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Show OREW PEARSON . . . . "'' Washington, D. C CREDIT WHERE DUE Across the Potomac, in the sprawling sprawl-ing Pentagon building; Gep. George C. Marshall, U. S. chief of staff, gives all credit for U. S. invasion success to the boys over there, their officers and to General Eisenhower. However, those who have watched lean, graying General Marshall close-up during the tense months of the war, know how he too has worked, planned, dreamed almost every detail of the invasion. Three years ago, before we entered en-tered the war but when everyone knew it was a certainty that we would, this columnist asked General Marshall what chance there was of a British cross-channel invasion. "Do you realize what it takes to land an army in France?" he replied. re-plied. "It takes not merely ships and men and naval vessels to protect pro-tect those ships. It also means docks, warehouses, railroad terminals, termi-nals, and freight cars by the thousand. thou-sand. But especially it means docks some place to land. In the last war, we didn't have to worry about any of these things. The French supplied them. But in this war" he shook his head ruefully "it is different." As he talked, Marshall thought back to 1917-18, when he was only 36 and a captain. At that time, he performed a modern miracle of maneuvering ma-neuvering second only to that of the present second front. He worked out for Pershing the plan whereby one million men were transferred from the St. Mihiel to the Meuse-Argonne Meuse-Argonne front. Nineteen railroads, 34 hospitals, 40,000 tons of ammunition, 93,000 horses, 164 miles of railway, 87 supply sup-ply depots and 4,000 cannon all were 1 moved up just beyond the German lines and the enemy didn't even know it. . . COOPERATION WITH EISENHOWER A general in modern warfare does not ride into battle waving a sword. - He sits behind a desk. And this time General Marshall, Instead of being close to the battle-front, has done his planning plan-ning from behind. And unlike the situation in the last war, Marshall and his European Eu-ropean commander cooperate beautifully. They are close friends. ... In the last war. Gen- . eral Pershing was in bitter conflict con-flict with Gen. Tasker Bliss, the V. S. chief of staff; later with Gen. Peyton March, who succeeded Bliss. Today, Marshall and Eisenhower Eisen-hower are considered Pershing's boys. He is strong for both of them. And every Sunday before the war got too tense, General Marshall went out to Walter Reed hospital to ohat with his former chief. Pershing still believes be-lieves he can win wars, and gives Marshall his opinion on various strategic problems. After each interview, Marshall rises and salutes. sa-lutes. ""Thank you, General," he says. "Thank you, General," is the reply. NOTE General Marshall is one of the few chiefs of staff we have had who did not go to West Point. Due to the fact that his father was about the only Democrat in Union-town, Union-town, Pa., during the McKinley administration, ad-ministration, he could get no West Point appointment, went to Virginia Military institute instead. THEY DIDN'T KNOW EITHER War department officials are laughing behind their hands at the fact that military intelligence, supposed sup-posed to know all about everything going on behind enemies' lines and inside our own lines, chose D-day to move their offices. In the Pentagon Penta-gon building, where military intelligence, intelli-gence, or G-2, is housed, moving day was called "G-2's D-day." They "invaded" their new offices. But never could they have chosen a worse day to move than the Allied D-day. Other war department officers offi-cers kept calling up G-2, asking for information. "Sorry," said the operator, "but the telephones are all torn out. G-2 is moving." Furniture was being moved down corridors, files of secret information informa-tion were being shunted from one place to another. Everything was confusion' on the one day which meant most to the war. Apparently, military intelligence, supposed to know everything, didn't know when the big day we were to cross the English channel was scheduled. REASON FOR CRACKDOWN Now it can be revealed why President Presi-dent Roosevelt was so tough in his crackdown on the Irish regarding the removal of Axis diplomats. It long had been planned, though a strict secret, to land on the Cherbourg Cher-bourg peninsula. To reach it, many j U. S. troops had to steam through the Irish sea. Naturally, the President wanted no scrap of information regarding the early passage of landing barges through the Irish sea to leak out in any manner, shape or form. |