Every Man an Engineer

The British had sworn to scorch the earth of Malaya, but the job was badly done. They scarcely singed the edges, left many a handsome prize for the oncoming Jap. U.S. Lieut. General Walter Krueger, commander of the Third Army, thought he could see the reason for the British failure: ignorance and insufficient explosives. He ordered an immediate training program to acquaint every combat unit under his command with the ins-&-outs of demolition.

Last week, on the brush-covered, gully-cut hills of Camp Bullis, 20 miles northwest of San Antonio, Tex., demolition experts previewed the program, found it good. Potential "students" and newshawks, advised to "look up and dodge" rather than seek cover, watched a picked demolition detail lop off a 17-in. tree with "a necklace of half-pound TNT blocks, open up a 4-ft. roadway crater, send barbed-wire entanglements up in a spray. Two TNT blocks neatly halved a railroad rail. A homemade mine (an old cartridge box, batteries, scrap iron, wire, string, 6 1/2lb. of TNT) tore the guns from an old World War I tank. A hand grenade and booby trap were manufactured on the spot from the same pick-up materials.

Walter Krueger's plan will put 530 men from each Third Army division through a stiff ten-hour instruction course, bossed by Lieut. Colonel Merrow E. Sorley, onetime West Point teacher of engineering and military history. Lessons will be pounded home by instructors from the Corps of Engineers. Ultimate aim: to make the task of demolition, heretofore an art sacred to the engineers, a job that any soldier can do in a pinch, if he has the explosives and a bit of arson in his system.

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