St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 48

Myies Standish 60th Birthday for Navy's Tin Can Fleet' USS Bainbridge Was First of Destroyers That Evolved Into Modem Guided Missile Craft The New Films Comedy by Tennessee Williams THAT MASTER of depravity, moral decadence, shock and Ick, lurid violence, Tennessee Williams, has actually turned to comedy. It Is In "PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT," at LOEWS STATE THEATER. And it's really a pretty amus- I A ing comedy, with the bluntness of sexual talk and slight Freudian overtones of the Broadway play somewhat softened. The message: even though there may be maladjustments In marriage, they need not have tragic results; a little warmth and human understanding may solve them. This might seem for Williams like Medea break i 1 ike Li 4 ji m.

1 VP 'in -i4utL iiifitiiiiA'l i ing into a comedy patter and tap dance while waving her bloody knife, but Williams retains his mastery over dialogue. He has written some pretty funny lines, abetted by Isobel Lennart, who wrote the screen play. The dialogue retains Its pungency, its trueness and Its edge. The story concerns two couples, one honeymooning (Jan Fonda and Jim Hutton) and the other (Tony Franciosa and Lois Nettleton) married five years and with a small son. When Jane and Jim leave St.

Louis, where he had been a mechanic and she a nurse, they quarrel In a roadside lunch room and a rundown tourist cabin on their first night. Next night they storm in to see Tony, Jim's old buddy of Air Force) days, at Tony's cute little Spanish-type suburban bungalow In Nashville, built right over an old quarry on steadily sinking ground. It is Christmas Eve and time for rejoicing, but not for the two couples. Tony gives lofty advice to Jim and Jane just going through a period of but It turns out his own wife has just left him. Tony had told off his father-in-law who employed him and had quit his job, then rowed with his wife about bringing up their small son as a sissy by giving him dolls.

The quarrels are batted back and forth and grudges nd frustrations aired, while tipsy Christmas carolers ting outside about peace on earth. It appears that Jim's trouble-is that he always wanted to be a Big Man, a hero, and has to pretend to himself he Is. Tony's trouble is that he never really loved his wife when they were married, but hoped to Inherit her father's wealth, and hasn't been able to convince her he actually has grown to love her since. The two men stars and Miss Fonda show marked comedy aptitude and Miss Nettleton provides more serious facet. John Mclver as the father-in-law carries his meanness to the point where It's funny.

One sequence, taken in St. Louis, shows the honeymooners chariot, a Cadillac hearse, going over Eads Bridge. Transformation in Paris "CLEO FROM 5 TO 7" at the APOLLO ART Is a French film of some originality, Intelligence, subtlety and distinction. Written and directed by Agnes Varda, it deals with a transformation In a young beautiful and spoiled popular song A World War destroyer, of the type that fought Japanese Kamiltaze planes off Okinawa, takes on fuel from a cruiser somewhere in the vast Pacific. Of 15 destroyers and destroyer escorts lost off Okinawa, 12 were Kamikaze victims.

Today's destroyers use both missiles and rapid-fire guns In their missions. Here is a Tartar missile being fired from the guided missile destroyer USS Henry 8. Wilson. Kamikaze planes were no strangers to destroyermen. They had met the suicide-mission aircraft as early as November 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, when the USS Abner Read was the first recorded victim of the Kamikaze.

In Japan the suicide planes were called the "Divine Wind." The Japanese hurled 1465 Kamikazes at the permimeter of Okinawa. The "Divine Wind" blew from April 6, 1945, until June 22, the last day of the Okinawa naval operation. Of the 15 destroyers and destroyer escorts lost at Okinawa, 12 were vie-times of the Kamikaze. The courage of the destroyer-men and the hardiness of their vessels under the murderous air attack of the Kamikaze have a counterpart in the contemporary struggle for tactical superiority. A new warship of the destroyer type Is the missile frigate, giving the fleet longer-range antiaircraft support as well as increased anti-submarine fighting potential.

Ships in this class have a main armament battery of Terrier supersonic guided missiles which can intercept faster-than-sound aircraft. The frigate is 510 feet long, 48 feet wide, and weighs 4770 tons, making it more than twice as heavy and nearly twice as long as a conventional destroyer. amidships, turned back into the battle and attacked the Japanese battleship Hici, her five-inchers blazing, her "40s" and "20s" banging away. Shooting at a battleship with a 20 -millimeter cannon is like shooting at a rhinoceros with a BB-gun. However, Cushing, and later the destroyer Laffey, had the satisfaction of seeing their light fire produce flames in the pagoda superstructure of the Japanese battleship.

Destroyer gunnery proved effective in its toughest battle, at Okinawa, when it scored more than 200 kills on the Japanese suicide planes known as Kamikaze. The battle on Okinawa was, at once, both the brightest and the darkest campaign for destroyers in World War It was the brightest because, as in no other battle before or 6ince, destroyers were used in every one of their many missions for weeks on end. It was the blackest because destroyers and destroyer escorts were the ships which suffered the heaviest casualties of any naval force up to that point In World War II. It was the final massive battle of the war, a crucible of flame and steel, explosions and sinkings, suicide planes and shore batteries, and General Quarters around the clock. stress In the two-hour period while she awaits a physician's biopsy report to tell her whether or not she has cancer.

This girl, Geo, played with fine perception and penetration by Corinne Mar-chand, a tall and statuesque blonde, is followed by the camera for the two hours after she leaves a fortuneteller, shaken by A division of destroyers makes a perfect echelon turn when on antisubmarine duty in the Pacific. for anti-aircraft protection and as a secondary battery in surface action. Probably the most optimistic use these light guns were ever put to occurred in the battle for Guadalcanal. The destroyer Cushing, although seriously damaged by a torpedo hit cause It blackened the decks, tarnished the paintwork and broke the crockery. By the time World War II was well under way, destroyers were using, besides their five-inch main batteries, the 20-millimeter Oerlikon guns and the 40-millimeter Bofors design guns prediction of death in the cards.

It traces the frivolous, petulant creature on her journeys through the streets and byways of Paris to kill time, a brief visit from her too-busy lover, a session with her beatnik songwriters, and then, as she grows more and more frightened and lonely, her wanderings through shoddy streets and bistros until she gets to park. There she meets an equally forlorn soldier (Antolne Bour-seiller) on his last night of leave before going back to the army in Algiers. At first he bores and irritates her, but gradually his gentle, tender nature and his faith In life weave a hypnotic spell over her, producing a profound change. Before the viewer's eyes the spoiled and self-pitying child changes into a genuine and aware person facing her ordeal with fortitude. Miss Varda has wrought this ending with delicacy and compassion.

The film is Interesting, although It does become a bit montonous In its endless shots of the seedy side of Paris. Why do French and Italian directors let street pas-sersby stare into the camera or gape at the star and thus lose the verisimilitude of actual people? This can be, and has been, easily avoided by some American directors. Elvis and Girls Galore "GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS," seems an appropriate title for an Elvis Presley vehicle showing at the ST. LOUIS. Strangely enough, it involves Elvis's encounters with girls, girls, girls in a lightweight musical in which Elvis obviously suffers no pain o) fc? o) is CL 5 vx vly Jjj iT Arsrn Tv, j.m IN OUR DISCOUNT RADIO DEPARTMENT as he eases through a dozen songs.

Piirj SPECIALS GiLSCI EXCELLENT GIFT IDEA! II II 11 ra Th Vnitrd Statu A'oiy thi year celebratn 60 yrari of it-nice by ill dextroyer arm, inelegantly hut proudly known at "Thm Tin Can Nary." Tim fol. lairing article, relating development and tame of the of de-ttroyermen and their tet-iel, ii compiled from nin-leriul provided by the Pub-lie. Information Offirn of the Cruiser-Dentroyer Force, VS. Pacific Fleet. SAN DIEGO, Nov.

23. ON A RED-LETTER DAY In Philadelphia 60 years ago, the United States Navy commissioned the first of a long, Illustrious line of versatile warships the destroyer. Lt. W. R.

Sexton, USN, assumed command of the USS Bainbridge (DD-1), a 420-ton torpedo boat destroyer, on Nov. 24, 1902. This was the official beginning of destroyers in the United States Navy. This new type of ship was to prove indispensable in naval warfare as the advance guard of the fleet. How-ever, the evolution of the modern destroyer began in the Civil War.

In 1864, cinnamon bearded Adm. David Dixon Porter of the Federal Navy formulated a bold plan using a new-type picket boat to attack the Confederate ironclad ram, CSS Albemarle. The picket boat, a 30 -foot launch of shallow draft, powered by steam, carried a torpedo in the bow. The operator was able to detach the torpedo and leave it planted under the target ship's keel. A lanyard was yanked to set off the bomb trigger after the launch had retreated to a safe distance.

A daring combat veteran, Lt. W. Cushing, asked for and received command of the launch. Under cover of darkness the launch sneaked up the Roanoke river and sped to the attack. At the last moment, the torpedo launch was discovered by a crewman of the ironclad.

Lt. Cushing decided to ram as the Albemarle opened fire. In the devastating explosion, the Federal launch was sunk and only Lt. Cushing and one crewman survived, but the huge Confederate ironclad ram lay In ruin torpedoed. Thus, a new naval tradition and ship were conceived.

The Cushing spirit was to become a tradition cherished by United States Navy destroyer-men, and Cushing's torpedo boat influenced naval warfare, changing tactics and ship construction. The torpedo boat and development of attack led to defensive inventiveness. Other nations had developed a destroyer, but the United States Navy still was without a destroyer during the Spanish-American War. Finally on May 4, 1838, Congress passed an act which read, "The President is hereby authorized to have constructed by contract 16 torpedo boat destroyers of about 400 tons displacement, to have the highest practicable speed The USS Bainbridge, completed in 1902, was the first destroyer built under the 1898 act. It carried two torpedo tubes and was armed with two three-inch guns and five six-pounders.

Top speed was about 28 knots. Some 34 destroyers joined the Bainbridge In the next 10 years. Tonnage increased with each succeeding class. By 1915, destroyers were displacing 1050 tons, were carrying eight torpedo tubes and were armed with four four-inch guns. With World War I under way in Europe, a hasty naval building program was started.

The new American destroyer that steamed into battle in World War I was the famous "four-piper so called for its four smoke stacks, a rakish, flush-deck, 1150- to 1215-ton ship which had a top speed of about 32 knots. By war's end the destroyer force was established as the good right arm of the United States Navy, and the "four-piper" gave America the world's largest destroyer fleet. No American destroyers were built between 1919 and 1930, but in the early 30s some 45 new DD's were authorized. In those de- 1 1 El El a 11 II 11 ei 11 11 11 El El tl El ti El a night club singer, on waterfront that seems to be Hawaiian anyway, the outdoor locales were filmed In Hawaii. There's enough of sailboats and fishing boats and the open blue sea In sparkling Technicolor to make it wholesome.

He is caught between 4-SPEED PORTABLE PHONOGRAPH High styling Vinyl laminated Scull ft, a brassy night club songstress (Stella Stevens) and a pert little dish (Laurel Goodwin) who sort of has Doris Day mannerisms and just happens to have a dad who is loaded. The plot is so wispy ft almost evaporates in the Island sunshine. Fortunately a good many of Elvis's songs are not rock and roll, but ballads and folk songs. He even sings a cute little Chinese number with two little Chinese girls. I must report that Elvis remains a perfect gentleman at all times, even when surrounded by a hundred girls of many nations in the all-out girly finale, and he thoroughly earns every dollar of the half-million he probably will pick up on the picture.

CLOCK-RADIO ri ea Proof Steel Can 4" Dyni-power Speaker 4-Speed Recened Manual Turntable CHOICE OF COLORS Wake Up To Music Go To Sleep To Musc stroyers of some 30 years ago, many improvements had been made over the original Bainbridge, but there still was ample room for the exercise of the peculiar Ingenuity of destroyer men. One man who remembers the destroyers of the 1930s Is Cmdr. V. R. Dahlen.

Today Dahlen is executive officer of the Recruit Training Command in San Diego, but in 1932 he was a fireman apprentice on a destroyer, and he speaks authoritatively of the progress made in destroyer engineering. "I can remember when a 12-pound sledge hammer and a cold chisel were considered precision Instruments," Dahlen said. "Steam in those days was really 250 pounds of very hot water. We hadn't heard of super-heated steam. If a pump stopped pumping, you just walked over and hit it with a sledge, and it started up again." The evolution from "250 pounds of very hot water" to 1200-pound super-heated steam in modern destroyers occurred for two reasons, said Cmdr.

Dahlen: "Economy and efficiency." "Early ships were extremely expensive fuel hogs," he explained. "The cost of running an old destroyer was almost the same as it is today, yet it was much lighter and didn't have the firepower. Destroyers today are approaching the size and tonnage of the old light cruisers. Their engineering plant isn't much bigger, but it is more efficient. "The evolution of fuel has been from wood to coal to oil, and now to nuclear power but ships still use steam boilers.

The only thing that has changed is the source of heat. Nuclear power is a more efficient source of heat, and you don't have to replenish It as often, but the plant Is still steam." When Dahlen was a fireman 30 years ago, the temperatures in the engine room sometimes rose to 140 degrees, and de-stroyermen do not mourn the evolution that has rescued them from such working conditions below deck. Topside, in the destroyer's armament, there also has been a tremendous evolution in weaponry. Destroyer weapons have presented almost as many changes as those evidenced between the hull shapes of the first USS Bainbridge and her new namesake, a guided missile, nuclear-powered frigate. Marksmanship In naval gunnery in those days was improving, due mostly to the efforts of Adm.

"Fighting Bob" Evans, who, after studying our poor gunnery during the Spanish-American War, was determined to do something about it. While he was in command of United States Navy forces on Asiatic Station in China, he made his cruisers and destroyers practice gunnery daily, for hours at a time. This was unheard of among captains and executive officers, who hated gunnery practice be GIFT PRICED AT a $2095 First G-E all-transistor clock-radio that plugs Inl 5 transistors plus diode and rectifier G-E clock has luminous hands Choice of pink and white or cocoa end white SfllO 95 II RP 2000 a a a 11 BIG SELECTION OF G-E CLOCEC RADIOS Joseph G. Molner, M.D. Abdominal Pain Causes A DOCTOR MUST never jump to conclusions.

Neither should a patient. Recently I was taken to task by a reader for not recommending worm medication, for a child with abdominal pain. FOUR-SPIED, TVO-SPEAKER PORTABLE STEREO STARTING AT jl 1550 if- i 1 N-SPEED li a ti a ti ra 11 El 71 II tl El a a a 1. This reader, having learned a de-worming method, has been passing It on to relatives and neighbors whenever anyone complained of stomach cramps. Worms are not the sole cause of abdominal pain.

Proper de-worming procedures usually involve the use of rather vigorous catharsis. Treatment has to be powerful enough to destroy both worms and eggs- 4-Speed Automatic Changer Stereo Dual Channel Ampli PORTABLE PHONO s5488 i fier Two 6Vt Speaker! Stereo Cartridge Tone, Volume, Balance Control! 4-SPEED STEREO DR. MOLNER -4 Vinyl laminated Steel Cat 4-Speed Automatic Changer 6'i" Dynapower Speaker Stereo Cartridge Playi Both Monaural and Stereo Records (Monaural Reproduction) SP 2020 Vinyl laminated Scull Proof Steel Cast Two 6'i" Speakeri in Swing Out Eocloiurei 4-Speed Automatic Changer With 9" Turntable Dual Channel Stereo Amplifier S3 Nj' i2 GET OUR PRICE El a a i El RP 204(1 Use of such strong medications could be disastrous if the pain happened to be caused by an Inflamed appendix. The probable result would be to make the appendix rupture. Intussusception or partial obstruction of the bowel can cause cramps but must not be treated with laxatives.

Recurrent pain could Indicate kidney Infection. Enlargement of lymph glands can cause abdominal pain in children. So can food allergies. Frequently worms cause Irritation, nervousness, teeth-grinding and the like without ever making the child (or adult) complain of stomach pain. Abdominal pain deserves careful examination and It Is not are to Jump to conclusions.

If you do, you may make a tragic error. 7741 WATSOU RD. 9785 ST. CHARLES Mi. RD.

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