Sec. 562, P. L. .& R.U. S. POSTAGE

PaidButte. Mont.

Permit No. 139(

A United States aircraft carrier flanked by PT bo3ts moves to sea.

-Offlci..1 U. S. N..vr Pbotoe

EDITOR'S NOTE: Late in March Admiral King made a report on Our Navy at War to the Secretary ofthe Navy. It was a complete. detailed report of naval combat operations up to March 1, 1944, and isrecommended to all who wish to keep abreast ~f the war's developments •.• we publish herewith theAdmiral's concluding paragraphs because they give the naval picture ~Iearly and to the point.

IN the European theater, our forces/

have taken part ·in driving the enemy outof Africa, and have shared in the eceu-pation of Sicily and in the invasion ofItaly, which resulted in its capitulation.The Russian army, tuming against theCermans in an irresistible offensive hasdriven them back to the borders of Po-land and Rumania. France has been givennew hope. Instead of being a daily targetfor the Cerman air forces, Creat Britainhas become a base for an air offensiveagainst the heart of the Axis on a scalewhich dwarfs the greatest Cerman at-tacks of the war. The German submarinefleet has been reduced from a menaceto a problem. The encirclement of Ger-many is in sight.

As of March 1, 1944, the situationin the European theater is increasinglydesperate for the Axis and correspond-ingly encouraging for us.

The Cerman structure of satellitestates is crumbling. Italy has fallen andis a baHlefield' in which 20 Cerman di-visions are taking heavy punishment.Rumania. Bulgaria, Hungary and Finlandare weakening. The Balkans are aflamewith guerrilla war, and other occupiedcountries wait only the signal.

The Russian armies continue to ad-vance, a massive invasion threatens in theWest, and with all tltis, Cermany is scien-tifically and remorsefully being bombed.2.

on a scale whose magnitude and increas-ing tempo have flattened her cities,wrecked factories, and can not but be amajor factor in her eventual collapse.

In the Pacific theater, the Japanese,after their attack on Pearl Harbor, ad-vanced with impressive speed and powerthrough the Philippines and the Nether-lands East Indies into the Solomon I..lands. in the. general direction of Aus-tralia and New Zealand. Following thesesuccessfui advances, they effected land-ings in the Aleutian Islands and attackedMidway. The Japanese advance waschecked. however, ~Imost as abruptly asit had begun. Our successes in the.Solo-mons, in the Central Pacific, and in theNorthern Pacific, are now matters ofrecord. and we have had time to buildup our strength, and to test our power.Our outposts, which two years ago wereon a line running from Dutch Harbor inthe Aleutians to Midway, thence to Fiji,Samoa, and Australia, now begin at Attu,on the tip of the Aleutians, and exteftdsouth through the Marshall Islands tothe .Bismarcks and New Cuinea.

Through experience, we have mas-tered and improved the technique ofamphibious operations, in which the Jap ..anese were so proficient in the early daysof the war. Our Army and Navy forceshave learned how to fight as one team.We 1tave learned how to make the mostof what we have, but it is no lon&e~

REPORTfrOID theNAVY

by

ADM IRAL ERN EST J. KINGCommander-in-Chief, United StatesFleet. and Chief of Naval Operations

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necessary to ask our commanders to getalong as best they can on in.a.dequatemeans. The numerical inferiorities whichwere so pronounced in the Java Sea cam-paign"and in subsequent actions in theSolomons have been reversed. Our sub-marines and planes are cutting deeper t

and deeper into the vital Japaneseshipping, and our fleets move in the Cen-tral.Pacific unchallenged.

The war against Japan has gone in-creasingly well of late. From their postsof maximum advance in the Pacif.ic, theJapanese have been driven back progres-sively by a series of offensive operations. _.Important as our own advances towardJapan are, they do not fully represent theimprovement in our position. Japanese·capacity to maintain the war at sea andin her advanced areas has suffered i....creasingly, due to the loss of vitalshipping, while the growth of our powerin the Pacific enables us to threaten at-tack on the Marianas and Carolines andKuriles. which may be called the inter- •mediate zone of defense of the Empir .....

,Japan will not be directly under at-

tack al Cermany is now, until the citadelMea of that empire, island and contineft-tal, is under our threat or control, butthe current and prospective circum-stances in the Pacific Theater present asituation which must be as dark andthreatening to Japan as it is full of "p_!Omise to us.

'JBoth in Europe and in the Pacific,,. )

long roads still lie ahead. Bvt we are 1now fully entered on those roads, forti- Ified with unity, power, and experience, Iimbued with confidence .and determined

- to travel far and fast to victory.

1IMAY 26. 1944 '

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. Vol. n._,.

COPPER COMMANDo is the official newspaperof the Victory Labor-Management ProductionCommittees of the Anaconda Copper MiningCompany and its Union'Representatives at Butte,Anaconda, Creat Falls and East Helena, Montana.It is issued every two weeks ••• COPPER COM-MANDO is headed by a joint committee fromLabor and Management, its policies are shapedby botft sides and are dictated' by neither •••COPPER COMMANDO was established at therecommendation-of the War Department withthe concurrence of the War Production Board.Its editors are Bob Newcomb and Marg Sam-mons; its safety editor is John L. Boardman; itschief photographer is AI Cusdorf; its staff pho-tographer is Les Bishop. • •• Its Editorial Boardconsists of: Denis McCarthy, CIO; John F. Bird.AFL; Ed Renouard, ACM. from Butte; Dan Byrne,CIO; Joe Marick, AFL; C. A. Lemmon. ACM,from Anaconda; Jack Clark, CIO; Herb Donald-son, AFL, and E. S. Bardwell. ACM, from GreatFalls .••• COPPER COMMANDO is mailed tothe home of every employee of ACM in the fourlocations-if you are not receiving your 'Copy ad-vise COPPER COMMANDO at 112 HamiltonStreet, Butte. or better still. drop in and tell us,This is Vol. 2. No. 20.

No. 20

In this issue, ,

FRONT COVER •..............•... _ ...•.•.•.......•................................... - _ .....................................•.•. tThat's Mrs. Grace Randall of Anaconda, a nurse in the Hawaiian Islands. Read the story about her OA

page 4.

REPORT FROM THE NAVY ........•.. _ .................•............................. :.......................•.............•............... 2:Here's a statement from Admiral Ern~st J. King, Commander-In-Chief, U. S. Fleet. and Chief of Naval.Operations. It gives the naval war score today.

,WAR ISN'T ALWAYS HELL .........•...... __ - :4An ex-Anaconda gal is doing a splendid job as a nurse in. Hawaii. Between times she and her friends dQa splendid job of brightening the lives of our soldier boys.

FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED _ _..............................••...• ~Here's the story of the No.2 Mine Rescue Station at the Tramway in Butte. Let's take a look behind t~scenes and see how this essential work is carried on.

\PEOPLE AN D PLACES _.•_ _ ~ :-:.......•... 9

, WAR FILMS _ ...........................•.•.•...................... _ : .- 10The Victory Labor-Management Production Committee at the Anaconda Smelter put over a good shoW!when it presented three War Department films for Smeltermen and their families. Our COPPER COM-.MANDO photographer got a bunch of pictures we thought you'd like to see.

FIVE-DOLLAR WORD _ : _ 1':11The word "spectography" is a jawbreaker. so we dec ided to find out what it was all about. At Great Fallswe interviewed Earl Buker and found his work quite interesting. We think you will find it interesting.,too.

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In the picture above. Mrs. Crace Randall 0 f Anaconda (center) gives our Leather-necks in Hawaii a few gay tunes on her ukulele. Below, two Marines and, twocivilian nurses engage in a little horse-play on the shores of the Pacific.

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War Isn~tAlwaysHELL!

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Nobody need tell a fighting man that waris plenty tough. It is good for theirmorale, a,nd it is good for ours, to knowthat they get a chance to play once ina while.

By now we're getting used to seeingpictures of Qur Leathernecks in the thickof battle. But these Marines have torelax once in a while, and when they do,they really have rhemselzes a time.

What makes the particular partypictured on these pages of greater inter-est is the fact that the gal shown on thefront cover, and elsewhere in these pages,is from Anaconda. We got busy whenwe learned that, and discovered, to oursurprise, that she is Mrs. Grace Randall.wife of Jim Ran d a 'I of Livingston.Furthermore she's the daughter of Mrs.Maude V. Emmons and the late James R.Emmons of Anaconda. and her brother

is John (Cy). Emmons, secretary-treas-urer of the Mill and Smeltermen's UnionNo. 117 of the International Union ofMine, Mill and Smelter Workers.

The pictures were taken in Hawaiirecently, and the occasion was a partygiven for some of the boys stationed thereby nurses at thei r rest and recreationhome on Pohala Beach, on the shores ofthe Pacific. The Marines hail from allover the country-Ohio, Kansas, Okla-homa, West Virginia, Indiana,' Illinoisand North Carolina. They were servedroast turkey-ordinarily they would havewhat's called "luau" or native pig-roast-ing, but the folks went that great nativecustom one better and had turkey.

Mrs. Randall was educated at St.Paul's Parochial School and was grad-uated from St. Peter's High School-shegraduated from St. James School of Nurs-ing in Butte in 1936. Two years latershe sailed for Honolulu and for the pastfive years has been employed at Queen'sHospital there in the Mental Departmentwhere she is a supervisor. Her husbandis on active duty with the Navy. She isan accomplished musician, and after' thebombing of Pearl Harbor (she was therewhen it happened), she sang to thewounded men to keep up their morale.

IThese boys have helped to build

Pearl Harbor to peak defensive power,It's pleasant to know that every once ina wh iIe they can relax, as they have donehere, and enjoy life a little.·

Dig in, folks, it's time to eat!-ortlelnl o. S. MlUlne oeree Photos

Nobody had to pull up a chair for this feast at the .nurses' rest and recreation home.Mrs. Randall is fourth from the left.

Maybe this is Hawaiian "craps"-we don't know, and the picture didn't say. Butthe gal in the center is surprised at $Ometh ing.

.. That's Mrs. Randall again with the ukulele, giving out for the boys and gals on he~ukulele. This was taken on Pohala Beach.

FOREWARNED·IS ...

FOREARMEDFEW mining communities have theequipment. such as provided for thethe Butte mines. available for emer-gencies: The first rescue station wasestablished in 1910 at the AnacondaMine and in 1916 No.2 Rescue Station,was built at the Tramway Mine. In 1930the Anaconda Mine Station was closedand all the equipment moved to the No.2 Station. for it was constructed withenough space provided to house equip-ment for the entire camp. This building.shown in the middle opposite page pic-ture, is a fireproof building and housesthe oxygen breathing apparatus, iron

/lung, underground lamps and the am-bulances.

James Ryan, Charles Goforth .. Ed-mund Beauchamp and Dan Crowley, fore-man, work full time and are always onhand at the Rescue Station. At the pres-ent time. Louis Bertoglio is the regularextra member of the five men crew. Allof them are experienced in operating theiron lung and breathing apparatus andserve as instructors to the classes whotake the five day course offered by theStation. Dan Crowley is the oldest minerescue oxygen breathing apparatus re-pairman in the United States and isrecognized throughout the country, aswell as on the Hill. as an expert.

The iron .Iung shown in the upperpicture on this page was purchased bythe Butte Elks Lodge. It was sent to thestation over two years ago with the pro-vision made that it be loaned to any hos-pital which needed it. It is used to createan act ion of the lungs in infantileparalysis cases when fhe upper part of thebody is paralyzed. Dan Crowley is regu-lating the respiration valve in the picture~hich shows Percy Pholman, Jr., as thesubject. That's Charles Coforth and

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.6. MAY 26, 1944

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James Ryan, members of the crew, look-ing on.

lrithe center opposite page picture,Dan Crowley is transferring the oxygenfrom the 250 cu. ft. storage oxygencylinders. Ten of the storage cylindersare kept at the Station and more can beobtained within fifteen minutes from theLinde Air Company. The iarg~ breathingapparatus cylinder is for the Paul breath-ing apparatus, which has a capacity ofeleven cu. ft. and will last for two hours,The smaller cylinder is for the MineSafety Appliance apparatus which has acapacity for six cu. ft. and will last forone hour. The bottom left picture showsCharles Goforth instructing a class-leftto right are: Percy Pholman, Jr., BenBinge, Harvey Bradley, Tom Regan, OttoShepherd and Robert Gruhler-in the useof the M. S. A. 1 hour breathing appara-tus. Thousands have been trained to usethis breathing apparatus throughout theyears.

Ben Binge is wearing the·M. S. A.one hour; Dan Crowley has on the Paultwo hour ~nd Bill Ryan is wearing theEverready one-half hour apparatus in thepicture to the left. This breathing ap-paratus operates on the "lung controlled"principle and supplies the wearer withoxygen in the exact quantity which hisexertion requires. There are fifty-nineM. S. A. one-hour, thirty-two, two-hourPaul and eight one-half hour Everreadysat the station. The picture at the topof this column shows how they are stored.

The station equipment includes onehundred twenty charged lamps which arekept in the basement. Dan Crowley isinspecting one of the batteries for thelamps in the upper right shot. The twoambulances and truck, available at alltimes, are shown in the middle pictureand in the lower shot you 'get a glimpseof the inside of one of the ambulances.

MAY 26,1944

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The Biggest Lesson

OC HIS week the city of Butte was hen-ored to act as host to the Catholic Con·ference on Ind'ustrial Problems. Mem.bers of labor, of manageme~t, and of theentire community coope}ated with theclergy of all churches in bringing to theforeground many of the problems whichare certain to influence the'welfare of ourcountry in the days to come.

We do not aHempt here to reviewthe program itself; the community is bynow well aware of the fine contributionthe church is making to bringing togetherin their common interest the people ofthis country. The program is both non·sectarian and non-political. Its theme is, simple and its appeal is straightforward:Let's agree what our problems are andlet's work together to solve them.

There will be those small minds whowill contend that any church, attempt·ing to step beyond the pure borders ofreligion, violates religious principles. Butbigger minds (and fortunately there are

, more of them) will hold that the destinyof 130,000,000 people, not to mentionthe people of the rest of the world, canbe aided by religious leadership.

This is a Labor-Manageme"t news-paper, and it is ittteresti"g to us to knowhow closely t~ fu ..damental principlesof thia Catftotic Conference parallel thethoughts of leaders in the movement to

bring Management and labor more closelytogether. The church contends that, inorder for us all to progress, each mustseek to understand the other. That'swhat we think.

This war has taught us many biHerlessons. But this war has taught Us alsomany helpf ..1 OReS. Pemaps the bigge,stlesson allY of us can learn from it is thatthe ways of free men always overwhelmthe ways of dictators, that many millionsof people are willing to rise together tomake 'sure that this world IS a goodplace to live in.

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PeopI~ (,-'WE went down the other night to theSmelter to join in the tribute paid bythe Electricians' Union, Local No. 200, tofive hardy pioneer electricians. It washeld at the Montana Hotel and morethan seventy attended.

These five men are veterans in everysense of the word and we are proud topublish their picture here, In the photo-graph, seated in the center of the firstrow, we find Michael Gallagher, who hasbeen a member of his union for fifty-twoyears. Mike, as he is affectionatelyknown by everyone at .the Smelter,started to work on the hill in 1902. Helearned his trade in Scotland and was afamiliar figure for many years at themain sub-station.

At the left in the front row, seatednext to Mike, is John Holmberg, whojoined the Anaconda local in February,1904. He was in electrical work for theAnaconda Company for fifty-one years;he worked in the sub-station from 1920until his retirement.

Over on the other side is S. J. Solo-mon. Mr. Solomon was born in Mis-souri and worked on the street railwayin Anaconda for roughly thirty-five years.His face is familiar to all Anacondaresidents.

That is Dave Platt at the left in theback row. Dave joined the Anacondalocal when, it wasorganized and still at-tends the meetings. Dave was with thegroup the night the union was organized.He recalls that the basic idea of gettingtogether was to create a fund for burialof members, and out of this noble startcame this strong and fine Electricians'Union. He worked with Mickey Mc-Dermott at the sub-station from 19f_8

Places~ntil his retirement two years ago.

That'Is Alex Jones at the right, nextto Dave. Alex is a Canadian who cameto Montana from London, Ontario, in1900. H.e came to Anaconda in 1902,then went to Helena for six years andfinally returned to Anaconda in 1908where he served in the city light depart-ment as a meter reader for the city. Thereare few smeltermen who do not recallAlex with affection.

The banquet itself was presided overby T. F. (Cov) Walsh who intr-oducedthe speakers and musical entertainersduring the program. Greetings to thefive veterans were extended by M. L(Mike) McDermott, president of theunion. Badges from the International'Union have since been distributed to thefive 'men.

Tributes to the quintet were paid.bya number of speakers. W. E. Mitchell,general manager of the Anaconda Re-duction Works, remarked that: "Theelectrical workers have done a wonderfuljob. They have handled their work ina good manner and are a loyal group. Weappreciate it very much."

Harry Bell of Denver, InternationalUnion repr.esentative, made a trip espe-cially to the Smelter to pay his respectsto the five men on behalf of the interna-tional organization. Other speakers in-cluded: M. E. Buck, C. A. Lemmon, F.W.Bellinger, L. E. Larsen, Ray McCarren.H. M, Latham, Nick Dondelinger, W. A.,Wilson, Andrew McVicars, James Hagen,Charles O'Neil, Tom Rowe, Bill Keig,Michael Boyle, H. J. Hetherington, BillKasky, George Mellor, Bob Platt, GeorgeHartsell, Ed McDermott, W. R. Bresna-han, George Crandall, James Hartsell andJames McVicars.

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MAY 26, 1944

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WAHFILMS

•~naconda Smeltermen and their familiesturn out to see a Labor-ManagementCommittee Show.

•oN Wednesday evening. May 3. theVictory Labor-Management ProductionCommittee of the Anaconda ReductionWorks presented a series of three freewar shows at the Washoe Theatre.

Men from the Smelter and theirfamilies thronged to the theatre to wit-ness three films supplied by the War De-partment. Film Communique No.4, TheCase of the Tremendous Trifle and Bap-tism of Fire were the three exciting fea-tures offered. Admission was free to allemployees of the Smel ter and thei rfamilies. There ~ere three diHerentshowings-one at six, one at seven-thirtyand the final one at nine o'clock.

Members of the Victory Labor-Management Production Committee ex-pressed their complete satisfaction withthe attendance and with the s how soffered.

Film Communique No.4 is one of aserxes of up-to-the-minute releases by theWar Department; The Case of the Tre-mendous Trifle concerns itself with therole which small parts play in the warprogram; Baptism of Fire, shown earlierin Butte, is the story of the emotionsthrough which a new soldier goes incombat. •

The sub-committee of the Labor-.Management Committee which arrangedthe program included = Sid McCallum.chairman, George Hackett, Charles MoLean and Leonard Larsen.

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HERE.are random scenes of the men from theSmelter and their families shown in and aroundthe Washoe Theatre the night of the War FilmsShow. The attendance was exceptionally goodand the arrangements for handling the crowds werewell managed. Reactions to the pictures varied,but for the most part everybody was impressed bythe grim theme which ran through the entertain-ment. Take a look at the faces on this page andsee how many of your friends you can identify.

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THERE was only a brief break between shows;the incoming crowd was held in the lobby whilethe house was emptied and then' those waitingwere admitted. The house filled up quickly in allcases ••• The occasion marked the first effort ofthe Victory Labor-Manage~ent Committee at theSmelter to sponsor a public program of this sort,and great credit is due the sub-committee headedby Sid McCallum for the way in which theyhandled the affair •

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# FIVE-nOLLAR WORDYou will probably agree that the word "spectograph" is big enough to lift a guy outof ,his -chair. But spect-ography is mighty important to us in this industry and it iskind of interesting to hear about, too,

SPECTOGRAPHY impressed us as asort of five-dollar, bone-crushing word.

I and since we didn't have any idea whatit meant, we decided to drop in on EarlBuker. the spectographist at Great Falls.and find out what it was all about. That'sa picture of Earl at his table and thespectograph is the large instrument infront of him. In case you don't knowanything more about it than we did, thespectograph is used for examining oreand metals; specimens come in the formof metals themselves or in solution orpowder.

The spectographic I abo ora tor ywatches the concentrates and metals forimpurities. All new concentrates aresampled here and at the Research Lab-oratories as well. The spectograph isreally a camera-if t~kes a picture of theburning flame, or electric arc as it iscalled, and records it on a strip of filmwhich indicates the presence of impuri-ties and determines whether the ship-ment is acceptable or not. The samplesare burned in the arc stand-that is thestand with the piece of paper around thetop of it, shown at the left. The solu-tion or powder is put under tremendousheat, which breaks down the sample intoits various parts and then the spectographtakes a picture of this frame. In thisway one can tell what is in the concen-trate and how much. Incidentally, theframe burns at a temperature of 6,000degrees centigrade, which is the hottestthing known.

As we said, the spectograph shows

up everything-actually the picture re-corded on the film looks like only a bunchof lines and we thought you would like tosee what one looks Iike so we are show-ing it to you on this page. There arefive impurities which can be found insamples. If any impurity exists "in toogreat quantity, the sample is not ac-cepted. These impurities are arsenic.antimony. germanium, tin and bismuth.

The sample shown' on th~ spec to-graph is really only an example of whata spectograph looks like and the letterswritten in the middle are abbreviationsfor the names of the elements found.These elements might be for example,tin, antimony, indium, tungsten, etc.The iron is indicated by lines withoutsymbols.

Mr. Buker has been with theCom-pany since 191? and has developed manytechnical devices around the plant. Heis married and has a daughter who is amusic teacher. 'When we caught himat his bench, he was preparing a liquidsample for burning in the arc.

The spectographic laboratory isreally an interesting place to vis i t,whether you know anything about thesethings or not. Actually the spectographgives a whole lot of information in a shorttime and it often detects smaller ele-ments than other types of analyses. Earladmits that he got into spectography byaccident, but that it would take wildhorses now to drag him away-he gets areal kick out of every day's work.

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