World Battlefronts: CASUALTIES: Two-Star Admiral

Commentator Arthur Godfrey of a Washington radio station asked his listeners to dial him out. He urged them to tune in a rival station where Claude Mahoney had a story they ought to hear. The story:

Mahoney had gone to the office of kindly, rumpled Rear Admiral William Oscar Spears for a picture of the Admiral’s son, lost at sea. The Admiral volunteered to call his wife about the picture, but suddenly remembered: “I’ll have to call her later. She’s at the Red Cross giving a blood donation.”

Spears turned back to his work. Mahoney, impressed, asked more questions around the Navy Department. He found that the Admiral had lost two sons since Pearl Harbor.