Monday, Aug. 25, 1947
Courthouse
"I am going to blow a loud whistle on Lieut. General John C. H. Lee," wrote Scripps-Howard's roving Columnist Robert Ruark from Leghorn, Italy last week. "I hope my beefs reach the eyes of General Lee's bossman, Ike Eisenhower, and I hope furthermore that the General gets a royal eating-out.* He's got one coming."
At the first mention of "Courthouse" Lee's name, thousands of ex-G.I.s pricked up their ears, and their memories. They remembered Courthouse Lee all right, for his private train and his big, black limousine with the red leather cushions, and for all the hectic saluting that went on wherever starchy old Courthouse strode or rode. General Lee, supply chief to easygoing Ike Eisenhower, loved parades and smaller pomp, and he insisted that his quartermasters, bakers and truck drivers be snappier, and handier with that salute, than any combat infantryman.
According to Columnist Ruark, onetime Navy gunnery officer in the European Theater, Lee had not changed much with peace. While G.I.s listened, Columnist Ruark kept his whistle blowing for five days running. Some of his accusations: EURJ As Mediterranean Theater commander, General Lee maintained three swanky permanent quarters in Rome, Florence and Viareggio.
P: He quartered his officers in plushy villas, put Army vehicles at their beck & call. P: He quartered his enlisted men in crowded, ill-equipped barracks (in one there were only twelve showers for 700 men), fed them poorly in overheated mess halls.
P: He permitted the use of enlisted men as private chauffeurs for his officers and their wives, as substitute nursemaids for their children, had at least one sergeant regularly in charge of a nursery school. P:He pressured enlisted men into joining an organization called the Fellowship of U.S.-British Comrades (dues: $4 a year), which had done nothing so far but throw one party for lieutenant colonels and above, P: He insisted on so much chicken-in general and saluting in particular that Leghorn G.I.s had nicknamed their main street "Bent Arm Boulevard." P: He maintained a Disciplinary Training Camp at Pisa, where G.I. prisoners "get the sweatbox for making a wrong turn. [It] is full of delightful [punishment] routine like cleaning a mess kit with a needle, or walking for hours squatting on the hams and making duck noises."
Said Ruark: "I don't know whether General Lee or his gabbling flock of tame colonels write the rules, but as Emperor of the area he has to hold still for the rap. ... It may be an army that General Lee is running, but to me it looks more like a combination of junket, political shakedown, misuse of Governmentmaterial, maltreatment of subordinates and a happy hunting-ground for desk-bound brass which spent most of its war at home and is now trying to embalm its rank abroad."
Most permanent correspondents in Italy (many of them ex-servicemen themselves) would not go as far as Visitor Ruark (who spent 36 hours in Leghorn, eight days relaxing at Capri). But his tooting was loud enough to reach Ike Eisenhower, who promptly ordered the Army's Inspector General, Major General Ira T. Wyche, to take off for Leghorn immediately.
In the Army's Pentagon Building, where many of Lee's ex-subordinates could hardly conceal their satisfaction, the War Department hinted that maybe an investigation would be only an anticlimax. Last February, the Department announced pointedly, Courthouse Lee had indicated that he was ready for retirement.
* Expurgated service slang for dressing down.
* Expurgated service slang for niggling formalities.
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