Weissblatt's Leg

On Jan. 7, 1942, U.P. Correspondent Franz Weissblatt was ambushed and shot by Japs on Bataan. The bullet shattered the top of his right thighbone. The Japs stripped, spat on and kicked him, then threw him naked into a truck. Seven days later they dressed his wound with mosquito netting soaked in picric acid. That was all the medical treatment he got.

After 37 days the Japs imprisoned him in Manila. When MacArthur's men freed him, 36 months later, Weissblatt was hobbling on crutches, one leg three inches shorter than the other and twisted 90 degrees out of position. The bullet was still in his thigh.

Last week Correspondent Weissblatt, swathed in a plaster cast from trunk to toes, received the Purple Heart. A Manhattan surgeon had removed the bullet from his thigh, sawed through the crookedly knit bone and patched it with a six-inch stainless steel plate and eight screws. Now both legs are the same length. Soon Weissblatt will walk again without crutches.

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