February 24, 1944
Our Army and Navy Boys
About 1,200 of our Pocahontas people are in the Armed forces; about 1,500 have gone to the war plants.
Mrs. Frankie Sharp Dumire, of Elk, has received word that her son, Lewis O., was wounded in action. He received a deep chest wound from a machine gun bullet. It so happened that Lewis was sent to the hospital unit to which his cousin, Major John O. McNeel, of Millpoint, is attached as Surgeon. The Major writes that Lewis is making a good recovery.
Sergeant Marshall O. Tracy, of Arbovale, son of Mrs. Valore Tracy, is reported by the War Department to be among the wounded in action in the European war area.
Mr. and Mrs. Odie Wooddell, of Cass, were taken by surprise Monday, February 7, when their son, Styrl, came home from the Navy on a 30-day leave. He has been stationed at Pearl Harbor.
Air Transport Command Base, India – Promotion of Second Lieutenant Harry L. Sheets to First Lieutenant has been announced here by Brigadier General Earl S. Hoag, commanding general of the India-China Wing, Air Transport Command. Lieutenant Sheets is the son of Carl L. Sheets, of Marlinton, and was an electrician in private life. He has been in the China-Burma India Theater over eight months.
Sergeant Eugene P. Bussard, son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert W. Bussard, of Frost, has been assigned to the AAF Training Command Radio School at the Sioux Falls Army Air Field, Sioux Falls, South Dakota… Upon completion of the course he will be fully trained to take his place as a member of a highly skilled bomber crew of the Army Air Forces.
Lieutenant Leonard McCutcheon, of the Army, and Clark and Robert McCutcheon, of the Navy, were home over the weekend with their parents, Dr. and Mrs. L. C. McCutcheon, at Greenbank.
Myrl Faulknier is home from the Army on a three-week furlough, with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. G. R. Faulknier.
WAR BONDS SALE
As of February 19, the report for the sale of War Bonds in Pocahontas County showed we were over our quota of $76,400 for E Bonds by $21,000 or nearly 30 percent. At that time, our county stood third in E Bond sales. A safe guess is that by the time all sales of E Bonds in Pocahontas are reported, the amount will reach $100,000.
The quota for all bonds for the county was $185,600.
As of last Saturday, our total sales for all bonds had topped $227,428.
LETTER
The following letter was received recently by Mr. and Mrs. R. G. Chestnut, of Huntersville, from the chaplain in the Navy, who conducts the Sunday worship, which their son, John Marshall Chestnut, of the United States Navy, now serving somewhere in the Pacific, attends.
My dear Mr. and Mrs. Chestnut,
May I introduce you to the chaplain who conducts your son’s Sunday worship. I would like to tell you that it has been a pleasure to have him present at our Divine Services recently. Undoubtedly it will give you some assurance to know that he appears to be well, happy and in the best of spirits. If at any time I can be of service to him or you, it shall be a privilege for me to do so.
Sincerely yours,
Roy B. Chamberlin, Chaplain
FIELD NOTES
Last week, Rev. S. B. Lapsley, late of Marlinton, was down at Atlanta, attending a big church meeting. He clipped out a field note from an Atlanta paper for me. It is about foxes most. West Virginia, it would appear, is no worse off than Georgia when it comes to a plague of foxes. Hear their word of complaint:
The gray foxes are taking the country. It’s getting to be a task to raise chickens and turkeys, the fur bearing predators are so plentiful.
There are two or three reasons for this, according to a veteran fur buyer. One is that the young men, who used to keep the hills trapped out, are gone to the Army. Another is that the breed of dogs in the hills has been sullied with feist in recent years. The dogs are not as smart on the trail as they used to be. The fox is smarter than the present day dog. Another is that the great federal game refuge, where trapping is by permit only, is giving haven to the animals.
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There are some rabbits around the town of Marlinton, and in garden season they prove a perfect pest. Game Protector Robert McComb has put out more than a dozen box traps. Last Friday morning, after a soft night, he had five fine rabbits. These he took to the Levels District where there seems to be fewer foxes than anywhere else.
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The other morning Game Protector McComb went to look at his rabbit traps, and he found where a fox had tracked a rabbit into the trap. The old fox had worked that trap around powerful to get that rabbit out, but he failed to work the combination.
MONONGAHELA
Post war plans for improving wildlife conditions on nearly one million acres of Monongahela National Forest in Central West Virginia are being studied by Forest Service officials…
“The Forest Service is building up an inventory of useful jobs that can be done when and if surplus manpower becomes available at the close of the war,” Forest Supervisor Arthur A. Wood, of Elkins, said….
The program for improved hunting and fishing in the publicly owned forest is based on the principle that improved environment is a necessary prelude to more game and fish…
Game animals are dependent upon their environment to provide food and shelter. While restocking is necessary to reestablish certain animals and birds in “shot-out” areas; most of the forest now contains a nucleus of desirable wildlife and further increases will be primarily the result of protection and favorable environment.
District Rangers in the national forest, through their timber sales, tree planting and other land management functions are constantly manipulating the factors that influence wildlife environment…
While we are looking forward with great enthusiasm to the post-war era when we can devote more time to wildlife and the aesthetic values of the forest, we are now in the midst of numerous war activities, Mr. Wood said. Even while sawtimber and pulpwood are rolling from the forest to help win the war, we must think and plan for hunting and fishing and other forest recreation that most Americans consider to be an essential part of their normal scheme of living.
