Tuesday, October 29, 1940 - First American draftees selected

[Louis]

In the United States... The first draftees are selected by lottery from the Selective Service registrations. In New York, the first person chosen is Yuen Chong Chan.

In Britain... French General Legentilhomme arrives in London to joins the Free French forces.

 

[Louis]

In the United States... The first draftees are selected by lottery from the Selective Service registrations. In New York, the first person chosen is Yuen Chong Chan.

Yuen Chong Chan, most famous draftee, gets in practice to defend his country. At noon October 29, Secretary of War Stimson, blindfolded with a strip of linen cut from the covering of a chair in Independence Hall, put his left hand into a glass bowl whose contents had been stirred by a wooden ladle cut from an Independence Hall rafter, and, after leaving it there for a minute in response to cameramen's shouts of "Hold it!" withdrew from the bowl a small capsule which enclosed a slip of paper. This historic incident, was the start of the gigantic conscription lottery. Honor of holding the first place on the draft list in the biggest city of the land fell, by chance to a serious young Chinese laundryman named Yuen Chong Chan, of 18 Pell St., New York City, who thus became, for 24 hours, the most celebrated military figure in the U.S. Apparently under the impression that a draftee may choose his adversary, he announced that he wanted to fight Japan. Mr. Yuen explained that he was ambitious to be a soldier and that his friends considered him a crack shot with a rifle.

Next day, undismayed by lack of Materiel, Yuen Chong Chan set off to prepare himself for service to his country by knocking over a few ducks in a shooting gallery on Eighth Avenue during his lunch hour. .....