Evening star., 1941-07-14
BY ROBERT ]. CASEY,
Special Correspondent Of The Star
and Chicago Daily News.


Special Correspondent of The Star
and Chicago Daily News.
Do you remember how the AUS
trailians sang, We're off to see the
wizard, the wonderful wizard of o."
as they swung into the mad assault
on Tobruk? Do you remember the
white hoods on the gunners of the
Valiant the day she was dive
! bombed near Crete? Do you re-
member the panic-stricken child and
the playful dog who ran from the
machine-gun spray in the road near
Versailles? Do you remember the
night at Royan when Junkers 88
hung like a black cross on the face
of the full moon and the horizon
was bursting with the stars OF far
away bombs? Do you remember the
young woman fleeing afoot with her
four babies in the bedlam of the re-
treat out of Tours? Do you re-
member the kids who rode down out
of the Alps with you on their way
to the senseless murder Of the Loire?
Do you remember how you tripped
over a time bomb in Piccadilly? Do
you remember the white-hot glow
in the sky above the East End?
Do you remember the sad little
wreck of St. Clements oranges
and lemons. the bells-?" Do you
remember how lovely the flowers
were and how soft and warm the
air at Hindshead in early August?
Do you remember do you re-
member do you remember?
The weird peaks of Capetown are
softening in distance and a gray
rain. Cairo and the Middle East
Just around the corner as Journeys
are computed nowadays and here
abouts-fell back just about 1000
900 miles when the ship turned her
nose toward New York. And across
TWO years of outraged recollection
you look with no particular surprise
or concern upon bulletins of another
one of those campaigns in Syria
or the stark announcement of a new
shambles in Russia. Whatever betide
or whatever may be ahead, this war
for the moment at least Is finished.
You can ignore the communiques,
you can quit worrying about WOOL
witted censors and uniformed mill
tary spokesmen. You can concern
yourself with who's leading in the
National League and when will we
be able to get corn on the cob. And
you can forget all about the war :. {.
or at least that's the theory Of it.
Time For Silence.
1t seems little presumptuous to
recall any Of those events that
! seemed important a year and half
| ago, year ago-or even six months
ago. There isn't much you can say,
for instance, about the collapse Of
France that everybody doesn't know
about. tThere was lad at my table
on the President Hayes who could
tell me all the ramifcations of poll
tics and economics that had led to
the debacle, things that neither
nor possibly Raynaud and Gamelin
had ever heard of) Everybody has
! suffered vicarious anguish in the
battle of Britain and has read until
weary of the fighting in the western
desert. Old war correspondents, like
old soldiers. should know when the
time for talking has passed and the
time for silence has come.
And that, too, is a bit Of theory.
You can't help talking about things
you can't forget.
From all the phantasmagoria Of
blood and suffering and sacrifice and
heroics and slaughter and gay in
competence and wild adventure
there stand out six events, or rather
series of events, with which you
will probably bore everybody you
know until the day you die: The
half-forgotten "sitzkrieg':: the May
10 attack and the battling along the
Paris-Nancy road: the horrible and
fantastic retreat from Paris and
the bombing of Bordeaux: the bat
tie of Britain and the endless or
deal of London; one wild night with
an ack-ack anti-aircrafb battery,
and a ride on a blockade runner
from Glasgow to West Africa.
OF all these the sitzkrieg right
now seems to be the most incredible
and the most worthy Of conversa-
ton. The science of war produced
nothing quite like it between the
siege of Troy and the rise OF Hitler.
And for another hundred years peo-
Pile can waste their time arguing
how it came about in the first place
and how-with a little greater dill
gence on the part of Gamelin or
somebody-it might have been con-
tinued indefinitely.
It was, basically. fine battle be-
tween a couple of Chinese walls; the
impregnable Maginot Line, and the
makeshift Siegfried Line on which
the British were going to hang their
washing. That it occupied the time
Of about 100000 soldiers seemed
Just incidental. Everybody on the
edge of the comical No Mans Land
had ball ammunition but nobody
used any. The big hospitals in the
interior were places to study ad-
vanced dentistry and the doctors
took care of such wounds as frozen
fingers and chilblains. A lot Of old
soldiers said that a war like that
couldn't last long-which shows how
much they knew about it.
In a situation of the sort, OF
course, anything could happen-and
frequently did. One recalls. for in
stance, casual ride into the mid
die of a battle-the one real battle
the sitzkrieg produced until it quit
oeing a sitzkrieg and the discovery
that with reasonable luck you could
get killed in this play war just the
same as in a real one.
In a moment Of alteration the
military authorities had issued
pass through the advanced zone to