National Affairs: Snowdrop

The mercury stood at two below zero one morning last week at Pine Camp, the U.S. Army's 107,000-acre training area in northern New York. Three feet of snow blanketed the terrain, dotted with scrub pines. At H-hour, 11:30 a.m., 15 potbellied Fairchild Packets roared overhead, a scant 800 feet over the snow.

Then parachutes, white, red, green, blue and yellow, blossomed beneath the planes and the air was filled with men, guns and gear. For the next two days the paratroopers established an "airhead" against a theoretical enemy who had theoretically overrun the northeast....

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