Army & Navy: Delicate Operation

Seaman Allen L. Gordon went on the operating table in a South Pacific base hospital with one extra worry: he knew he might blow up. While on duty aboard a battleship he had been struck by a 20-mm. anti-aircraft shell which slashed into his belly, lodged in his left hip, freakishly did not explode.

Doctors aboard ship gave him first aid, then rushed him ashore, where nurses and orderlies handled him like a piece of priceless Wedgwood. After X rays had located the projectile, surgeons working from behind a steel plate deftly and delicately removed it. Marine ordnance men exploded the shell, sent the shattered casing to Gordon, now convalescing in the U.S.