Evening star., 1944-03-20
r the same skyways as

when the news leaked out did the
officials concerned make public what
had happened. This is not record
of which the administration can be
proud.
In the matter of the face -slappine
incident, the Senate Military Affairs
Committee has held up Gen. Pat
rank of major general and there's a
meeting of the committee to consid-
er the nomination this Wednesday.
But Gen. Patton has been publicly
rebuked and has apologized and the
enlisted man in question is still
alive. 1t is pertinent to ask, there
fore, whether the Senate Military
Affairs Committee is interested in
finding out why the 40 American
boys were sacrificed and who was
responsible for the blunder. It is
also pertinent to inquire whether the
War Department has taken the
necessary steps to prevent repeti-
ton of such tragedies.
The only purpose in Furnishing
Gen. Patton would be to teach a
lesson to other commanders and
evidently the publicity given to the
episode already will do that much
Whether Gen. Patton deserves his
promotion on the basis of his COM
bat record is much more a matter
of Army discipline and Judgment
than for a Senate committee to de-
eide.
But there can be no doubt that
the duty and obligation of a Senate
committee, as the representative of
the American people, is to find out
what other blunders are being COW
cred up and what steps, if any, have
been taken to prevent commanders
from sending transport planes into
areas where they might be fired on
by our own ground forces.
There have been rumors for some
time that other mistakes of the same
nature have been made but the War
Department can no longer be de-
pended on to make a full confess
sion of these mistakes. Indeed, un-
less remedial measures are taken to
restore public confidence, the han
ding of the loss of 40 boys in
Sicily seriously undermines any
faith the public can be expected
hereafter to have in the administra-
tion's attitude toward war news.
The American press has been
asked voluntarily to censor its news
and to obey certain injunctions of
secrecy but the press never expect
ed that censorship would be used
to cover up and hide mistakes In
administration. The press repre-
sents the people and must insist on
protecting their interests so that
censorship will not be abused.
But the Senate and House Mill
tary Affairs Committees are the
civilian agencies to which the press
looks for the facts. These commit
tees are supposed to exercise some
kind OF a check in behalf of the
people on mistakes made by the War
Department. The committees have
not indicated whether they knew
anything at all about the Sicilian
blunder, and if so, why a public
revelation of the facts was not
made with the same courage that
has been shown by the Truman
Committee in uncovering blunders
on the production front. The public
has not been clearly informed,
moreover, whether the Army Air
Forces function as a separate unit
and hence are not responsible to
the ground commanders. The War
Departments statements on this
subject in the past have been
ambiguous.
In a few weeks or months the
big invasion of the European conti-
nent Is to begin. Has the ambiguity
as to where responsibility lies in
operations as between air and land
forces been cleared up? Could there
be repetition of such incidents
as happened in Sicily or have meas
ures been taken to prevent such
happenings? Certainly the Patton
incident is relatively unimportant
COMPARED to the fundamental in