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Show TAa Sergeant Acts Dual Role With Carrier Pigeons and Bayonets A worker of miracles is Master Sergeant Max Bronkhorst. At ' Fort Sam Houston, Texas, he is engaged in the dual capacity of training homing pigeons for the Signal Corps and in teaching New York clerks, Pennsylvania steel workers and young farmers from half a dozen states in the dexterous dexter-ous use of the bayonet. Ha has been breeding carrier pigeons since his boyhood in Rotterdam, Rot-terdam, Holland, nearly half a . entury ago. He brought a basketful bas-ketful of his Dutch birds to America Amer-ica long before the first World War and with him they entered the United States Army. Both made good. Nearly everybody cnows how pigeons are used in modern warfare for auxiliary communications and for pilots of airplanes whose radios go wrong. Parachute troops and military intelligence in-telligence agents also need the courageous feathered messengers. Very few are downed by gun- -; " ... - : t ", ' ' 1 i i f S : " i ' , ' "X - I j J.y '- : '. l A k ' ' "I U. S. SIGNAL COlfPS PHOTO. Sergt. Max Bronkhorst i fire, the sergeant says, but a good many are killed by hawks and cats. He declares that with the best of food and care a pigeon will serve the Army and the nation na-tion for as long as 10 years. Bronkhorst is equally enthusiastic enthusi-astic in his work as an instructor in bayonet practice. He acquired his skill with the steel weapon while serving in the Dutch army and majored in its use in the A. E. F. He is especially proud of his bayoneteers in the squads at Fort Sinn Houston. I have never seen anything like them, he says. These men are just superior, and that's all there is to it. I've seen bayonet fighters fight-ers of all races but none will be able to stand up against these American boys. Soldiers from the farms, adept in handling the pitchfork, are handy with the bayonet but he singles out the Pennsylvanians for the highest praise. "Especially these Polish boys from the steel mills," the sergeant J grins. "The Poles have a per- j petual resentment of the wrongs suffered by their native land. They can come to grips." |