NOT HAND-PICKED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 13 June 1942, Page 3

NOT HAND-PICKED

AMERICANS IN AUSTRALIA WIOLL-EQL'IPPED, WELL-1 ED AND MODEST Somewhere in Australia. May 14. The other evening, over some com mcndable Australian sherry in the gar denlike capital called Canberra. a member of the Commonwealth Purlin mcnl asked me if it were true that American soldiers who had been sent to Australia were all specially chosen before exporting, for size, appearance, and smartness, writes Edward Angley. correspondent of the Chicago "Sun" with Allied Forces in Australia. That idea, he told me. had got into his mind as he watched them on the sidewalks of Melbourne. Sydney. Bris bane and smaller communities. I told him that it was not. so. I could have told him what greenhorns some of them are, but he wouldn't have believed me. I mention his question because it > ; a tribute to the smartness of the American soldier, who is far better clothed than any of us were in 1917 1918. N'T only is the American soldier sen', abroad nowadays better fed than any other troopers I have ever seen sin" ' September. 1939; he is also bet ter dressed and usually better sheltered. At a large Army camp where I recently devoted a week to observation, the first of the “subjects to be specially stressed” in a 6 weeks’ intensive training programme was “discipline, military courtesy, and personal appearance.’’ The fruits of this idea have gained the admiration of Australians in every part of this continent where Americans are to be found—and they are to be found almost everywhere. What they had that was old. slouchy, and weather worn was left behind when they embarked. Most of those who have come out here brought brand-new tents, new clothes, new cots, new helmets, new automobiles, and even new weapons with Ihcm. The other day, inspecting a gun during target practice. I was happily surprised to note that it bore the date of an early month in 1942. The manufacturer was a corporation widely known in peacetime for producing a much more harmless article. To see that gun. to note the name of its birthplace, 10.000 miles away, and observe its newness gave an encouraging summary of the story of the quick conversion of America’s great industrial machine to the uses of war. QUICK FRIENDSHIPS Not far away from this tented colony of Americans wei‘e some Australian camps. Visits were not infrequent between the two, and the camaraderie I both in the field and off duty in the ; nearest village was encouraging to eyes more than once distressed by watching frictions separate Allies both on the Continent and in the Middle Blast. The Australians for the most part were in old tents, some of them camouflaged in the yellows and russets which til into a desert. This camouflage and the occasional holes and patches in the canvas evoked memories of hot sunshine and hotter bomb splinters Libya, and of strenuous days near the Syrian frontier. Officers and men alike, the Australian soldiers who came to visit our camp remarked not only upon the newness of the American tents, but on their comfort and excellence in all weathers. During the week I was there we had one or two gales, several heavy rains, and a cloudburst that poured forth nearly an inch of water in less than an hour. There was plenty of opportunity after all of that to make comparisons in tenting facilities. Particularly admired by visitors to the American camp are the Bxß wall tents, which are an individual “home” to many an officer in the field. Larger canvas pyramids shelter the men. 4 or 6 to the tent. Outside each tent the occupants had dug slit trenches, two on either ride, two in the back, and though the enemy may have been far away there was a constant round-the-clock vjgil at the protective anti-air-craft batteries. Sibley stoves. a Yankee general's Civil War invention, which hasn’t been bettered since, keep the tents of the Americans warm yet smokeless in the chilly nights of Australia s autumn. Glistening new lamps which burn "white gasoline” brighten the interior for reading or writing between supper and the bugler’s “lights out.” Half the nights of the week there is not time for such an after-supper letdown in the camp I am talking about, for it is the rule there that each officer and each enlisted man must artend a school of instruction at least three nights a week. Some nights there arc exercises in the field to train men to gat from one assigned place to another over ail manner uf terrain by using tlie compass and the stars. Among the new American Army equipment most envied by visitors are the triple-coloured flashlights, or electric torches, as the Australians know them. Changeable to red. green, or white, their efficiency comes into plav when convoys move through the dark, or other signalling is needed. The uni-

forms of the Americans who are out here vary with their stations. A full third of Australia lies within the tropics and knows no winter. In the temperate south and along most populated eastern seaboard autumn has come. Wherever his station, your Yank of 1942 seems 'o have got a better deal froitL. the supply sergeant than any of his Allies. He knows it and looks it. and my spies inform me that the female of the Australian species is not unaware of the fact. NOT SO WEALTHY As usual with Americans abroad, the size ot his pay has been grossly exag gerated in the public mind. but for i the most part, unless his allotments to 1 the home folks aie large he does get more money than his neighbour in uni form. The recent 20 per cent, rise for overseas service will also be a help—when it comes. So far all the Yankee knows about it is what he has seen m the papers. It his pay is sometimes larger than j that ol his neighbour here, the Aus- j tralian soldier who may envy him is. !

alter all. simply providing another fco for a shoe which has hurt the 2s a da> Tommy whenever the Anzacs have shared the delights of a common camj or village with the British, either u England or the Middle Last. There the Australians’ (Is a clay, and the New Zealanders’ 7s Gel permitted them it cut social swaths beyond the Tommy’.ability to compete. For the most part the American sol dier now in Australia is not only well behaved but modest in his demeanour. knows he is yet untried under fire. He also knows that many of the uniformed Australians with whom lie mingles have come home from Tobruk or Syria. Greece or Crete, and he re - spects that fact. As they get together, the men of the two armies are rapidly absorbing one another’s slang. To the Australian Hollywood’s movies and New York's magazines long since have made the vernacular a familiar language. But Australian slang, one of the richest and most virile of argote. has. until now with the exception of a few classic contributions such as wowser—been more or ess of an unknown tongue to the Yankee. He is picking it up rapidly. One of his pet adoptions is “dinkum,” which means "the real Mac Coy.” He is learning to refer to any nuisance as “a fair cow.” My spies among the younger generation have hinted that some of the American soldiers are no longer ignorant of the fact that the Australian word for petting is “canoodling.”