Sampson

Group Expected to Join Sailors Here From Sampson

Soldiers will be allocated to area farms and canneries for harvest work, it was learned unofficially yesterday. With the arrival in Rochester yesterday afternoon of 50 men from the Naval Training Station at Sampson for work in the Quaker Maid Cannery at Brockport, came word from reliable sources that 800 to 1,200 soldiers who will assist farmers and canners in New York State would be allocated to the Western New York area.

The men will receive regular cannery pay. Seventy-five soldiers are expected to report for work at a Medina cannery by the middle of the week. These will be quartered in the new dormitories operated by the cannery with 50 Sampson men who will begin work today. An Albion cannery whose working staff will be augmented today by 50 sailors expects to receive a number of soldiers.

Part of the group of 50 sailors from Sampson Naval Training Station who will aid canneries is shown above as it checked into Hotel Seneca yesterday. They'll go to work today, commuting between here and Brockport. All the men are volunteers.

Approval by the War Department of the release of soldiers from several camps is expected, following certification last Saturday of nearby counties as "labor distress" districts. The soldiers will be used for heavy work in canneries it was said.

The Sampson men, including radiomen, firemen and seamen second class who are being quartered in the Hotel Seneca while awaiting assignment to various schools for further training volunteered to help. They were released from camp by Capt. Harry A. Badt, Sampson Commandant.

They will be transported to and from the cannery by Brockport school buses. They will leave at 6:15 a.m.; receive their meals at the restaurant operated by company employees and return to the city when the day's work is finished.

The Citizens' Committee of Brockport, through a recruiting campaign, obtained 300 part-time and full-time workers for the cannery, but the need for a number of husky men to do heavy work continued.

The men, who will work under the direction of E. P. Linscott, a general foreman, who is busy with his 17th tomato pack, queried the foreman yesterday on plant operations. Enroute to Rochester by bus yesterday, they received a verbal explanation of the canning operations which they will perform today.

Mayor George B. Harmon, head of the Brockport citizens group, lauded Captain Badt for his prompt action. "We are grateful," he said, "for this move which will help meet the food processing shortage of manpower."