World War II Chronicle: March 1, 1944
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The front page reports on a British-led Greek special operation which derailed a train loaded with German soldiers enroute from Athens to Berlin. 400 soldiers, including a general and his staff, are believed to have been killed in the attack, which was carried out near Mount Olympus… Page two reports that retired rear admiral Charles C. Hartigan has passed away. Hartigan earned the Medal of Honor during Battle of Vera Cruz. The 1906 graduate of the Naval Academy also commanded the battleship USS Oklahoma from 1937-39…
George Fielding Eliot column on page six… Sports begins on page 11. While pitchers and catchers were to have arrived for spring training, the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns have decided to postpone the beginning of spring training until later this month… Speaking of the Redbirds and Vera Cruz, Mexico, it is worth noting that Hall of Fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby will be the manager for the Azules de Veracruz this year (story on page 11).
Roving Reporter by Ernie Pyle
IN ITALY — In my usual role of running other people’s business, I’ve been thrashing around with an idea — honest. It’s to give the combat soldier some little form of recognition more than he is getting now.
Everybody who serves overseas, no matter where or what he’s doing, gets extra pay. Enlisted men get 20 per cent additional and officers 10 per cent.
Airmen get an extra 50 per cent above this for flight pay. As a result, officer-fliers get 60 per cent above their normal base pay and enlisted fliers such as gunners and radio operators get 70 per cent.
All that is fine and as it should be, but the idea I was toying with is why not give your genuine combat ground soldier something corresponding to flight pay? Maybe a good phrase for it would be “fight pay.”
Of any one million men overseas probably no more than 100,000 are in actual combat with the enemy. But as it is now, there is no official distinction between the dogface lying for days, nights under constant mortar fire on an Italian hill, and the headquarters clerk lying comfortably in a hotel in Rio de Janeiro.
Their two worlds are so far apart the human mind can barely grasp the magnitude of the difference. One lives like a beast and dies in great numbers. The other is merely working away from home. Both are doing necessary jobs, but it seems to me the actual warrior deserves something to set him apart. And medals are not enough.
When I was at the front the last time several infantry officers brought up this same suggestion. They say combat pay would mean a lot to the fighting man. It would put him into a proud category and make him feel that somebody appreciates what he endures.
Obviously no soldier would ever go into combat just to get extra “fight pay.” That isn’t the point. There is not enough money in the world to pay any single individual his due for battle suffering.
But it would put a mark of distinction on him, a recognition that his miserable job was a royal one and that the rest of us were aware of it.
One of the meanest stunts I’ve heard of was a Christmas envelope full of clippings that a practical joker back home sent a soldier over here.
The clippings consisted of colored ads out of magazines — and they showed every luscious American thing from huge platters of ham and eggs on up to vacationists lolling in bright bathing robes surrounded by beautiful babes. There ought to be a law.
On second thought, I know even a meaner trick than that one. In fact this one would take first prize in an orneriness contest at any season, Christmas or otherwise. The worst is that it happened to a front-line infantryman.
Some of his friends back home sent him three bottles of whisky for Christmas. They came separately, were wonderfully packed, and the bottles came through without a break.
The first bottle tasted fine to the cold kids at the front, but when the second and third ones came the boys found they had been opened and drained along the way, then carefully resealed and continued on their journey.
Of course, mailing them in the first place was illegal, but that’s beside the point. The point is that somewhere in the world there is a louse of a man with two quarts of whisky inside him who should have his neck wrung off.
At one of our airdromes recently a German plane dropped five-pronged steel spikes over the field. Our fliers called it a “jacks raid,” since the spikes resembled the “jacks” that kids used to play with in school, only much bigger. These vicious spikes would punctured the tires when our planes taxied out.
So the field engineers got a huge magnet, attached it to the front of a truck, and swept the field free of the spikes. Then they were loaded into our planes and dropped on German airfields. There haven’t been any “jacks raids” since.
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 1 March 1944. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1944-03-01/ed-1/