75 years ago
January 31, 1944
Three Hoquiam lads who played together, went to school together, grew up as an inseparable trio and enlisted in the navy, this week are separated.
Two have returned to naval service after brief leaves, but one remains behind as a civilian, mustered out with malaria and shell shock after many months on Guadalcanal.
Louis J. Cyr, Jr., aviation machinist’s mate third class, and a veteran of combat in the New Hebrides, Nes Caledonia, Guadalcanal and New Zealand, received his medical discharge in November.
He is “Joe” of “The Three Stooges” (an appendage of some secret meaning stemming from high school French class). The remainder of the trio are Ralph Major, seaman first class, and Walter Johnson, aviation machinist’s mate second class.
February 1, 1944
“The Musical Battle of the Century,” as publicity men hail it, was scheduled to take place today. The scene: A broadcasting studio. The antagonists: Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.
Crosby, described by the publicists as hero of old-guard swing fans, and Sinatra, swoon-crooning heartthrob of the bobby socks brigade, were matched by the Hollywood victory committee to duel vocally on a radio program called “Command Performance.”
The program is beamed exclusively to the nation’s armed forces overseas, however, so the folks back home won’t get in on the sharps-and-flats fracas — not a note of it.
50 years ago
January 31, 1969
A National Airlines DC8 with 63 persons aboard was diverted to Cuba today by a pistol packing sky pirate.
Flight 44 from San Francisco to Miami with a stop scheduled at Tampa, was off the Louisiana coast when Capt. Charles Leeds radioed the news.
The plane, 11th of the year to be hijacked to Cuba, landed in Havana at 6:58 a.m. EST.
Aboard were 55 passengers and a crew of eight, including stewardess Donna Goldinher, who was grabbed by a hijacker last March 12 and forced to march to the cockpit with a gun at her neck.
“I am diverting to Havana. I have been hijacked,” said Leeds.
February 1, 1969
For the first time in many years, January had few of the usual complaints about drizzles and downpours on the Harbor.
Some 31 inches of snow and freezing temperatures cast the rain in the role of bit actor in a month where it is used to top billing according to the Aberdeen weather station.
The January snow total was about a foot short of the record set in 1916.
The mercury ranged between 17 and 52 degrees, but for one week-long spell, rose above the freezing mark only once.
25 years ago
January 31, 1994
Three Westport men aboard a 42-foot crabber escaped unharmed when the vessel slammed into the North Jetty Saturday night, but the boat is now a total loss, the Coast Guard reported this morning.
Ken Quigley, 29, the skipper of the Trial, and his deckhands, Bret Sinclair and Bill Dyet, both 27, jumped off the grounded vessel about 11:40 and scrambled over the jetty to safety as a Coast Guard helicopter hovered overhead with a spotlight.
February 1, 1994
Plans for a Texaco mini-mart at the corner of Highway 12 and Clemons Road will have to wait until the builder can prove a gas station won’t disrupt traffic.
“It’s becoming more and more congested there all the time,” County Commissioner Bill Pine of Porter said. “I have a concern about whether all the information is out there in traffic counts.”
The commissioners ruled unanimously that the environmental impact statement Bob Worman of Montesano prepared for the project requires more information about traffic impacts.
Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom
