Over There

The grey, rusty transport edged with khaki ruffling hitched silently toward the wharf. Ashore, British officers waited nervously for uncouth antics in the Aussie manner.

When the ships tied up and the young Americans filed ashore, there was no row. A band from The Royal Ulster Rifles played The Star-Spangled Banner, and Britain's Air Secretary Sir Archibald Sinclair spoke to the visitors: "Here perhaps you will join with us in withstanding assaults by our common enemy. . . . From here, assuredly, you will sally forth . . . into his territory."

The troops at the rail paid scant attention; they were in no mood for music and speeches. To welcoming Britons who had expected U.S. capers, a hoary sergeant major explained: "We're just getting mad. We'll wipe 'em all up."

Their easy, effortless discipline startled watching British officers, whose Army still does things the hard way. A U.S. colonel ordered his men to fall in and march with : "We're moving, gentlemen," and "All right, boys, let's go." When the troops tramped smoothly off, a Briton said: "There's something we must learn from you."

Thus last week did the first big contingent of U.S. troops land in the European war zone--in Northern Ireland. Tough, reticent Major General Russell P. Hartle's men were officially "outpost troops," no A.E.F. But, in quarters long since built by U.S. civilian engineers and contractors, these troops were on a route which the Germans might take to invade Britain. And Northern Ireland may some day be a take-off point for continental invasion.

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