St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 10

PAGE 10A ST.LOUIS POST-DISPATCH TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1942. ST.LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 4r Linney told at the Inquest yester WELDON SPRING PLANT TO GET. JOBS FOR WOUK BOSTON day of visiting the club Nov. 20. CIVILIAN ARMY-NAVY E' FOR OUTPUT He testified that he had removed parts of artificial palm trees dec Dec.

1 (AJ) Teachers Befriend Boy Who Started Disastrous Boston Fire by Accident COCOANUT GROVE 'OVERCROWDED' AT TIME OF FIRE Continued From Page One. ine ixavy announced yejttrj that Navy men partly disabled i orating the club and "struck a match to them." "You were of the opinion they DEFENSE VALUE IS out of the Navy, if they want were not inflammable? Reuly and are able to perform them, "The nolicv stem asked the inspector. Navy's firm belief-that if SHOWN IN BLAZE makes a sacrifice for his coujt through his chosen service, he a right to remain in that strW the flames were all over the building?" he was asked. "Not over a minute or a minute and a half," said Walsh. Walsh said he and other men forced open a door to escape.

Bar Boy's Story. Among the first of the night club's employes to testify was Stanley 16-year-old bar boy, who previously told police he had lighted a -natch to screw in an electric ght bulb and that a moment later flames shot up from a palm tree and enveloped nearby drapes. "I shook the match and then stepped on it," he said at the inquest. "Then the fire started first the tree leaves and then the drapes. I led some people to the street.

The smoke was so thick I couldn't breathe. I went to a window for air." Organization's Volunteers ft.i aaa any way fta tribute to it," the announceffie said. The Navy's personnel bmw has undertaken a survey to places within the service for jured men. Nineteen aircraft coF panies have expressed willing to place men in their factories Helped With Rescue Work, Then in Listing Victims. 'The Weldon Spring Ordnance Works, St.

Charles County, has been selected to receive the Army-Navy production award "for accomplishing more than seemed reasonable or possible a year ago," it was announced yesterday by Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, in letters to Maj. R. G. Nichols, commanding officer at the plant, and G.

Barnes, resident general manager for Atlas Powder which is operating it for the Government. The plant will be given the production award pennant and civilian employes will receive pins at ceremonies to be arranged. Explosives are manufactured at the plant. Both Barnes and Maj. Nichols said the recognition came as the result of the co-operation of each civilian and military employe at the plant and praised particularly the work of Col.

Carl R. Dutton, who was commanding officer during the construction of the plant and the early days of its operation. "They were treated, I'll say, treated to my satisfaction," Linney replied. He added that there were "a sufficient number of exits, a sufficient number of extinguishers." "Do you still feel in the light of what has happened that the condition of the Cocoanut Grove premises was good on Nov. 20?" Reilly asked.

"Positively," said Linney. Others Testify. Other witnesses testified to the speed with which the flames raced from one end of the club to other and some testified that four of the six exits were locked. John J. Walsh, Boston Civilian Defense public safety director, said he was sitting with a party "about midway in the building" when the fire broke out.

"How much time elapsed before ao not wisn to remain in the service. next table" Levy did not identify him and that the man had reached up and unscrewed the bulb. When a bar boy came to fix it the corner was so dark that he lit a match to find the bulb, Levy said, and this small flame ignited a paper palm tree. One of Levy's companions tried to beat out the blaze with his hands, but the fire leaped to the ceiling draperies. Acting Manager's Story.

The next witness was James Wilanski, acting manager, and brother of Barnett Wilanski, part-owner of the club. Commissioner Reilly warned him that whatever he said might be used against him elsewhere, before inquiring about insurance and the layout of the club. "Do you feel the Cocoanut Grove was overcrowded Saturday night?" Reilly asked. "No," replied Wilanski. "You felt you could handle the crowd?" "Yes." Wilanski then described the decorations, carpets and ceiling, and said they always had kept fire proofing things that needed it.

He said no new decorations had been AT FIRST r-v mil III mr i III ii ii iiiiiih iiiiriiiiiiumwin.wiiis'imiMWiin'i -jjw' I If IT i I I vr 4 C-yijrX lMiiiiiuiiiiiionMi Six Killed in Mine, Nine Escape. PROVIDENCE KY Dec. 1 (AP). Six miners were" killed and nine escaped after they were trapped by an explosion in a mine of the West Kentucky Coal Co. near Wheatcroft, yesterday.

TABLETS. SALVE. NOSE DBQk New Store Hours Until Christmas: 9 to 5:30 P. M. 1 onnen 6 1 0-6 1 8 washing; I )) 1 610.618 aVc installed in the past two weeks.

Appears Nervous. Wilanski appeared nervous as Commissioner Reilly asked him a series of questions, bringing out that he was standing in the club's newly opened main-floor lounge, near a passageway leading to the BOSTON, Dec. 1 (AP). The Civilian Defense Organization of the Boston Committee on Public Safety demonstrated its emergency value in the Cocoanut Grove fire Saturday night. Executive Director John J.

Walsh, who was in the club at the time and was one of those who escaped and helped others to safety, summoned ambulances. At the same time, an army of wardens, firemen, policemen and other Civilian Defense Organization workers voluntarily converged on the scene, helped remove the injured, gave first aid and helped keep streets clear. Then the master disaster setup went into action. This comprises 20 neighborhood information centers manned by volunteers, working with a central master file organization specifically set up to meet the problem of reuniting families disrupted by bombings, to organize information about casualties, to find lost children, locate Injured and determine the whereabouts of lost relatives. This organization, the brain child of Mrs.

Eleanor Washburn, wife of an Army officer, assisted by William G. O'Hare, executive director of the City Welfare Department, swiftly manned the 16 institutions within a six-mile radius to which dead and injured were removed. These volunteers were trained social and welfare workers, accustomed to contact work. Information began to flow stead iVi i main ballroom. Doesn't She Deserve A New FUR COAT FOR Christmas? "What was your first knowledge of the fire?" Reilly asked.

"I don't recall whether it was an Associated Press Wirephoto. STANLEY TOMASZEWSKI, 16-year-old bus boy, at an investigation yesterday in Boston. entertainer or a man or a woman in the crowd, or whether they whispered or shouted," he replied, "but I heard the word 'Fire' Headmaster Praises Stanley Tomaszewski I dashed toward the rear, toward the fire. I was engulfed by people." An INVESTMENT In Warmth, Beauty Ev. ery Woman HOPES You'll Make for erj I Asked if there was anything he Who Is Held by Police to Protect Him Against the Curious.

could say as to how and where the fire started, and how it spread so rapidly. Wilanski replied: "That's what I'd like to know." Asked how he got out, he ex BOSTON, Dec. 1 (AP). The plained that he didn't exactly 23 captains in the school and I consider his prospects excellent for the highest honor, that of being rc ci friends of 16-year-old Stanley Tomaszewski, a central figure in. the Cocoanut Grove night club fire, f.

(ill Wednesday named colonel of the Roxbury Me know, but seemed to be pushed along and carried out on the Broadway side, where there were two doors that opened out towards the street. morial High Regiment," added Capt. James J. Kelley, the school's are standing by him in his grief. Fire and police officials have at 9 A.

M. military drill instructor. He said he considered the youth as good material for West Point. Richard McCarthy, Tomaszew- quoted the youth, employed at the Grove as a bar boy, as saying the fire started when he accidentally dropped a lighted match at the base of an artificial palm tree ski's home room teacher, said: "Stanley was room treasurer. That shows how his schoolmates felt about him.

He was trustworthy, honorable, efficient. He while trying to install an electric light bulb in a darkened corner. Robert S. Masterson, headmas is a senior, taking a college course; a good student. ter of the Roxbury Memorial High "Every week, week after week, School for Boys, told a reporter he has been buying war defense yesterday that the good-looking lad stamps regularly at school." was one of the finest boys, physically, mentally and morally, in the school.

In four years at school, he never "Would you say there was a panic?" Reilly asked. "Yes, sir," he replied. Ran for Fire Engine. When he got outside, he continued, "I went yelling for the fire engine. When I got back I don't know how long it was because every minute was hours the glass blocks of the windows in the Broadway side were broken and I saw someone impaled on the glass that was broken." "Do you think the decorations, the leatherette, the canvas, and so forth were fireproof?" he was asked.

"They generally fireproof these things," he replied. "I don't audit these things. I'm just giving supposition. Asked who would know regarding the flame-proofing, he answered that he wasn't sure exactly, but that a Reuben Bodenhorn had designed the decorations and given them out to various persons. He said he would try to reach Bodenhorn.

Fire Inspector Testifies. needed disciplining, never played "I have great sympathy for Stan hookey. ily into the master file center long before relatives of many of the victims even knew there had been a fire. Within four and a half hours the organization had listed every identified victim, green cards for injured, pink cards for dead, with details as to who they were, where they had been taken and their home addresses. Radio stations, co-operating, went on the air and told the public how to call the Public Safety Committee for information.

A swift flood of inquiries led to emergency installation of 10 special telephone lines. Volunteer workers, more than were needed, flocked to the center and manned it night and day. Lists of injured and identified dead lengthened, names were checked and rechecked. Alphabetical lists and master lists were prepared and issued to radio and press. Weeping visitors crowded into headquarters.

Boy Scouts acted as messengers between the workers on the files and the waiting public. Telephone inquiries came in, not only from Boston and New England, but from the West Coast, Texas, the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest. Women's Defense Corps workers helped deal with relatives at the morgues, assisting In identifications. The Red Cross, besides helping with blood plasma and other medical aid, provided coffee and luncheons to keep the crew at the master file headquarters going. Thus in providing a valuable His mother, ill with pneumonia, ley in this situation in which he has innocently been enmeshed," 1 i 4 was prostrated over her son's sit uation.

"My Stanley is a good boy," she Masterson said. "That he would go voluntarily to the police to aid them with the facts is just the manly, courageous action I would have expected from him." said again and again. His father, 117 Anthony, formerly was employed as a janitor. The son had been working at the club on Friday and Tomaszewski, a tackle on the school football team, is a company Saturday nights in an effort to captain in the school's military earn money for college, they said. training ranks.

Police are keeping the youth in a hotel to protect him from the "He was outstanding among the curious. There are no charges against him. Fire Inspector Lieut. Frank DRIVERS' WALKOUT CURTAILS KANSAS CITY BUS SERYICE Bus service out of Kansas City, 11 -on the Missouri Pacific Trail- actd ways lines, including one to St. On Louis, was halted by a walkout of drivers at 8 a.

m. today at Kansas City. Company executives here said the strike was localized, and OBBINS, of course, is specially i 4 i 1 public service, the Civilian Defense Organization found and overcame such flaws as developed so that in the future it will work even more smoothly. Officials believe the Boston Civilian Defense has proved its training is of real value, that lines out of St. Louis, including that to Kansas City, were in operation.

Frank Aldrich, general chairman war or no war. mentioned among the 20 leading jewelers of the United States listed in the new book, Tire in the Earth by James Rem' ington McCarthy For reading that is pleasant and educational, too we recommend thisinteresting volume. of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen for Missouri Pacific The Cocoanut Grove dsaster was its second test within two weeks Lines, told the Post-Dispatch the walkout by members of his union was unauthorized. He said he had In the first, when six firemen were killed and 40 others injured in the collapse of a building. Fire Chief Samuel J.

Pope turned to the Public Safety Committee. Im Robbins Jewelry Co. mediately, a skilled rescue-demolition squad drawn from lists previously prepared went into action with four mobile cranes, privately owned and listed with the Civilian Defense Organization by James H. lj 5 a. si Diamond Bridge lllng $350 An all-platinum RobbTn Masterpiece, created in our own shops.

Contains large, perfect center Diamond, surrounded by 24 smaller Diamonds, all 58 facet, American Cut. informed Kansas City officers of the union to get the men back to work "or steps will be taken to fill their jobs." The brotherhood has about 75 members working for Missouri Pacific Trailways in the Kansas City district, Aldrich said. Not all left their jobs, he reported, since suburban service for war workers was continued. Negotiations for higher wages were under way with the company, Aldrich said, with a final conference scheduled for this morning, after which the matter was to be submitted to the War Labor Board if no agreement was reached. The company operates four trips a day from Kansas City to St Louis.

Mooney, City Building Commis sioner. The crew removed all dead and injured without a single acci dent or further injury. to OCD Chief Urges Precautions Prevent Similar Disasters. OBBIN TFWFTPY mUDJMV WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 AP).

Stripping all places of public assembly of trappings and trash that could cause a repetition of the dis 3rd Floor ARCADE BLDGN OUVE at Sth Plus 10 Fed. Tax astrous Boston night club fire was urged last night by James M. Lan-dis, Director of Civilian Defense. Landis, in a letter to all OCD regional directors, cited the threat of air raids and the increased danger of fire occasioned by Christmas decorations. Although use of chemical flame-proofing solutions and fire-resist There is real economy in buying a fur coat particularly one of "Guild-Craft" quality.

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