Famous Victory?

In pre-dawn darkness last week, 4,000 G.I.s cordoned off a 45-mile stretch of the Danube in U.S.-occupied Bavaria, rounded up 397 river craft. Tight-jawed G.I.s routed out sleeping sailors and their women, led them shivering on deck with the command, in G.I. German: "Snell-like" (hurry up). One fuzz-cheeked soldier who found a rust-covered fowling piece dashed topside, tripped, fell in the river in the best Keystone comedy manner.

But "Operation Grab-Bag" was no joke. Its announced reason: to break up a Nazi smuggling ring. Unannounced reason: to break down a Russian veto.

After the Soviets occupied the lower half of the Danube last year, boats that went downstream might as well have sailed down the Styx. They never came back. The long (since 1856) Danubian tradition of free traffic, one of the few economic arrangements ever worked out in barrier-ridden Europe, was broken. Now the U.S. had most of the Danube fleet in its control. Said a high U.S. official: "We have the boats and they [the Russians] have the river." Washington would not free one until Moscow freed the other.

To the guard who relieved him on one of the seized boats, an 18-year-old pfc. from Tennessee drawled: "Ah swear ah did not hear a shot fired, but sure's shootin my kids'll read this in the history book some general'll dream up."

"Grab-Bag" was not a famous victory. But just possibly it would convince the Russians that the U.S. meant business in Central Europe.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.