Evening star., 1944-06-28
A Reporters View
OfWor's Horrors
Writer Shows Contrast Between
Reality and Romance
r.. W~}t>s ~.T<H...
By Waifer McCa allan.

By Waifer McCnlinn.
star war Correspondent.
WITH THE UNITED STATES ARMY
IN FRANCE.-War Is not what the
poets would have US think, a thing Of
dashing cavalry pounding on speeding
hooves In the teeth Of enemy artillery
fire, OF infantry charging, bayonets At
the ready, on the foe. War is 4 lot At
things that seem and are like h stab in
the back, but mostly war is brutality and
catching the enemy unawAres, beating
him to the punch and killing him when
his back is turned.
War Is the stealthy business OF creep
ing along hedSerow, watching for the
flash of the enemys guns ana blasting
him with fire the minute ne pokes his
head in sight; the business OF pinnink
him down with machine-gun fire and
then creeping within grenade distance
and blowing him to bits. OF watching
men die under the blast OF ARTILLERY fire.
In this fight in France, war has been
the choking cry Of parachutists unable
to free themselves from their parachute
ropes in neck-deep marshes and dying
there in the water; Of chsrred bodies in
a transport airplane, shot down by
enemy fire before al the parachutists
had dropped; ) OF a half leg burned to the
bone, hanging out Of the turret of 4
tank; Of a German body with an Ameri-
can parachute knife through the neck
and left there; of beaten. death fearing
prisoners, some Of them IA years and
little more, marching disconsolAtely
along dusty road to prison camp, fear.
ing the death they had been told by
their propaganda to expect. No glory
there, no glamour.
OF wooden crosses in an American
cemetery, below them bodies Of boys who
came to France on the grand crusade
and met death At the muszle Of the
schmeisser. or German potato-masher
grenade. OF bombed hospital, rafters
sticking starkly through what had been
a roof; Of town such ~ Isigny,
knocked down to the very pavement BY
naval shelling, with Frenchmen cleaning
up the rubble. With American soldiers,
some Of them an hour out Of the hell Of
battle, sitting at table in 1 French cafe
slipping cidre, still with the battle leht
in their eyes. OF whipping across 1
bullet-swept causeway In 4 flying jeep,
knowing enemy g,lnners will not waste
too much lead on one vehicle. OF duck.
ing German SO shells In I foxhole ana
hoping Reorganization win not come
downward.
The dead look 20 innocent ana out Of
1t all, so completely finishsd. a dead
man looks like bundle Of Old clothes
all thrown together. There have beer,
many Of them here. The mental picture
returns of an Airplane struck. at 5000
feet by antiaircraft Are, With the pilot
bailing out as his motor bursts into
flame, and the pilotless ship screaming
down at 500 miles an hour 10 hit the
beach in fierce burst q flame. OF
German planes stSaAnk Tie beach and
killing men In their a(S1p. ma the bril-.
liant bursts 81 tho Auttaircraft IRE
which met them. t(tn bofore-
hAno, on June y ana Ii NTH lAfoFe
Independence Day. 0f Ms navy bAttk-
wagons belching smoke ANA Are q they
tore Isigny and ste. Mere Xglise %
shreds. OF the Apathetic facss q tn
French populaces not knowing how to
greet the new conauslua1 u Their land,
but anxious to plsas9 Sl6 share their
wine.
War is Of al hhsse laes and many
more; phantasmagoria of impressions
and danger and bad smells and dirt and
death. It isn't pretty, but II 4 : Job to
be done, and the Americans are doing it
in the best way possible, which is the
quickest way. But wish we could see
more cities in France like Bayeux,
which hasn't known the impact Of war,
and stands as 1t stood before the Ger.
mans invaded. All the towns that I
have seen have been torn apart. They
have about them the feeling Of the dead
men who died attacking and defending
them. Probably 1t will be that way all
- -~Ay