The WASHINGTON
Merry-Go-Round
By Drew Pearson
NAVY STILL HESITATES
Washington
--- The question of the quick-release parachute harness is still causing
considerable backing-and-filling inside the armed services, this time in the
Navy.
Although the Army delayed for months after Brig. Gen. Newton
Longfellow of the U.S. Eighth Air Force in England requested the
quick-release harness on June 1, 1943, nevertheless the Army did jump in at
top speed last month, after revelations in this column, and ordered more
than 100,000 of the quick single releases.
Furthermore, Colonel C. B. Degave, second in command at Camp
Mackall, N.C., where eight paratroopers drowned when they were unable to
extricate themselves from, their triple-release harnesses, came to
Washington last month, requested and got the promise of new quick-release
harnesses. [The
Circleville Herald, Circleville, OH, Monday, April 17, 1944, Page 4] |
| |
