Mr. LADD. Yes; I was very busy, and he had asked me 2 or 3 days prior to this Sunday, and I said, "Well, I am tied up, but maybe I will run over there with you on Sunday morning," and we did, just a few miles over to his home.

Mr. DONOHUE. The agreement, I think, bears the date of the 17th of February, does it not?

Mr. LADD. I think it does. I was looking at it as we were coming down on the train.

Mr. DONOHUE. In 1947?

Mr. LADD. 1946, I believe.

Mr. FINE. What is the date on that agreement? December 17 of 1946, it is.

What day of the week was that, do you know?

Mr. LADD. I think Charlie looked it up and it was on Tuesday. Mr. DONOHUE. Do you remember what month, or the date of what month it was returned from War Assets?

Mr. LADD. It came back just shortly after the trustee sent these letters. You see, there is a letter. I have a copy here that he also sent War Assets, but I did not type that letter.

Mr. DONOHUE. What date do those letters bear?

Mr. LADD. That were mailed to War Assets and the Bunker Hill School?

Mr. DONOHUE. Yes; that was about the time that you first saw this agreement, was it not?

Mr. LADD. Yes, shortly afterward, for it was not more than a couple of weeks until they brought it back and we asked for an accounting in this letter that the trustee sent to the school, and they never answered it.

Mr. BONNER. Sent to what school?

Mr. LADD. Bunker Hill School of Aeronautics. They went by that name. That is the way they received their mail and everything, and to the best of my knowledge I think they were incorporated in the State of Indiana. I think it was a corporation. But getting back to your question, that is, June 7, 1947, and also on June 7, 1947, he sent another letter to War Assets.

Mr. DONOHUE. Would you read the letter that was sent to the War Assets?

Mr. LADD. Yes, sir; I will be glad to.

Mr. DONOHUE. Starting off with the date of it.

Mr. LADD. June 7, 1947. [Reading:]

OFFICE OF EDUCATIONAL AIRCRAFT DISPOSAL DIVISION,

WAR ASSETS ADMINISTRATION.

GENTLEMEN: The Bunker Hill School, Bunker Hill, Ind., desires to be relieved of any accountability for material purchased for educational purposes from the War Assets, and we hereby request that the accountability for this material be transferred from Bunker Hill School, Bunker Hill, Ind., to the Bunker Hill School of Aeronautics, located on the former Bunker Hill Air Base at Bunker Hill, Ind., which is a nonprofit corporation incorporated under the laws of Indiana and has been so held tax-exempt by the United States Treasury Department. The writer would appreciate receiving advice from your office of the Bunker Hill School relief of the accountability of this material. The original agreement was executed on December 17, 1947, by Charles Shepler, my prede

cessor.

Thanking you for your attention to this, we remain,

Yours very truly.

BUNKER HILL SCHOOL,
L. E. SMITH.

I did not help him write that letter. I imagine, when I told him what I thought was going on and helped him with this, that he is probably going over to get his attorney to send this one right down to War Assets, for he did send us a copy of this, but I did not-we had this copy in our files-but I did not help him write this to War Assets. Mr. DONOHUE. Both of those letters were sent after you discovered these crates?

Mr. LADD. Yes; that is right.

Mr. DONOHUE. Of tools and parts bearing the name of the Bunker Hill School?

Mr. LADD. That is right.

Mr. DONOHUE. You say each time that you spoke to Harrah about the labeling of the crates in the name of the Bunker Hill School that he would be very evasive and not answer your question?

Mr. LADD. I would not get any direct answer to my question what

ever.

Mr. DONOHUE. Can you tell the committee whether or not any other parts or equipment were sent in after you sent in that letter?

Mr. LADD. They might have had some on order and in transit, but I do not believe there was much more merchandise arrived there only probably for the next 2 or 3 weeks. To my knowledge, I do not think there was very much more.

Mr. DONOHUE. Did you ever bring to Harrah's attention that you had sent in that letter to the War Assets Administration?

Mr. LADD. No; I did not know that Mr. Smith had sent this one until a few days afterward. He left a copy at our office at the air base. Mr. DONOHUE. After the copy was delivered to you by Smith, did Harrah ever come to you or did Pemberton ever come to you?

Mr. LADD. Never.

Mr. DONOHUE. Asking you for any reason for sending in that letter? Mr. LADD. No; none.

Mr. DONOHUE. You mentioned that when they first presented the proposition of establishing the school; you raised a question about a lease?

Mr. LADD. Absolutely.

Mr. DONOHUE. And you pressed them?

Mr. LADD. Not too hard right at first, by him being a member of the corporation, but we thought, you see, we took over 100 percent there on January 1, 1947. We had their equipment which was coming in, and we thought we would give them a little time to organize. They were telling us about this and that; that they were going to get instructions and get books printed, showing the types of courses and all, and it was going to take so much time. We were rather lenient with them the first few months, and then after that we began to talk pretty insistent about getting a lease there, for we were afraid we would get in trouble with the Navy if we did not get a lease from them.

Mr. DONOHUE. Were any terms for the lease discussed?

Mr. LADD. Well, yes; numerous of them. We had to pin them down. They would never come to us on that, but we would pin them down and tell them we had to get a lease here, for we were violating the Navy's contract and the town of Bunker Hill. I have got letters from them whereby they were after us to get leases. And the Navy was. For we had to get them on the lease basis there. They designated two

big buildings that they wanted, and the terms. The amount of money per month seemed to be agreeable with them, but they would not agree themselves, or their students coming in, abiding by reasonable rules and regulations; and we were not going to just turn the base completely over to them to let people browse around and around the buildings and in and out as they pleased. We had a number of leases written up for their approval. We would talk to them, and they would want this in and this in, and we would have our attorney draw up another set of leases. And we would always have in that one clause there that they or their students or employees must abide by reasonable rules and regulations, which will be very broad.

Mr. DONOHUE. Restricting their personnel to a certain area; is that right?

Mr. LADD. No. They could go any place around the buildings, for their two buildings were scattered there. They'd have to have access to quite a lot of the grounds there.

Mr. DONOHUE. Were there any blueprints presented to you at any time that would indicate how the school was going to be laid out? Mr. LADD. No.

Mr. DONOHUE. Was there any discussion with you or any members of Bunker Hill Corp. relative to how the school was going to be set up? Mr. LADD. After I told them and Mr. Curran told them that we were not interested in the school, investing in their school, we did not discuss very much with them. We'd have to run them down to discuss this lease.

Mr. DONOHUE. But Harrah all of the time was sitting in with the Bunker Hill Corp.?

Mr. LADD. Not very much, not very much, for we sort of sat back for several weeks, thinking he was going to be the fellow that was going to do big things. Well, he never did anything. So, I got busy and took some time out. We got leases from General Motors and from Ford Motor Co. for storage and this and that. I got that myself. And if I had not gotten out and gotten busy we would never have rented any buildings there. We sat down, thinking he was the man that knew how to do things. We were little country fellows there, but we found out he did not take any interest in the thing whatever; that is, in operating the Bunker Hill Corp.

Mr. DONOHUE. All of this material that he got from the War Assets was stored in these two buildings?

Mr. LADD. That is right.

Mr. DONOHUE. That they had rented for a school?

Mr. LADD. Well, they proposed to rent them for the school.

Mr. DONOHUE. And at no time was there any activity carried on by them that would indicate that a school was to be set up; that is, by arranging benches or putting in motors or anything like that to run machinery such as drills and lathes?

Mr. LADD. Well, they kept telling us that those things were hard to get and they'd probably be getting some of those things eventually. Mr. DONOHUE. But they never did?

Mr. LADD. No, no.

Mr. DONOHUE. When did you tell them that they would have to get the stuff off of the base?

Mr. LADD. We began to have some trouble with them, I'd say, within 90 days after our lease took effect.

Mr. DONOHUE. When did your lease take effect?

Mr. LADD. January 1, 1947, for we had to protect the property of the Navy there to the best of our ability, and they were getting in engines and different kinds of airplane parts; and over in the hangar they were washing those in the hangar with gasoline, and there were rags and oil paper lying around on the floor, and crating and cigarette butts here and there. And my partner-he is the general manager-he had caught fellows smoking in there, and he would tell them that could not be allowed any more. I would go over there the next day or two and the same thing was going on. They ignored any rules and regulations that we'd try to set up there for the protection of the Navy's property. Mr. DONOHUE. Then at the end of 90 days you told them that they would have to get some other place?

Mr. LADD. No; we were still hopeful of getting them under our control there to a certain extent; that we could live with them, and we disliked to see them go out, if they had any chance at all of surviving or making, setting up a school there, but we did want to get a lease from them.

Mr. DONOHUE. And when did you tell them to get off the property. Mr. LADD. Well, we began to tell them in about the month of June, and the town of Bunker Hill, whom we have the lease from-I have some letters from them now that I picked out of my files-that started probably about the month of June, demanding of us to eject them from the property unless we could get a suitable lease by a certain date.

Mr. DONOHUE. And you did not get the lease?

Mr. LADD. No; we were unable to.

Mr. DONOHUE. When did they leave the premises?

Mr. LADD. Well, we were ordered and we wanted to anyway; we were unable to arrive at any lease with them-we wanted

Mr. DONOHUE. I mean, the question is, when

Mr. LADD. The ejectment suit was filed the ninth month, twelfth day.

Mr. FINE. September 12 when?

Mr. LADD. No: I will tell you this is when they filed a suit in abatement. It was about August when we really got down to business, trying to get them out of our area then.

Mr. DONOHUE. You had to eject them by virtue of a court order? Mr. LADD. Well, the judge, on account of that being Government property, did not seem to want to render any decision, and they delayed it by suing here. It gives the court announcement here and the abatement, I believe it is called in legal terms, and it looked like it was to be drawn along for quite a while. And the Navy had had inspectors in there and had inspected the property, but they just raised heck with us for permitting these fellows to allow their property in such a condition as it was.

Mr. DONOHUE. They finally left when?

Mr. LADD. They finally, the Navy

Mr. DONOHUE. You can give us the date.

Mr. LADD. Well, right here is the telegram that the Navy sent to him. It says:

You are directed to vacate the naval air station, Bunker Hill, Ind., with removal of all of your property by midnight, December 31, 1947, and full restoration and damages.

It is signed "J. J. Manning, Chief of Bureau of Yards and Docks, Washington, D. C."

Mr. DONOHUE. What was the date of that telegram?

Mr. LADD. That was December 9.

Mr. FINE. When did they get out, finally?

Mr. LADD. They had not made much effort by the last day of the. month, and the Navy extended the time 30 days, if I remember correctly.

Mr. DONOHUE. In other words, they got out about January 30, 1948? Mr. LADD. Yes; approximately that time.

Mr. DONOHUE. Tell me this, what did you observe their personnel doing around these buildings with this equipment that they had received?

Mr. LADD. They were painting it and cleaning it up. I did not bother much around. They were very antagonistic to us, and we could not control them.

Mr. DONOHUE. In other words, they appeared to be dressing it up? Mr. LADD. Yes; they were taking good care of it. I do not know for what purpose. They were really cleaning it up and painting it up nice.

Mr. DONOHUE. That is all.

Mr. BONNER. Mrs. Harden.

Mrs. HARDEN. Mr. Ladd, how many acres compose the Bunker Hill base?

Mr. LADD. 2,121.

Mrs. HARDEN. Did you ever own any of that land?

Mr. LADD. No; never did.

Mrs. HARDEN. Is any of the land leased at this time for agricultural purposes?

Mr. LADD. All that is suitable. That is the only income we have right now to maintain the property for the Navy with. We are responsible for all maintenance cost there. There are approximately 1,400 acres that can be farmed. Some of it is excellent land, and some of it has been destroyed or damaged considerably in building the base.

Mrs. HARDEN. And I should like to ask you for what purpose was the Bunker Hill Corp. organized?

Mr. LADD. Oh, I thought I was doing a wonderful service for my community there. We had more than 300 people working there on the base from our community at one time. And Delco Radio, General Motors plant, and Ford Motor Co., a subsidiary of them, had three buildings, renting the storage, and I was so enthused over doing someing for the community. The first year we operated I took out no salary whatever.

Mr. FINE. Mrs. Harden wants to know what they did, what did your corporation do?

Mr. LADD. What did we do?

Mr. FINE. Yes, what.

Mr. LADD. The Navy moved out on January 1, or 90 days before, and it is our duty to keep up all buildings. If a roof blows off, we have to replace it. We have 400 acres under concrete that we have to keep up and repair, runways and roads and the buildings painted. They gave us the keys. And we keep up 21⁄2 miles of railroad track,

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