Collier's Magazine December 18, 1943

 Collier’s Magazine of December 18, 1943:

WING TALK  

The Aviation Engineers are apparently just good little gremlins, scooting hither and thither, building airports where no airports should ever be built, and building them just at the time somebody needs them.   The men and equipment responsible for making the Salerno airdrome a decisive factor in the Italian landing were our aviation engineers, one of the least publicized units of the Army Air Forces, yet one of the basic influences in every victory we’ve won so far in the Mediterranean.  The aviation Engineers riding their bulldozers, go right in amongst the bullets, into the front lines or ahead of them.  Their main jobs are to build new airports in conquered territory, as they did exceedingly well in Tunisia, and to repair captured airports as they did so nobly in Sicily.   T

The big boss of the Aviation Engineers is Brigadier General Stuart C. Godfrey a wiry little person who looks, acts and talks just the way you’d like to think all our generals do.  General Godfrey describes himself simply as “General Arnold’ Engineer” but he is likely to end up the most important engineer in modern history.  His title is Air Engineer, Army Air Forces.  

As a sample of how Godfrey’s men work, there is the story of how they built five airports in three days near Sbeitla, in North Africa.  

Brigadier General Donald Davison, engineer commander in those parts, was looking for one of his companies.  He started through a sector occupied by an American armored division.  Officers stopped him, and asked him if he knew he was in front lines, and headed right out into no man’s land, beyond even the American’s outer patrols.  Davison obviously did not know.  The surprise on this face would have detonated a bomb.  He asked the boys if they’d seen anything of a company of Aviation Engineers.  The answer was quick and positive.