Evening star., 1951-12-16
By WoIIoce E. cIoyton

Il "A AGA sc, bAOW1I, Duo~olLCQ dIIlUu"
lance backed slowly up to trans
port plane sitting on an Andrews
Air Force Base apron.
| A cloth bearing a red cross hung
on the inside Of the open door.
Christmas decorations were strung
around it.
Inside, lying quietly on a cot,
was a dark, sharp-faced soldier
going home for Christmas. The
trip was Christmas present from
the Air Evacuation Service. The
same service had flown the soldier
back from Korea under less happy
circumstances shortly after last
Christmas.
Military Air Transport Service
planes at various air bases all
over the country took of last week
on Operation Santa Claus" trips.
Before the week was over. GA
lparaplegic. blind and multiple
amputee veterans of Korea were
flown to their homes for extended
Christmas leaves.
Legs Lost to Fr0stbite.
Waiting to be loaded aboard the
plane was Sergt. Angelo Rosella,
l26, whose frostbitten legs were
Iamputated after he was rescued
from the Chinese Communists.
The quiet. serious soldier was
headed for his wife and small son
in Columbus. Ga.
Medical corpsmen lifted Sergt.
Rosella in their arms, and carried
him up ramp to the plane. Brig.
Gen. Wilford Hall, surgeon gen.
eral of MATS and director of the
medical phase of a program which
has evacuated more than $4,000
casualties from Korea and Japan,
stepped up to wish Sergt. Rosella
a Merry Christmas.
M/Sergt. Gerald T. Davis of
Minneapolis. a jovial, 220-pound
veteran of the Air Evacuation
Service, slammed the plane door
shut. A few minutes later, the
VC-43. military counterpart of
the workhorse DC-3, was off over
Washington.
Strains to See Walter Reed.
Sergt. Rosella paid little atten-
ton as the Washington Monu-
ment and the Capitol flashed by.
But he craned his neck trying to
spot Walter Reed Hospital, where
he has been a patient for many
months.
He chatted for a few minutes
with his seat mate, Corpl. Patrick
Toliver. 26. of Beckley, w. Va,
who lost his left leg when mortar
shell exploded in front of him,
and his other leg by amputation.
Sergt. Toliver, who was leaving
the plane at Charleston, w. Va,
soon fell asleep.
Likes Mechanical Work.
Sergt. Rosella picked up a news
magazine, leafed through it quick
ly. Then picture magazine and
comic book. These, too, soon were
abandoned and Sergt. Rosella
leaned back and talked about his
future. The first thing he wants
to do is buy house which won't
have a lot of steps leading up to
it. The two-family home he now
owns with his brother in law.
Charles Peed, is on an incline. A
man in a wheelchair is kept pretty
close to home.
Then. perhaps, he will 60 to
an auto mechanics school. He likes
to work with mechanical things.
He did maintenance work from
the time he quit high school in
his home town of Windmer, Pa,
until he joined the Army in 1943
Sergt. Rosella, Joe to all his
friends - didn't want to stop
school. But his father died, and
there were six children in the
| family to be fed.
Sergt. Rosella was discharged
after he parachuted into Holland
with the 82nd Airborne Division.
He remained in the reserves, and
after working as a signpainter for
a couple of years, re-enlisted in
1948.
I'D never heard of Korea then, +"
he said.
On November 27, 1850, Sergt.
Rosella was crouched in a Korean
ditch near the Manchurian border,
firing at group Of Chinese SOL
diers on the other side of the road.
A bullet hit him in the arm. While
ne was trying to make a tourni-
quet, bullets hit him in the face,
shoulder and thigh. Three tore
through his helmet, but missed his
head.
Those Chinks were lousy shots"
he said.
The Chinese picked up Sergt,
Rosella. a South Korean and a
British soldier. and took them to
a nearby shack. There they
stripped the wounded soldiers Of
their outer clothing. Sergt. Rosella
knew the next day his legs were
Ifrostbitten. He stripped off his
socks, which had been left him,
and covered his hands.
!. Ten days later the Marines
i fought their way back to the shack
i and picked UP the starved men
Sergt. Rosella had temperature