Compiled by Don Hoiness from archived copies of The Bulletin at Deschutes County Historical Society.

100 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

June 30, 1918

Belleau wood is held by the American boys

The Americans have taken the remainder of Belleau wood and this strategic piece of territory now lays entirely in American hands.

Following their advance of four hundred yards Monday, the Americans charged the Germans in the small remaining fringe last night and after inflicting severe losses to the enemy and capturing 221 prisoners, including one captain and six other officers, drove the Germans from their positions. Many machine guns were also taken.

The Germans fought desperately to retain the advantage of holding the woods, without which an advance to Meaux is impossible. They literally crowded their part of the forest with machine guns, and the fighting was the most desperate in which the Americans have been engaged since the big offensive stopped.

The German troops defending the territory retained their machine gun fire until the Americans were close upon them, but even at this close range and advancing in the face of heavy firing the losses to the United States troops were not disproportionate to the gains made.

There was one incident well worthy of special mention. Private Frank Lennart of Chicago, unaided, marched 78 German privates and five officers into headquarters. Lennart was first captured by the Germans, but they later surrendered to him.

Idlers should be reported to members of local board

All persons who can give information in regard to any draft registrant whose status is affected by the work or fight regulations, which become effective July 1, are particularly requested by the war department to do so.

In fact, the regulations make it the duty of all citizens to report at once all facts which may come to their knowledge concerning registrants who are idle, or who are engaged in a non-productive occupation or employment.

This report should be made to the nearest local draft board.

Persons writing or giving this information in person need have no fear their names will be revealed, for the information will be regarded in this sense as strictly confidential.

Under the head of “idlers” — those who will receive scant consideration from the local boards in their reclassification — are registrants who decline to enter a useful occupation or employment. The government lists such occupations as “gamblers of all description and employees of race tracks and bucket shops, fortune tellers, clairvoyants, palmists and the like.”

And here are the regulations defining non-productive occupations or employment: “Persons engaged in the serving of food and drink. Passenger elevator operators and attendants, doormen, footmen, carriage openers and other attendants. Persons, including ushers and other attendants, engaged and occupied in and in connection with games, sports and amusements, excepting actual performers in legitimate concerts, operas or theatrical performances.”

75 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

June 30, 1943

New York air raid warden admits being German spy

Ernest Frederick Lehmitz, naturalized citizen and an air raid warden, pleaded guilty to being a German spy today when arraigned before U.S. Commissioner Martin C. Epstein.

He was charged with violating the espionage laws by transmitting vital United States war information to Germany.

He was held on $50,000 bail pending action by the federal grand jury.

The penalty for wartime espionage is death or imprisonment for a maximum of 30 years.

Lehmitz, tall and thin and wearing steel-rimmed glasses, had received extensive espionage training in Germany and joined the air raid warden service to cover up his activities in gathering information of troop movements, convoys, armament production and civilian defense, according to E.E. Conroy, special agent in charge of the New York office of the FBI.

He transmitted this information to his superiors in Germany, Conroy said, by writing messages in invisible ink between the lines and on the reverse side of apparently innocent letters to “friends” in neutral Europe.

His reports, Conroy said, included comments on American public opinion and civilian morale and, through his air warden capacity — he was listed as an “active worker” — information on civilian defense and air raid precautions.

These, he said in one message to Germany, were in “indescribable confusion.” This report was sandwiched in between the lines of an innocent appearing letter which also contained information of the whereabouts of two American battleships.

Kiska pounded by U.S. fliers

The air war against Kiska, last toehold of the Japanese in the Aleutians, continues when weather permits.

Army twin-engined bombers, with escorts, attacked Kiska Saturday for the second successive day. Hits were scored among Japanese anti-aircraft positions and in the main camp area.

In the Solomons, thousands of miles away from the Aleutians on the Pacific battlefront, American aviators continued to harass Japanese bases. Bombers started several fires in a raid on Ballale Island in the Shortland area north of Guadalcanal, while another formation of four-motored craft his Pororang Island, half a mile south of Shortland, with unobserved results.

The Japanese base at Munda was hit again later Saturday by navy dive bombers and torpedo bombers, with fighter escort, and another group of dive and torpedo bombers raided Vila and Kolombbangers islands.

All planes participating in the Solomon raids returned to their bases.

50 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

June 30, 1968

Rube Long blends fact and fancy during Chamber’s mid-Oregon tour

The President of the Deschutes Pioneers Association, who grew up on the high desert, blended fact and fancy in a delightful hodgepodge for a Chamber of Commerce tour group last week.

Reuben Long, trail boss for the 10-hour bus trip through his native haunts, told some of the stories that have established his reputation as Will Rogers of the Sagelands, and made up some new ones to suit the circumstances.

He set the 40 passengers straight by explaining people call him “Rube” because that’s his name, and not because of the way he acts. The fun started when the driver headed south on highway 97, instead of east on 20, and had to make a second run through town to get out of the city. “That’s all right,” Long quipped. “We’re heading for the Lost Forest, and we’re just getting a little practice.”

Then they drove across the vast stretches of sage and sand, where the guide pointed out abandoned homesteads and noted that in some places, the grazing was so sparse that jackrabbits had to carry lunch buckets. “Out here,” he said, “we have frogs that are six years old, and have never learned to swim.”

A few antelope and at least one coyote were seen in the distance, and Long apologized for not being able to spot a mountain sheep. He explained that nature equipped the sheep with a padding of gnarled protective horns in case they got cornered on a precipice and had to jump off head first. “I only had one chance to see one jump off a cliff, and I didn’t get to see him land on his head,” he said. “Half way down he saw me standing there, and went back up.”

At the sand dunes, Long pointed out the well drilled for filming of sequences in “The Way West” for a movie company. “They just wanted a shallow well so they could flood an area and make a small lake,” Reub explained. “But I goofed again. I told them where to drill, and we brought in the only artisan well ever found in the desert.” It is now capped and equipped with a pump.

Later, someone inquired about the metal towers lying on the ground ready to be erected. “That’s the new intertie,” Long explained. “They built one a few miles west of here, to send the power to California. But they found out they couldn’t use it all, so they are building another one to send it back.”

After a lunch stop at Christmas Valley, the group visited Fort Rock and saw the ranch where Long’s conservation practices once won him the title of Grassman of the Year. “I was proud of it when I got all that grass to grow,” Long said. “But when everything was green, I sorta missed the sagebrush.”

The stop at Big Hole was canceled because time was running out. “Well, I tell you, it’s just a great big hole in the ground. Some say it’s where a meteor struck several thousand years ago, and some say it’s where a lava bubble burst. But I just tell folks it’s where we dug up Fort Rock, and we were too lazy to cover it up.”

Paul Reynolds, chamber president, welcomed the group at the depot. Chuck Austin, chamber manager, was navigator.

25 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

June 30, 1993

Man gets twice-used heart

Pearl Ferrandino was hardly surprised last Sunday when a transplant physician reported that her husband, John, had successfully received a used heart.

Of course the heart was used, she thought. It had just been taken from a deceased donor and sewn in her husband’s chest at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.

But that isn’t what the surgeon meant. This heart had not one, but two previous owners: the woman who was born with it, and a man who had received it in an earlier transplant but had died suddenly after a brain hemorrhage.

“One heart — it’s fantastic,” Mrs. Ferrandino said.

“It’s amazing. I had never heard of that happening before.”

The president and public opinion (editorial)

Only the deeply cynical would suggest that Bill Clinton bombed Iraq’s intelligence headquarters in Baghdad to rally support for his disappointing presidency. However, the bombing had just that effect.

A New York Times-CBS poll found that after Saturday’s bombing 50 percent of those surveyed approved of Clinton’s overall job performance. Last week, his approval rate was 39 percent.

Clinton explained the poll by claiming that it reflects the growing popularity of his economic package.

Surely he doesn’t believe that. What the poll shows is the sad fact that many Americans have only the most superficial knowledge of the President and his policies, and that they can be moved to support or oppose him by a single spectacular event such as a military attack.

Neither the President nor anyone else who cares about politics and government should take satisfaction in the fact that a President can gain 11 percentage points in opinion polls by ordering 23 missiles fired into another country.