When Maj. Gen. Leven C. Allen predicted that the French Second Armored Division would go in on one side of Paris, but have a hard time getting out on the other, he could have enlarged his prophecy to include the press. The war left Paris behind, but the war correspondents hadn't the heart to do likewise. The Scribe Hotel, from the very first day, became a fanciful place, its lobby filled with aimless human tides, everyone afraid to leave it for fear of missing something, every- one afraid also that anything he could find there would fail to measure up under the eyes of his editor or program director. Being born among us was the journalist mendicant, who would pluck at the sleeves of soldiers on leave in Paris to get stories.

If the war correspondents were disinclined to chase off after the Armies now going full-tilt through old, hallowed battlefields such as the Marne, Soissons, Chateau-Thierry, nothing was deader for them than the Brittany peninsula. Yet hundreds of men in three American divisions-the Eighth, Twenty-ninth and Second-were at Brest alone, where scar-faced, sinister Lt. Gen. Herman Bernhard Ramcke, the veteran paratroop leader of the battle of Crete, was denying the Biscay ports of Brest, Lorient and St. Nazaire to Allied use. He had more than 45,000 garrison troops and remnants of five divisions. Maj. Gen. Troy Middleton, commanding the VIII Corps, had already been in contact with Ramcke by radio, the latter seeking rules on the exchange of wounded. After this, he sought audience with General Middleton, coming out of Brest under a flag of truce. A forbidding enough figure when alone, he was formidable indeed when he stood beside Middleton's command trailer. His feet were planted firmly, wide apart, and two Doberman pinschers were at leash from each of his hands. Middleton was short with him, said there was nothing for them to talk about except the terms of Ramcke's surrender, adding. that it would be wise for him to give up soon. Middleton assured him American pressure would be increased. Ramcke departed and toole his Dobermans, nervously licking their chops, with him.

Colonel F. V. Fitzgerald, General Bradley's P&PW chief and one- time secretary to a governor of Nevada, had sent me to determine a likely capitulation time for Brest. His hope was to interest some of the war correspondents who had taken up sentry duty in the Scribe. Middleton's impression was that Ramcke was a stubborn fanatic, who would see the campaign through to the bitterest end. Optimistically, he guessed at the fourth to the sixth of September, but he warned this could be in error by as much as ten days. When Shep and I spun back to Versailles, where Twelfth Army Group was located, we were not the only ones with news. Colonel Fitzgerald accepted ours, then told us that we were being transferred to a new "trouble-shooting" assignment.

"The Ninth Army is just coming on the Continent," he said. "It's back at Periers-fresh from the U. S. and San Antonio, Texas. They have no experience in the field, and particularly with what it will take to handle war correspondents. You'll have to organize that from scratch for them." Shades of Grosvenor Square, almost a year ago! But this time there was experience to draw upon, and the flaws of the first, troubled paper planning in London had shown themselves.

General Bradley described Ninth Army as "green but ambitious." Led by lanky, tall and completely bald Lt. Gen. William U. Simpson, described later by Frank Coniff of INS as having "the finest head of skin in the Army," the Ninth Headquarters staff at first looked like an aggregation of National Guardsmen on their annual summer encampment.

The Periers stop was to be short, and after the round of introductions and talks with key people, I sat on 'a folding cot, typewriter on my knees, and wrote out the memorandum giving birth to a Ninth Army press camp. To it was attached a summary table of equipment and manpower needed, including signals and general communications, motor pool and messing facility. When this was shown to the staff officers they looked at me incredulously. A mobile radio link capable of transmitting voice to London, a press teletype