Mr. Bang Goes to War

A new major, with a body like a fire hydrant and a head like a 155-mm. shell, reported for duty with the Army this week, and a lot of Washington characters -just and unjust-sighed. It was relief. For the duration, redheaded Robert Sharon Allen, the terrible-tempered Mr. Bang of the Washington press corps, was out of journalism. The Washington Merry-Go-Round, most widely syndicated of Washington columns (more than 600 dailies) is now the one-man show of his partner, suave Drew Pearson.

It will be quieter now in Washington, at least as soon as Major Allen is sent out to the combat outfit to which he will be assigned. A Congressman with visiting constituents can show them through the Capitol without fear that Allen will destroy the unctuous work of the day by blistering the statesman with the most corrosive line of profanity outside the U.S. Cavalry (where Allen learned his). Other men in Government can relax now that they are safe from the coruscating abuse by which, when other reporter's artifices failed, Allen bludgeoned news out of them.

Bob Allen has pulled all the stops, scored many a thumping beat, run many a story on information and belief and beaten down his accusers when it turned out he was wrong.

After Pearl Harbor he could not keep his mind off soldiering, could not help thinking of the money the U.S. had spent training him during World War I (he came home from France a lieutenant at 18), later in the Cavalry and the Wisconsin National Guard.

Finally he decided that Drew Pearson should be able to run the Merry-Go-Round on its stormy course while war goes on. Then he had one condition to impose on the Army: he wanted combat service. To his friends who set up the drinks on his last week in journalism he refused to describe his military assignment. Said he: "Hell, they won't even let me use it in my column."

The U.S. Flag Association announced that it would make awards to magazines for the best Fourth of July flag covers: "Cross of Honor" to House & Garden; "Patriotic Service Crosses" to TIME (best flag painting on a weekly), to Harper's Bazaar (best photograph on a monthly), to This Week (best photograph on a weekly).

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