The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-06-03

LONDON, June 2-(by wireless)
England is certainly the cross
roads of this warning world right
now. Never day passes but that
l run onto half a dozen people I
have known in Albuquerque, Wash
ington, Tunisia, Ireland, the Bel
gian Congo or Cairo.
One reason I mention this is that
nine times out of 10 these people
have picked up weight since / last
saw them. Time and time again
I've run onto officers and men who
in the thick of the war in Tunisia
were lean and thin and hard, and
now their faces are filled out and
they have gained anywhere from
10 to 40 pounds.
This is due mainly, I suppose,
to the fact that their lives haven t
been physically active, as in the
field. For months they have been
planning the invasion, working
hard at desks, eating regularly and
WE'LL and getting little exercise.
They all hate the physical mac
tivity of this long planning stage,
and they will be glad in a way
when they can get outdoors again
to hard living.
When our trails cross again their
paunches will be down, and their
faces thin and brown and dirty,
and they will look hard and alive
and like the friends 1 used to know.
They'll look better. It's a silly
world.
In roaming aroun dthe country
the other day I ran into 1t. Col.
William Profit, Sr., whom I used
to see occasionally in Africa and
Sicily.
His old outfit was the first hos
pital unit ashore in the African in
vasion, landing at dawn on D-Day.
They are so proud of that record
that they'll tear your eyes out at
the slightest itimation that you're
confusing them with the second
10 land.
This is the hospital my friend 1t.
Mary Ann Sullivan of Boston serv-
ed with. She finally wound up as
chief nurse of the unit. But when
I dropped in to say hello I dis
covered that Lieutenant Sullivan
had gone back to America a couple
of months ago.
She well deserved to go, too. She
had been overseas nearly three
years, having come originally with
the Harvard unit. She had a ship
sunk under her at sea, and was
shot at innumerable times. She
lived like a beast of the field for
nearly year, and she bore the
great burden of directing a staff
of nurses and supplying both med
ical care and cheerful understand
ing to thousands of wounded men.
My friend Colonel Profit and I
sat in easy chairs in front of his
cozy fireplace and chatted away in
dire contrast to our other evenings
on the windy plains of Tunisia.
He was telling me about a storm
they had just after I left them in
Sicily last summer. They were biv-
ouacked on the edge of cliff by
the sea, and the wind blew so hard
it blew all their tents over the
cliff just at daylight one morning.
Everybody turned to with such
mighty effort that in two hours and
quarter they had every one of
their $50 patients dry and under
cover again.
This unit is very sentimental
about the number IS. They have
been mixed up with 10 so many
times they wouldn't trade it for a
dozen black cats or four-leaf Glow
ers. They've even always sailed in
conveys of 10 ships. Colonel Prof
lit said he believed they would re-
fuse to go if they were ever as
signed to convoy of IA ships.
Most Of the original gang of nur-
ses, hear, are still with the hos
pltal after a solid year of war and
nearly two years overseas.