Many soldiers preparing now for jobs after war
Men in hospitals, at fronts study for work they want to come back to
By Miriam Ottenberg, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Eisenhower’s chief surgeon talks at nurses’ rally here
Brig. Gen. Kenner, now assigned to duty in U.S., traces Nurse Corps’ tradition to earliest days
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OCD’s plasma saving lives on home front
Casualties in two train wrecks and hotel fire get treatment
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Navy’s Hellcat proves worth in first tests
Newest fighter plane is called better than Japs’ Zero
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Yank prisoners new Red Cross kits
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Cronkite: Fall of Italy’s widens Allied ‘blitz’ powers
Hitler suffers his biggest setback in aerial battle of Europe
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
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Kirkpatrick: Italians told, ‘Rise against Germans now’
Stunned enemy must be crushed, radio says
By Helen Kirkpatrick
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Allied thrust in Asia is now believed near
Another quick drive into Europe also viewed as planned
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Ernie Pyle has returned to the United States for a much-needed rest after 14 months in Europe and Africa. This column was written before his departure from Sicily.
Somewhere in Sicily, Italy – (by wireless)
I don’t know what it is that impels some men, either in peace or in wartime, to extend themselves beyond all expectation, or what holds other men back to do just as little as possible. In any group of soldiers, you’ll find both kinds.
The work of combat engineers usually comes in spurts, and it is so terribly vital when it does come, that the percentage of fast workers is probably higher than in most other branches.
On the Point Calava road crater job there were two men I couldn’t take my eyes off. They worked like demons. Both were corporals and had little to gain by their extraordinary labors, except maybe some slight future promotion. And I doubt that’s what drove them.
These two men were Gordon Uttech, of Merrill, Wisconsin, and Alvin Tolliver, of Alamosa, Colorado. Both were air-compressor operators and rock drillers. Uttech worked all night, and when the night shift was relieved for breakfast, he refused to go. He worked on throughout the day without sleep and in the final hours of the job, he went down under the frail bridge to check the sag and strain, as heavier and heavier vehicles passed over it.
Never cease, never rest
Tolliver, too, worked without ceasing, never resting, never even stopping to wipe off the sweat that made his stripped body look as though it were coated with olive oil. I never saw him stop once throughout the day. He seemed to work without instruction from anybody, knowing what jobs to do and doing them alone. He rasseled the great chattering jackhammers into the rock. He spread and rewound his air hose. He changed drills. He regulated his compressor. He drove eye-hooks into the rock, chopped down big planks to fit the rocky ledge he’d created.
I couldn’t help being proud of those men, who gave more than was asked.
Before ending this series on the engineers, I’d like to mention a few of the officers – for after all, the poor officers deserve some credit once in a while.
The whole battalion, known as the 10th Engineers of the 3rd Division, is commanded by Lt. Col. Leonard Bingham. He is a Regular Army man and therefore his home is wherever he is, but his wife lives in St. Paul, at 1480 Fairmount Ave., so he calls that home.
We usually picture Regular Army officers cut in a harsh and rigid cast, but that has not been my experience. Over here, I’ve found them to be as human as anybody else and the closer you get to the front, the finer they seem to be.
Col. Bingham, for instance, worked all night along with the rest, and he’s the one who has to take it from the division staff officers who want a hole bridged in two hours instead of 24. But he never got cross nor raised his voice.
Still digging for oil
The commander of the company I was with is Lt. Edwin Swift, of Rocky Ford, Colorado. Just before the war, he spent two years in Venezuela with Standard Oil. He hasn’t discovered oil over here yet, but some German-blown holes he’s filled were almost deep enough to hit oil.
Lt. Robert Springmeyer is from Provo, Utah. He’s an engineer by profession and a recent father. When he got the parental news, he somehow managed to buy a box of cigars, but he ran out of recipients when the box was about half gone. So now, after a long grueling job, he shaves, takes a helmet bath and then sits down against a tree and lights a big gift cigar in his own honor, the rascal.
Lt. Gilmore Reid is from 846 North Hamilton, Indianapolis. His dad runs the Purity Cone & Chip Company, which makes potato chips. Young Reid is an artist and also a railroad hobbyist. He once did a painting of a freight train at a small Midwestern station, and when he got word recently that it had been printed in color in a railroad magazine, he felt he’d practically reached the zenith of his heart’s desire.
That’s all on the Engineers. If you wake up some morning and find that the Germans have blown a big hole in your backyard, or boobytrapped your refrigerator, just give us a ring and we’ll be right over with a bulldozer and some dynamite, and fix you up.
HELP WANTED
The Army Corps of Engineers has asked the Press to publish the following request with Ernie Pyle’s column.
One hundred thousand men with construction skills are needed urgently for overseas service with the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army, to do the kind of work described by Ernie Pyle in this series on the work of the engineers.
Construction men who want to build and fight with the Army Engineers should go to any Army recruiting station or any office of the Corps of Engineers. In Pittsburgh, the Army recruiting station is in the Old Post Office Building and the Engineers Corps is on the 9th Floor, New Post Office.
Maneuver in Channel –
Invasion fleet sails in sight of the Germans
Huge convoy practices off French coast, fails to draw enemy fire
By Collie Small, United Press staff writer
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Board refuses to draft dads; U.S. ousts it
House committee to investigate action by Selective Service
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