Roswell K. Doughty
Headquarters
141st Infantry

While undergoing training in North Africa in 1943 just before entering combat, I sought permission of my Regimental C.O. while we were near Oran, Algeria, to take the I and R Platoon to the Sahara Desert on the opposite side of the Atlas Mountains from where we were stationed. I told him that I'd set up radio relays along the way to stay in touch with the regiment in case there was need to recall us.

Part of the platoon, once we headed south, walked along a camel trail that wound its way across soaring mountain shoulders and along canyon rims, while the rest rode jeeps over rough, hilly roads through gaps in the mountains. Despite good intentions there was no way to maintain radio communications with the regiment.

Because of the possibility that the regiment and division would move out in our absence, there having been a great deal of speculation about our joining the Allied Forces near Bizerte to help finish off the German Army there, our trip into the desert was cut short terminating at the very edge of that sea of sand. We saw enough of the rolling dunes to recognize how easy it would be to become disoriented and lost among them in short order. Our cursory look at the Sahara, however, left a lasting impression of timelessness, restlessness, as sands drifted in swirling patterns, and, at night, infinity under blazing stars.

I sent a patrol to make contact with the regiment post haste and to return as quickly as possible, meeting us on the road back, to let us know how things stood at the regiment. This was a fortunate move, for the division had been alerted to move by rail to a place in the Atlas Mountains for combined infantry and artillery exercises. The I and R platoon made a forced march back to camp, arriving early on the day before the rail movement began, tired from exposure to wind and sand.

At the Oran freight yards from which the Division would be shipped onto the Atlas heights, I was assigned duty expediting the movement of troops by way of the dinky railroad trains composed of cars bearing the renowned legend "40 Hommes; 8 Chevaux" (40 men; 8 horses). While germs may have been discovered by a great French physician, one could only say of the transportation provided by the French Colony of Algeria that it probably contained more germs per cubic centimeter than any found elsewhere.

Complicating matters at Oran was the transshipment of thousands of Italian troops who had surrendered to the Allies as the war in North Africa drew to a close. The prisoners were in open flat cars that had been made into cages by the addition of steel mesh side curtains and roofs. Our troops had been ordered not to talk to the prisoners or to recognize them in any way.

On the second day of our movement out of Oran, I was walking down a railroad spur toward a railhead where our troops were loading when I heard an American GI on the other side of the stationary train I was passing yelling derisively at the POWs and telling them what he thought of Italians who fought against America. He spoke in English and as I swung up onto the train to get a look at him, I heard him say "You're so damned smart, Joe, where you goin' now?"

A handsome prisoner who had climbed up onto the grillwork of his cage yelled back, "We go America, Joe! Where you go?" What had started as a lesson for the Italian turned very quickly to chastisement for the GI. I spoke to him from the platform of the car over his head and startled him. "You had enough?" I asked, "or would you like some ex­tra duty for disobedience?"

"Sorry, sir," he said. "I'll shape up!"

When it came time for my departure from Oran, I boarded one of the coaches after watching an air raid in progress along the coast. It was just sunset and yet I could observe hostile planes shining as the last rays of the sun struck them. Lower, the background appeared to be a July 4th celebration as AA batteries along the palisades let loose. Flashes il­luminated the ground areas and red streaks mottled the horizon.

It was not long before we found just how inadequate the narrow-gauge railroad was. We rolled through the night trying to sleep but as the going got more precipitous toward morning we had to lighten the load by get­ting everyone out of the train to push it up over the next rise. As the train gathered momentum on the downgrade, it was a scramble each time to get aboard with several men left behind. By jogging along they'd catch up with the train at the next slope.

We arrived at our bivouac area which for my regiment was a plateau over which towered a mountain called Djebel Kharhoum. It was a barren peak with little or no vegetation on its slopes but useful for conditioning runs up and down its dusty surfaces. Its peak made a fine place for setting up practice OPs.

At about that time, the German position in N. Africa became critical. Prisoners by the thousands were being taken and our training became more serious as we thought we might be called into the fight. A day ar­rived when the Regimental C.O. ordered me to accompany him on a visit to an Arab encampment high on another mountain some distance from our bivouac. I could speak French and he wanted me to help convince the chief of an Arab tribe, which had just moved into a centuries old camp­ing ground, to move out again. It was also the site of an artillery impact area for one of our important exercises that had been surveyed in. Since time was critical, the quickest answer was to get the tribe to move.

I went with the Colonel to see some local French Army officers in a small town near our area. They had had dealings with the tribe in ques­tion over the years and my C.O. wanted to learn what they knew that would be helpful to our mission. They said they didn't envy us which augured poorly but then said that we might succeed with the tribal chief if, above all, we were diplomatic. He would probably invite us to eat with him and, should this happen, it was essential for us to dip our left hands into a common pot-right hands being reserved, according to Arab pro­tocol, for the more intimate bodily functions.

I would also be useful, they said, to bring him presents such as cigaret­tes and canned food. It was about 110 degrees Fahrenheit when the Col­onel and I left in a jeep, accompanied by two riflemen and drove toward our destination to visit the tribal chief. We followed an old camel trail up a very steep incline until we had to walk the last hundred yards. Earlier we had spotted the Arab's camp ground but as we drew nearer, small shrubs and bushes screened the camel-skin tents from view. Their neutral colors made them hard to discern in any event.

It was an easy matter, however, to find the camp by following our noses. Smoke from many small fires was fairly pungent as were the odors of camels, goats, dirty children and unwashed people. There were about two dozen tents, ugly-looking and squat, in a small glen. Camels were snarling and stomping, as usual, and dogs yipped as they romped around naked children playing between tents.

As the Colonel and I clambered up a gully toward the village, half a dozen Arab men came out of a central tent and watched our approach. They carried over their arms the long, ancient-looking rifle that we had often seen in our travels around the countryside.

I spoke to a fierce-looking man who had the air of a chief and in pan­tomime told him we'd like to talk with him. He waved us inside the tent before which we stood. As I passed the group I gave each a carton of cigarettes I'd been carrying. They wickered thanks in Arabiac; at least, I inferred that it was thanks.

We sat cross-legged in a circle around a small fire where food was cooking. Slatternly women faded into the background of the tent which was about ten feet high at the peak and fairly light inside since the sides were rolled up for about four feet all around.

The chief looked ancient with most of his teeth and one eye missing. I asked him in French if he could speak that language since I knew no Arabic. He nodded, looking at me with a sustained stare from his good eye. However, when I explained our mission, he responded in Arabic which, of course, left us precisely nowhere. The four or five other Arabs said nothing.

My C.O. sitting at my right, while the chief was on my left, took no part in the conversation, if such it could be called. I caught a glimpse of the colonel's face for a moment and realized that his weak stomach was about to let him down. I'd seen him get sea-sick on a dock and the smell of the tent and its occupants was nauseating.

Finally, I resorted to drawing a map with a stick on the dirt floor of the tent. After inspecting my art work the old chief seemed to grasp what I was driving at. I pointed out my symbol of Djebel Kharhoum and pronounced its name. He nodded. Then I pointed to some cannon I'd drawn near the mountain and said, "Boom! Boom!" He nodded as did some of the other Arabs who were watching. Then, I pointed to a tent village I'd sketched in some distance away and pointed to the area around us with all encompassing motion. The chief nodded, again. When I showed him the cannon firing, and with a sweep of my hand erased the tents, he look­ed offended and drew back away from me. I realized that he'd taken my warning as a threat of war.

I shook my head and said "No! No! You" pointing to him, "must move." I tried French again in what I realized was a hopeless cause and said "Allez-vous au Sud" (Go South). He seemed to grasp the idea but held up both hands with his fingers spread which I took to mean that he'd move out in ten days. Again I shook my head and held up one finger.

A woman intruded on our parley at that moment and uncovered the pot sitting on the fire in front of us. The chief with his toothless grin, gestured for us to help ourselves. He and the other Arabs dug into a gooey mess using their left hands. The colonel flapped a wrist indicating that he would pass. I took a small gob of whatever was in the pot and ate it. It tasted sourish as though it contained milk that had turned. At this juncture, my C.O. jabbed me in the right arm and simply pointed at something a woman was offering him, accompanied by a brown-toothed smile and some encouraging noises. He waved it off, whereupon she proffered the item, which sat on some kind of broad leaf, to me. As she did the chief slapped me on the shoulder nodding and jab­bering away in his high-pitched voice.

I took a look at the mess and realized that I was looking at a goat's eye. Anyone who has not seen such a delicacy out of its natural setting would not profit by any further description of what I was inspecting. It was frightful and my whole being, let alone my stomach, was revolted by the though of doing anything but stomping on it.

Vaguely to my mind came the French officers' warning of the need of diplomacy. I made the mental note that, if I ever saw those officers again, I'd have some questions about their ideas as to when diplomacy ended and idiocy set in. Without another thought while taking a deep breath I swallowed the equivalent to my mind of a violently ill oyster. At that moment I was very close to matching my C.O.'s condition.

As I was endeavoring to quiet the hand-to-hand combat between the goat's eye and my stomach, a woman entered the tent with an armful of fuel for the fireplace which had burned low. Wood being scarce in that part of the world, people made-do with whatever was at hand and flammable. In this case it was some fairly green camel's chips, having been dropped, it seemed, but recently. A few hours in the African sun normal­ly reduces these waste materials to tinder. However, here the collection process had been premature and the woman could hardly be blamed for dropping the whole load onto the embers in the circular fireplace. The resulting noxious fumes that filled the tent were downright disgusting.

Until that happened I had had reason to believe, judging from the general easing of tension around the tent, that the chief was ready to order an immediate move of the tribe. He was in the mood, however, to bargain for more cigarettes and canned goods. I had noted some U.S. ra­tion cans in one corner of the tent and wondered how they had been pro­cured.

Unfortunately, the conference was interrupted permanently at that point by my C.O. who simply threw up all over the place. He retched until I had to swallow hard to keep from joining him. I got up and walked out of the tent and down the slope to the jeep to await the colonel. There was no doubt that our mission was a rank failure, in every sense of the word. The chief acted as though we had insulted him beyond all cons­cience. He had gestured for us to leave even before I arose to my feet so that I knew there was no use in talking longer.

It says something about wartime and human values, I'm sure, when I report that our infantry-artillery exercises went on as scheduled and a number of the Arabs of that transient village were killed. Our first notice of that fact occurred when the old chief showed up with a group of Arabs dragging a two-wheeled cart in which lay a nude, mutilated body of a male Arab very obviously killed by shell fragments. After negotiations a price satisfactory to the old chief was paid for that body and several others brought in later.

The word came down from higher headquarters that a new pill had been devised to suppress the symptoms of malaria. Called "atebrine" and yellow in color, its dosage had yet to be determined by experimenta­tion with such guinea-pig units as the 36th Division.

We took three pills a day under close supervision at the mess line. The day following the initial dosage is probably a red-letter day in the lives of all who participated. The whole outfit, throwing up while squatting, gave ample proof that the prescribed number of pills was too great. Since my regiment was working on or around the old Djebel, it has been known ever since as "Atebrine Mountain."

After we completed our joint exercise with the artillery, I was ordered to take a flying column to the coast near Arzew, Algeria. The Third Divi­sion had de-camped in the night with a suddenness that left millions of dollars worth of equipment lying all over a bivouac area. We were to gather up the residue into a central area and guard it until it could be pro­perly disposed of by some of the permanent installations in Oran. When I learned that the estimated value of the property abandoned by the Third Division was nine million dollars I realized I'd been dealt a cold hand.

When we left camp, our column stretched for miles along the dusty mountain roads, comprised as it was of vehicles carrying troops, engineer equipment, housekeeping units and cannon company towed guns. Ahead of the column the regimental I and R platoon scouted the terrain making use of the opportunity to improve its members' skills.

Knowing how little was safe with Arabs ready to steal anything not tied down, it was clear that we'd better get to our objective 150 miles away without delay. It was also plain that the heat was no longer on the 36h Division to ride to the sounds of battle near Bizerte, since the 3rd Division had obviously received the nod for that assignment.

On our way down the steep routes of the Atlas foothills something happened so fast that everyone in the column, stood, while at a rest halt, as though paralyzed.

One moment all was normal; the next, a sortie of six planes swung around the shoulder of a mountain and dove on our column, motors roaring to wake the dead. Recognition of the planes as American was practically instantaneous. However, we had been warned that the Ger­mans had captured a number like them and were ambushing our troops with them. Painted on the snouts of the planes were sharks' heads with teeth like scimitars and the sight at tree height was enough to congeal one's blood. I learned later that the congealing effect was universal among our troops as the planes nearly bowled us over with their prop blasts. I caught sight of a waving glove from the last plane as it zoomed in a tight climb to join the rest of its flight. It was only "friendlies" having some fun.

We reached the abandoned 3rd Division site well after dark and learn­ed from a corporal's guard that had been left to try to protect the area, that marauding Arabs had not hesitated to loot the place, returning fire when shot at. We set up camp in a central position by appropriating pyramidal tents already in place.

At 0400 the following day I set out with the I and R platoon to put into effect a plan devised the night before with the unit commanders of our flying column. We had used a map of the campsite made available by a Lieutenant of the 3rd Division. Through its use I had divided the area in­to a series of zones assigned to the respective units. They were to start at the outer camp perimeter and move everything of value to a central series of storage points, cataloguing items as they were stored.

The I and R platoon was to move with me to the easternmost boundary of the camp where Arabs had been busiest on previous days, and there reinforce the other guards, posted by each unit, with roving patrols arm­ed with 50 caliber machine guns mounted on jeeps. Part of the plan depended on receipt of a QM Truck Co. I had requisitioned from the Oran Base Section and which was scheduled to arrive later that day.

It was still dark when the I and R jeep I rode in stopped in a depression between two ridges where we dismounted to listen. We could hear the gobbling effect of Arab voices and the creaking of what sounded like wagon wheels on the ridge marking the outer limit of the campsite. We could also hear digging sounds which puzzled us at the time.

As the sun rose, we saw a large number of Arabs moving along the ridge with carts drawn by burros, mules, camels and goats. They were picking up everything in sight: ammunition, gasoline bidons, cartons of food, blankets, the works. Several of our jeeps, deployed as skirmishers, started forward toward the Arabs. By that time it was broad daylight and the Arabs nearest us scuttled for cover as they heard our motors start. Thinking that it would disperse the rest of the looters, 1 ordered the machine gunners to fire well over the heads of the motley crew that was still scavenging. While some of them turned their vehicles to leave the camp ground, others fired their weapons directly at us. We could hear the shots zipping through the brushwood and small trees but fortunately no one was hit.

I ordered the gunners to fire for effect as we gunned the jeeps forward at a fairly fast rate of speed. The Arabs turned and ran, abandoning their animals and carts. Our shooting from the wildly bouncing jeeps turned out about as effective as that of the Arabs for we found no wounded nor did we ever hear of any. Inspection showed that the digging we'd heard was where the Arabs had uncovered old latrines in some of which they had found unopened cans of C-rations. Such was the hunger among Arabs at the time that they were retrieving the dung-covered cans to take home.

It took a number of days, of course, to pull together what looked like the remnants of a panicky, nighttime bug-out by the 3rd Division. Ap­parently from the appearance of the place the Division had been told to take with it just what the men could carry on their backs. Either that or, like many veteran outfits, it had, in one way or another, just about doubled the "E" of its T/O and E. Finally on entering combat it had had to shuck off all superfluous impediments.

The 36th Division, no slouch itself, at moonlight requisitioning things to make life more comfortable in the field, had dibs on a lot of stuff that came in handy from that time on. There were non-GI chairs and tables that were fair game. Then there were such things as gasoline stoves, desks, tents, collapsible canvas wash basins, pin-ups of glorious creatures, soccer balls, baseball equipment, and similar morale builders that found their way to T-Patch country. There were also some GI items that fell through the cracks like radios and field telephones.

During all the time that the 3rd Division property was being salvaged, no Brass came near the site from higher headquarters. By the time the rest of the 36th gathered in the vicinity of Arzew, where we were to undergo a refresher course in amphibious operations, the campsite was under control and the Oran Base Section had accepted an accounting of the property.

Several officers from the 36th Division were ordered to an Officers Training Camp near the Sahara Desert just after the amphibious refresher program started at Arzew. I was one of them. Operated by Brigadier General William H. Wilbur, who later became the Assistant Division Commander of the 36th, the camp was designed, the general said, to produce mental toughness, physical toughness at the stage of the game being a given.

At an orientation session the first morning, General Wilbur, holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor, told us that our training would in­clude doses of peril and sleeplessness closely simulating battle conditions. In fact, he stated that nothing in combat would exceed the stress under which we would operate at his so-called "school". For reasons which should become clearer, we came to know the place as, "Wilbur's School of Torture and Dirty Tricks."

We were to operate 24 and 12-hour shifts on alternating days without opportunity to catch up on sleep missed on those days when we kept moving around the clock. We were also to be subjected to water discipline, reserving our canteens full of water until each evening when they would be inspected before we could drink from them.

We would be taught, the hard way, to look for and avoid booby-traps. We would also learn to shoot at targets of fleeting opportunity, to "read" terrain in order to know how to use it to best advantage and, finally, assuming that we were successful in all such matters, we would follow artillery fire closely as a means of approaching hostile positions while the enemy was dodging our artillery.

To test our endurance to the utmost, we would run four miles a day under the desert sun-two miles down-hill, two miles back up — while carrying full packs and equipment. The general would ride behind us to assure compliance with all requirements of the exercise.

Should we not stand up under the abuse we would be returned to the States, the general said, for reclassification, subject to the draft.

The so-called "fun" started that day and went on all night and through the evening meal the next day. While I had been tired in my life I had never quite reached the pinnacle of exhaustion of that period. The sun sapped at our vitals and the lack of water made our bodies ache as we solved endless problems, experienced harsh situations and absorbed punishment.

Nothing would have prompted me to cut a corner, sneak a nap, ease off running or phoney up a response for, unlike anyone there, I had fenc­ed under Wilbur's coaching at Boston University, where he had also been my Professor of Military Science and Tactics in the ROTC course there.

During the second day's run I felt light-headed and ready to drop as I jogged through the sand with the pack on my back weighing a ton. However, the sight of the jutting jaw of my old mentor riding herd on our column kept me moving. When we were released from that initial stint in Purgatory I went to take a shower and was staggered by the water which, even though it had stood in the 110 to 120 degree heat in a tower, felt frigid because of the disparity between its temperature of 80 degrees and the atmospheric temperature at the 110 mark. All of us slept under blankets that night and were chilly when we awoke the next morning.

The next day's work, limited to just 12 hours, was sited in a water course, known locally as a wadi. It had been cut into the soil and solid rock by wind and rain over the centuries. There were directional signs posted along its rim that extended, so far as we could see, for several hundred yards from the outlet we were approaching.

Clusters of the school's cadre were gathered at the busing point, only to disappear into and around the wadi as we trainees arrived. We were issued carbines and live ammunition. Our starting point along and into the wadi was a ledge that formed a slightly depressed trail just below the right rim of the wadi. A sign there read: "Crawl on your guts on this trail to the next sign. Keep your butt low since you will be fired at from out­side the wadi as you crawl."

We crawled, one after the other, along the path which was about two feet below the general ground surface of that area and ten feet above the floor of the wadi. As we slithered forward, several bursts of automatic fire were directed at the edge of the surface immediately above our bodies. Something about the thud of bullets striking the earth and ricocheting off rocks to strike the opposite wadi wall prompted a sudden butt retraction on the part of all participants.

Near the end of the crawl path I waited while the officer ahead of me poked his head above the rim of the wadi in response, I assumed, to in­structions on a sign posted near him. Suddenly he ducked down and ran a hand over his face as though rubbing something from his eyes. At that moment I saw General Wilbur's head and shoulders as he leaned over to speak to the officer.

The general disappeared and the officer on the trail put his chin up over the edge of the wadi again. I could see him jump as a shot followed by two more, rang out. He, however, did not duck back as he had done earlier.

I crawled to the sign, in turn, and read, "Rest your chin on the edge of the wadi until three shots have been fired. If you flinch, three more will be fired until proper completion of the test." I complied and on looking straight ahead saw the stern face of General Wilbur. Out of the corner of my right eye I could see a man sitting on a rock some ten feet away. Under my chin was a box of sand buried in the ground. As the general nodded, the man at my right raised a weapon of some sort and fired. My face stung as sand, from the impact of a bullet, blasted into it. I could feel grit in my eyes and teeth as I waited. Two more shots, deliberately fired with no sense of rhythm to them, produced the same rotten sensation. I could feel a trickle of wetness down my right cheek and hoped it was only sweat. I also hoped, during the test, that the man doing the fir­ing had no serious nervous afflictions. His angle of fire was directed past my nose but any slight waver to the left could have nailed me.

As I jumped down into the wadi as directed by General Wilbur, I brushed my cheek with my hand and was relieved to find that the wetness was only sweat. I spit out some grit and then jumped violently as a quarter-pound block of dynamite was discharged directly behind me. It was so close and the sound was so heavily magnified by the walls of the wadi that my hearing was damaged for the rest of the day and for several days thereafter. When anyone spoke to me, the effect was one of cutting words into vibrating metallic strings that went shimmering off into diminishing echoes, scarcely understandable.

A sign admonished me to be alert for booby traps and "hostile" ambushes as I proceeded up the length of the wadi. Even though I recogniz­ed the need to set up problems to demonstrate certain lessons, I had the constant thought that only a damned fool, finding himself in combat, would jump into the wadi before checking it out from its rim.

Needless to say, the critique at the end of the day's work found all trainees "dead" from having been "shot" by "dummies" that appeared and disappeared in a flash. Furthermore, before the gauntlet ended we were nearly suffocated by the heat trapped within the wadi. Several of­ficers were knocked out by heat exhaustion.

While some of us felt sorry for a number of officers who "washed out" of the school for failure to meet its standards, we could have saved our sympathy for those more in need of it. Even though General Wilbur probably meant what he'd said about drop-outs being re-classified, it didn't work out that way. Fortuitously for the departed fallen, the Military Government structure of the Army was being fleshed out at that time. As a result, those who couldn't cut it at the "Wilbur School of Tor­ture and Dirty Tricks" fell into plush jobs and furthermore, the Army, being the anomalous entity that it is, promoted many of them before those of us who entered combat received promotions.

Our next conditioner was the "Crack and Thump" course where we stood around General Wilbur, who couldn't seem to get enough of this sort of thing, while German guns were fired in short bursts over our heads. The sound of bullets passing close to our ears, we learned, if we hadn't already picked up that lore from operating targets on rifle ranges, is that of a gigantic hand clap. Since the bullet's speed exceeds that of sound, the trick was to listen for the slower thumping sound of the gun's firing, once the bullets had passed. On a noisy battlefield, the general said, it was often critical but difficult to learn the location of hostile gun sites.

We moved to longer ranges to learn the variations in timing the "thumps" at the greater distances.

We approached the end of our "durance vile" with the solid sense of having licked a tough assignment, although any sense of elation had been knocked out of us by the heat and fatigue. The grand finale of our testing was the overhead artillery exercise called by the camp cadre, "The Big Shoot."

Its seriousness was made clear when the head of the artillery unit assured us that even though he and his men had removed the powder charges from the 155 mm shells to test and reload them, he could not guarantee the absence of a short round among them. He felt that we would be "fairly safe” if we "hugged the ground" at the appropriate moments during the advance across open ground toward a "hostile" strongpoint.

On the day of the exercise, General Mark W. Clark, he of the immense ego, happened by on an inspection tour of the camp. He drew up with his entourage at the range where my class was assembled preparatory to its entry into the maneuver under fire.

I was squad leader and had just deployed my unit across a field covered with low growing shrubs. In the distance, some one thousand yards away, was a pile of rocks representing the squad's objective. All units had rehearsed at another location the manner in which they would proceed across the intervening terrain.

When it came time to start the squad toward the rock pile, I yelled "Up!" and we ran full tilt until I heard a flight of shells shearing the air overhead, when I yelled, "Down!" We plunged to earth, bouncing around as we hit due to the force of our landing. The shells struck the ground about fifty yards in front of us. I gave the squad another, "Up!" and as we ran I heard feet pounding along behind me. Thinking it was a laggard from my squad, I turned to see General Clark bowling along with us. He had removed his blouse and was wearing a helmet, but other­wise was making a serious effort to stay the course. When I shouted, "Down!" he crashed to the ground along with the squad.

In the meantime, out in front of our unit, running backward and remaining erect during the whole process was General Wilbur. He was then, and later in combat, disdainful of flying steel. A spent piece of shell fragment struck my boot heel at one moment when I was much further away from the detonating shells than was Wilbur.

As we approached our objective, I became aware of a painful stinging in my chest, thighs and forearms. Fearful that I was about to have some kind of seizure I gritted my teeth and kept going until I passed the pile of rocks. There, I found men tearing off their shirts and looking at great blisters all over the fronts of their bodies. I did the same thankful that I wasn't alone with my painful symptoms. Someone yelled "Stinging net­tles!" and shortly a medico identified that as our problem. We had been plunging into a field of them as we took our final exam.

General Clark, having been subjected to the same treatment, was so winded and uncomfortable that he could only wave both arms at General Wilbur when the latter asked him if he'd like to critique the exercise. Whether the "American Eagle" as the Fifth Army CG liked to characterize himself, altered the course following his experience under my "command" I never learned. We were happy to realize that we would return to our units the following day.