The Pittsburgh Press (January 21, 1943)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
A forward airdrome in French North Africa – (Jan. 20)
Everything is temporary around thus airdrome near the front. It is in violent contrast to the fine airports at home and to the permanent stations we have in England.
Gone are the luxurious English lounges, billiard rooms and bar, and the twice daily custom of tea, which are part of every RAF station. Here there is no bar, no tea, no billiards. A few of the troops throw footballs around in the evening for relaxation.
There is no place for the officers to sit down together during their off hours unless they sit on the ground or on empty gasoline cans. The commanding officer’s desk is merely a board laid across four empty wooden crosses.
The supply rooms for rations and plane parts are just little corrals built up of empty gasoline tins filled with sand and laid like bricks. I think the American Army would collapse all over the world without its empty gasoline tins. They’ve become a truer symbol of America than the eagle.
The briefing room for bomber crews is a large tent with maps of enemy territory tacked on a board that is nailed to two posts set in the ground. In front of the board is a little platform made of gasoline tins sprinkled with sand. The crews just stand there and listen to their instructions.
Somehow, it’s not quite the way we picture it from books and movies. In those picturizations, we see only the actual takeoffs – everything else is blotted out of our minds, and the whole field seems to be devoted solely to starting the bombers on their mission.
Actually, the greater portion of the men at this airdrome know nothing about a mission until they see the planes start forming up in the air above. All work goes on as usual. The start of a mission is only another cog in the immense job of the day.
A cover patrol of fighter planes hovers above just in case. When the mission is finally formed, the local fighter bunch comes in and a new batch takes off to go along with the bombers.
Work is routine while they are away, but everybody is watchful when the time means for them to start coming back. It is true that people watch and count as the planes start appearing on the horizon. But this is a useless pastime, for not half a dozen people on the field know exactly how many really are due back. With the air constantly full of planes, and so many circling and waiting and new ships arriving from other fields, it is almost impossible to count correctly the number of planes starting on a mission. Nevertheless, the ground crews try, and they start counting as the planes come home.
There are other things they look for just as intently when the planes return. They look for feathered propellers, and for planes sort of straggling and limping along. They look for returning fighters to peel off and do a victory roll across the field, showing that they’ve shot down a German. When this happens, you hear cheers all over the field.
If any planes fail to return, the news gets around the field by word of mouth in a few hours. People are sorry, but actual grief never shows.
There is never a moment during daylight when there are no planes in the air. The first patrols take off before dawn and the last ones land after dark. All day there is a ceaseless coming and going. New bunches of replacement planes arrive and depart in workhouse manner. Casuals drop in just a few days out of America, England or India. Actually, the air above seems much like Bolling Field at Washington.
It is hard to believe the whole thing was set up with one purpose only – destruction and death. It is just as hard to believe that destruction and death can likewise come to us out of the same blue sky. But as one officer said:
We’ve got to realize it, for, believe me, everything is for keeps now.