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Show Washington, D. C. EISENHOWER'S BRILLIANT PLANNING When the inside story of General Eisenhower's European war planning plan-ning is finally told, the American public will be amazed at some of the things he has put across. Here is part of the story: Long before D day Eisenhower had timed every operation down to the last minute. The most important im-portant maneuver was to break through the Germans' Atlantic wall and wedge an opening through which other troops could pour. The German High Command considered this wall impregnable. Yet Eisenhower's Eisen-hower's driving demand for offense was such that he allotted his men exactly 45 minutes to get through. He had each move so carefully timed and planned that, after 45 minutes, other ships, supplies, men would be piling up on the beach, would have no place to go unless the break-through was accomplished in the time allotted. Before the invasion a full-scale full-scale replica of German fortifications fortifi-cations was constructed in England, Eng-land, built from aerial photographs. photo-graphs. And day after day, American troops rehearsed their break - through. The best time they were able to make in these rehearsals, however, was one hour and 30 minutes. But when D day finally came, thanks to General Eisenhower's dynamic dy-namic planning, they made it not in 45, but in 35 minutes. But with his advance into France timed to the hour and day, Eisenhower, Eisen-hower, after the original breakthrough, break-through, ran into difficulty. Lieut. Gen. Omar Bradley kept right on schedule in penetrating south into Normandy. And Maj. Ben. Joe Collins was on schedule or ahead of it in penetrating Cherbourg. In fact, they had developed, in cooperation coopera-tion with Eisenhower, a new type of advance. Instead of advancing so many miles and then waiting for supplies to come up, as at the slow-moving slow-moving Anzio beachhead, they developed de-veloped the tactic of barging ahead regardless of supplies. Thus General Collins surprised the Nazis and the world, ignoring Nazi machine-gun nests, forgetting about supplies and forging right into Cherbourg Cher-bourg before its defenders knew what was happening. Trouble with Monty. Eisenhower's chief trouble, however, how-ever, was with General Montgomery, Montgom-ery, whom Winston Churchill once described as "magnificent in defeat, de-feat, insufferable in victory." General Montgomery had been given Caen as his objective. But days passed and nothing happened. The offensive - minded Eisenhower kept hammering at Montgomery, urging an advance. But nothing happened. hap-pened. Actually, Montgomery had just as high a rank as Eisenhower, had seen many more battles, so Eisenhower was in no position to get too rough. Finally, Air Intelligence showed that German resistance behind the Allied lines was a mere shell. He could tell from air observation that the Nazis were able to bring up only about 25 per cent of their needed supplies. Their reinforcements reinforce-ments had to hide in the daytime, advance only at night. Most of the bridges across the Seine were down. So Eisenhower, tired of waiting for Montgomery and already behind schedule, gave the order for General Gen-eral Bradley to ignore Montgomery Montgom-ery and break through the Nazi lines to the south. DEMOBILIZING OLDER MEN War department officials are under un-der heavy pressure to make one very important change in the army's plan for demobilization. ! The demobilization plan did not I consider servicemen's age. How-I How-I ever, men overseas, particularly those in the European theater, have I been angrily pointing out that the British demobilization program I gives each man a specific number of points for age. thus assures older old-er men a better break. The army said it had drafted older men "reluctantly," "re-luctantly," because most were heads of families. The GIs now point out that it would be equally logical to discharge these older men among the earliest, since they are needed by their families. Veterans' administration studies reveal that the cost of keeping older men in uniform is greater than for younger men, since the army pays out large sums for dependency. Al- , lotments have proved meager and scarcely able to keep families to- gether. Yet, under the demobiliza- ! tion plan as it stands now, family , heads would be among the last men to be released. i CAPITAL CHAFF ft The danger of a new crime wave as a result of letting returning war heroes keep captured revolvers and machine guns is worrying officials. ftPublisher Joe Patterson wasn't kidding when he explained that the New York News was dropping the "Presidential Battle Page" because I of libel. He faces a libel suit (mm I CIO's Bcannie Baldwin. . . . The GOP accused Bald win of drawing a salary from the government while working with the CIO and Patterson j printed it. |