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Show Filipp T With Ernie Pyle at the Front Front Line Infantryman Learns How to Kill Enemy Not a Killer at Heart, These Boys Soon Develop Accuracy F. F. I. Fighting in Paris Political Adviser .v.v,v By Ernie Pyle ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Delayed) .Soldiers are made out of the strangest people. Ive recently made a new friend just a plain old Hoosier who is so quiet and humble you would hardly know he was around. Y et in our few weeks of invasion he has killed four of the enemy, and he has learned wars wise little ways of destroying life and preserving your own. killer He hasnt become the type that war makes of some soldiers; he has merely become adjusted to an obligatory new profession. i Its harder on a man at that age. As Clayton himself says, "When you pass that 30 mark you begin to slow up a little. Its harder for you to take the His name is hard ground and the rain and the George Thomas sleeplessness and the unending Clayton. Back wracking of it all. And yet at 37 home he is known he elected to go back. as Tommy. In the The ways of an invasion turned army he is some-timout to be all very new to Tommy called Clayton. George, but usuIt was new to thousands of others ally just Clayton. also, for they hadnt been trained He is from Evin hedgerow fighting. So they had ansville, where to learn it the way a dog learns to he lived with his sister. He is a front- swim. They learned. line infantryman of a rifle company This Tommy Clayton, the mildin the 29th division. est of men, has killed four of the By the time this is printed he will enemy for sure, and probably dozbe back in the lines. Right now he ens of unseen ones. He wears an is out of combat for a brief rest. He expert riflemans badge and soon spent a few days in an Exhaustion will have the proud badge of comcamp, then was assigned briefly to bat infantryman, worn only by those the camp where I work from a who have been through the mill. camp for correspondents. Thats Three of his four victims he how we got acquainted. got in one long blast of his Browning automatic rifle. He Clayton is a private first class. was stationed in the bushes at He operates a Browning automatic a bend in 'a gravel road, coverrifle. He has turned down two ing a crossroad about 80 yards chances to become a buck sergeant ahead of him. and squad leader, simply because Suddenly three German solhe would rather keep his powerful diers came out a side road and B. A. R. than have stripes and less foolishly stopped to talk right in personal protection. the middle of the crossroads. He landed in Normandy on The B. A. R. has 20 bullets in a on the toughest of the beaches, and clip. Clayton held her down for was in the line for 37 days without the whole clip. The three Gerrest. He has had innumerable narmans went down, never to get row escapes. up. Twice, 88s hit within a couple His fourth one he thought was a of arms lengths of him. But when he killed him. In the early Jap both times the funnel of the of the invasion lots of soldiers days was away from him and thought they were fighting Japs, he didnt get a scratch, though in with' the German scattered the explosions covered him troops. They were actually Monand his rifle with dirt. golian Russians, with strong OrienThen a third one hit about 10 feet tal features, who resembled Japs to away, and made him deaf in his the untraveled Americans. On this fourth killing, Clayton was right ear. He had always had trouble with that ear anyway ear covering an infantry squad as it aches and things as a child. Even worked forward along a hedgerow. in the army back in America he There were snipers in the trees in had to beg the doctors to waive the front. Clayton spotted one and ear defect in order to come over- sprayed the tree with his automatic seas. He is still a little hard of hear- rifle, and out tumbled this man he ing in that ear from the shell burst, thought was a Jap. but its gradually coming back. When Tommy finally left the lines To show how little anyone who he was pretty well done up and his hasnt been through war can know sergeant wanted to send him to a about it do you want to know how hospital, but he begged not to go for Clayton located his sniper? fear he wouldnt get back to his old Heres how When a bullet passes smack over company, so they let him go to a pest camp instead. And now after a your head it doesnt zing; it pops couple of weeks with us (provided the same as a rifle when it goes off. the correspondents dont drive him Thats because the bullets rapid frantic), he will return to the lines passage creates a vacuum behind it, with his old outfit. and the air rushes back with such Clayton has worked at all kinds force to fill this vacuum that it of things back in that other world of collides with itself, and makes a recivilian life. He has been a farm sounding pop. hand, a cook and a bartender. Just Clayton didnt know what caused before he joined the army he was this, and I tried to explain. in the Chrysler Orda gauge-honYou know what a vacuum is, I nance plant at Evansville. We learned that in high said. When the war is over he wants to school. And Tommy said, Ernie, I never go into business for himself for the first time in his life. Hell probably went past the third grade. set up a small restaurant in EvBut Tommy is intelligent and his ansville. He said his brother-in-lasensitivities are fine. You dont have would back him. to know the reasons in war, you only have to know what things indicate when they happen. Tommy was shipped overseas after only two months in the Well, Clayton had learned that the pop of a bullet over his head army, and now has been out of America for 18 months. He is preceded the actual rifle report medium-sizehas by a fraction of a second, bea little mustache and the cause the sound of the rifle exhead of hair you plosion had to travel some disever saw this side of Buffalo tance before hitting his ear. So Bills show. the pop became his warning While his division was killing time signal to listen for the crack of in the last few days before leaving a snipers rifle a moment later. England, he and three others deThrough much practice he had cided to have their hair cut Indian learned to gauge the direction of the fashion. They had their heads sound almost exactly. And so out of clipped down to the skin all except this animal-lik- e system of hunting, h for a ridge starting at he had the knowledge to shoot into the 'forehead and running clear to the right tree and out tumbled his the back of the neck. It makes them Jap sniper. look more comical than ferocious, In a long drive an infantry comas they had intended. Two of the four have been wounded and evacupany may go for a couple of days without letting up. Ammunition is ated to England. I chatted off and on with Clayton carried up to it by hand, and occafor several days before he told me sionally by jeep. The soldiers somehow old he was. I was amazed; so times eat only one K ration a day. much so that I asked several other They may run clear out of water. people to guess at his age and they Their strength is gradually whittled all guessed about the same as I did down by wounds, exhaustion cases and straggling. about 26. Finally they will get an order to Actually he is 37, and thats pretty well along in years to be a front sit where they are and dig in. line infantryman. es Bearing the cross of Lorraine, of General Le Clercs second armored division, men of the F. F. I. move against the Nazi strongpoint in the city, before Paris falls. In civilian clothes, they are armed with a large variety of weapons. Photo made by Gaston Madro, who served with the French underground in his native Paris during the occupation. His photos show underground history. Patton-Bradle- y Tour Brittany Robert D. Murphy, recently ap pointed to the post of political adviser to General Eisenhower, will replace William Phillips, former career diplomat. Murphy is shows seated at his desk in the state department. Royal Commander D-da- y, con-cussi- on H.R.H. Prince Bernard of the Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton, left, and Lieut. Gen. Omar L. Bradley, Netherlands is shown talking to one are shown aboard a 7 plane used on a tour of the Brittany peninsula. of his men during inspection of Dutch General Bradleys troops cover so much area in France that he finds it troops fighting on the British-Can- a a dian sector in France. He has been necessary to use a plane to visit the farflung fronts. In the plane was tour. named commander of he Nether jeep, used by the generals on land forces under General Eisen hower. C-4- One of British Secret Weapons Bolivian Reappears er w d, two-inc- g The crocodile ed chur chill ype tank quippcan the British in the invasion of France and fet , with a flame thrower that projects a gey tanks landed a t Normandy 35 hours actually fire around corners. These after the first troop landings on beaches. flame-throwin- V Mauricio Hochschild, fabulously wealthy Bolivian mine owner, is pictured as he arrived via Clipper at Miami, Fla. His strange disappear ance early in August for 17 days has never been explained. He wai in political trouble . dark-haire- d, |