POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 150, 26 June 1943, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY OACE Hitler is thatf kind of killer who, when he has the choice of two evils, takes both. *■ * * When the Allied Tunisian armies build up a second front it will be back to front for Mussolini. * . * * The Congo—a land where quinine is a sort of hors d'oeuvre, and terrible armies of man T eatin§ red ants march. like Prussians in mile-long parades. ■«' # * Dr. Thierack, Hitler's new Minister of Justice: "Justice is not to be administered by trained brains. I want i no Judges who keep to the written law, but men Who understand life." •' # « * Verse of a Nazi Storm Trooper poetaster: * Over a nation of corpses Flare the flames of eternal glory Let us die like the Goths. * # * NEWSREEL. The latest German newsreel shows "victories" in Russia. An "annihilation" of a Soviet division by Nazi guns is followed by more pictures of "sweeping offensives." But—Donets Basin. Kursk, and Rostov are not mentioned. * « ♦ PROPHECY NO. 2. Another prophecy from the German poet Heine; the seer renewed his predictions in 1842: "Wild* gloomy times * are moving towards us, and a prophet wishing to write a new Apocalypse would have to invent entirely new beasts—beasts so terrible that St. John's older animal symbols would be like gentle doves and cupids in comparison." • . * a- a * AND RUNNING DOWN? They shoot you in Germany if you joke against the Government, but the war-weary Italians still have some fun in them. The latest Roman quip is: What is the difference between Rommel and a clock? Answer: A clock moves forward saying, "Tik-tak," while Rommel moves backward saying, "It's tak-tik." . , * * ♦ ..PROBLEM. Here is the answer to Hertz's problem in last Saturday's column:— 9567 1085 . 10652 . „ "Diana No. 1," "Easy Aces," "Tojo, 1 "Fifth Standard," and "C" Watch managed to solve it without brain strain. * ■» *' "MISS FRANCE." Though World War II has not yet produced a Mata Hari, writes "A.N.," one or two beautiful spies are said to be in the running. One is Elizabeth Rudd Pitz. In 1940 she went to Mexico and said she was French. She producecl £6000 in cash to prove it, and to satisfy the immigration officials. She then went in for a beauty contest, won fii^t prize as Miss France, and was almost immediately married to the wealthy Eugenio Almagan. In June last year the Mexican authorities , caught up with her and arrested her as a Gestapo spy. «• * * GHOST VOICE. It happened not so long since. A powerful voice interrupted the Berlin radio's birthday tribute to "our beloved Fuhrer" by shouting: "The entire German nation curses today the hour that man was born." The voice continued: "His henchman has been in power much too long—German people awake! "She time has come to finish with the Nazi gang. Down with Hitler-and his gajng. 'On the day of Hitler's downfall the war will be over." The ghost was on the same wavelength as the BerlSn radio and the Nazis were unable ttt stifle the voice. a- » .•'«• "WHO'S WHO." A plodding local secretary of a cultural society in Wellington who was .looking up "Who's Who in New Zealand" with a view to inserting the correct letters after the names of the distinguished* people therein so that he could correctly put them in his annual report came, across small amounts at the bottom of each, like 2s, 3s 3d, 3d. He said to his wife: "What is all this racket of 2s Id and other small amounts? Is it the cost to get into 'Who's Who'?" Wife replied: "No, you silly, an abbreviation meaning 2 sons 1 daughter." —Yours, —SIR TOBY BELCH. * ■* «• SURPRISE FOR A ZERO FIGHTER. General Henry S. Arnold, Commander U.S. Army Air Forces, after a recent visit to Port Moresby and other Pacific bases, had several interesting, stories to tell. One of the best was the1 following:— Some time before the American B-17 plane had the ball turrets added, a floor gunner in a B-17 was wounded in a scrap with a Zero over Guadalcanal. The radio operator leaped to take the wounded man's place, but found that the gun mounting had been shot loose from the floor by enemy machine-gun fire. In his frantic endeavours to get the gun trained on the Jap plane the operator yanked it completely loose and it fell overboard through the hole in the floor of the plane. The result, was amazing, for in its swift drop towards the sea the gun smashed into the Zero fighter, which disintegrated into a thousand pieces. When the gunner was reporting the happening the CO. suggested to him that he should be punished for: losing U.S. (Government property! He then pinned a medal on the gunner's tunic. *.# . ■ ♦ THE HAVEN. There is an island, Laid who knows where, tix undiscovered seas: There the breeze Bells the scarlet of no wandering sail. And all about the land the sea is laid Green as malachite and smooth as jade. Dark is the island, Dim with heavenward-reaching boughs of fir, Myrtle and myrrh; There through the twilight of the glett and glade Flutter the plumes and shine the glancing eyes Of golden-gloried birds of paradise. There is an island: I shall not find it, I shall never see ■Bird or tree. ■ ■ l; And yet my heart has found it, and has made Safe in some shadowy bough its secret nest — And the wind, the wind rocks it to its rest. —Audrey Alexandra Browne. * * # MEDALS, WITH MUSIC. Investiture day at Buckingham Palace. The recipients and their friends and relatives are crowding into the Palace entrance. Light music from "The Student Prince" is played by the Palace String Orchestra. . . . Fifteen minutes to eleven o'clock the recipients aije told just how the actual presentation would be made and of their part in it. . _ . "You will be abreast the Lord Chfemberlain when he announces your name," says the official in an informal way. "After that you will take two paces forward and left turn. You will then be facing his Majesty. When you take another two paces you should be within a pace of • the King. .. . You will bow. The King will pin on your decoration, will certainly ask you a few questions. It may be 'Where did you win your decoration?' . . . After that yousshakye y hands, step back two paces, and right turn." Eleven o'clock. Music stops. Everyone is quiet. . . . Though the .open door at the back of the dais comes the King, in the uniform ctf an Admiral of the Fleet. . . . Bareheaded, well- ' groomed, serious, he stands there, a little, trim figure, while "GSpd Save the King" plays. Then he says simply: "Will you be seated, pleaseV The investiture begins ... the orchestra returns to light music,.just lotfd enough to keep the secret of conversation, between King and-commoner. \