OCR Text |
Show 748 The National Geographic Magazine D, S. Army Signal Curps, Official In Mannheim, German Chemical Center, Milk Is Doled Out to Children and Mothers Americans found Alsdorf peasants milking 36 cows hidden 1,200 feet deep in a mine to avert seizure by Hitler's escaping Army. In Hannover, looters clawed one another for food abandoned in warehouses. General Eisenhower warned Germans they could not count on the Allies to supply food, fuel, or clothing. from Channel ports to inland centers with civilian supplies. Along the length of the winding Seine, Army equipment and personnel labor with the French to clear away bombed bridges so that barges may move freely in the transport of civilian supplies. Goods for- Civilians In the coal mines of Belgium and northern France, Allied officers using Army trucks and tools work with civilian managers and labor to restore full-scale production so that there may be fuel to run the trains to carry the fuel to the waiting factories and furnaces. Over the beaches, in through the battered ports moves a constant flow of goods for civilian use. Ordered months before the invasion in anticipation of these wants, they were "phased in," as the Army says, in accordance with tactical plans. The Army has grown accustomed now to the added responsibilities of liberation; so such supplies are forwarded as if they were ammunition or combat rations. Only the hieroglyphics with which the War Department marks its shipments distinguish cartons of "energized" chocolates for the infants of Belgium from the Army's famed emergency D ration. Other items in the import list include clothing, soap, medical supplies, police and civil-defense equipment, and gasoline. By the first of March more than 600,000 tons of such commodities had been moved into the liberated countries to meet emergency requirements. That is 100 shiploads, or enough to sustain a combat division in action for nearly two years. When critical needs arise, as when floods and combat wiped out food reserves in the Netherlands, supplies are flown across the Channel from depots in the United Kingdom. No one argues that these measures of direct relief provide a solution to the wants of |