,
as in everything electrical. If you would like a copy of Ted Malone's recorded shortwave broadcast
for tonight, send your name and address to WESTINGHOUSE, Blue Network, New York 20, New
York. Listen to George Hicks, Blue Network Commentator, tomorrow night over most of these
stations, and at this same time every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for more recorded stories
from Ted Malone overseas, sent to you with the best wishes of WESTINGHOUSE.

Return to Don Campbell's bio.

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