Evening star., 1941-09-28

''ruggedness" - in its broad sense, physical,
mental and psychological - as the prime
quality needed in field commander. General
Devers has it in heaping double portions
He stands five feet. ten inches, weighs ia
and has one of the broadcast grins and most
virile vocabularies in the whole Army. He
has hazel eyes, unruly mouse-oolored hair.
small feet and the slightly pigeon-toed walk
often noted in football backfeld men,
General Devers is today in better physical
shape than most athletes in their late thirties
He was a three-letter man in high school,
playing quarterback against heavy elevens
when he could barely jggle the scales beyond
100. At West Point he never weighed more
than l4O but made the basketball, baseball
and lacrosse teams and played football on
his class eleven.
In the Army he filled out, toughened up
and learned his expletives with mountain
artillery in the high Rockies wrestling with
mules and making celebrated l,OO0-mile
march across seven continental divides with
pack artillery - not a wheel in the outfit.
A Football Wild Man
LATER Devers became a crack Army polo
player. He coached basketball and baseball
in spare time while a math instructor at West
Point He still referees polo games occasion
ally when he has the opportunity. and only
lack of practice time keeps him from playing
himself. Devers loves horses and dogs, and
is wild man at football game This can't
be my boy, his mother said during an Army
Navy game.
At Fort Bragg he and Mrs. Devers used to
inspect the vast post - twenty-four miles
long, eight wide - on horseback every Sun
day morning In the afternoon the general
returned by car to spots he wished to exam
inc in detail. He goes to maneuvers in his own
jeep rather than a limousine, wears field
uniform and tin hat, climbs into plane to
get the broad picture himself He will be out
all night on a combat exercise and fresh at
his desk early the next morning. One aide,
a polo player himself lost ten pounds keep
ing up with him.
When General Devers took command at
Fort Bragg last fall his first review came on
the coldest morning of the year As he stepped
from his car he saw his troops lined up in
cotton uniforms - Devers stripped off his
coat. pitched it into his staff car and stood
in shirtsleeves while 5000 men marched past
A seasoned newspaperman present observed
that in many generals it would have smacked
of gesture but in Devers he believed it really
rang true. True or false. Devers is that type
Jacob Loucks Devers was born in York,
Pennsylvania. His people were part Irish and
part Pennsylvania Dutch. As boy he had no
martial dreams He grew up in the shadow of
Shunk's Hill. in three-story red-brick two
family house. white trimmed with mansard
roof. His father. short, heavy. dependable
man. was a jeweler with modest income.
jake is the oldest of four children - all of
whom are successful His sister today runs
the best book shop in York. One brother is
the West Coast representative of Yorks
largest manufacturer, and the other is a
well-known physics research man.
Ahvoys the Leader
Jake was always the leader: his house,
headquarters for the school teams; his stable,
the place they kept their equipment. When
his gang got into trouble Devers found the
way out. For two years he was captain of
the high-school basketball team (the same
thing happened at West Point and for three
years, president of his class. Although still
I1