Roving Reporter, Ernie Pyle

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Ernie Pyle and ‘That Girl’ are rewed by proxy

He’s in Africa; she’s in New Mexico as ceremony is performed

“That Girl” and Ernie Pyle were remarried yesterday in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The marriage was by proxy.

Ernie was at the front with U.S. forces in Africa when the ceremony occurred. His former (and now his present) wife, was in Albuquerque.

Ernie – roaming reporter for the Pittsburgh Press and many other newspapers – has been writing from Africa dispatches which have attracted worldwide attention.

Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, his former wife has been working for the government.

Traveled world together

For many years they had traveled around the country and the world, and in Ernie’s columns she had often been mentioned as “That Girl.” Then came a divorce.

The Pyles had a home in Albuquerque. You may remember Ernie’s columns about how it was built, and how he took time off to build a fence around the yard. It was the only home the Pyles had had for years – because Ernie’s job was to travel, and they never lit long enough to have a regular address.

Divorced last April

Ernie and his wife, Geraldine Siebolds Pyle, were divorced last April.

The marriage was performed by Judge Neil McNerney, E. H. Shaffer, editor of the Albuquerque Tribune and close friend of Mr. Pyle, acted as Mr. Pyle’s agent through authority granted by the judge advocate of the Army in North Africa.

And hundreds of newspapermen who know Ernie and Gerrie – including a whole host of our paper – offer congratulations. And are happy.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 12, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

A forward Tunisian airdrome – (March 11)
Everything around a fighter-bomber airdrome is important, but I know of nothing more important than the repair section. It’s vastly different from airplane shops or garages back home, where nothing more than a little inconvenience resulted from the long layup of a plane or car. Out here there are just so many planes. With us and Germany teeter-tottering for air superiority over Africa, every single one is as precious as though it were made of gold. Every plane out of action is temporarily the same as a plane destroyed.

It is the job of the repair section to take the shot-up planes and get them back into the air a little faster than is humanly possible. And that is what they are doing.

At our desert airdrome this section is in charge of Maj. Charles E. Coverley, of Palo Alto, California. His nickname is “Erk,” and he was one of my fellow travelers from England.

His right arm is a quiet mechanical genius named Walter Goodwin, of Grove City, Pennsylvania – a Regular Army sergeant, just promoted on the field to warrant officer. The men worship him and every officer on the field accepts his judgment on plane damage as final.

It’s a crazy idea, but it works

The repair section operates under a theory that seems outlandish after coming from the peacetime business world. Its motto is to give away everything it can. Instead of hoarding their supplies and yelling that they’re snowed-under with work, they go around the field accepting every job imaginable, fulfilling every pilot’s request, donating from their precious small stock of spare parts to any line mechanic that asks for something. For only by doing it that way do planes get back into the air a few hours sooner.

In the repair section are 250 master craftsmen. They are happy and sincere and proud. I’ve never seen greater willingness to work beyond all requirements than these men show.

Let me give you an example of how the section works. After a recent little to-do with the enemy, 14 of our planes were found to be damaged. Some needed only skin patches; others had washtub holes through the wings and were almost rebuilding jobs. Maj. Coverley and the squadron engineers surveyed the situation all morning, driving in a jeep from one plane to another. I rode with them, and when noon came and not a plane had been moved over to the repair area, I thought to myself this is a mighty slow way to win a war. But I changed my mind a little later.

It takes that long to estimate all the damage, plan out your program, distribute your men and machines over the huge field, and get things rolling. But once rolling…

Two months’ work in 3 days

Two days later I checked on their progress. Five of those wrecked planes were ready for missions that first evening. Three more were delivered the following day. On the third day four more were just about finished. That made 12. The other two had been turned into salvage, for spare parts.

Under peacetime conditions at home, it would have taken perhaps two months even in the finest shops to get all those planes back into the air. But here they were fighting again within three days. You can do the impossible when you have to.

This field operates with a dearth of spare parts, as probably do all our fields at the far ends of the earth. So, the field provides its own spare parts by scrapping the most badly damaged planes, and using the good parts that are left. This happens to about one of every 15 planes that are shot up. These condemned planes are towed to the engineering section, and there they gradually disappear. Finally, they are skeletons – immobile, pathetic, skeletons, picked bare by the scavenging mechanics.

They hope inspectors never come

These salvage planes are nicknamed “hangar queens.” Five of them are sitting on the line now. As you know, every bomber has a name painted on its nose. One of these hangar queens is called Fertile Myrtle. Another is Special Delivery. And a third is Little Eva, which happens also to be the nickname of a friend of mine in Albuquerque.

The Little Eva of Albuquerque spends her life raising flowers and being nice to other people; the Little Eva of Africa has given her life that other planes may fly on to help end the war.

You’d be touched by the sight of the repair shops here. All plane work is done right outdoors.

The only shops are tents where small machine work is done. The tents are three-sided, with one end open. The floor is sand. When the wind blows the men have to wear goggles. Beside every tent, almost within one-jump distance, is a deep slit trench to dive into when the enemy bombers come. Theirs is real war work, and you can’t say they’re much safer than the airmen themselves, for they are subject to frequent bombing.

They say their main hope is that no experts from the factories back home show up to look things over. The experts would tell them a broken wing can’t be fixed this way; a shattered landing gear can’t be fixed that way. But these birds know damned well it can be, for they’re doing it.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 13, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

A forward Tunisian airdrome – (March 12)
You may remember my writing last summer about a bunch of American fighter pilots training in Ireland. They were the first fliers to arrive in Ireland, and their comment on the Irish weather was:

When you can see the hills, it’s going to rain; when you can’t see the hills, it’s raining.

Well, I’ve just smacked into this same bunch down here in Africa. They’ve sure been through the mill in the past six months. Already one squadron is veteran enough that some are due to go home soon, and they’ve all been moved back to take a rest.

For five weeks, they lived and fought in a special kind of hell on the Tunisian front. Their field was bombed on an average of every two hours. The pilots took to the air at a moment’s notice, several times a day. They averaged between four and five hors in the air daily, and practically all of it was fighting time.

They started with 21 planes and 22 pilots. They lost six planes and three pilots. But on their scoreboard, they are credited with 11 victories, two probables, and 14 damaged.

Plane is junk; pilot unhurt

They had enough thriller-diller experiences to fill a book. Lt. Ed Boughton of New York had a typical one. His plane was shot all to pieces and the glass canopy that shuts him into the seat was damaged so he couldn’t get it open. Consequently, he couldn’t jump, and simply had to land the plane or die.

Miraculously, he got it back to the field and crash-landed it. The plane was nothing but junk – Lt. Boughton wasn’t hurt. When they finally got him out, they discovered that the jammed canopy had probably saved his life. For his parachutes was shot half away, and if he’d jumped, he would have fallen like a plummet.

The squadron commander is Maj. James S. Coward of Erwin, Tennessee. Lt. Col. Graham West of Portland, Oregon, is the executive officer of the whole group, but spent the entire time at the front with this one squadron. He is still with them, seeing that they rest as hard as they fought.

West’s nickname is “Windy.” He and Jim Coward are typical of the Air forces. They are both young, both extremely pleasant to be around, both high in rank for their age. When I saw “Windy” West last July in Ireland he was a captain. A few moments out to denote the passage of time, and he shows up in Africa as a lieutenant colonel.

West is a black-haired, black-mustached fellow who could easily be called “dashing,” although he’d no doubt resent it. His clothes are always spick-and-span, and so is his mustache. He plays good poker and is always hurrying somewhere. He has been in the Army eight years, and if the Army hadn’t got him, the theater should have.

I went into his room one morning. He was standing in the middle of the floor, drinking a cup of coffee he had brewed on his own little French burner. He was fully dressed on the upper half – shirt, tie, flying jacket and everything.

A Capt. Kidd of the air

But on the lower half he had nothing but shorts and leather boots. Jaunty flying boots that flared at the top. He was a picture of Capt. Kidd – a modern Capt. Kidd of the air.

When they were at the front everybody had to live out in the open. It was wet and cold at the start, wet and cold at the end.

The ground crew of 85 men really went through hell. For they were bombed by day, miserably wet and cold by night, and constantly overworked. When the pilots flew their Spitfires back to a desert airdrome for their much-deserved rest, their main concern was for their ground crews, who had been left up front to care for the replacement squadron.

I heard at least a half a dozen pilots say:

We’re all right. We can use the rest, but we’re not in bad shape. It’s those ground men that really need it and deserve it.

So “Windy” West went to work, and a few days later six big transports flying in formation landed at our field, and out of them climbed the 85 weary ground men. Replacements had arrived for them. They have begun their rest. And all’s well that ends well.

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Cool story, plane is junk, Pilot walks away is the survivor mindset. Never sacrifice yourself to rescue a plane :wink:

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 15, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

A forward Tunisian airdrome – (March 14)
There was one bunch that was die most traveled squadron of American Flying Fortress crews in existence. The guys were such confirmed sightseers they all wanted to go into die tourist business when the war is over.

This squadron actually took its present formation in India last spring, from crews that already had fought on several fronts. For nearly a year now it has been shifted hither and yon like the thistle. It is still subject to striking out for some weird new place before dawn tomorrow. Here is where these men have fought – the Philippines, Java, Australia, Burma, China, India, Palestine, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Tripoli, and Tunisia.

Some of them started out a year ago by flying across the Pacific, and if they can just fight their way across the Atlantic now, they’ll have been around the world. And that isn’t just a dream either, for some of them have so many missions under their belts they’ll undoubtedly get to go home soon.

In Burma the squadron was based only 60 miles from the Japs. In India they lived through the dreadful summer heat that killed one man and put 15 out of 150 of them in the hospital with heat prostration. But through it all they kept sightseeing.

They like Palestine first

They’re authorities on the Holy Land. They’ve seen the pyramids of Egypt and the Taj Mahal of India. They’ve been to such places as Cyprus, Syria, and Lebanon. They’ve lived in luxury in India, with half a dozen servants apiece, and they’ve lived on the ground under tents in the midst of suffocating sandstorms.

Of all the places they’ve been, they like Palestine best. When they start talking about Palestine you can’t get them stopped. They say it’s just like California – fresh and green and strictly up-to-date. They say the most modern hotels in the world are there.

They’ve been through so much heat that the chill of North Africa made them suffer badly. Their losses have been heavy, but they’ve wreaked such devastation they’ve lost track of the figures. The total of shipping they’ve sunk got beyond them in October, when they were operating over the Mediterranean out of Egypt.

They’ve bombed Greece, Crete, and the Dodecanese Islands. They have the credit for stopping Rommel’s supply lines just before the British 8th Army started its drive last fall. They say the German flak thrown up over Tobruk and Benghazi was the most deadly they’ve ever known, even surpassing the hail of metal that floats above Bizerte.

The leader of this squadron is Capt. J. B. Holst, of Savannah, Georgia. The boys say that practically the entire population of Savannah went into the Air Force is right here on this front now. Lt. Donald Wilder, one of the squadron’s bombardiers, rattled off at least a dozen Savannah boys he’d met here since arriving from Egypt.

Lt. Clarence E. Summers, of Lincoln, Nebraska, says that if all die Savannah boys are here, then apparently all the Phi Gam fraternity members are too. He was eating the other night with six fliers he hadn’t known before, and five of them turned out to be Phi Gams.

Some of the navigators on these well-traveled ships had navigated as much as 200,000 miles since they left home. They’ve already been on missions far beyond the total that might eventually be set up for “posting” our flying crews for a rest.

Monkey flies with them

Probably the oldest and most experienced pilot in the squadron is Capt. James Anderson, of Dahlonega, Georgia. He has 35 missions under his belt – not little short missions, but mostly 10-hour ones. Lt. Grady H. Jones, of Bremen, Georgia, his navigator, has been on 37 missions. That’s far more than the bomber boys who came from England have made.

This much-traveled outfit found the going not too tough here over Tunisia. They say:

This is the first time in our whole year’s action we’ve ever had fighter escorts. Fighters are a luxury to us.

For an international touch, they have a pet monkey. Sgt. Pittard of Athens, Georgia, got it in India, and it has flown all the way with them. It has 300 flying hours to its credit.

It just wanders around the plane during flight, making itself at home. When they get high where it gets cold, the monkey burrows itself between two parachute cushions to keep warm. If somebody comes along and lifts one cushion, the monkey frowns and squeals and motions for them to put the cushion back and go away.

The monkey is smart. She can tell Americans from Englishmen, Arabs, French or Indians. She doesn’t like anybody but Americans. I’m an American but she better not start to like me. I know all about monkeys, and I detest them. Even heroic monkeys.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 16, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Algiers, Algeria – (March 15)
The staff of the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, now being published in Africa, as well as in England, is probably the most compact little family among all our troops abroad. By sticking together and using their noodles, they’ve just about whipped the miseries of African life.

There are 18 of them. Their big boss is Lt. Col. Egbert White, a gray-haired, lovable man who speaks quietly and makes sure that the boys under him are well cared for. Col. White, incidentally, spent a week at the front recently, wandered around until he got behind the German lines, and got himself shot at.

The actual working editor of Stars and Stripes in Africa is Lt. Bob Neville, who was promoted recently from sergeant. Like all others who have been commissioned in the field, he’s had a terrible time getting himself an officer’s uniform. Col. White gave him a blouse, which fits perfectly. A correspondent gave him a cap. He bought a pair of pants from another officer. He picked up his bars here, there, and everywhere. He cut the stripes off his overcoat and pretends it’s from Burberry’s. But, as somebody has already said, the rules at the front are pretty elastic, and how you look doesn’t matter much.

The Stars and Stripes has its editorial offices in the Red Cross building, a beautiful brand-new structure of six stories in downtown Algiers. It’s just as modem as New York, except the acoustics engineer was insane, and if you drop a pin on the first floor, it sounds on the fifth floor like New Year’s Eve in a boiler shop.

They’ve licked the cold too

The staff of the Stars and Stripes works and lives in this building. On the top floor, they have a huge front room, which serves as both dormitory and clubroom. At first, they were sleeping on the hard tile floor. Later, the Red Cross dug up French iron cots for them, so now they’re almost as comfortable as at home.

They have big steel cupboards to use as shelves, and a large table where they write letters and play cards. There’s always a huge basket of tangerines sitting on the table. The windows are blackened out so they can have lights at night. They’ve bought an oil stove, so they have the unspeakable winter climate whipped and tied.

A dozen of the staff write and edit the paper, half a dozen do the mechanical work. They have made an arrangement with a local newspaper for using its composing room. But the American soldiers do all their own mechanical work.

There are four linotype operators on the staff. The boss is Pvt. Irving Levinson, of Stamford, Connecticut. He is a good-natured genius at getting work done in a foreign country.

He has to get out a paper in a French composing room in which not a soul speaks English, and Irv speaks not a word of French. But his native good humor works so well that within two weeks all the French printers were addressing him by the familiar “tu,” they were having him out to their homes for dinner, and the paper was coming out regularly.

Pvt. Wentzel has permanent job

Two of the other lino operators were Pfc. William Gigente, of Brooklyn, and Cpl. Edward Roseman, of Pleasantville, New Jersey. The fourth is Pvt. Jack Wentzel of Philadelphia, and his is the funniest case of all. He hasn’t run a linotype since he joined the staff of Stars and Stripes. He’s been too busy cooking.

Pvt. Wentzel never cooked a meal in his life, outside of helping his mother a little when he was a kid. But the Stars and Stripes decided to set up its own mess right in its own building, and by drawing straws or something. Pvt. Wentzel became the cook.

Before many meals passed, the staff discovered they had a culinary wizard in their midst. Wentzel sort of liked it himself. So, by acclamation they made him permanent cook.

Now the three other linotype operators work overtime, doing his composing-room work for him, so he can remain as cook. As they say, it isn’t quite in line with union rules, but right now they don’t happen to be under union jurisdiction.

At any rate, the staff contributes to the mess fund out of their own pockets, for various local delicacies in addition to the Regular Army rations. So, they wind up with what is unquestionably the best Army mess in the Algiers area. The food is so good that Lt. Neville and Capt. Harry Harchar, the circulation manager, who are supposed to eat at some officers’ mess, eat most of their meals with the men instead.

The whole shebang is about the nearest thing in spirit to a genuine newspaper office back home that I can conceive of.

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WELL… youtube made the song private.

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Well crap, here’s another link :slight_smile:

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Lol, cool video clip

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 17, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

In North Africa –
The Arab kids that swarm the roads around the Army camps and nearby villages are a friendly bunch.

It takes them only a few hours to learn the worldwide habit of begging from Americans. I’ll bet our soldiers aren’t two days in a new place until every kid in town is able to say in English “chewing gum, chocolate, cigarette, goodbye, okay.” They pester you to death for these tidbits, and the soldiers keep giving them away as long as they have any.

The Arab kids seem to have more sense than the pestering child-natives of many countries. Instead of being dumb and surly, they have a nice spark of life about them. If you say you have no chewing gum and smile at them, they’ll smile back and then stand around good-naturedly just smiling at you. Their favorite word is “okay.” Even some of the grownups have adopted it. They yell it at every passing American. You can’t walk down the road nowadays without being walled in by a surging melody of hundreds of “okays” coming at you from all sides.

Once in a while you see a light-skinned, clean-gowned, almost sheik-like Arab. But mostly their clothes are unwashed, and their long gowns an unbelievable mass of patches.

At first the Arabs were allowed to roam the airdromes, and they helped the crews fill the planes’ big tanks from the countless five-gallon tins.

There are quite a few carriages for hire in the desert towns and soldiers take rides in lieu of anything better to do. If I were an Arab, I know how I’d make a small fortune.

Passing up easy money

I’d get about 10 camels, and rent them out to soldiers to take rides on. I’d also get a camera and take pictures of soldiers on camelback, and sell them for 100 francs apiece. Apparently, no Arab has thought of it, but somebody is passing up an opportunity of making about 10,000 bucks awfully easily.

The horse carriages are fancy. The driver sits on a high box up front and is often dressed in bright clothes. One of these carriages the other evening provided the funniest sight I’ve seen since leaving America. It was just before dusk and the air-raid signal swept across our airdrome by dinner bell and rifle shot. I was standing way out on the field, when suddenly there came dashing out from behind the palm trees one of these Arab carriages.

The driver had brought some soldiers to the field, had heard the alarm and being touchy about raids, as Arabs are, had decided to get the hell out of there in a hurry.

Currier & Ives touch

He was standing up in his box, coattails flying, whipping his horses for all he was worth. The team was in a dead run. The buggy was bouncing and swaying over the rough desert trail. The horses were going so hard their bodies were stretched out, their flying feet almost level with their noses, and one was a little ahead of the other, just as on the racetrack.

With the carriage’s red wheels and the driver’s red coat for color, the scene looked exactly like a Currier & Ives print. The poor, frightened man’s pathetic hurry was so comical that we all stopped and laughed till he was out of sight, still going like mad.

Queer little incidents happen in war. Mechanics on the Flying Fortresses kept discovering empty machine-gun shells in the engine nacelles. Where they came from was a mystery. Finally, it dawned on somebody. Planes were dumping the empties in midair after shooting them, and they were being carried back by the slipstream, right through the propellers of the following planes, and lodging in the nacelles. You’d think it would damage the propellers, but apparently it doesn’t.

Gunner ‘wounded’ in pants pocket

And speaking of freaks, a Fortress gunner came home the other day with the corner of his pants pocket torn, apparently by a piece of flak, although it must have been fairly spent, for he didn’t know when it hit. Later, he put his hand in his pocket and discovered the metal fragment nestling there right in his pocket.

Practically all of our soldiers in North Africa have slept on the ground ever since they got here. The other day, I overheard one boy tell about going to Algiers on leave, and sleeping all night in a hotel bed. He said:

I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning with a splitting headache, just because the damn bed was so soft and I never did get back to sleep.

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Great song too. If I were in a desert environment (I have, a few times), that’d be the first song I’d sing. :joy:

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Lol, I could sing. Today The Netherlands was hit by Sahara sand. The cars have yellow dust on them.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 18, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

In North Africa –
The other night I met Lt. Col. William Clark, a great, tall, gaunt man from Princeton, New Jersey. Since the war started, he has been in Australia, Africa, and twice in England. He was in France in the last war, and personally I think he‘s having the time of his life in this one. Col. Clark is a bigshot back home. He’s judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. He’s the guy who declared the Prohibition Amendment unconstitutional. It’s beyond his powers, however, to create much drinkin’ likker in this part of the world.

Judge Clark is liaison officer with the British Army in Tunisia, right up where everything is hottest. He asked me if I’d put his name in the paper so his family would know he was all right. I said sure, and asked him what he wanted me to say about him.

He said:

Oh, just say you met the damned old fool.

The average American soldier has been without eggs for a long time, and I for one can testify that we miss them very much. The problem has been alleviated somewhat here on the desert. It seems the Arabs have eggs, so we go around and buy them up. We foolish Americans have already raised the price to five francs apiece (about seven cents), but what do we care? Everybody has too much money anyhow, and when you reach our state, an egg is practically golden.

Two egg orgies in a week

I’ve been on two egg orgies within a week. One night Maj. Austin Berry, of Belding, Michigan, bought 29 eggs from an Arab. Maj. Berry is a young squadron leader, and he has an appetite. We took the eggs to an Army kitchen and had them scrambled. Then Maj. Charles E. Coverley, Capt. Jack Traylor, Maj. Berry and myself ate all 29 eggs at one sitting, with nothing else whatever to go with them. That’s an average of better than seven eggs apiece. True, I woke up at 2 a.m. with a historic stomach-ache, but what of it?

Undeterred, I tried it again three days later. Two of my Flying Fortress friends came past about 11 in the morning, and we went to the village market and scoured around sort of speakeasy-like until we found a guy with some eggs. We bought two dozen.

My fellow gourmands were Lt. Bill Cody, of 1001 Oakwood Ave., Wilmette, Illinois, a bomber pilot, and Lt. Bob Wollard, of Clovis, New Mexico, a bombardier. We had the cook hard-boil them and then we went to my quarters and gorged ourselves. The three of us ate 24 eggs and 20 tangerines in half an hour flat. I’m getting this all down on paper quickly before the spasms set in.

Way back in Oran, a soldier was telling me a funny experience he had. He was WO Luke Corrigan, of 816 Hemlock St., Scranton, Pennsylvania. It seems that a large bunch of American nurses were headed for the front and had to be outfitted in short order.

He meets Scranton neighbor

Now Corrigan is in charge of one of the Army’s big warehouses, so it was his job to outfit the nurses. But Army warehouses, it seems, don’t carry such things as slips, step-ins, brassieres, and what not. So, Corrigan had to get himself an interpreter and go blushing all over Oran buying up dozens of those feminine items.

He completed his mission, and dashed to the train just before departure time. One nurse saw what he had, and grabbed at a box. Then others grabbed. The boxes flew open, and the first thing Corrigan knew he looked like a Christmas tree very much bedecked with panties, undies, and other pink unmentionables. He was very ill at ease. And just at that moment, he heard a familiar voice saying:

Well, Luke, I’ll have to write home and tell your mother how you’re fighting the war.

He turned around and it was a Scranton girl who lives just a few blocks from him at home. Her name was Helen Jeffers and she was a nurse too. Luke has been in the Army two years and in all that time Helen Jeffers is the only person from home he’s ever run into. And she had to find him like that.

All ain’t fair in peace or war.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 19, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

North Africa –
We had hardly got off the ground when a mechanic came back and said the pilot wanted me to come up front.

So, I crawled over a huge stack of boxes, bundles, spare tires and bedding rolls lashed to the floor of the plane, and worked any way up into the pilot’s compartment. The co-pilot’s seat was empty. The captain motioned me into it.

He said:

I thought you might like to see how it looks from up here.

And so, for the next hour and a half, I had the unusual privilege of seeing about 200 miles of Africa from the front of an airplane, up where the view is worth $8.80 a seat.

We were in what the Army calls a C-47, but which flying people at home know as the Douglas DC-3, which all laymen know as one of the great silver airliners that ply all the airlines of America in peacetime – and even today, I suppose. But over here they’re no longer silver; they’re a drab brown, and covered with mud at that. The soft easy seats are gone; on each side is just a long tin bench, with pan-like depressions for parachutists to sit on wearing their chutes.

No longer is there a carpet on the floor, and a hostess at the back. Now the bare floor is covered with mud, and the hostess becomes a sergeant who hasn’t shaved for two weeks.

Airliners absolutely wonderful

For today these once luxurious airliners are the workhorses of war. They are absolutely wonderful. They are making a saga for themselves over here. They are flying anywhere, at any time, doing impossible jobs under impossible conditions.

They run a daily schedule between all our big headquarters in North Africa. They run in big fleets carrying supplies and men right to the front. They carry everything from jeeps to generals. They pay little attention to danger, and little more to weather. They are doing in a way what the spectacular TACA airline did in the jungles of Central America.

These C-47s are over here by the hundred. Their pilots are sometimes looked upon patronizingly by the combat fliers, but it’s an unfair attitude and they sure have the acclaim of everybody else.

In the last few years, I had got to the point, after 15 years of flying, where I wouldn’t get into a plane unless it was on one of the regularly-scheduled airlines. Yet today I climb in with these fellows and flew around over the mountains and deserts of a strange continent with almost the same feeling of safety I used to have on the airlines.

My skipper on this special trip was Capt. Bill Lively, from Birmingham, Alabama. He already has 1,100 hours in the air, which is a lot for a young Army pilot. He says they used to fly real low over here, just for fun. But the Arabs got to throwing rocks and shooting at them, so now they keep at a respectable altitude.

Ours was the lead plane of a formation of three Douglases, with two Spitfires as escort. The Douglases flew very close together, and the Spitfires ranged above and to the side of us, sometimes crossing over and wandering around for good looks into the sky. Every now and then the pilot would look around to check on them.

Time to knock on wood

I asked Capt. Lively:

Have you ever been shot at?

He peered all around the cockpit. He asked:

Where’s some wood?

He finally found some back of his seat, and knocked on it. He said:

Never yet.

Some of the others have though. I asked:

This is one of the best airplanes in the world, isn’t it?

Capt. Lively said:

It’s got my money. You’ve got a big load with 26,000 pounds gross, but I’ve taken off 32,000 out of a field only about half as long as we’d look at back home. I don’t think there’s anything these planes won’t do. If a Civil Aeronautics inspector came over here, he’d go nuts.

We flew over bare, rugged mountains, through passes where the going was rough, out over the desert, over oases and lonely little adobe villages, over dry lakes and dust storms. We never saw anything more exciting than an occasional lone Arab working his fields.

When we finally got to where we were going, Capt. Lively asked me to have lunch with him and his crew. So, he dug underneath the benches where we’d been sitting, and got out about 15 cans of soup, beans, sausages, jam and pears. Next came two big loaves of bread, and then a little stove that sounds like a blowtorch when you light it. Within 15 minutes, we were dining in style out of mess kits, with sand blowing into our mouths, and a pet monkey some pilot had brought from Burma sitting and staring at us. That’s the way you live on the desert. As soon as we’d finished, they got back into the plane and flew off across the mountains.

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102

The Pittsburgh Press (March 20, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

On the North African desert –
Most of the American fighting so far in North Africa has been in the mountains, and Americans have seen little of the real desert. But they will sooner or later, so I jumped at the chance to go along on a sortie far into the Sahara, just to see what it would be like.

There were 15 of us in two big ten-wheeled trucks. We took our bedding rolls and enough rations for five days. The purpose of the trip was to salvage the parts from some airplanes that had made crash landings in the desert. Our trip was to take us within 20 miles of German outposts. We weren’t much afraid of being captured, but we were afraid of being strafed by German planes.

We started one morning, and made a French desert garrison at lunchtime. We got out tins of corned beef, sweet potatoes, peas, orange marmalade and hardtack. The French soldiers built a fire out of twigs between two rocks for us to heat water for tea. They cleared off a table in one of their barracks rooms, and did every little thing for us they could.

Cigars bring smiles

For months I’ve been carrying around some cigars I got on the boat coming from England, waiting for a propitious moment to give them away. So, when we left, I gave some to the French soldiers, and you could see the delight on their faces. They all lit up right away, and puffed and held the cigars off and looked at them approvingly, as though they were diamonds.

After we left, our soldiers kept talking about how nice the French were to us, and how they didn’t have much but whatever they had they’d give the best to us. The Americans liked the French, and everywhere you go, the French are grand to Americans.

That French garrison gave us one of its Arab enlisted men as a guide. He was a picturesque figure, rather handsome in his white turban, blue sash and khaki smock. He carried a long knife and a long-barreled rifle. He spoke no English whatever, and no French that we could understand. He said “wah” to everything we asked him.

He knew the way all right, but the communication system between him and us needed some improvement. All we ever got out of him was “wah.” We finally nicknamed him “Wah,” and before the trip was over, we were all saying “wah” when we meant “yes.”

It’s not like the movies

What we saw of the Sahara wasn’t exactly like what we see in the movies, but that’s maybe because we didn’t go far enough into it. The Sahara, you know, is more than 1,000 miles wide, and we were into it no more than 200 miles.

We saw nothing more spectacular than what you’ll find in the more remote parts of our own Southwest. Certainly, it was beautiful. At one point it was so utterly flat and bare that you could have landed anywhere and said:

This is an airport.

At other places it had dry river beds, very wide, their bottoms strewn with rocks. This surprised us, for what is a river doing on a desert? Again, the country would be rolling, and covered with a scrub-like vegetation.

Scenes make Ernie homesick

Parts of it were so exactly like the valley around Palm Springs, California, even down to the delicate smoke-tree bush, that it made you homesick. And one bare, tortured mountain could have been the one behind El Paso. Only once did we see a place with no vegetation at all, where the yellow sand was drifted movielike in great rippled dunes.

At long intervals we would come to what is known locally as an oasis. I used to think an oasis was three palm trees with a ragged guy crawling toward them, his parched tongue hanging out. But in this part of the desert an oasis is a village or a city. It doesn’t have three palm trees; it has tens of thousands of them, forests of them, which make their owners rich from the bounteous crop of dates.

It has big adobe buildings like the Indian pueblos, and narrow streets and irrigation ditches, and hundreds of children running around. It is a big community, and getting to an oasis is like getting to Reno after Death Valley.

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103

The Pittsburgh Press (March 22, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

On the North African desert –
During most of our 200-mile journey, the soil seemed to be dirt, rather than sand, and the trucks swirled up a cloud of dust that was truly suffocating. The trucks were open, and we sat in the back ends on bedding rolls and boxes. We all wore goggles or dust glasses. Most of us hadn’t shaved for days. Within half an hour everybody’s whiskers were so caked with dust that we looked like a new kind of fur-bearing animal. It took days to get the dust out of our eyes and noses.

During the trip we ate a two-gallon can of hard stick candy, which the Army issues in this war. We talked some, but it was too rough and dusty to talk much.

In midafternoon of the first day, four planes came into view. We couldn’t recognize them, so we got out and started looking for ditches. They went on over and paid no attention. And we realized they were British.

Ernie sees a mirage

Even though it was still wintertime, we can now say we’ve seen the famous Sahara mirages. Several times we all saw a long line of trees, straight and regular as though lining an avenue, about three miles away. Unfortunately, they were sitting on top of a lake, and since trees don’t grow on lakes and since there wasn’t any lake anyhow, we figured we must be seeing things.

We met a few small camel trains when we first started, and we thought that was big stuff, seeing real camels on the desert. But before the trip was over, we’d seen so many camels we didn’t even look. They’re as common as cattle are at home. The desert is full of them, grazing in herds. Always there is an Arab, often a child, tending them. The camels twist their necks and look as you go by. I’d never noticed it in circuses, but when you get close a camel, you see that its head and neck look just like a huge snake. And when a camel turns around and looks at you, it gives you the creeps. I don’t think I shall lay plans for running a camel ranch after the war.

Camel herders are friendly

Often the Arab shepherds would wave at us, and occasionally they gave us the V-sign. But they were too far in the desert to have heard of the American “okay.”

Once we saw a fox, or what looked like a fox, and one of the soldiers shot at it with his rifle. Again, just at dusk we saw another, and there was a mad scramble for all the rifles lying on the floor. The fox got away, and I was thankful I didn’t get shot myself, what with rifle barrels whisking past my nose in all directions.

In midafternoon of the first day, we went through a large village which was built for camel traffic, and camels only. It was so narrow the truck scraped on both sides.

Speak of the devil–

I remarked that I hoped we didn’t come to a right-angle turn in the street, and no sooner had I spoken than we did come to one. Well, not quite a right angle, or we couldn’t have made it, but it was a jog of about 20 feet. It took us a quarter of an hour of backing and filling to get the trucks into position to make the turn.

Hundreds of Arabs came pouring out of the mud buildings, and we had a large and appreciative audience. One black-bearded old Arab with a wooden leg took charge of the free-advice department, and told the drivers in language they didn’t understand just how to do it. They paid no attention.

No matter where or when you stop, an Arab will suddenly appear. He’ll stand around just looking unless you speak to him, and then he’ll smile and try to answer. Several times we were stopped way out in the desert by white-gowned Arabs with long rifles slung over their shoulders. Apparently, they were soldiers, although they looked and dressed like all the others.

Desert spooky at night

The first night we continued to drive after dark. The moon was brilliant, and it gave the whole vast desert and the hills that dotted it a kind of ghostliness.

Suddenly the truck stopped and there around us were five Arabs out of nowhere, all gowned in white, and riding five beautiful white horses. Over their shoulders were slung the longest rifles I’ve ever seen.

In the half-light they did indeed seem romantic and like men out of mystery. They rode far back on their horses, and they could ride like the wind. They spoke in low voices, almost in harmony with the spookiness of the desert moonlight.

I don’t know what they said, but it was obvious they were patrolling throughout the night in that special part of the world which is their own, and which only they can ever fully comprehend. If we had been Germans instead of Americans, I doubt that we would have gone any farther that night, or any other night.

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104

The Pittsburgh Press (March 23, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

On the North African desert –
When finally, late at night, we arrived near where the wrecked American planes were supposed to be, our Arab friend “Wah” directed us over a multitude of tracks, winding around through bare wraithlike hills, to a little group of sand-colored buildings standing lonesomely in the moonlight. We stopped about 500 yards away, yelled, and waited. At last, there was a shout from far off. We shouted back, “*Les Americains,” and then we could see two figures start toward us. Two of us went out to meet them. You proceed cautiously in the desert at night when you’re within half an hour’s drive of the enemy.

The place turned out to be a French garrison, as we had thought. And they acted just as they had at the other French post – anything they had was ours. The commandant was a tall, thin fellow with long hair, who looked like a poet. We didn’t know for a long time that he was the commandant, because he wore a civilian topcoat.

He and the one American officer with us went off to another part of the garrison to see about our sleeping quarters, and the rest of us hung around a big mud-walled corral which turned out to be the stables of the Camel Corps.

Hobbled camel fools Ernie

The Arab cavalrymen, or whatever you call camelback soldiers, gathered around in the moonlight and smiled at us and tried to talk. An old camel hobbled past, and I said:

Look, there’s a three-legged camel. It must have lost a front leg in an accident.

It wasn’t until next day that we realized the Arabs had merely hobbled the camel by bending its leg and lashing one foot up to its foreleg.

The Arabs had a tiny black burro that was a pet. It wasn’t any bigger than a dog, and just stood around among us looking sadly at the ground, waiting to be scratched. The soldiers were astounded at such a tiny animal, and all of us took turns picking it up in our arms to see how light it was. The truck driver jumped into his cab and came out with some cube sugar, and from then on, he was the burro’s man.

After a while the French said everything was arranged, and we all walked to another building. They turned over one big empty room with a tile floor for the soldiers to sleep on, and then insisted that the one officer and myself have supper with them. It was late at night, but apparently, they eat late on the desert.

The American officer was the kind all the mechanics called by his first name, and he would have preferred to eat and sleep with them, and so would I. But we talked it over with the enlisted men and decided it would be a breach of etiquette if we didn’t accept the invitation.

French are fine hosts

There were eight French officers and we two Americans at dinner. The French were dressed in all sorts of half-military getup. Apparently, they’ve had no new supply issues since the fall of France, and they wore whatever they could get their hands on. They apologized for not having any wine with the meal. Hadn’t had any for months.

We ate at a long bare wooden table. The room was lighted by a dim bulb hooked to a battery they’d taken off one of the wrecked American planes. Candles were used in the other rooms. One of the officers spoke a few words of English, and that was our only avenue of contact with our hosts.

We had a delicious omelet for an appetizer, and then a stew of vegetables and what was either goat or camel meat. The French can make anything taste good.

Just as we were finishing, one of the Frenchmen said, ‘"Shhhh,” and cocked his ear. We all ran outside, and sure enough we could hear German planes high in the sky, bound for a night of bombing of some of our friends.

Some of the French officers slept in beds, some on the concrete floor. They made room for our two bedrolls on the floor, and the next thing we knew it was daylight.

Frenchmen don’t eat a regular breakfast, so next morning they came out and watched while we cooked our breakfast over small cans of burning gasoline.

Marksmanship is excellent

One of the soldiers let the French commandant shoot his rifle, and then all the Frenchmen took turns. Their skill amazed the soldiers. Even with a strange rifle they could hit a small rock 150 yards away at every shot.

The commandant had a car – a sort of delivery wagon – and said he’d lead us to the wrecked planes if we could give him some gasoline. No wine, no gasoline. These soldiers at these far outposts fight a lonely and bleak kind of war.

We gave him five gallons and off we went, with several Arabs hanging onto the truck. We had at last reached our pinpoint in the vast desert, and were ready to start to work.

105

The Pittsburgh Press (March 24, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

On the North African front – (March 23)
When our Sahara salvage expedition finally found the wrecked airplanes far out on the endless desert, the mechanics went to work taking off usable parts, and four others of us appointed ourselves the official ditchdiggers of the day.

We were all afraid of being strafed if the Germans came over and saw men working around the planes, and we wanted a nice ditch handy for diving into. The way to have a nice ditch is to dig one. We wasted no time.

Would that all slit trenches could be dug in soil like that. The sand was soft and moist; just the kind children like to play in. The four of us dug a winding ditch 40 feet long and three feet deep in about an hour and a half.

They dig, dig, dig all day long

The day got hot, and we took off our shirts. One sweating soldier said:

Five years ago, you couldn’t have got me to dig a ditch for $5 an hour. Now look at me.

You can’t stop me digging ditches. I don’t even want pay for it; I just dig for love. And I sure do hope this digging today is all wasted effort; I never wanted to do useless work so bad in my life.

Any time I get 50 feet from my home ditch you’ll find me digging a new ditch and, brother I ain’t joking. I love to dig ditches.

Digging out here in the soft desert sand was paradise compared with the claylike digging back at our base. The ditch went forward like a prairie fire. We measured it with our eyes to see if it would hold everybody.

Indicating a low spot in the bank on either side, one of the boys said:

Throw up some more right here. Do you think we’ve got it deep enough?

Another said:

It don’t have to be so deep. A bullet won’t go through more than three inches of sand. Sand is the best thing there is for stopping bullets.

Bush aids the imagination

A growth of sagebrush hung over the ditch on one side. One of the boys said:

Let’s leave it right there. It’s good for the imagination. Makes you think you’re covered up even when you ain’t.

That’s the new outlook, the new type of conversation, among thousands of American boys today. It’s hard for you to realize, but there are certain moments when a plain old ditch can be dearer to you than any possession on earth. For all bombs, no matter where they may land eventually, do all their falling right straight at your head. Only those of you who know about that can ever know all about ditches.

While we were digging, one of the boys brought up for the thousandth time the question of that letter in Time Magazine. What letter, you ask? Why, it’s a letter you probably don’t remember, but it has become famous around these parts.

It was in the November 23 issue, which eventually found its way over here. Somebody read it, spoke to a few friends, and pretty soon thousands of men were commenting on this letter in terms which the fire department won’t permit me to set to paper.

Campfire story irritates

To get to the point, it was written by a soldier, and it said:

The greatest Christmas present that can be given to us this year is not smoking jackets, ties, pipes or games. If people will only take the money and buy war bonds… they will be helping themselves and helping us to be home next Christmas. Being home next Christmas is something which would be appreciated by all of us boys in service!

The letter was all right with the soldiers over here until they got down to the address of the writer and discovered he was still in camp in the States. For a soldier back home to open his trap about anything concerning the war is like waving a red flag at the troops over here. They say they can do whatever talking is necessary.

What a chance to gripe

One of the ditchdiggers said with fine soldier sarcasm:

Them poor dogfaces back home, they’ve really got it rugged. Nothing to eat but them old greasy pork chops and them three-inch steaks all the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t have to eat eggs several times a week.

Another said:

And they’re so lonely. No entertainment except to rassle them old dames around the dance floor. The USO closes at ten o’clock and the night clubs at three. It’s mighty tough on them. No wonder they want to get home.

A third said:

And they probably don’t get no sleep, sleeping on them old cots with springs and everything, and scalding themselves in hot baths all the time.

A philosopher with a shovel chimed:

And nothing to drink but that nasty old 10¢ beer and that awful Canadian Club whisky.

And when they put a nickel in the box nothing comes out but Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw and such trash as that. My heart just bleeds for them poor guys.

Another asked:

And did you see where he was? At the Albuquerque Air Base. And he wants to be home by next Christmas. Hell, if I could just see the Albuquerque Air Base again, I’d think I was in Heaven.

That’s the way it goes. The boys feel a soldier isn’t qualified to comment unless he’s on the wrong side of the ocean. They’re gay and full of their own wit when they get started that way, but just the same they mean it. It’s a new form of the age-old soldier pastime of grousing. It helps take your mind off things.

106

The Pittsburgh Press (March 25, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

On the North African desert –
While the rest of the men were working on the planes, I spent the day wandering around the desert talking to nomadic Arab shepherds. I’d walk up to one, say “Bonjour,” and shake hands. The French and the Arabs are great handshakers. The first one I hit was a young fellow, handsome in a way but badly pockmarked.

I was looking for a long-bladed Arabian knife for one of the officers back at our airdrome. So, after shaking hands and giving my new friend a cigarette, I started asking him if he had a knife with a long blade, sharp on both edges, and with a wire-wrapped handle. I may as well have saved the description, for he never even got it through his head I was asking for a knife.

He didn’t speak French, which left us no common ground, particularly since I don’t speak it either. But I got out my own pocketknife, and then went through all the motions which, in almost any other country, would have conveyed to him that I was engaged in some sort of general discussion about a cutting implement. But not this baby.

‘No comprez’ Ernie’s signs

Arabs aren’t dumb, but somehow, they just don’t seem to understand our brand of sign language. That Arab boy and I would talk our heads off, and not understand a word, and then he’s giggle and shake his head as if to say:

This is silly but it’s fun, isn’t it?

The Arabs are all very friendly and they smile easily. It makes you feel nice and kindly toward them, even if you can’t talk with them.

This fellow was herding about 50 camels, grazing, just like cattle, on little clumps of sagebrush. I made signs that I wanted to see his camels close up, so we walked over. On the way over, I did find that the Arab word for camel is something like “zu-mel.”

He had his eye on a certain one he wanted to show me. It was old and shaggy, and was hobbled by having its right legs tied together with rags. I asked why, and the best I could make out was that it was a bad camel. As we came near, the camel rolled its tongue out one side of its mouth and gave forth a series of the most repulsive belching noises I’ve ever heard. At this, the Arab looked at me and laughed and then started imitating the camel.

Arab boy and his dog

This went on and on. Every time the camel would belch, the Arab would mimic him and laugh derisively at the silly old camel. Finally, he had to go round up some of the herd that was getting too far away, so we shook hands and off he went across the desert.

Late that afternoon, I was sitting near one of the planes when an Arab boy and his little sister, on a donkey, came past. Their white dog was running ahead of them, and we called to the dog. One of the soldiers had the dog coaxed up almost to him when the Arab boy got there and started throwing rocks at the dog to drive it away. We all frowned and said, '‘No, no, no,’’ and indicated to the boy that we wanted him to call the dog back so we could pet it. He nodded his understanding, then picked up another rock and threw it at the dog. I tell you, they just don’t understand sign language.

The boy himself was perfectly friendly. He sat down beside me and I gave him a cigarette. From the way he choked I guess he wasn’t a smoker, and was smoking just to be polite. He sat around about 15 minutes watching us and smiling. After a while, I tried the dog business again, pointing at the dog and making motions for him to call it over. He smiled and nodded, then got up and threw another rock at the dog.

The Arabs, incidentally, have beautiful dogs, as well as horses. Some of them look like small collies, but most of them, strangely, seem to have a strain of the Arctic husky in them. Usually, they are white with just a touch of cream.

Lots of Missouri mules

The goat and sheep flocks are large. Once we saw a flock of sheep that were all black. Of course, we made wisecracks about there being enough black sheep to furnish one for every family back home. It isn’t unusual to see a sheep spotted black and white like a dog.

The desert is literally alive with shepherds. You can see their tents in the distance – dark brown with wide dark stripes. The average Arab had camels, goats, sheep, horses, burros and dogs. And it seems a little incongruous somehow, but we saw lots of plain old Missouri mules on the desert.

107

The Pittsburgh Press (March 26, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

North Africa –
We finished the salvage work on the wrecked planes and cooked our supper on the ground. As we ate, the soldier-mechanics got to talking about the trip, and our presence so close to enemy territory. One of the truck drivers said:

Back in the States, the commanding officer made us a speech one day. He told us we were lucky to be driving trucks. Almost made us feel like slackers. Said we’d go through the whole war and never be within 500 miles of the enemy. I’d like to get hold of that guy now. He’s still back there.

One boy said:

And here we are within 30 miles of the Germans.

The officer said:

Thirty miles? It’s only 20 miles.

I chimed in:

I’m going to make it 10 miles in the column. We’ve got to be heroes, haven’t we?

That set the boys off. They told me how to write the story about our trip.

They joke, in all seriousness

They said:

Write about digging the ditch. Tell them how we dug our heads off and got finished just as a German plane came over. You don’t have to say it was 30,000 feet high and couldn’t have seen us with bifocals.

That’s the way they joke about it, but they’re only half-joking all the time. The boys were really afraid of strafing. They held a consultation about going home. One soldier and myself wanted to spend the night there, and then make the long journey home next day. But the mechanics and truck drivers didn’t relish driving in daytime so near the enemy lines. They voted to leave that night. And leave we did. We finished our supper, gave what rations were left to the French, rounded up our Arab guide, and pulled out just at dusk.

We drove all night, without lights. It was easy to follow the tracks. Yet we had to cross rocky river beds with steep banks, and dodge countless holes, and thread our way over drifted sand dunes, and pick the right trail where tracks branched out in all directions.

It was a touchingly beautiful night. The sky was cloudless and the moon so bright that it dimmed out all but a few of the most lustrous stars. And it was warm when we started. We all felt relieved, somehow, and in high spirits. But we had forgotten the chill that comes with night on the desert. By 8 o’clock, we were getting cold. By 9, we were scrunched on the floor and wrapped in blankets. From 10 on, we were in an agony of cold. Nothing could keep it out. Finally, it became an intense pain, and we suffered a sleepy horror from it all night.

Arab grapevine is uncanny

The slow dusty miles dribbled away behind us in the moonlight. Far off, little red fires dotted the desert where the shepherds camped. Dark forms of grazing camels passed in the weird light. Once we stopped and turned off the motors, and could hear a German plane very high in the night sky. And once our Arab friend “Wah,” apparently unaccustomed to motoring, got carsick and we had to stop and let him out for a while.

We went through little towns, and awakened the dogs. At 2 a.m., we came back past our first French garrison, where guards stood watch on the high walls, day and night. Their grapevine signal system is uncanny. For, when we pulled up, the commandant was out of bed, with an overcoat over his pajamas, waiting for us.

I’ve heard tales of the Arab grapevine. They tell of one case where it carried the news of a crashed German plane 150 miles, and faster than the French Army’s wireless system.

We said goodbye to “Wah” and shook hands with the commandant and barged on into the night. The miles and hours grew longer as we neared home. The last 20 miles seemed to take weeks. Once the driver stopped for our routine stretch, and the rigidly cold soldiers growled at him to keep going.

Something to tell grandchildren

Finally, we came home, an hour before daylight, and just as the moon played out on us. We hadn’t seen any war, but we had seen the Sahara by day and by night. One of the soldiers said:

I’ll be telling my grandchildren someday about the time I crossed the Sahara Desert.

Another one said:

You didn’t cross it.

Oh, well, what the hell, I crossed part of it. Let’s get to bed and stay there all day.

And that’s what we did.

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