Home by Christmas?

The clamor to bring the boys home grew louder & louder. Millions complained that demobilization was a scandal.

Complaints, based on letters from the boys, recited old grievances. High-point men had been left to languish at overseas ports. Conditions in waiting areas were sometimes deplorable. The elaborate de mobilization machinery was falling apart.

No Trains, No Planes. There were new things to talk about. In San Francisco, a ship that had recently been carrying G.I.s sailed for Argentina with a load of pleasure-bound passengers and commercial cargo. Overtaxed transportation facilities in the U.S. had become a bottleneck. Forty-six Army nurses arrived in San Antonio after a harrowing three-day trip on a troop train from California, sharing two chair cars with G.I.s. One day's food ration was a piece of bread and jelly and a small portion of stew. Half the time their cars had no water. ("Our washroom simply stank.") But at least they got home. In West Coast ports, thousands of returned troops were stalled indefinitely. Housing facilities were so bad many of them had to be quartered in barracks ships in Puget Sound. There would be many disappointments on Christmas.

"No Boats, No Votes." Although they were doing their best, the Army and Navy knew that the clamor could not be calmed. Some servicemen overseas were almost psychopathic in their anxiety to get home. Without themselves aboard, the departure of any ship for home seemed out of order. In the Pacific, their resentment found form in a slogan which was stamped on all U.S.-bound mail: "No Boats, No Votes."

At home, the uproar was augmented by understandably yearning relatives, and by others of more distant and dubious kin ship. The leftist National Maritime Union called a nationwide one-day strike to dramatize a pious demand for more troop ships. The Communist Daily Worker, in a front-page editorial, explained that the strike was called "in the name of the American people to get [G.I. Joe] home and prevent his use in imperialist intervention."

Deadline in June. In all this noise, the most important facts in the demobilization program were drowned out. Since V-E day nearly four million servicemen have been brought back from overseas. December arrivals will swell the total by another million. After World War I, it took the nation a year and a half to bring back almost 2,000,000 troops from Europe. This time they are being brought back from all over the world.

By Jan. 1, the number of troops in Europe eligible for return will be reduced to about 200,000. To speed up returns from the Pacific Theater, the Army last week transferred 32 transports (total capacity: 83,000 men) from the Atlantic. By June 1, the Army promised, the Army will be transporting and discharging G.I.s in every theater just as fast as they become eligible.

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