Not in Bed

COMMAND

Near Iceland, the big B-24 Liberator bomber bored through dark and dirty weather. A British base had radioed a warning: weather bad. From the bomber came the laconic reply: "Continuing."

Visibility was zero. On his first pass the pilot missed the field; he circled for another try. Staff Sergeant George A. Eisel, in the tail turret, caught a blurry glimpse of the ground. Then, with a rending crash, the plane tore itself to wreckage against a low hillside. Eisel was hurled from his seat, forward among the dead. Flames licked close enough to singe his eyelashes before drenching rain put the fire out; 26 hours later he was able to tell rescuers what had happened.

The bomber's 14 other occupants had been killed. Among them was one of the Army's highest and most respected officers, Lieut. General Frank Maxwell Andrews, 59, commander of all U.S. forces in the European theater of operations.

With him perished his chief of staff, Brigadier General Charles H. Earth; his able, gregarious public-relations officer, Colonel Morrow Krum, onetime Chicago newsman, and Bishop Adna W. Leonard.

Air General. No one in Washington or London dreamed of denying that the loss of General Andrews was a bitter blow.

Rugged, white-haired Andy Andrews had been one of the first U.S. commanders to see the future role of air power and, in particular, the possibilities in long-range bombing. More than once he had stuck out his square jaw against all rules of Army protocol and politics, and after 1935, when he organized the General Headquarters Air Force, he lived most of the time in hot water. His fight for air power finally became such a nuisance to more conservative officers that in 1939 Major General Andrews was removed from his high post, rusticated to Fort Sam Houston, as a colonel.

Yet four-engined Andy Andrews was too valuable to keep on any Army shelf. When General George Marshall became Chief of Staff he brought Andrews back as his G3, the first airman on the General Staff. His war assignments next took him to the Panama defense command, then to command of all forces in the Middle East, finally to London and the European theater.

West Pointer Andrews was not a onesided air general; he held that blockade and attrition by all weapons offered the sure way to bring the Axis down. But flying was his great passion. He had about 6,000 hours on Army planes, and was an expert pilot even at 59. A flyer who knew him remarked, after hearing of the crash: "I'll bet Andy is bitching right now because he didn't take over that landing himself." And all the General's friends knew he had been ready for something like this a long time ago; he often told them: "I don't want to be one of those generals who die in bed."

Armor General. The Army moved swiftly to close ranks, named as its new European commander Lieut. General Jacob L. ("Jakie") Devers, chief of the Armored Forces. War Secretary Henry L. Stimson gave him a handsome sendoff: "General Devers has been especially prepared for this assignment. He made a recent trip through the whole African and European theater. He is thoroughly conversant with present and future plans."

No one doubted that Jake Devers was a first-rate officer, well qualified to carry on in the theater from which any invasion of Western Europe must be launched.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.