as possible.
'We eat badly, but we eat a damn sight better than any~ one else,'was General Clark's comment.
Abel commandeered the only good hotel in Algiers and turned the building into a headquarters for General Clark. Although Abel could see he was playing a valuable role in the war, he itched to get into a real fight, but majors in charge of catering are rarely sent into the front line.
He wrote to Zap~iia and George and watched his beloved daughter Florentyna grow up by photograph. He even received an occasional letter from Curds Fenton, reporting that the Baron Group was making an everilarger profit because every hotel in America was packed because of the continual movement of troops and civilians. Abel was sad not to have been at the opening of the new hotel in Montreal, where George had represented him. It was the first time that he had not been present at the opening of a Baron, but George wrote at rea&nuing length of the new hotel's great success. Abel began to realise how much he had built up in America and how much he wanted to return to the land he now felt was his home.
He soon became bored with Africa and its mess kits, baked beans, blankets and fly swatters. T'here had been one or two spirited skirmishes out there in the western desert, or so the men returning fronx the front assured hini, but he never saw any real action, although often when he took the food to the front he would hear the firing, and it made him even angrier.
One'day to his excitement, General Clark's Fifth Army was ordered to invade Southern Europe.
The Fifth Army landed on the Italian coast in amphibious craft while American aircraft gave them tactical cover. They met considerable resistance, first at Anzio and then at Monte Cassino but the action never involved Abel and he dreaded the end of a war in which he had seen no combaL But he could never devise a plan which would get him into the front lines.
His chances were not unproved when he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and sent to - LGndon to await further orders.
With D - Day, the great thr - ust into Europe began. The Allies marched into France and liberated Paris on 25 August 1944. As Abel paraded with the American and Free French soldiers down the Champs Elyses behind General de Gaulle to a hero's welcome, he studied the still magnificent city and once again decided exactly where he was going to build his first Baron hotel in France.
The Allies moved on through northern France and across the German border in a final drive towards Berlin. Abel was posted to the First Army under General Bradley Food was coming mainly from England: local supplies were almost non - existent, as each succeeding town at which they arrived had already been ravaged by the retreating German army. When Abel arrived in a new city, it would take him only a few hours to commandeer the entire remaining food supply before other American quartermasters had worked out exactly where to look. British and American officers were always happy to dine with the Ninth Armoured Division and would leave wondering how they had managed to requisition such excellent supplies. On one occasion when General George S. Patton joined General Bradley for dinner~ Abel was introduced to the famous general who always led his troops into battle brandishing an ivory - handled revolver.
Me best meal I've had in the whole damn war,' add Patton.
By February 1945, Abel had been in uniform for nearly th= years and he knew the war would be over in a matter of months. General Bradley kept sending him congratulatory notes and meaningless decorations to adom his ever - eVanding uniform, but they didn!t help. Abel begged the general to let him fight in just one battle, but Bradley wouldret hear Of it.
Although it was the duty of a junior officer to drive the food trucks up to the front lines and then supervise the meals for the troops, Abel often carried out the responsibility himself. And, as in the running of his hotels, he would never let any of his staff know when or where he next intended to pounce.
It was the continual flow of blanket - covered stretchers into the camp that damp St. Patrick's Day that made Abel want to go up to the Front and take a look for himself. When it reached a point