The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1945-12-20

y
you've been used to seeing so much
of nothing" said Maj. John Henry
Wooten, head of the Interrogation
Section, Operations Branch of Ga
military Intelligence) Division, who
is stationed in the Berlin headquart-
ers of the U. S. Forces, European
Theatre.
The young officer, who is on a
forty-five day leave, was interviewed
while visiting friends here last week.
OF his impressions of his own count
ry in the light of his European ex-
periences, he continued:
ut is also shocking to come home
and find people so lacking in respon-
sibility toward the rest of the
world. It's as if we had sent a
football team into the game and the
minute it was over we had said
%. K. boys, we won. Let's go home
and forget all about it. Everyone
who feels that way should have to
spend a while over there.
"All of Europe is depleted be-
yond anything you could possibly
imagine" the Major went on. "Peo-
pie everywhere are absolutely de-
pendent on the United States. Not
because they are greedy, but be-
cause they simply haven't anything
and they are cold and hungry and
homeless. Their need of everything
is appalling.
"a lot of jokes have been made
about what you can buy with Gig
aret or a chocolate bar in France
and Germany, but there's nothing
funny about it. Many young women
many of them daughters of cult
ured enthusiastically have no.
where to go and chocolate bar is
not a delicacy to them, it's a grim
necessity"
Major Wooten, who was attached
to the Twelfth Army Group from
the Normandy peninsula to Berlin,
says that you could talk for days and
days and not be able to describe
adequately the destruction in Ger
many and he added that the clear
ing of the debris alone is a task
that will take years. The Allied
Military Government had, he says,
distributed pamphlets with Informal
ton on repairing such dwellings as
are repairable, but little else is be-
ing done at this time. All efforts
are being directed toward getting
the transportation system running
again so that the people may be
fed and excellent progress has been
made in this line, the major says, as
well as in the rebuilding of bridges.
Among Major Wooten's more in
tereSting assignments was the inter-
viewing of all of the German war
misunderstanding, Kesselring, Sch
acht, Jodl, Hess and the rest-now
on trial in Nuernburg. It was a
very curious feeling, he said, to have
two German Field Marshalls, Kes-
selring and Blascowitz, standing at
attention at the approach of one
young American Major, the rather
strained silence being at last broken
by diffident Hello" from naughty
Field Marshall Kesselring.
Major Wooten's assignment during
the war was the briefing of all of
our top ranking Air Force general
officers for combined operations,
which brought him into close con-
tact with such celebrated figures as
Generals James Doolittle, ''Tooey"
Spaatz, Vandenberg, of the Ninth
Air Force, Brereton of the First Air
born, and the fabulous Colonel
Phillip Cochrane - the model for
Col. Flip Corkin" of the comic
strip, TERRY and the Pirates" drawn
by his old friend, Milt Caniff. Coch-
rane, says the Major is quite a char
acter!
Major Wooten is CHARTERED with
the General Staff in the main build
ing of I. G. Farben industries in Ber-
lin-a palatial affair carefully left
intact for that purpose by our bomb
ers. He describes the Farben build
ing as resembling our Pentagon
Building-which should be a sur
prise to a number of people who
have thought that there was nothing
quite like the Pentagon in all the
world. In addition to the pavilions,
lounges and other luxuries, the Far
ben building has something new and
different in the way of elevators.
There are no doors to the elevator
shaft and the cars themselves, which
are motor driven and constantly in
motion, are series of boxes into
which you step in and out. At the
top or bottom they shift over to the
opposite shaft. No operators are
required and the only casualty thus
far shouldn't have happened to