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Show t With Ernie Pyle at the Front: War Lacks Drama to the Real Front Line GI Heroes Without Exception They Want to Finish the Job and Return Home Truce Clears ;round of Civilians By Ernie Pyle Ed. Note. Pyle has arrived at Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a rest and to receive the degree of Doctor of Letters from New Mexico university. This column was written while he was still in Europe. WRITTEN ON THE TUNISIAN FRONT. The other night I was sitting in the room of Lieut. Col. Sam Gormly a Flying Fortress commander from Los Angeles. We were looking over a copy of an American picture magazine, the latest to reach us here. six-weeks-- s - It was full of photos and sto- people he isnt afraid. Some of us ries of the war; dramatic tales have to show were not afraid. You from the Solomons, from Rus- - dont have to. You decided right. I put this all down with such blunt sia, and right from our own African front. The magazine fascinated me and, when I had finished, I felt an animation about the war I hadnt felt in weeks. e For in the mag-azin- the war seemed romantic and exciting, full heroics and vitality. I know it really is, and yet of I dont seem capable of feeling it. Only in the America can I catch the real spirit of the war over here. One of the pictures was the long concrete quay where we landed in When Dunkirk became the center of operations. Allies and Germans agreed to a truce in order that Africa. It gave me a little tingle civilians could leave the city. Views showing them leaving are typical of other cities along the route of to look at it. For some perverse the advancing Yanks. Allied headquarters say that the Dunkirk truce plan may not be followed in all other reason it was more thrilling to look at the picture than it was to march cities. Indiviflaai commanders will decide in the future. along the dock itself that first day. I dont know what the hells the matter with me, I said. Here we are right at the front, and yet the war isnt dramatic to me at all. When I said that, Maj. Quint Quick of Bellingham, Wash., rose up from his bed onto his elbow. Quick is a bomber squadron leader, and has been in as many fights as any bomber pilot over here. He is admired and respected for what hes been through. He said: It isnt to me either. I know it should be, but it isnt. Its just hard work, and all I want is to finish it and get back home. So I dont know. Is war dramatic, or isnt it? Certainly Holland in Ruins as War Rages Toward Berlin sible for Allied troops to advance rapidly. Nothing remains standing in wake of Nazi retreat. Aachen Given Terms Coastguardsmen Cast Ballots a t u in th Coastguardsmen at a replacementmilpool lions cise their right to vote along with all over men are awaiting n servicemen the world. These Philippines wn guard fighting ships in the Pacific and rn P considerable and carry fighting troops m Japan. Early e soldier, sailor interest on the part of oversea veterans, with considerab and marine individual campaigners at work. Lieut. William Boehme, New York City, with another officer and a private carried the surrender terms to the besieged Nazi garrison at' Aachen, Germany. Boehme was! chosen because of his German- American parentage and knowledge 1 of German. ssmmt- nWliF wpmm m immodesty because some of you may have wondered when Im going along to describe a bombing mission for you, and if not, why not. Im not going, and the reason is that Ive rationalized myself into believing that for one in my position, my sole purpose in going would be to perpetuate my vanity. And Ive decided to hell with vanity. I was away from the front lines for a while this spring, living with other troops, and considerable fighting took place while I was gone. When I got ready to return to my old friends at the front I wondered if I would sense any change in them. The most vivid change is the casual and workshop manner in which they now talk about killing. They have made the psychological transition from the normal belief that taking human life is sinful, over to a new professional outlook where killing is a craft. To them now there is nothing morally wrong about killing. In fact it is an admirable thing. I think I am so impressed by this new attitude because it hasnt been necessary for me to make this change along with them. As a noncombatant, my own life is in danger only by occasional chance or circumstance. Consequently I need not think of killing in personal terms, and killing to me is still murder. Even after a winter of living with wholesale death and vile destruction, it is only spasmodically that I seem capable of realizing how real and how awful this' war is. My emotions seem dead and crusty when presented with the tangibles of war. I find I can look on rows there are great tragedies, unfresh of graves without a lump in believable heroics, even a conSomehow I can look on throat. my stant undertone of comedy. It is without flinching or mutilated bodies the job of us writers to transdeeply. feeling fer all that drama back to you It is only when I sit alone folks at home. Most of the other from it all, or lie at night away abilithe have correspondents in my bedroom recreating with ty to do it. closed eyes what I have seen, And speaking of drama, Ive just and thinking and thinkthinking assed up my only opportunity of at last the enormity that ing, eing dramatic in this war. It was of all these newly dead strikes a tough decision either way. like a living nightmare. And As youve seen, correspondthere are times when I feel that ents at last are allowed to go I cant stand it and will have along on bombing missions. I am to leave. with a bomber group that Id known both in England and But to the ' fighting soldier that elsewhere in Africa, and many phase of the war is behind. It was of them ' are personal friends left behind after his first battle. His by now. They asked if I cared blood is up. He is fighting for his to go along on a mission over and killing now for him is as life, the hot spot of Bizerte. much a profession as writing is for I knew the day of that invitation me. would come, and I dreaded it. Not He wants to kill individually or in to go, brands you as a coward. To vast numbers. He wants to see the go might make you a slight hero, or Germans overrun, mangled, butcha dead duck. Actually I never knew ered in the Tunisian trap. He speaks what Id say until the moment excitedly of seeing great heaps of came. When it did come, I said this: dead, of our bombers sinking whole No, I dont see any sense in my shiploads of fleeing men, of Gergoing. Other correspondents have al- mans by the thousands dying misready gone, so I couldnt be the erably in a final Tunisian holocaust first anyhow. Id be in the way, and of his own creation. if I got killed my death would have In this one respect the frontcontributed nothing. Im running line soldier differs from all the chances just being here without rest of us. All the rest of us sticking my neck out and asking for you and me and even the thouit. No, I think I wont go. Im too sands of soldiers behind the lines old to be a hero. of Africa we want terribly The reaction of the fliers yet only academically for the astounded me. I expected them to be war to get over. The front-lin- e soldier wants it to be got over politely contemptuous of anyone who declined to do just once what they by the physical process of his dedo every day. But their attitude was stroying enough Germans to end it. He is truly at war. The rest exactly the opposite, and you could tell they were sincere and not just of us, no matter how hard we being nice. work, are not. Anybody who goes, when he doesnt have to, is a plain damn Say what you will, nothing can fool, one of them said. . make a complete soldier except If I were in your shoes Id battle experience. never go on another mission, In the semifinals of this camanother pilot said. the cleaning out of Cenpaign A bombardier with his arm in a tral Tunisia we had large units in Youre battle for the first time. Frankly, sling from flak said: right. A correspondent went with they didnt all excels Their own us. It wasnt any good. He shouldnt commanders admit it, and admirahave done it. bly they dont try to alibi. The Britwho had just ish had to help us out a few times, A lieutenant-colone- l, got back from a mission, said: but neither American nor British There are only two reasons on commanders are worried about that, earth why anybody should go. Either for there was no lack of bravery. because he has to, or to show other There was only lack of experience. |