| Show With Ernie Py e in Italy 4 Beachhead Dugouts Make life Better for Yanks at War 1 WITH FIFTH ARMY t 1 BEACHHEAD FORCES IN ITALY Practically ITALY Practically on the Anzio beachhead who is back of the outer defense lines has his home underground We correspondents dont don't have but that's merely because we haven't got any sense Also Aso it could possibly be because were we're lazy At any rate this beachhead is isso isso so dug up that an underground section cross-section of it would look like a honeycomb Even tanks and jeeps are two-thirds two buried for protection The soldiers' soldiers dugouts are made by digging a square or rectangular hole about shoulder deep then roofing it with boards and logs piling earth on top of that and digging a trench out from it with steps leading up Digging is extremely easy here for the soil is almost pure sand Two men can dig a hole deep enough for their home inan in inan inan an hour Two or three hours more if they have the timbers ready is enough to finish the simpler type of dugout Its It's Its pleasant to dig in sand but it has its disadvantages The sides cave In easily Now and then a man is buried burled in his dug dug- out Even the concussion from our own big guns will start the walls of a dugout to sliding in The average averages dugout houses two men Its It's just big enough for their blanket rolls and you have to stoop when you get into it A tank crew always digs In just a few feet from the tank for which they also dig a hole hoJe The boys then run wires from their tank battery into their dugout for electric lights They have straw on the floor and shelter halves hung at the en en- trance Most of the men sleep on the ground while most of the officers officers officers of of- have cots But its it's not bad sleeping on the ground in a dugout for you keep both warm and dry Some dugouts have board walls to keep the sand from caving caving caving ing in Others use the more primitive method of log supports supports supports sup sup- ports in each corner with shelter halves stretched between them to hold back the sand It takes a lot of lumber t i. shore up all those thousands thousand dugouts The boys rustle castle q b anything they can find out s sold old buildings The two inn nt coveted pieces of from deserted houses are wood wooden Vo too en doors and wall mirrors T 7 doors are used for digit ceilings and its it's a poor dUg dugs indeed that hasn't got a fan fant mirror on the wall 1 From the basic two-man two d dout du dul dulout out which is usually bare exes excel for a shelf a mirror and son som up pin-up girls these homes run on up to the fo fu in elaborateness 1 3 of the best Ive I've One seen j built by Lieutenant Edwar V Ed i. i Jacques of Cleveland Ohio a sj his driver Private Russell i ir er of Marion Marlon Ind They hay have i wooden floor shelves and nilon nil Ilai on the wall for every item I writing desk with a table lam Iain a washstand with big n mi irm porcelain lampshades with lilt li Dutch girls painted on them and best of all hidden on a ahI ah I noticed two fresh eggs it 1 But the finest dugout Ive I've t see let belongs to four officers of oj I e task company This dugout p pas as big as the average Imi liik room It has a drawing table tablet i ithe the center and numerous chair chile The four officers sleep on co col around the walls Books and magazines at pipes and pictures are scatters on tables all allover over the place j ja t. t like home j They have several elect lights and the crowning 1 of this palatial is a Rube Goldberg arrangement arrange ment of ropes and pulley pullet whereby one of the can switch off the light after gets in bed They even have hale big white dog slightly she M shocked to lie on the hearth hearth From all this you might dri- dri the deduction that war isn't Si after all Well these men a n nand and do go into battle 20 away and every day and shells and bombs fall area arou them and its it's an unusual dI i when somebody isn't killed wit vii in their own little dugouts village J |
