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Show With Ernie Pyle at the Front U. S. Army Based in England Is Strict About Saluting Proper Uniform Also Very Important, These Two Things Amuse British By Ernie Pyle LONDON. I can't seem to make up my mind about London this trip. Some say that they can see in people's conduct the strain of waiting on the invasion that tempers are short and nerves taut. Yet the English seem to me just as imperturbable as ever. Some say the English have been at war so long they've forgotten about peacetime life and are resigned like sheep to the war dragging on and on. But I don't sense any such resignation. It is certainly true that Britain has adjusted herself to wartime life. but that doesn't mean blind, per- petual acceptance. People have learned to get along. American aid, and years of learning how to do, have eased the meager war life of the early days. There is more food now, and it is better than it used to be. There are more people on the streets, more shopping, more Sunday Sun-day strollers in the parks. I had supposed the people would look shabbier than a year and a half ago, but to me they look neater. And the physical city itself seems less dreary than in the fall of 1942. As for short tempers, I haven't seen any. Maybe it's just because I have been accustomed to the screaming outbursts at each other of the emotional Italians. But from what I've seen so far the English are as kind and polite to each other as they always were. All in all, my first impression is that England is better, all around, than it was a year and a half ago. Of course spring may have something some-thing to do with it. a - Every day the London papers quote all the German rumors on invasion. in-vasion. They print the predictions of the German radio, and pieces from neutral countries saying the invasion will have to occur between 4:39 a. m. today and 4:41 a. m. tomorrow, to-morrow, .or else be put off for a month. They print pictures of German Ger-man fortifications, and tell of the sudden regrouping and rushing around of German troops. They conjecture con-jecture on the thunderous explosions heard daily on the French side of the Channel. Since the only invasion, news we have is what the Germans predict, this echo from Germany has the effect, ef-fect, upon me at least, of a war of nerves. London is crawling with Americans, Ameri-cans, both army and civilian. All headquarters cities are alike in their overcrowding, 'their exaggerated discipline, and what appears to be military overstaffing. Sorife say London is as bad as Washington. Some say it is worse. I do know that the section where American offices are most highly concentrated is a funny sight at lunchtime or in late afternoon. American uniforms pour out of the buildings in floods. On some streets an Englishman stands out as incongruously incon-gruously as he would in North Platte, Neb. Desk officers and fliers and WACs and nurses abound. Two things that amuse the British Brit-ish are the "pink" trousers our officers offi-cers wear and our perpetual saluting. salut-ing. The American army is very strict about saluting here. Everybody Ev-erybody has to salute. Second lieutenants salute other second lieutenants. Arms flail Bp and down by the thousands as though everybody was crazy. People jab each other in the eyes saluting. On one short street much traveled by Americans they have had to make sidewalk traffic traf-fic one-way, presumably to prevent pre-vent saluting casualties. A friend of mine, a captain cap-tain recently arrived from Africa, was stopped the other day by another captain just over from America who bawled the living daylights out of him or not returning his salute. My captain cap-tain friend said he couldn't because be-cause his right arm had become muscle-bound from waving it too much. They're strict about dress here too. You have to wear your dress blouse and either pinks or dark-green dark-green dress trousers. Everybody looks just so-so and exactly like everybody else. 1 thought 1 looked very pretty when I got here, for all my clothes were clean for the first time in months. But I hadn't reckoned with thev. headquarters atmosphere. I have never been stared at so much in my life, as during my first three days here. For I had on a British battle jacket, O. D. pants and infantry boots. They had never seen anybody dressed like that before. Nobody knew what this strange apparition H was, but they all played safe and saluted it anyhow and then turned and stared belligeBently at it. I think sheer awe is all that kept the M.P.'s from picking me up. Finally, after three days, I dug up a trunk I had left here a year and a half ago and got out my old brown civilian suit and gray hat, and now I'm all right. People just think I'm a bedraggled bank clerk, and it's much better. The other day I took a trip up to mid-England to see a man from Albuquerque. Al-buquerque. He is in fact the man who built our little white house out there on the mesa, and who subsequently subse-quently became one of our best friends. His name is Arthur McCollum. He was a lieutenant in the last war and he is a captain in this one. He spent 20 years regretting that he never got overseas the other time, and he is very happy that he made it this time. He is attached to a big general hospital in the country. In January Captain McCollum had a reunion with his son, Lieut. Ross McCollum. Ross was chief pilot of a flying fortress. Father and son had two wonderful weekends together. to-gether. And then on his second mission over Germany Ross didn't come back. Nothing has been heard from him since. That was nearly four months ago. Captain Mac and Ross were real companions they played together and dreamed and planned together. After the war they were going to fish a lot and then start an airplane sales agency together. ' Captain Mac says, he kind of went to the bottom of the barrel over Ross. For two months he was so low he felt he couldn't take it. And then he said to himself, him-self, "Look here, you damn fool. You can't do this. Get yourself together." And having given himself that abrupt command, he carried it out. And today he is all right. I found him the same kind of life-loving, life-loving, gay friend I had known in Albuquerque. We rode bicycles around the countryside, celebrated here and there,- made fools of ourselves our-selves and had a wonderful time. Captain Mac talked a lot about Ross, and felt better for the talking, and he didn't do any crying on my shoulder. He feels firmly that Ross will come back, but he knows now that if he never does he can take it. Even though he is an intimate friend of mine, 1 consider him one of the finest examples I know of what people can and must do when the tragedy of war falls fully upon them. I had a quick V-letter the other day from the Mediterranean. It was from one of the "frozen" boys in Casablanca that 1 wrote about the American-bound soldiers who had hit a dead-end street and had been hung up in Casa for six weeks when I ran into them. Well, they got a decision on their fate. But ft was the wrong one. Their schooling program was called off, their transfer home was cancelled, can-celled, and they were ordered back to their original outfits. The letter says: "It was a great dream while it lasted, but it's over now. We have been riding the Forty-and-Eights and hitting the replacement depots and you know what that means. "The only thing that really hurts is that we didn't catch the many boats we might have caught if we had seen 'somebody' sooner. But enough of this crying in your Scotch, Ernie. We will see you again some day. And again, thanks a million from all of us." It was a cruel and disappointing disappoint-ing thing, but that is the way real soldiers take it. The army is so big that things like that are bound to happen. But they shouldn't happen too often. Such a thing had happened in one of those boys four times in two years. Even the best soldier sol-dier can't have too much discouragement dis-couragement and disillusionment disillusion-ment heaped upon him. |
