Evening star., 1942-12-01
By the Associated prees

BY the Associated Press
I'VE were told to take a beach
head and hold it. We did"
That was at Safi, French Morocco
Corpl. Herven La Rochelle, Hartford,
Conn, recuperating from machine
gun bullet wound. told about it yes
terday when he was interviewed at
Walter Reed Hospital by War De-
partment press officers.
I'VE were about rs yards from
shore when they opened up on us. !"
said the Montreal-b born corporal.
Artillery, machine nuns. rifles
they threw it all at us. But ships
were taking care of the shore bat
terles, and they did their job, too"
ll5 Wounded Return.
Corpl La Rochelle was one of the
lis men, the first American wounded
to return from North Africa, who
reached here last week. Interviews
were forbidden when they arrived,
but yesterday the Army released the
stories of IL men whose condition
was not regarded as serious.
Tales of French who fought
savagely, then carried the wounded
men to their own hospitals and
lavished kindness on them. were
brought back by the Americans as
well as stories of the natives who
promenaded on the beaches with
complete indifference to the fighting
around them, or performed innumer-
able services for "seegarettes" and
candy bars.
Corpl. La Rochelle. who described
stopping a machine-gun bullet as
like being hit with a 2O-pound
sledge," expressed the opinion that
the French could have used their
machine guns to much greater
effect-killing instead of wounding
the American troops.
Says French Feared Reprisals.
Pvt Fred Dean. Ashland, KY. said
he was told in the hospital at Casa
blanca that it was fear of German
repriSals against French prisoners
that made the French resist the
landings in Morocco. Fvt. Dean
was wounded in the leg by a ma
chine-gun bullet.
His anti-tank outfit, said Second
1t. Leslie Ward Dooley Athens,
Tenn, got about miles inland be-
fore 1t encountered opposition when
it went to the aid of 37-millimeter
gun that was isolated, in a forward
position. About dozen French
tanks came after the gun and one
by one the gun crew fell, wounded.
Finding the gun out of action, the
French crews left their tanks,
picked up the wounded Americans
and took them to a hospital
French Boy Scouts brought me
chocolates, tangerines and oranges, "
said 1t. Dooley.
-Four days later the wounded were
taken to another town and turned
over to the American forces who
had occupied 1t. Exactly week
after he landed November 8, 1t.
Dooley was on ship headed back
home.
First Party to Land.
Pvt. Robert McNutt, St. Louis.
was in the first party to land near
Casablanca and went after ss1ipers
and machine-gun nests. He told
how "the boys snuck up to within
80 yards of the machine guns and
then let EN- have it with hand
grenades."
Pvt. McNutt himself was one of
those tossing the grenades until he
was shot in the chest by sniper.
Glum over being separated from
his outfit, Pvt. Nicholas Lastokein,
Fredericksburg. Ohio, who suffered
a shrapnel wound in the leg while
leading squad over a hill near
Casablanca, apparently had only one
worry-how soon he could get back
to Africa.
And Pvt Thomas r. Wilcynski,
Benton Harbor, Mich, was annoyed
because his wound was just an ac-
cident-a truck Sideswiped his jeep
in the darkness.
A member of an anti-aircraft unit
attached to the infantry, Pvt Frank
Rosenella. Scranton, Pa, partici-
pated in the storming of a fortifi-
cation before bullet or shrapnel
took off one OF his fingers, and
Corpl. Sylvester Ifford. Delhi, MINI,
watched an American cruiser de-
stroy French gun emplacement
while his detachment landed under
artillery and machine gun fire.
1t. Dooley, an infantry officer as