The Pittsburgh Press (December 8, 1943)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Allied HQ, Algiers, Algeria – (by wireless)
The government is scattering a lot of American girls out over the world now to work in government offices.
They are not WACs, but civilians. Their destinations read like an itinerary of Marco Polo. They wear civilian clothes, and everywhere they stop as they fly about the work they create a warmth and a glow among the women-starved men out in the outposts.
We had five girls with us a good part of the way from America to Africa. At all the stops the soldiers, and officers too, would stand and stare, and you could sense them sort of smiling to themselves. Often, they’d wave or whistle, not in a smart-alecky fashion, but just hungry and friendly-like. And the girls would wave back.
A time or two, when we went into Officers’ Clubs at the camps, the girls would be surrounded so quickly and deeply you completely lost sight of them.
Our men on foreign soil miss desperately the companionship of white women. The mere sight of one thrills them. One day in a small South American city I was walking along the crowded sidewalks with two of our female passengers when a couple of soldiers tagged along behind us for blocks and kept saying to me in a friendly fashion:
Congratulations, soldier, you lucky dog. How we envy you.
And at one field, I heard a young officer say to one passenger:
Lady, just stand still a minute and let me stare at you.
Yes, a man without a woman is a sorry spectacle.
Perfect partnership
All the way from America to Algiers I traveled with a young lady from Los Angeles named Mrs. Peggy Pollard. In addition to a pleasant traveling companionship, we both soon saw the advantage of forming ourselves into a sort of team, for we had the perfect combination. I had friends all along the route from previous trips, and Mrs. Pollard was beautiful.
Brother, between the two of us, there wasn’t anything we couldn’t get. If I got invited somewhere, I’d suggest Mrs. Pollard be invited, too. She worked the same principle in reverse. Thus, we traveled over three continents and one ocean like a pair of Oriental potentates. We bask in the rankest sort of special privilege.
We got better quarters than other passengers, we rode special cars instead of buses, we were taken on sightseeing trips and to cocktail parties. People paid us lavish and luxurious attention. I think it’s a great tribute to the tolerance of humankind that the other passengers didn’t get sore at us.
I don’t know what I’m going to do without Mrs. Pollard when I got on from Algiers. If I could only take her to the front with me the soldiers would undoubtedly lay a red carpet through the mud for us. But it’s all over now so goodbye, dear Mrs. Pollard.
Battle of the Hotels
At one big field in Northwest Africa, we fell into the hospitable hands of two very engaging officers – Maj. Charlie Moore of Inglewood, New Jersey, and Capt. David Miller of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. They room together in a hotel where many officers of the field are billeted and it is probably the finest hotel in Africa.
Living there is pretty close to what living would be like in a very fine resort hotel back home. Both these officers have lived in hotels ever since coming to Africa a year ago. They are both doing important vital work, yet they deride and bemoan themselves for the comfort in which they live although neither asked for it, nor was responsible for it.
They call their war, “The Battle of the Hotels.” Both would much rather be a thousand miles closer to the front, in a barn.
Capt. Miller is an unusual character. He is gray-haired, 52, and has a wife and three teenage children, yet when the war came along, he would up everything and went in – and has never been out of a hotel. In the last war, he was overseas 22 months and never once in a hotel. He said:
I liked the last one better.