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Show Army, Navy, Marines Join In Big Caribbean Maneuver By BAUKHAGE Nwt AnJyit snd Commtnltlor, WASHINGTON. About the time these lines are in print, 83,000 American soldiers, sailors, fliers and marines and a hundred ships will be shoving oft for the greatest peacetime maneuvers in our history. Providence permitting, your correspondent will be on the scene. A strange and sinister "aggressive force" which will have seized and fortified the island of Vieques in the Caribbean will be bombarded by sea and air, attacked, and (we trust) captured by a joint marine corps and army expeditionary force landed by navy ships and planes which hsve fought their way past enemy planes, and submarines. The purpose of this undertaking Is officially described as "to advance ad-vance and ensure a fJMf"m- combat readiness ': f' -i:.v for Fleet Marine ' V i:-itf Force Atlantic ;ll5.fe',7 "nits, and to pro-' pro-' V'1 v ' d e mphiblout "lfZ JX training for Army ' iil 8nd Marine Corps I I I units." !-J i ( Admiral W. H. P. B ; ' i I ! Blandy, command-JL'f.j! command-JL'f.j! er-in-chlcf of the i.fpC'S Atlantic fleet will s' be In over-all com-1 com-1 mand. Lieut. Gen. if: 'rmf.m Keller E. Rockey, UAUKIMoK USMC, wiU command com-mand the Joint marine mar-ine corps and army expeditionary troops which will be composed of the second marine division and the 65th infantry, Caribbean command. Many of these men are veterans vet-erans of Faelfio landings and the North African operations, but, the experts tell me, there are many things to be learned for great progress bas been made In amphibious training since the war. This Is the first operation of its kind since the merger of the armed arm-ed services has been In effect, and nothing approaching it in size has ever been attempted In peacetime. Of course the marine corps was virtually born amphibious and for the past 28 years has perfected the methods which were used in the late war. Now they serve as the Instructors In this particular field of activity for the other branches of the service. Maneuvers which get comparatively compara-tively little notice in the press are largely regarded by laymen as a spectacle or as a series of highly technical military problems which are too complicated to follow. As a matter of fact, the actual maneuvers man-euvers are a small part of the operation opera-tion compared to the planning which dates back to the days when Caesar took his famous tenth legion le-gion from small boats onto the soil of ancient Britain, or before. Perhaps the earliest Important invasion from the sea in modern times was one of the most unsuccessful unsuc-cessful - - the ill-fated Gallinoll battle bat-tle when the British troops were almost al-most annihilated In their first attempt at-tempt to Invade Turkey in World War I. Intensive study of this debacle de-bacle was made In this country, coun-try, and the marines had made great strides long before Vorld War II made such training train-ing necessary. Very few people peo-ple realised this. In fact, many people probably think that the Japs had special patent on amphibious tactics. As one officer expressed It to me. there is nothing secret about this method of fighting. It Is simply a question of "know-how." A vast conglomeration of minute detail which is not used at all In ordinary land fighting. For example, an infantryman takes for granted that he and his rifle are more or less one piece. But the first time he has to go over the side of a ship and Into a small craft, he suddenly finds he Is faced with a major problem prob-lem in assuring not only his own arrival on the beach but, what is equally important, the simultaneous simultan-eous arrival of his gun. It you have ever tried to crawl down a net with no equipment whatever, you realize It requires all the hands you hsve. But long before D-day, thousands of details have been worked out hundreds of miles from the scene of action. As one officer put It, the stack of charts that have to be drawn are a mile high. Beans, bullets, shoelaces all are part of the picture quite as much as radar and range finders. The little Island of Vieques will be pounded with tons of shells, hauled, mauled, captured, and deserted, de-serted, and then go bad; to a subtropical sub-tropical siesta. But ,l;nt happens there on and bcfoie March 2 and 3, 1949, may be t f vitnl impoitanie a decade hence.. A New Truman Going to Work As the Ides of March i .ro'Kh, the new administration swings Into its stride with a good deal of honeymoon honey-moon fervor still In the air. From the day of the first White l!je press and radio conference after the inauguration. It was clear that we had a new President. Washington reporters had become be-come used to several Harry Tru-mans. Tru-mans. There was the very grsve and not very certain man who was called In 1943 to a Job which he didn't want and never expected to have with the shadow of tragedy over him. A man who was at first so anxious to reassure the country that there would be no break in the continuity of leadership that he sometimes rushed in where a more experienced man might have feared to tread. There were many "off-the-cuff" remarks with some disastrous dis-astrous results. Then came period when he leaned over backward with caution; after that, the period when his own party seemed to be falling apart and it was no secret that the man in the White House was disappointed and unhappy. Then came a gradual change which even many of his intimates did not realize, a change that gradually grad-ually culminated in the combative confidence which most of his supporters sup-porters failed to share. Washington Washing-ton watched his election campaign with considerable admiration for his fighting spirit but without being convinced that even he, himself actually ac-tually had the confidence he displayed. dis-played. Then came the election upset and two months later, the tremendous turnout at the inauguration. There was evidence for those who could recognize it, in the manner of delivery de-livery of his inauguration speech, that here was still another Truman. At that first press and radio conference, con-ference, it was plain enough. At last he was his own man. He felt he had earned his office. He probably prob-ably had felt all along that he was fully competent to carry on its responsibilities. re-sponsibilities. But now something had been added: a controlled self-assurance. self-assurance. I think Mr. Truman was sincere sin-cere when he told luncheon meeting of the Democratio party's finance committee that there were a million men in the United States who would make a better President, but It was his job and he would carry It out. He was simply saying that he realized there were men In the country with greater great-er ability than he had. He didn't say, nor did he think, that he didn't have enough ability. abil-ity. If events prove that he hasn't, he probably will be the ' first to admit it. That Is my own Interpretation and is offered for what it is worth. It Is an impression based not only on what Harry Truman has said and done, but largely on the way he has said and done it. If he continues to handle himself in the way he has since the election, the men in government and out, in his own party and out of it, will find him a lot easier to deal with. Like wise, he is going to be proportionately proportion-ately more successful with those with whom he has to deal. Press Conferences Have Changed, Too At a recent White House news conference, an old timer came up to me and remarked that tne last few times he had attended these gatherings, all of which had been especially well attended (well over 100 reporters) he couldn't help thinking back to the days of Taft when, as he put it, Robert Small of the Associated Press and perhaps one of two others who used to be sneaked Into' the back door of the White House tor confidential talks with the President, but no other newsmen or women had any access whatever to the Chief Executive. I was not In Washington then but later I came to know Small very well and I know he was known as "the fair haired boy" of the Taft administration. It was the first time 1 had ever heard the expression. expres-sion. Small was a brilliant newsman news-man 'and Taft was very' fund of him. I well recall the ex-President (Taft was then chief Justice) comforting com-forting Small's father at Bob's funeral. fun-eral. The former White House reporter re-porter was comparatively young when he died. I do not know how the press corps felt about Small's Intimate Inti-mate relationship with the White House or the other fortunate ones who were liven these ex- elusive privileges but I doubt If It occurred to anyone to suggest sug-gest the possibility of having regular open press conferences. confer-ences. Teddy Roosevelt, bow-ever, bow-ever, did csll In press association associ-ation men on occasion. And yet such a situation (no reg ular conference) seems Incredibli todsy. No President would dar refuse to see newsfolk snd stsm. up to questions which sometimes are more Impertinent that pertinent. |