STRONG PROTESTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21962, 5 March 1946, Page 3

STRONG PROTESTS

IMMORAL OFFICERS U.S. ARMY HEADQUARTERS WOMEN IN COMPOUND LONDON. March 3. “Looseness and immorality are prevalent in the United States Army in Europe and there is a general breakdown of discipline,” said the United States Army's chief chaplain in the European theatre. Colonel L. Curtis, commenting on a letter a British girl wrote to the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes. The British girl accused United States Army officers of being “rotten to the core" and asserting that German girls were permitted to live with United States officers in their headquarters compound.

An American girl, in a letter to Stars and Stripes, said American officers placed jeeps at the disposal of German girls whenever they wanted, so that the girls could go wherever they wished. The Frankfurt correspondent of the Associated Press, in reporting the accusations, adds that the compound guards explained that officers and civilians working at the United States headquarters compound were permitted to take girls in at any time between 10.30 p.m. and 8.30 a.m. Headquarters Command orders provided that officers must sign guests in and the guests must sign out before 8.30 a.m., except at week-ends, when girls were permitted to remain within the compound over Sunday', leaving before 8.30 a.m. on Monday. The correspondent examined the register late last night and found that 120 officers and civilians, including lieut.-colonels, had signed in guests.

The letters and comments have raised a storm of sympathetic reaction from other chaplains, also from American soldiers.