Aloha

Victory at Midway intoxicated Hawaii. Last week the hangover set in. A morning-after jolt came from Lieut. General Delos C. Emmons, Commander of the Hawaiian Department, who warned islanders against the "false sense of security" prevalent since the Japanese Fleet was repulsed. "To assume the enemy will not return in force," said he, "is the most dangerous kind of wishful thinking." To strip the motley-populated isles for action, he urged all non-war-occupied women, children, elders and invalids to take advantage of the Army Transport Service and leave at once. A few days later, U.S. bombers struck at Wake Island, Japan's nearest base to Pearl Harbor, damaged an airfield and shore installations.

Eyes Right

In the cocktail lounge of London's Savoy Hotel a lieutenant of the British Navy introduced himself to a couple of correspondents. "You're Americans, aren't you?" he said. "So'm I. I heard you talking, and I couldn't help coming over." He nodded at an R.A.F. sergeant-pilot, who was banking toward the door, and said: "I'm celebrating tonight, and my friend has had enough."

The naval officer sat down, "Yeah," he said, "I'm celebrating. In the Royal Navy exactly one year tonight, and going home tomorrow. Thirty days' leave." He gazed after the pilot, who had finally found the door, and said: "Get ashamed of myself every time I see those guys. Risk their lives every day. And me? I'm supposed to be a naval officer, and they won't let me go to sea!" He wore spectacles, and after a pause he added: "Bum eyes. They threw me out of the American Navy." His voice was harsh and bitter.

"What do you do now?" one of the reporters asked.

The naval officer laughed. "Oh, they've got me on shore duty," he said. "Nursing these goddam land mines."

There was a long silence. The reporters knew that land-mine duty in Britain took at least as much courage as fighter-piloting. During the blitzes, and after the Nazis' smaller raids, land-mine squads had to rush to spots where the huge parachute-bombs had fallen, rope off the area, then try to dismantle the mines and make them harmless before they exploded.

The naval officer said that he had been doing this work for nearly a year; the only dangerous thing about it was the fast driving in the blackouts, to get to the mines. "Nothing like what those pilots go up against," he mourned.

His name was Draper Kauffman, he said, and his father was Rear Admiral James G. Kauffman (who now commands the U. S. Navy's defenses on the Gulf of Mexico). "Fat lot of good that did me," said Lieut. Kauffman. "Eyes went back on me just after I finished at Annapolis. I thought maybe they'd be good enough for the Royal Navy. They are --for shore duty!"

That conversation took place last November. While Lieut. Kauffman, R.N., was on leave in the U.S., the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy then found Draper Kauffman's eyes and experience good enough for war. Last week Secretary Knox awarded Lieut. Kauffman, U.S.N., the Navy Cross for exceptional heroism. His deed: unloading and examining a live, 500-lb. Japanese bomb which failed to explode when it hit an Army field in Hawaii last Dec. 7.

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