Aberdeen Incident

A brief but unusual shock passed through the whole War Department last week. No less a person than the Chief of Staff, General Charles Pelot Summerall, had been insulted. Junior officers about the Department knew the General had gone to the Army's proving grounds at Aberdeen, Md., had returned to Washington in a state df high indignation. With true esprit de corps they tried to hush up the whole affair.

What happened at Aberdeen was this: General Summerall, the Army's No. 1 professional soldier and by definition a wellspring of military knowledge, was watching the firing of a field piece. Some young officers, fresh from training, enthusiastically undertook to tell the Chief of Staff a few things about gunfire--how the piece is rifled, how the shell is twirled, how its trajectory is increased. Shocked by the elementary nature of their talk and their unconscious assumption that he did not know his military alphabet, General Summerall cut the explanation short, gave the officers a sound verbal spanking, stalked from the field, leaving Lieutenant-Colonel Edward M. Shinkle, commanding officer, and his staff, standing at rigid attention. What, they must have wondered, would be the result of the artillery-men's subtle insubordination? Profound was their chagrin. Would the episode give rise to Army legend? They had not long to wonder.

Back in Washington, General Summerall closed the incident with this statement:

"The deportment of some of the officers at Aberdeen was not satisfactory, and corrective action was taken on the spot. So far as General Summerall is concerned, the incident is closed, and no further disciplinary action will be taken unless taken by the commanding officer at Aberdeen."

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