The Pittsburgh Press (August 10, 1942)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN IRELAND (By Wireless) – Those combined British-American maneuvers a few weeks ago really gave the troops a workout. It was probably the most strenuous performance American soldiers have ever been through.
They were on the go for eight days. They averaged no more than two hours’ sleep a night. Most of them never had their clothes off. They marched 20 to 30 miles a day. They lay down on the ground wherever they stopped, and slept there in their raincoats, regardless of the weather. Often they wouldn’t bivouac until midnight, and by 2 a.m. they would be up and going again.
They said they went through more in one day than they did in the entire duration of the Louisiana maneuvers. A World War officer with them said he never spent two harder days in France than the last two days of these maneuvers.
Some of the boys were toughened and ready for it. Others, such as cooks and clerks, were soft but had to take the gaff with the rest. There was a certain pride in sticking it out, however, and those who had to fall out were few.
Sore feet meant nothing in those maneuvers. When great blisters developed they were just taped up and the men marched on. I have seen dozens of men with their feet still patched up, weeks after the maneuvers. They are sort of proud of their bandages.
Long marches are duck soup for one infantry company. It is commanded by Capt. Bruno Marchi of Fort Dodge, Iowa.
Marchi used to be a track star at the University of Iowa, and he is still mighty good on his feet. Just ask any of his men.
It’s routine with Capt. Marchi to march his company 10 miles in two hours. That’s practically running, when you think of it. The company is known laughingly as Marchi’s Flying Cadets, because of the speed they make across country.
There is one cute story that came out of the maneuvers. It happened in a tank company that had been on the move all night. About 6 a.m. they suddenly came upon a group of Nissen huts. This camp wasn’t on their maps, so they figured they had stumbled on a surprise package to capture. Smoke was coming out of the chimneys, and not a soul was on guard. It was a pushover.
The tanks were stopped. The commander picked the toughest looking of the men, and each took a Tommy gun. They surrounded the camp, two men covering each door of every hut. Then at a signal they stormed the doors and rushed in with their Tommy guns leveled.
And what did they find? They found several hundred ATS girls, just getting out of bed!
It will have to be recorded in the War Department’s annals that for once at least American troops didn’t retire in an orderly manner to a prepared position. They just got the hell out of there, head over heels.
The driver of my Army peep in recent days has been Pvt. Basil Vanschoick, a farm boy from Hillsboro, Wis. We have driven all over Northern Ireland together. He chews tobacco, and has a couple of front teeth out.
Basil doesn’t talk much except in his sleep. The other night he was sleeping near me and all of a sudden he blurted out, in the middle of the night: “The finest woolens you can buy, you know.”
Then a few seconds later he said:
“As the days go by and you shall need a row of dots.”
The next morning we told him about it. He said yes, he talks all the time in his sleep.
Private Vanschoick takes the Army in his stride. He doesn’t especially like it nor especially dislike it. He’s the same about Ireland, and the same about fighting. The only thing he is really determined about is that he’s going back to the farm after it’s all over.
“I don’t want any of that city stuff for mine,” he says.
The peep is a wonderful instrument of locomotion but I wish it had side curtains. With the frequent deluges of Irish mist that occur over here, a car without side curtains is about like a castle without a roof. Several times the rain has driven so torrentially and chillingly that Pvt. Vanschoick and I have stopped under trees and waited.
By Army regulation an enlisted man is not allowed to drive alone in an Army car. There must always be an officer or a sergeant with him. And although I am neither an officer nor a sergeant, and never hope to be, still I do take the place of one, for the peep was assigned to me and I’m its skipper. Unless he wants to mutiny, Pvt. Vanschoick is required to go any place I tell him to go.
One of these days I’m going to tell him to fill up the tank and hit the road for America, and see what happens.
So if you see a couple of bedraggled-looking guys driving up out of the ocean onto Long Island about September, please don’t shoot. It will be Basil and Ernie, home from the sea.