Evening star., 1944-10-02
|Gen. Casey Longs to Return
To Philippines With Macarthur
Engineer Officer
Well Qualified to
Handle Problems
BY MURLIN SPENCER,

Associated Press War Correspondent.
ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN
THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC-The
Caliraya project was Pat" Caseys
baby" and 1t broke his heart when
the onrushing Japanese made him
knock it out of commission Just
three days before it was to have be-
gun to supply water and power to
Manila, SIS miles to the northwest.
That is just one reason why Maj.
Gen. L. Hugh j. Casey is determined
to return to the Philippines with
Gen. Douglas Macarthur.
Gen. Casey has been Gen. Mac
Arthur's chief of engineers for many
years. He was with him in the
Philippines before the war. There
is no man better qualified to tackle
the tremendous engineering prob
lens certain to arise when Ameri-
can troops again set foot on Phillip
pine soil.
Gen. Casey knows where bridges
must be built or captured: he should
because he blew them sky high in
1941. He knows the best sites for
airhelds; he built long, smooth land
ing strips for American planes that
never came. He knows sites for
docks; he studied them, waiting for
ships that never appeared.
Young for Major General.
Pat" Casey is a young man as
major generals go. At 46 his wavy
hair is gray. He wears a close
cropped gray mustache but there are
few, If any, lines on his face, he is
fighting fit at ITS pounds and he
walks with bouncing step.
Gen. Casey was born in Brooklyn
The Army and his family have been
his life. His wife. Dorothy r. Casey
and one son, Keith, Is, are in Wash
lngton. His daughter, Patricia, 20
is an economist with the War Pro-
duction Board. A second son, Pfc
Hugh Boyd Casey, 18, is with the
engineers at Camp Van Dorm, Miss
Gen. Casey was graduated from
West Point in 1918 and was with the
| 18th division at Fort Dodge with
orders to 60 overseas when the arm
istice was signed From then on 1t
was work and study and build-at
the University Of Kansas, as district
engineer at Pittsburgh, as chief engi-
neer on Passamaquoddy in Maine
as district engineer in charge of
New England flood control work at
Boston.
1t was in 1887 that he was in
vited to the Philippines as engineer
ing advisor to the Philippine govern
ment and to the Philippine army's
new corps of engineers with Gen.
Macarthur as his commander in
chief.
1t was then that plans were started
for Caliraya, Luzon's first big hydro
electric project. Gen. Casey returned
to the United States in 1910 as chief
of the designs section in the Office
Of the quartermaster general. but
went back to Manila in l941 as chief
of engineers in the United States
armed forces in the Far East.
Had to Improvise Grenades.
When the war came, Gen. Casey
recalled, I'VE had no grenades or
mortars or mines and we had to
improvlSe
I'VE fashioned a grenade (the
soldiers dubbed it 'Casey's cookiesD
by taking a length of bamboo, in
serting a stick of dynamite, filling it
and cap and fuse, that worked pretty
we'll.
I'VE had no mines to use against
tanks so We improvised them. We
made 10000 with wooden boxes, 10
sticks of dynamite to a box, cell
from f1ashlight battery and other
miscellaneous articles fixed to ex-
plode under a certain weight. Some
times We bagged a caribou and
then we would have meat and then
again We would get Jap tank and
that was even better.
Then we had to devise means of