Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1944-03-03
Air Engineers
Get There First
BY Robert Mccormick
(WNU Feature-Through special arrangement
with Golfers WeekIy)

Aviation engineers in Italy are ap-
parently just good little gremlins,
scooting hither and thither, building
airports where no airports should
ever be built, and building them just
at the time somebody needs them.
The men and equipment RESPONSE
BILE for making the Salerno airdrome
a decisive factor in the Italian land
ing were our aviation engineers, one
OF the least publicized units of the
army air forces, yet one of the ba-
sic influences in every victory we've
won so far in the Mediterranean.
Aviation engineers, riding their
bulldozers, 60 right in amongst the
bullets, into the front lines, or ahead
OF them. Their main jobs are to
build new airports in conquered ter
ritory, as they did exceedingly well
in Tunisia, and to repair captured
airports, as they did so nobly in
Sicily.
The big boss of the Aviation En-
gineers is Brig. Gen. Stuart C. God
frey, wiry little person who looks,
acts and talks just the way you'd
like to think all our generals do.
General Godfrey describes himself
simply as General Arnold's engi-
neer," but he is likely to end up the
most important engineer in modern
history. His title is Air Engineer,
Army Air Forces.
AS a sample of how Godfrey's men
work, there is the story of how they
built five airports in three days near
Sbeitla, in North Africa.
Brig. Gen. Donald Dawson, en-
gineer commander in those parts,
was looking for one of his companies.
He started through a sector occu-
pied by an American armored divi-
sion. Officers stopped him, and
asked him if he knew he was in the
front lines, and headed right out into
no mans land, beyond even the
Americans outer patrols.
Damn Fools Are Up Ahead.
Dawson obviously did not know.
The surprise on his face would have
detonated a bomb. He asked the
boys if they'd seen anything of a
company of aviation engineers. The
answer was quick and positive.
Eyes, we have" said one of the
officers, "if you mean those damn
fools who wouldn't pay any attention
to us and took those big machines
out. We think they're about 10 or
IS miles down the road"
Finally Dawson found his engi-
neers. They had put in a few
defensive guns, had dug themselves
slit trenches, and were at work
building an airfield right under the
NaZis' noses.
In three days-three days is "
hours of work to the engineers-the
men built five serviceable fields and
moved north ITO miles to the area
around LIE Ser, to grind out more
'dromes.
The five-in-three deal was the re-
suit of careful planning and fast
movement. The whole North African
battlefront had been looked over
from the air, and spots picked out
which seemed generally favorable
for landing fields. When it devel-
oped that batch would be needed
specifically around Sbeitla, the en-
gineers again flew over the ground,
choosing more definite locations.
Then the engineer troops, with
their bulldozers and scrapers and
shovels and all the rest of their
equipment, went roaring overland,
marching day and night, and they
went so fast that they paid no at
tention to the fact that they had gone
clean through the front lines. Or if
they did notice it, they were too stub
born to care.
Their ability to build airports just
one jump ahead of our combat air.
planes is one of the big reasons we
gave the Axis such a bouncing
around in North Africa as well as in
Sicily. By having airfields up front,
we kept our air support constant
ly with-and ahead of-our troops.
Air Force Has to Be Near Front.
There could be no delays in bring
ing up our airpower. The tactical
air force always had to get places
ahead of our troops, to blast down
enemy resistance before our troops
arrived. The strategic air force had
to reach deeper and deeper behind
the enemy lines, hacking at the
channels through which the enemy
brought up food. munitions and other
supplies. Both groups constantly had
to be as near the Nazis as they
could get.
This meant turning out airfields at
an amazing rate. It meant flatten-
ing out barren mountains, filling in
colossal mudholes, trying to hold
down expanses of drifting, destruc-
tive sand. It meant using fumbEing
native labor, carrying special pee
wee equipment and airborne engi-
neers hundreds Of miles at a leap
by air, and working night and day
in bleak stretches of battlefieldS.
That's what the aviation engineers
are up against. Yet they conjured
up airports SO fast that the pilots
never knew, from day to day, where
they'd find one next.