Evening star., 1943-11-12
Back From the Wars
District Officer Describes Trek
Across Desert With LecIerc


ofi1cer to accompany Gen. Leclerc's S
Fighting French forces on their
famous march across the Libyan
Desert last winter, got a photograph
from the noted French military
leader the other day.
Col. Cunningham was at home on
furlough, and when the picture came
he tore 1t open eagerly. It was from
Gen. Leclerc, all right-with his back
othe camera. The inscription said
significantly:
This is part of me the enemy
never saw"
That, said Col. Cunningham,
pretty well sums up the character OF
the man with whom he shared ad-
ventures when the Fighting French
were helping to clinch North Africa
for the Allies.
Gen. Leclerc was man of strong
common sense, impatient of any
thing but strictly normal procedure,
Col. Cunningham recalls. There
was the day when chaplain, who
had been helping to send crypto-
gram messages, was asked by the
general whether he had dispatched
an especially urgent communication.
Yes" the chaplain answered, Il
sent it at GMT time"
"Ah, the devil take your old GMT
time" said the general do you
run your services on GMT time?"
mo, by local time"
Then talk to me in local time
Gen. Leclerc snorted.
Convinced of Greatness.
When the mission was over, Col.
Cunningham was convinced that
the French general was "a great
soldier, a great Frenchman and
a great man."
TT was real privilege to be
closely associated with him." he SAID
But there were also some anxious
moments for Col. Cunningham, such
as the time he found himself being
flown over the desert in a rickety
French plane, literally held to-
eether by string and wire.
Plane Forced Down.
AS the pilot tried to shift his
gas intake from one tank to
another, both motors went dead.
Coming back to the American, the
whitefaced pilot said, THE two mo-
tors just stopped, and so did my
heart" Shift back to the original
tank, the colonel suggested, and the
man did so. 1t was just in time,
and the plane landed safely on the
sand, miles from help.
The men found the pipe line had
been clogged by substances in the
gas in the other tank. They spent
the next five hours filtering every
bit Of that gas with two tin cans,
piece of chamois and a small
funnel. I'VE were certainly glad to
get back into the air after that was
DONE" Col. Cunningham said.
Col. Cunningham, member of
the Association of Oldest Inhabi-
tants. told his story leaning back in
q chair at the Willard Hotel while
he contrasted the comforts of mod
ern Washington with wartime life
in the Libyan desert
Here we are, Col Cunningham
said, "in modern hotel with
intelligent servants to satisfy our
every wish, with foods of every
kind to be had, and with COM
Portable chairs to sit on and
tables with cloths to eat upon. It
is certainly far cry from life as
have lived it the last few years."
Col. Cunningham then went on
to describe, by means of uncon-
nected little incidents, the small
things that an American Army OBJ
server encounters during war in
Africa.
Cites Servant Problem.
washington women may think
they have cook and servant prob
lem, but how would they like this
as a regular experience. I had a
native cook who had his own ideas
on how things should be done. We
were good friends, and one day,
having a group of important people
coming to dinner that evening, 1
told him we would have to serve
things differently.
He agreed, and I spent the after
noon going over the correct pro-
cedure. Dinner came. and the ma
tive served as he had always done,
to my chagrin. Afterwards I asked
him why he had done this. and his
reply was, Il have always done it
this way, and I could not see any
reason to change"
Our tendency to regard the ma
tives by our standards once led to
an amusing experience" the colonel
said. MY small troop was assigned
to make a reconnaissance into the
desert with two cars, my own and
a small truck. I thought would save
explanations by typing out what we
had to do, and so I carefully out
lined all the details of the trip and
gave them to the two chauffeurs.
Reaching the cars, 1 saw one of the
chauffeurs gravely regarding the pa
per, holding it upside down.
Cant you read?" I asked.
mo" he answered, "but my friend
can Only, he doesn't know what he
reads"
People may complain of the de-
crease in food variety here, Col.
Cunningham added, but how would
they like to be in the position of a
British missionary in the Belgian
Congo who hadn't seen ham for six
years, and that was on his last trip
to England.
Col. Cunningham is a member of
an old and well-known Washington
family. Both his grandfather
George F. Cunningham, and his
Stories of Veterans