Show ernie pyles slant on the war how war Is conducted from forward command post informal and unexcited officers and men carry on under heavy fire by ernie pyle editors note pyle retells some of 01 his experiences while he was with the gil during the tunisian campaign lie ile is now taking a long needed rest in new Al mexico exico I 1 AT THE FRONT line LINE IN TUNISIA we drove our jeep under a tree camouflaged it by covering it with limbs and then walked up the side of a hill for about yards half a mile to the south of us the thes battle tor for Ouss eltia pass in central tunisia was going on we stopped in what is known as a forward command post from which a battle is directed this one 3 consisted of a tent 20 f feet beet ar square well hidden under a tree however the whole tent had been dropped down and simply lay like a tar covering ernie pyle the officers bed rolls and bags all the work was being done around two field telephones lying in their leather cases on the ground ten feet from the tent the rocky hillside was covered with little bushes and small fir trees the sun was out and the day was rather warm there were no papers or desks or anything just three or four officers standing and sitting on a hillside near two telephones on the ground one officer had a large map case all the paraphernalia there was for directing the battle our troops were on top of a ridge about a quarter ot of a mile above us the enemy was in the valley beyond and on a parallel ridge a mile farther on we could walk up and look over but we see anything both sides were well hidden in the brush every minute or two our nearby artillery would fire and then half a minute or so later we could hear faintly the explosion of the shells far away Nob odys doing much damage right now an officer said but at least were getting in ten shots shots to their one now and then a louder and much nearer blast interrupted us when I 1 asked what size gun this was an officer said it a gun it was enemy mortar shells exploding I 1 supposed they were three or four miles away but he said they were falling only yards from us once in a while we could hear machine gun fire in the distance A young second lieutenant stood near the phones and did all the talking over them in fact he appeared to be making all the decisions and he impressed rw as knowing his business remarkably well lieutenant gives orders the highest officer aroi around and was a lieutenant colonel but he seemed to leave everything to the lieutenant and at every signal of approaching planes he ran to a nearby foxhole and stayed there till the planes had gone the phone rang every few minutes other command posts would be calling in to report or to ask instructions now and then the chief post some 15 miles back would call and ask how things were going offic officers ers and enlisted men kept appearing from down below or over the hill asking about things one sergeant came to inquire where a certain post was saying he had two jeep tires and a tire for an antitank gun that he was supposed to deliver another sergeant wearing an overcoat came up the hill saluted formally and reported that a certain battery setup was ready to fire they told him to go ahead A phone rang the captain of an ack ack battery said the enemy had his range and asked permission to move he was told to go ahead all the conversation was informal and unexcited A phone rang again an officer at another command post was asking for a decision on whether to move forward for vard the young lieutenant apparently not wishing to give direct orders to a higher officer solved the problem by putting his words in the form of advice sprinkling two or three sirs in every sentence I 1 thought he handled it beautifully now and then the lieutenant would phone some other post all the posts have code terms such as hatrack and monsoon and chicago ive just made those up as ex amples ampies since naturally I 1 cant print the real code names once the lieutenant phoned to a rear command post and told them to send some trucks to a town where two tanks had been disabled that morning several times he phoned other posts to check up on a colonel who was wandering around the battle area in a jeep you could tell they were very fond of the colonel and that he apparently paid little attention to danger is se is there were no planes in the sky when we arrived but that morning the germans had been over and bombed and strafed our troops badly the command post had called for air support but somebody at the other end said the planes were busy on other missions and just have to grin and bear it the men around our post spoke cynically about that remark all afternoon grin and bear it eh they would say well well bear it but we wont guarantee to grin but in the late afternoon our planes did come first we know they were oars so we all took to the foxholes finally after they had flown overhead a couple of times without doing anything somebody yelled they are definitely ours so we came out the planes circled for about ten minutes hunting for the correct spot in the bush cov ered mountainside they seemed to take their time at it to make sure and then finally they started peeling off one at a time and came diving down at a hillside a mile away dive and then wheel back high into the sky and dive again apparently there was no enemy attack for there were no black puffs around the planes we could hear their machine guns and their cannon shells bursting they kept on diving and shooting for about 15 minutes pretty soon an officer came running up the hill and said do you see that those damned germans are mixed up and strafing hell out of the italians when we told him they were our planes he said oh and went back down the hill the afternoon sun went over the hill and the evening chill began to come down we were sitting on a bushy hillside just a small bunch of american officers forming what is called a forward command post officers who had been in the battle for Ouss eltia pass all day began wandering in through the brush on foot to report they were dirty and tired but the day had gone well and they were cheerful in a quiet and unexpressed way hit red cross truck A medical corps major came up tip the hill and said those blanks they have knocked out two of my ambulances bu that were trying to get the wounded back A hell bell of a lot a red cross means to them nobody said anything he went back down the hill as mad as a hornet the officers kept talking about three fellow officers who had been killed during the day and a fourth one who was missing one of the lead men apparently had been a special favorite an officer who had been beside him when it happened came up with blood on his clothes we hit the ground together he said but when I 1 got up he it took him right in the head he felt no pain raise up that tent and pack his stuff an officer told an enlisted man another one said the hell of it is his cifes due to have a baby any time now just then a sergeant walked up he had left the post that morning with the officer who was now missing wheres captain so and so bot they all asked |