Armchair strategists learn about problems of warfare
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The Pittsburgh Press (August 4, 1942)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (By Wireless) – Before I start in on the Army camps, let me give you some idea of what Belfast is like.
There are no Army camps here, but the soldiers come here on leave. Nearly every American soldier in Northern Ireland has been in Belfast at some time or other.
This is a city of half a million. There has always been a rivalry between Belfast and Dublin as to which is the bigger.
Belfast is a busy industrial place, surrounded by hills. By driving three or four miles out you can look right down on the city.
There is still lots of traffic in the streets. They have awkward-looking double-decker trolleys here that stack up in long lines of congested traffic just as the trolleys do in Washington.
These trolleys are so tall and topheavy that if you sit in the extreme front or back on the top deck you swing up and down as if you were on a teeter-totter. You almost get seasick.
Belfast looks like a city at war. Barrage balloons fly overhead. British and American Army cars form a sizable portion of the traffic. Uniforms are everywhere.
The newspapers are thin – four pages. Store windows are either beaverboarded up, with a tiny show window in the center, or criss-crossed with tape in fancy designs. The clothing on display has signs telling how many coupons are necessary to buy it.
A few autos have those fantastic gas bags on the roof to supply fuel. Brick shelters line the streets, and more are still going up.
Downtown there are huge concrete water tanks for firefighting in some future blitz. The tanks are shoulder high and sometimes as big as a quarter of a block square. They have signs around saying, “Static water.”
Big steel water pipes run along the curbs. These were hastily laid to provide extra firefighting facilities.
Belfast had its blitzing a year ago Easter. It was really surprised. And what a pasting this place had! Right downtown entire blocks are so completely blank they are used now as parking lots or for water tanks or are just standing vacant.
The clean-up job has been so perfect – shattered walls pulled down, holes patched up, rubble carried away – that I really believe the average American soldier seeing his first bomb damage doesn’t get the full significance of it.
Belfast sidewalks are so crowded you can hardly walk sometimes. A new American correspondent said it was as bad as Times Square.
Everybody is working. Prices are high. There aren’t many good places to eat, and even at these you have to get there early, for the best dishes are soon gone. It’s a restricted diet that you get over here, but there is certainly enough, though the Army eats much better than the civilians.
Pedestrians pay absolutely no attention to the lights or the traffic. People jaywalk in the middle of a block without a single sidewalk glance. It’s the worst city for driving that I’ve ever been in.
There are no shoeshine boys or stands in Belfast. An entrepreneur could clean up a small fortune starting a string of shoeshine stands for Americans.
I can’t verify it, but I heard the other day that a Belfast man recently started a pressing shop and within three weeks was so overwhelmed with trade that he just gave up and went out of business.
The Americans have been eager to learn the history and legends of the country around them. It is almost impossible to buy an Irish history – the Americans have bought them all.
Another thing I’ve noticed, especially among soldiers on leave, is that they go for the children. They’ve already got half the kids of Northern Ireland hopelessly spoiled by giving them pennies. In the parks on a Sunday you see a soldier swinging a kid on his foot, or playing catch. Irish people have mentioned to me many times how impressed they were with the way the Yanks take to the children.
A civilian visitor like myself has to spend at least a day getting his ration card. Then there is a long trolley ride to a police station where he registers as an alien. My ration card hasn’t been touched yet and probably won’t be. The hotels and restaurants seldom bother to ask for coupons.
When I registered, the police sent to London for my little police book that I left on file there more than a year ago. It has just arrived in Belfast. A police sergeant brought it to my room, with smiles and handshakes. I had never supposed I would see that little book again.
Although the red tape involved in so much registering is tiresome, the Ulster officials have been without exception friendly and pleasant, so I haven’t minded.
My official papers consist of an American passport, an Army correspondent’s card, a certificate of inoculations, a British registration card, a food ration book, a Ministry of Information pass, a police booklet and a card exempting me from the alien curfew laws.
All this requires a huge black wallet almost as big as I am. And also, since I’m damned rich, I always carry my money in gold doubloons. The whole thing makes my right shoulder sag down about three inches as though it were crippled.