DRIVING WITHOUT HANDS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 150, 22 December 1945, Page 9

DRIVING WITHOUT HANDS

Sergeant Victor P. Reis, of Torrington, Connecticut reports the "New York Times," is going to be married soon and is planning a honeymoon trip in a car, which he will drive despite the fact that he lost both hands in November last year in the explosion of a land mine in France. The sergeant, 23, who never had driven a car before he entered the army, got his operator's licence in Hartford after passing a test with flying colours. It was handed to him personally by the State Motor Vechicles Commissioner, Colonel Elmer S. Watson, who knows something about wounded veterans and their handicaps. The Commissioner walks with the aid of a cane. Machinegun bullets wounded him in both legs during the battle for Munda airstrip on New Georgia. Chief Inspector Walter J. Mayo said he "certainly was sceptical" when Sergeant Reis, who has been using artificial hands about three months, applied for a licence, but "he took me through city traffic, at a very busy hour, with greater ease and skill than most applicants for driving licences."