'Round the Girdled Earth

Letters from Dartmouth Men in the Armed Forces

FIRST LIEUTENANT CHARLES B.McLANE '41, AUS,

of the PsychologicalWarfare Division, writes an interestingletter to his parents which will be of general interest to Alumni.

Censorship rules have been relaxed enough so that I can tell you where I have been. I have been at Cherbourg, Mont St. Michel, Orleans, Chartres Tours, almost up to Paris and almost down to Bordeaux. I haven't been idle in movement. Best of all has been what we call "L'autre cote de la Loire." That has romantic implications chiefly because there are no Americans there and the country is a virgin land for exploration. I'll tell you a little about it.

To begin with, it's tough to get across the Loire since all the bridges are blown. But a few row-boats can handle the jeep and once you're over there the air is freer. No soldiers, no M.P.'s, no jeeps. Mary Louise was the first jeep ever seen South of the Loire and Watts and I the first Americans almost everywhere we went. The reaction of the population was varied. In some towns as we raced by, children would run to their mothers, dogs would bark and blinds would slam because they were sure we were some lost German patrol racing for shelter. Once some local citizens fired at us but missed. After that we displayed our American flag more visibly and kept our helmets off—for they look a good deal like German helmets. But where we stopped to ask a direction we would be mobbed in thirty seconds. They would drag us from the jeep and into the local cafe and bring out rare old bottles of champagne and cognac freshly dug up from under their cellars. Fighting our way back to Mary Louise we would have a gauntlet of belles and babies to kiss and then whish off with the jeep covered with flowers and all sorts of bottles and fruit wedged between the gas cans. In places where we spent the night the town declared a holiday and the hotel or chateau where we stayed would be mobbed.

We spent one night at a summer resort called Les Sabler d'Orlonne which hardly knew war at all, except for the beaches which had been mined. They were clear when we were there and people were swimming in the surf and drinking champagne on the sidewalks by the Grande Promenade. Children played about in bare feet and the most lovely girls in all France it seemed strolled back and forth and wondered if we would ask them to ride in Mary Louise—which of course we did.

Another place out of a clear blue sky I found an American officer who had parachuted in several months ago and was working with the "Maquis." I bumped into him by chance and being weary of receptions and talking shop with French officials and underground leaders I went out for the night to the Chateau he had fallen heir to when the owner was arrested for insufficient resistance. It was a lovely rambling chateau in the country near Cognac, with half a dozen small farms around it. We went out and shot a couple of rabbits for supper and had a good meal with our absent host's excellent wine and cognac to lace it down. He turned out to be a King Royal Rifle's man and knew Braden, Bolte, Glen, etc. well. We sat up half the night exchanging tales. This was the drole de guerre—two Americans—about the only two within several hundred miles (along with Watts and Alsop's radio operator) meeting in the South of France by coincidence and finding a hatful of common friends whom we discussed over a collaborator's best wine.

But it wasn't all ks pretty a picture as this. We got glimpses of a very mixed-up France. I can't tell you the many things I know about France, but a few will be safe to tell. Because of difficulties in transportation, the government in Paris can't get much of a grip on the country yet and in each department the local Maquis rules. They try collaborators, shoot them, arrest anyone they don't like the looks of whether Paris sent him down or not and pretty much run the show. Local mayors and prefects exist by grace of the F.F.I. (Forces Francaise de l'Interieure) which now includes all resistance movements regardless of politics. The leaders are mostly good fighters and in a way have a right to see the government set up the way they want.it since they were the ones who suffered most for four years and actually freed the country—at least south of the Loire. But in some cases the leaders are a little drunk with their own power, since they alone have arms, and dispense justice as it was done in the French Revolution. Also as the underground was largely communistic in many sectors, because Communist parties were better organized for resistance at the beginning, there is a political issue at stake causing a rift in the F.F.I, in many places. The whole picture is one of illegality and impermanence. France hasn't begun to get a grip on herself and General de Gaulle is dead against any Allied intervention, as of course are Allied leaders so long as the rear lines of communication are kept clear. At present there isn't danger of a revolution since there aren't arms enough to revolt with, and the situation in each sector is as safe as the local F.F.I, commander is safe. But when the show-down comes— when the F.F.I, is to either lay down arms and go home or else join the legitimate French Army, then there might be some trouble.

So much for internal France south of the Loire. Something else—the French though bounding with respect for American might, greatly fear our softness in dealing with captured Germans. They see a tendency they saw before of Americans forgiving and forgetting too quickly and going home or on to the Pacific leaving Europe about where she was in 1919. I get very bored hearing atrocity stories, but they are really true. I've had occasion to check many of them. And there were regular torture chambers and massacres of innocent civilians and cruelties too horrible to talk about—not in a few cases but in every town. I haven't met a French person who doesn't have a son or daughter or,brother or sister who isn't dead or off in Germany because of the occupation. And I have grown to hate Germans and think the peace terms should be harsh. There should be trials of thousands of Germans responsible for crimes—from top to bottom—and they should be executed without forgiveness. Thousands more should be made to rebuild Europe. And what's left should be split into small states subservient to adjacent nations. Germany should cease to exist as a nation forever. For Americans at home, this must seem like an impossible and impractical penalty to exact. But Americans haven't seen Europe. It doesn't take much looking to realize what colossal destruction this war has brought. I have seen St. Malo and St. Lo, towns the size of Concord and Manchester, where there are no inhabitants left because there are no homes to live in. People eat—they eat better than in England actually, except in the large cities—and the French are happy to be free again—but the spirit is broken. People are afraid. They don't know where to begin. You can't conceive of the destruction. Thank God, we are not Europeans and live fairly secure from these things. The least we can do is to throw our weight heavily against the possibility of another such war.

I hope the American Press will print stories and pictures that will so shock and nauseate the people at home that they will see better than Americans fighting that Germany must be destroyed. The ones that fight are too close to see this. We were brought up to shake hands like good sports with the guy we gave a bloody nose to in the back alley. I overheard a few Americans the other night talking with some German prisoners who spoke some English. They gave them cigarettes and they were comparing their arms and the speed of their planes. The fight was over. All the hatred and the. point of the fight was forgotten. It was a damned good fight. Now it was over. This behavior of ours so infuriates the French that in some places it isn't safe for Americans to go, I'm told. And I can only hope that it isn't getting that way at home.

LT. FRED W. NICHOLS JR., '42 AUS,

writes from the European sector.

Thanks a million for your V-mail letter. It has been a long time since I had heard from anyone in Hanover and it. brought many memories back to me.

One of the days I remember best at Hanover was a Sunday afternoon (7 December) in 1941. We were at the Nugget—which I understand now is burned to the ground- seeing a German propaganda film on the power of the mechanized army as it sped through the lowlands. As we came out of the Nugget and started walking down to the Phi Gam House we heard about Pearl Harbor. Then we all stayed glued to the radio for a couple of days. How well I can remember the expressions on the boys' faces as reports flashed over the radio. I remember Stan Wright and Ambi Broughton sat around that afternoon and evening with me; and now they are both dead with too many other Dartmouth men and other young men of the world. And too often I hear among men over here—"Can somebody tell me why all this is necessary?"

I finally received my August copy of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. Herb, you and all the others are to be congratulated on the magnificent job you are doing with it. It is still difficult for me to accustom myself to seeing pictures of the Navy at Dartmouth, especially in the Library. I never expected to see anyone in the Tower Room or 1902 Room but men wearing a numeral sweater and a pair of baggy trousers or an occasional J. Press jacket with a Psi U inside. But I guess we can all thank God for the Navy being at Dartmouth.

Don't know whether you know it or not, but I was married last January to a girl from Savannah, Ga.; name.: Nell. She is a second lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps, and still in the States. One of the first things we are going to do after the war is visit Hanover, so I can show her the place where all my sons are going.

I wish I could write you about some of my activity in this war, but tonight I don't feel up to it. All I can say is France is wet, cold, and hellish.

PRIVATE ROBERT G. WHITE '39AUS,

writes from Luxembourg in Octoberof 1944 a letter of general interest.

For well nigh four years now you have been besieged with letters from my erstwhile colleagues—since in service. I have read a good many of them, in the columns of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, with considerable interest, but only recently due chiefly to the acquisition of a wardrobe of olive drab vetements and a ticket good on any ship headed east, have I felt free to do the same.

In a sense I am a very privileged character: for without an iota of expense on my part I have made what was described in earlier years, I believe, as the "grand tour." And all this since my entrance into the Army last January. I have traveled extensively in Scotland, England, France, Belgium and Luxembourg. I have seen Dr. Johnson's home in Lichfield; walked through the streets of Bath and mused on Sheridan; and trod the very hills where Housman composed parts of "Shropshire Lad." I have seen Normandy, picturesque Brittany (delightful place);' and (Henry Adams would be pleased) both Mont St. Michel and Chartres. I have passed through enough of Paris to wish to live there forever, and viewed enough of the battlefields of the last war to realize what a tough deal that scrap was. At present I am in Luxembourg, in the midst of hills that remind me daily of New Hampshire and the Hanover plain. You've seen all this, so you'll understand.

Thanks to your instruction in some of the French classicists (and Rousseau) and Ramon Guthrie's tutelage in the more modern French authors, plus the language itself, I am having no trouble in making myself understood, even in Luxembourg, which is a God-send.

About the war: I have two main theses. First, I am completely fed-up with the theory (voiced by more than one professor) that a large Army, in peace-time, leads to imperialism and warfare. Without a large Army and preparedness we seem to be continually embroiled in war and trying to merely get back something that is "rightfully ours." It is high time we included warfare, as a natural, if unfortunate way of life along with murder, arson, rape, and prepare accordingly. A year of compulsory training might well prevent five years of warfare with its accompanying misfortunes.

Again, we are going to have after this war a "lost generation" that will make the "lost generation" of the '20's pale into insignificance. For this war actually encompasses two generations, it includes everyone from 18-37, goes on and on and we will eventually be faced with the spectre of 35 year old family men, uninclined to pick up domestic reins after a year or so of deracination and the toughest kind of fighting; college men going into business four or five years late with the resulting delay in marriage and an income commensurate with their years; and youngsters entering college at 22 or 23, if at all. And how the thousands of kids will support wives and children incurred because of an income which, if well deserved, is all out of proportion to their civilian earning capacity, is beyond me. Definitely food for thought.

I have one salient distinction, Herb. In a class full of senior officers and bemedaled veterans, I am probably the only enlisted man in the lot, which is something.

DARTMOUTH MAN IS FIRST photographic reconnaissance pilot to complete a tour of hours in the European Theater of Operations. Capt. Robert J. Dixon '41 (r.) is congratulated by his former commanding officer Major Kermit Bliss. Dixon flew solitary missions.