'Home Front News' Scores Hit With 140 Enlisted University Employees

"Believe me, you're cooking with gas." This is the typical reaction of Harvard employees, now serving on several of the nation's battlefronts, inspired by the "Home Front News", the monthly publication of the Employees Benefit Association designed to keep in touch with the 140 men formerly employed by the University and now in the armed services.

Appreciation for the magazine takes first importance in the letters now coming in from the servicemen, closely followed by requests for information and snapshots of their former co-workers. Fear of censorship apparently has forced the men to be reticent about their surroundings and their activities; nowhere in the letters released is there any indication of annual combat service.

"Fishing Superb"

Closest to an exception to this rule is one letter from Alaska. "It's a real thrill to hook into one of these 30 pound salmon" and to admit that "we hope to be moved before winter sets in." Lost the "News" get the wrong impression of what life in the army is however, the writer hastens to add that "of course much can't be said."

Several Issues Published

Under the direction of Leo Roche, the "News" has already published several issues each designed to keep these who once worked and chatted with us daily and who have gone away to do their part for Uncle Sam, in touch with what is going on at home and especially around the University."

"We are trying to let our service men know just who of his fellow workers are in this scrap," said Leo Roche, editor, in a current editorial. "Some of our men are in the air some under the sea. Some of them have been at Pearl Harbor since December 5th and are now in the Aleutians; more have been in contact with the enemy at sea. These are the men we have worked with."

Roche gets Sympathy

Editor Roche himself has come in for his full share of sympathy for the added burden he has assumed. "I guess being an editor you are probably tearing out the few hairs you have left,: writes one employee. He is not without help from his readers, however.

One correspondent has offered a grand price of a carton of cigarettes to the service man who writes in a short story of the "minutest thing that happened since I joined the services."

Roche works in the book bindery and has assumed his editorship as a spare time job. He is helped out by James Babcock assistant editor and cartoonist, who for 12 years has been a carpenter for the University.

With an "Honor Roll" of employees now in the aimed forces that is approaching 150, the "News" reports only one casualty, that of former Matthews janitor Yin Rhlerm, who died in April.