The Wilmington morning star., 1943-12-28
GENERAL MARCH
STILL ON BALL
Former Football Star
Reaches 18th Birthday
| As Fiery As Ever

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27-tRE
Gen Peyton C. March, World War
Chief of Staff, wouldn't cele-
brate his birthday today because
he is only 70 -. mot 30 or W
or 10O."
He takes his birthdays by dec
AIDES. =,
The clipper old firebrand said
that when he makes the first l00
|he can make another, because
he'll know how it is done. He'd
still be swimming in the Florida
surf every winter-out of sight OF
land and back-if it weren't for
the war.
He thinks he and his predeces-
sors. Generals Hugh Scott and
Tasker Bliss, are the forgotten
men, of the last war because an
infant U. S. military establish
ment did not set enough store by
its chief Of staff.
He is proud Of his old friend,
Gen. John J. Pershing, and wants
history to remember Generals
Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas Mac
Arthur and other field officers of
this war. But, he hopes the coun'
try, this time, will realize . :.
GAS they do in Europe and ia
pam that the strategic chief
of staff is the man who wins Or
loses a war, and that when VIC
tory is ours Gen. George c. mar
shall will get some of the credit.
This country, the last of all the
great military powers, finally
has adopted the old Prussian mill
tary brain trust system of plot
ting and planning battles before
armed forces go into action"
March says this makes Marshall
the key man for U. S. Armies.
It's like backing into a buzz
saw to interview the general, only
survivor of the last wars chiefs
o. staff, who is as fit and straight
and fierce as in his prime when
he stood 6-feet-2 and weighed the
same IT'S pounds.
His sharp eyes blaze and his
trim little gray goatee jumps
when he says:
Il played fullback at Lafayette
college in 1888 and l never missed
an Army-Navy game until Presi-
dent Roosevelt said I had to live
within 20 miles of West Point or
Annapolis or stay away"
| CThe general never misses a
professional baseball or football
game in Washington and says
things would have been different
if he had been at the Redskins
Bears playoff at Chicago Sunday.)
Between March and Nov. IL,
1918, put three times more men
in France than the Allied high
command said was possible. We
had 100000 soldiers in one strik.
ing force, the greatest this coun.
try ever assembled on one battle.
front. Now we have men scat
tered around in So different places,
and nowhere enough to fight a
finish war.
You can't whip Germany by
whipping somebody in Senegam-
bia. I'm a cross channel man,
myself, and I think we've finally
got the right idea in an about
Western front attack. I'm for
Eisenhower. I'm for Macarthur;
this 'island-hopping' makes ms
sick, too.
cts ridiculous to call the Japs
little monkeys They're some Of
the finest fighting men l ever
saw. March was U. S. military
observer attached to the Japanese
army in the 1904 Russo-Japanese
war;.
'"This country is in for shock
when the able bodied soldiers
start pouring out and the wound.
ed start pouring in. The war hasn't
even started. Wait until Germany
and Japan begin fighting on their
own soil! Look at Russia, where
even the children fight inch by
inch to hold their homeland.
Air power? Good. But the
British said there was nothing
left of Hamburg and then had to
bomb it 119 additional times. The
military works are underground.
Essen; Hitler is a fool if he hasn' t
moved the Krupp works under
ground into Austria, and left emp
ty factories for the bombers.
I'VE threw everything the air
and Navy had at Tarawa, but
the Japs were underground.
There'n be 100000 fighting men
underground when we reach ia
pan.
1--WE can lose this war right
here at home thinking it's almost
over. I'm against censorship. Tell
the people the truth.
1--WE had an Allied supreme war
council at Versailles in the last
war and Marshal Foch, Allied
yeld commander, had at his ell
bow Generals Pershing, Haig,
Weygand and Petain. They didn't
go to Quebec or Casablanca or