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Show r . , ,, K ' w. i . V. I --'NjH J l -J i 'a MAJOR EVAN S. PICKETT Evan S. Pickett Promoted To Major WITH THE FIFTH ARMY IN ITALY. Evan S. Pickett, 24-year-old combat engineer from St. George, Utah, who recently was promoted to Major, has come to be one of the outstanding authorities authori-ties of mine warfare on the Fifth Army front in Italy. He already was an advanced student of technique in direction and neutralization of mines and other explosives when he was in North Africa more than a year ago, and only recently completed the courses of another mine school conducted in southern Italy. Hundreds Hun-dreds of soldiers have been given basic instruction in mines by Pickett. An original member of the 115th Engineers, former National Guard outfit in St. George, Pickett became be-came a Federal soldier when his unit was mobilized and sent to Camp San Luis Obispo, Calif., for training. He took part in several maneuvers in California and had risen to the rank of First Sergeant Ser-geant by the time he was sent to an officer candidate school in March, 1942. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and was assigned to an engineer combat regiment at Camp Gruber, Okla. His wife is the former Miss Fawn Schmutz of St. George and they lived at Muskogee, Okla., until shortly before Pickett was sent to North Africa in the summer sum-mer of 1943. He fought through many of the longer, more bitter engagements of the Italian compaign, spending months in the deadlocked Cassino sector when the weather was at its worst last winter and was pinned up against the sheer cliff that pens up Terracina against the sea while for 48 hours Germans Ger-mans dropped mortar shells on the city from the heights. Pickett, who studied at Dixie junior college, and was employed by the Utah-Idaho Sugar company, com-pany, has been in active service for nearly four years and has served overseas 14 months. |