Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-06-08
Troop Shift TO the Pacific
Big Job With Human Side
Need to Finish Fight Against Japanese Prevents
Wholesale Release of Vets; Move
Will Tax U. S. Shipping.
BY BAUKHAGE
NetUs Analyst and Commentator.
WNU Service, Union Trust Building,
Washington, d. C..

Washington, D. C.
The American vocabulary has
been enriched by new word which
has burdened the notebooks of war
department stenographers in WASH
ington for long time. When was
in San Francisco I saw its meaning
graphically illustrated.
The word is "redeployment." No,
. didn't make a typographical er-
ror. Unemployment we have heard
about before. ReDeployment is diff
ferent. And in that word, as in
Hauptmann's "tear," can sparkle
"all the joy and all the sorrow of
the world"
This new word isn't in any die
tionary. And in all the echoing acres
of the Pentagon I could find no Of
fetal definition of it but in its cur
rent application it simply means
shifting lot of American boys out
of the European theater of war
where the curtain has gone down.
That process is causing many
headache in the Pentagon. 1t will
cause many heartache at home
and abroad. 1t will cause some hap
piness, too.
For the boys and the families of
the soldiers and sailors who are cast
for the second act in the tragedy of
World War II (and that is most of
them) redeployment means heart
aches For the others it means hap
piness. But whether they go back
to Main street and take up the plow-
share or the pen, the hammer or the
school book, or whether they 60 on
to fresh battlefields, it is a head
ache as we'll as heartache for the
high command.
Heartache, Headache
For Officers
Before writing this article I had
long conversation with one of the
highest of the high command and I
can tell you redeployment is both
headache and heartache for him. He
and all his officer comrades who
have sons and grandsons of their
own fighting at the front want them
back as much as any rear rank pri-
Yates mother, dad, sweetheart or
wife, wants him.
But few outside those more or less
intimately concerned realize the me-
chanical implications of managing
this major migration of history in
the moving of more than three mil
lion men.
Have you any idea how long the
mere physical process of simply
loading soldiers, one after another,
on ships and sending them back to
America would take?
I do not have official figures al
though they should be released
shortly, but I have an estimate on
good authority, of the time which
would be required to transfer three
million men now in Europe across
the Atlantic to east coast ports. AS
Stunning that the transport facilities
available were devoted exclusively
to this mission, perhaps three hun
dred thousand men month could
be carried home. That would mean
that 10 months would be required
to transfer them ALL And, of course,
that is fantastic supposition, since
ships as well as men, are needed in
the Pacific and so are ships to carry
the endless supplies which the army
of the Pacific will require to carry
on about warfare.
Redeployment, materially and
morally, is tremendous task and
as result of personal conversations
with the top men upon whom its
twin burdens rest, can assure you
that the question of morale is, il
anything, the greater of the two ir
their consideration.
There is no question that the suf
fering and the repercussions of the
lengthy separation of young mer
from their normal life will become
greater, now that We Day has come
and gone. The army high command
knows this and that is why so much
time has been spent on taking every
possible step to minimize the suffer
ing which this slash that cuts across
the heartstrings of Americas socia
life, will cause.
I happen to know that busy will
the terrific burden of bringing Eu
ropes war to a successful termina
ton and beginning the final portion
of chapter two, General Marshal
himself for many long months ha!
spent hour after hour of his crowd
ed days and interrupted night!
working on this problem.