Leader of raid on Romania nearly lost his life here
Heroism aboard burning balloon won medal for Gen. Ent
Brig. Gen. Uzal G. Ent, leader of the American raid on Romania’s oil fields yesterday, is a former Pittsburgher and in 1928 almost lost his life in a balloon race from Bettis Field.
He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Cheney Award for his conduct after lightning struck his balloon shortly after the start of the race.
The bolt killed the balloon’s pilot, Lt. Paul Evert. Gen. Ent, then a lieutenant and Lt. Evert’s aide, attempted to revive the pilot and then brought the burning balloon to the ground, despite the fact that his right arm and left leg were paralyzed temporarily by the electric shock.
He said he wasn’t sure Lt. Evert was dead and didn’t want to leave him in the burning balloon.
During another balloon race, he and a companion were caught by a storm and tossed about all night, once catching in a tree and finally being dumped out of their basket when it smashed into a mountain in New York State.
Gen. Ent’s wife is the former Eleanor Marwitz of Pittsburgh. She and their nine-year-old son are now visiting her mother, Mrs. Minnie B. Marwitz, at 419 N Craig St. They were in Florida all winter and, after their visit here, plan to take up residence either in Florida or New York.
Their romance began in Dayton, Ohio, in 1929, the year following the balloon race at Bettis Field. Miss Marwitz, of stage and radio fame, had just completed a season in the Ziegfeld production of Rosalie, in which she was a singing star, and went to Dayton to visit relatives. There she met Lt. Ent.
Held nine decorations
From 1939 to 1942, when the Ents were living in South America, Mrs. Ent kept up singing career by appearing in Red Cross benefit concerts.
Gen. Ent now has a total of nine decorations, including three from Peru and one from Bolivia.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1900, Gen. Ent served as a private and corporal in 1918 and 1919, then entered West Point in June of the latter year. He graduated and was appointed a second lieutenant in the Air Service in June 1924. The following year, he graduated from the Chemical Warfare School at Edgewood Arsenal, and the year after that from the Balloon and Airship School at Scott Field, Illinois.
Specialized on balloons
For years, he specialized in balloon and airship work. He was the pilot of the airship TC-5, which landed on the steamship American Trader while it was under full steam off Ambrose Light in 1928. Next year, he landed the same airship on the Munitions Building in Washington.
It was during this period that he participated in the balloon races. Reports from North Africa indicate that the wing of Gen. Ent’s plane grazed a tree during the Romania raid, which must have seemed like old times to him.
In 1941 and 1942, he served as a senior neutral military observer at the settlement of the Peruvian-Ecuadorian boundary dispute, and early this year was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work there. He was a colonel at the time. Since then, he has been made a brigadier general.
Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, commanding general of all U.S. Army forces in the Middle East, is also a native Pittsburgher. A son of William Denny Brereton and Mrs. Helen Hyde Brereton, he was born here in 1890.