The Sack of Wallace

Sirs: Liberals were disappointed over the absence of Wendell Willkie from the Republican Convention and shocked at the treatment accorded Henry Wallace by the Democrats [TIME, July 31]. Senator Truman may become Presidential material but the electorate, remembering the disaster that followed the election of another senator similarly selected, may refuse to vote for a Hannegan-Flynn-Kelly man for the peace period. MABEL WITHYCOMBE Portland, Ore.

Sirs: During the recent Democratic Convention, I and many members of my company listened to the radio broadcasts. From the cheers at the name of Henry A. Wallace, from the puzzled looks when Senator Truman was mentioned, and from the groans over various other candidates, it would appear that at least one group of servicemen feels that the Democratic Party has made a grave error. . . . [SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD] Camp Campbell, Ky.

Sirs: . . . After witnessing the sacrifice of two good men--Willkie and Wallace--to the political horde, my faith in the future of America has been considerably jarred. GIRARD T. BRYANT Chicago

Sirs: Well, anyway, poor Henry has one distinction: he was the first of our Vice Presidents to be "assassinated" in office. C. J. HARVEY Nashwauk, Minn.

Sirs: THEY HAVE BARBECUED .THE MAN THAT KILLED THE PIG. HARRY M. BENNETT Harlan, Ky.

C.I.O.'s P.A.C.

Sirs: I expect to see in your "Letters" column much praise but far more criticism of your feature article on Sidney Hillman and the P.A.C. of C.I.O. [TIME, July 24]. Put me down as one who says it is a fair, unbiased article. I find it refreshing to read something impartial about this movement. Here on the West Coast practically all the large newspapers are so violently anti-Administration and anti-labor that they grow hysterical when writing about the P.A.C. . . . Those who oppose the candidates and principles of the P.A.C. have for many years played and are now playing the same game. Where the P.A.C. puts out pamphlets, their opponents have the great majority of the nation's press at their disposal. Where the P.A.C. seeks to "get out the vote," their opponents seek to restrict the vote by such means as poll taxes, an ineffective soldier-vote law, etc. Now that someone has caught on to their game and seeks to play it on their own terms, they cry "foul!" Thanks again for your fair story. [NAVY LIEUTENANT'S NAME WITHHELD] San Diego

Sirs: In the P.A.C. posters only the hammer & sickle are missing. . . . C. W. MCCLINTOCK Albuquerque, N.Mex.

Moses v. Hudnut

Sirs: Dean Hudnut's idea of a reply (TIME, July 31) to proof of revolutionary planning on foreign models is to set up a straw man and knock him over. I never said great principles in the arts did not originate abroad. Of course they do. I am a traditionalist, not a revolutionary. Progress is not made by wholesale destruction, but slowly and by concentration on limited objectives. As to Dean Hudnut's accuracy, he says we got our ideas of modern parkways and expressways from Germany and Italy. The fact is that they sent over here again and again, inspected, borrowed our blueprints and copied our stuff. Some of our men had no time for anything but visiting firemen. Then there was the Dean's wisecrack that we filled up Randalls Island and Riverside Park with concrete. Randalls was full of institutions for feebleminded, one almost a century old. In the LaGuardia Administration we made this island a park with five times as much play and landscaped area as there was before. As to Riverside, we covered the railroad tracks, drove out the squatters, filled out into the Hudson River and quadrupled park space. 'Of course, on the theory that big cities will be abandoned entirely, these little accomplishments are futile. ROBERT MOSES New York City

Hope for Commotion

Sirs: In TIME (July 3) you say: "The revolutionary Government [of Bolivia] . . . had . . . done all that the State Department had requested. It ... had purged the Government of Axis sympathizers. . . ." Why does not the Department of State request the Government of the Republic of Chile to dismiss from their jobs all the Axis sympathizers? You can count them by the thousands. I know customs officials, revenue officials, and others in Government organizations who are profound sympathizers of the Axis. Some of them have expressed to me that they hate the Americans and the English et al. and that they would just love to see Germany win the war and destroy forever this Allied imperialism in South America. They mean it, too, that is just the hell of it. . . . Publish this letter. It will cause a commotion in Chile. I don't care. I hope it causes enough commotion so as to fire a few thousand bad Chileans who are against their country by wishing a defeat of the United States of America in the present war. ENRIQUE BARAONA L. Valparaiso, Chile

Four-Tenths Fuses

Sirs: Many a green field artillery cannoneer in training will surely get the jitters after reading in TIME (July 24): "They got all the way into an artillery battalion which had moved twelve 1055 into position the night before. . . . The artillerymen fired point-blank into the Japs with fuses set at four-tenths of a second." The new time fuse used by the 105-mm. howitzer is the M54, one of whose safety features provides for a minimum time cutting of five seconds, which prevents a shell fired with Charge V from bursting in the air at a range of less than 1,500 yards. Were a four-tenths fuse cutting possible, a shell fired with Charge I would burst at a mere 80-odd yards from the muzzle, well within the effective range of many shell fragments. . . DAVID G. NES 1st Lieutenant Fort Bragg, N.C.

P: With 5,000 suicidal Japs swarming down on them, Marines at Saipan threw the book away, improvised their own fuse timings. Despite safety devices, the M54 can be cut to 0.4 seconds.--ED.

No Secret Weapon?

Sirs: In the latest news of the revolt of German generals in Germany the most significant factor seems to be omitted by every writer and commentator. Pushed into its own territory, Germany had only one hope: of having some extraordinarily effective secret weapon. The revolt of German generals just now after Germany has so jubilantly propagandized the success of their secret robot bomb and more dangerous future secret weapons, shows that German generals, who certainly are in a position to know, openly admit by their revolt that there is no such secret weapon and therefore no hope for Germany. PAUL CHERKASSKY Boston

What About Mrs. G.I. Joe?

Sirs: The G.I. Bill of Rights, while practically assuring every veteran a Chris-Craft speed. boat, two cars in every garage, a home in the country, a penthouse, and an egg in his beer, has, in our opinion, failed to deal with a question which is destined to present one of the most controversial issues of the postwar world. To wit: Will the returning G.I. be able to maintain the same balance of power in his home that he enjoyed in the halcyon days, or will the female of the species assert herself and declare the "old order" relegated to the limbo of nostalgic memories? . . . Upon settlement of this question rests the stability of the state and the determination of whether G.I. Joe is to enjoy the freedoms he fought for. (PVT.) ED G. LANCASTER Camp Claiborne, La.

Specifications for Perfection

Sirs: ... I am interested in the young lady with the phenomenal teeth [TIME, July 17]. Though I do not profess to know what Dr. Barker might mean by "all the specifications,'' I do know that my teeth seem to be nearly perfect, and are considered quite unusual by my dentist. Contrary to the experience of Miss Price, however, I have always liked candy, ice cream, pie, and fruit, and have consumed plenty in my lifetime! IDA D. RICHARDS

Los Angeles

Sirs: I see that they "fulfilled all the specifications" and that the Iowa dentists felt "that she was in a class by herself," but nowhere could I find just why her teeth were so remarkable. . . . What were her teeth, anyway, mother of pearl? WARD HICKS Albuquerque, N.Mex.

P: Dr. Barker's specifications: "absolutely free from dental caries [decay] ... sized, shaped and set true and properly in the dental arch . . . proper shade, colorings and translucence to blend perfectly with the surrounding gum tissue, the eyes, hair and complexion . . . perfect cusps, grooves, pits, fissures and marginal ridges."--ED.

"TIME Mag at Last!"

Sirs: Conspicuous only by its absence on this front is the irritating lack of news. News not only of the Allied liberation of the French peoples, but of the world. (Yes, it's true, we here in France don't even know what in the hell is going on at our very doorstep.) Our G.I. Stars & Stripes is reaching us quite steadily, but unfortunately it has yet to find a writer who can report as successfully as yours. Typical of that is the remark of a brother G.I. at our first mail-call on French soil. We were in a semicircle about the mail orderly when someone deep in the ranks bellowed "TIME mag at last! The first bastard who intercepts it gets a bayonet where it will hurt most, and I'm not kidding." That man expressed my sentiments exactly. If the people back home would send us TIME instead of backdated newspapers, newspaper clippings, cartoons and what have you, they would be saving our time and their own. ... (CPL.) CHARLES T. SCHUCK c/o Postmaster New York City

Ernie Pyle

Sirs: When it comes to writing, Ernie Pyle has nothing on the person who wrote "Ernie Pyle's War" [TIME, July 17]. That was plenty good! OTELIA C. CONNOR Durham, N.C.

Sirs: I worked with Ernie for five years on the Washington News, and I can testify to his wondrous hypochondria. The standing office gag was to ask Ernie every hour on the hour how he felt. He had only one reply through the years: "Terrible!" And I believe the kid meant it. He always looked it. Congratulations. A really wonderful piece. LEONARD HALL New York City

Sirs: The competency of its construction, its style and technique--all, it seemed to me, was precision stuff. It exemplified just what I think George Ade meant when, years ago, he slipped a bit of seasoned advice to an aspiring youngster: "If it is your intention to push your way through life with a pencil you must first forget your college English and learn how not to write like Lord Macaulay." ARNOLD GERSTELL Philadelphia

Seven-Yard Beachhead

Sirs: Today I received a copy of your June 12 issue. ... It gave me a picture [of the invasion]--a large-scale picture--but not the picture we saw the morning of June 6, 1944, on the French coast. . . . The 1st U.S. Infantry Division spearheaded the Allied invasion from the sea. Our regiment spearheaded the division's assault. That means the assault infantrymen of the regiment were the first Americans to hit France. We knew that a battalion of the enemy would defend our particular zone of action. We even expected opposition from a regiment. But when we hit the beach we were confronted with an entire German division. . . . The two assault battalions hit the beach at H-hour, but a great percentage never saw the beach, for their assault craft suffered direct hits. The assault troops were subjected to fire from both flanks. . . . Fields of fire for the attacker were poor. . . . Doggies* drowned. Doggies floundered in the water. Enemy fire, enemy shells, enemy mortars and the beach obstacles scored enormous casualties. Key officers, key noncoms, key scouts, key men were lost; equipment sunk. And this was just the approach to the beach, just the approach. We expected to find immense shell craters in the beach to afford us cover. Nothing--just pebbles. And then began the seven-yard beachhead. Those strong points (three to five pillboxes, 75 artillery piece in casement, etc.) had to be knocked out. The first wave was on that seven-yard beachhead when the second wave hit the beach. An hour later men found the first wave assault troops, jammed together like sardines, still pinned down on the seven-yard beachhead. . . . Doggies that were hit would slip back into the water. Snipers were picking us off. H.E. and mortars kept coming on that beachhead. It still remained a seven-yard beachhead for more than three hours. Finally the strong points were knocked out, one by one. The toll was grim. When we finally pushed through to a small bluff a couple of hundred yards from the beach to reorganize, the story of EASY RED hit us with full impact. Our Commanding Officer, actually responsible for the reorganization of units on the beach under intense enemy fire, yelled to the doggies: "There are two kinds of men on the beach: those who are dead and those who are about to die. Get off the goddam beach!" [SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD] c/o Postmaster New York City

*Short for dogfaces, a hoary term for U.S. infantrymen.

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