Pros from Dover

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 07/22/2002 12:38:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
dave at WILTON.NET writes:

> The context of the M*A*S*H usage is that Hawkeye and Trapper are called to
>  Tokyo to perform minor surgery on a congressman's son. They view the trip
>  primarily as a way to get in a golf outing. They call themselves the "pros
>  from Dover" and show disdain for the Tokyo hospital staff.
>
>  I inferred (without evidence) that it had something to do with golf. Is
>  there a famous golf course at some place named Dover?

I have never seen the movie and it has been almost 30 years since I read the
book.  Does anyone know if the Tokyo golf outing is in the book (I recall
Hawkeye and his pals playing golf in odd places but I don't recall any trips
to Japan).  Unfortunately H. Richard Hornberger MD, who wrote the book under
the pseudonym "Richard Hooker", died in 1997 so we can't ask him.)

Dover Deleaware is the site of a big Air Force base that specializes in air
transport rather than fighters or bombers (the West Wing fans on the list may
recall that the show goes there periodically).  I don't know if it was a
transport hub during the Korean War,  but it could have been.  Hornberger is
from Maine, and wrote the book while in medical practice in Bremen, Maine.
Wasn't Hawkeye from Crabapple Cove, Maine?  Hornberger may easily have
shipped to Korea from Dover, in which case to him "pros from Dover" might
mean "specialists flown in from the States and specifically from the IEast
Coast".

Or when the movie was being filmed (released 1970), someone may have been
thinking of Dover in terms similar to the above.

In a message dated 07/22/2002 8:36:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
gcohen at UMR.EDU writes:

>       Here's a guess.  During the Normandy Invasion,some
>  specially-trained American forces had to scale the cliffs. Might they
>  have first practiced on the cliffs of Dover and become proficient
>  there?

The "specially-trained American forces" was the 2nd Ranger Batallion, and
their target was the long-range German guns at POinte du Hoc. The unit was
activated and trained in the United States in 1943 before going to England.
I haven't been able to find out where its training for Pointe du Hoc was
conducted.  Among the special equipment the Rangers carried for their mission
was fireman's ladders (certainly worth a try for scaling 100-foot cliffs),
and I seem to recall reading somewhere that these ladders were borrowed from
the London Fire Department.

The 3rd Ranger Batallion trained at Dover, but it was the 2nd Batallion, not
the 3rd,  which attacked Pointe du Hoc.

The Rangers did succeed in scaling the cliffs, only to find that the
"battery" consisted of painted telephone poles.  The real guns had been moved
back into some woods to hide them from air attack.  The Rangers followed the
tracks left by the guns when they were moved, and found and destroyed the
guns.

According to one Web site, Cornelius Ryan's _The Longest Day_ says that the
operation was a boondoggle.  On the contrary, although the guns were not in
position when the Allies landed, if the Rangers had not captured Pointe du
Hoc the guns might have been moved back into position where they could have
made the Omaha landing much worse than it was.

I don't think the 2nd Rangers had anything to do with the phrase "pros from
Dover".  Slightly less unlikely: at the Dieppe raid commandos landed on both
flanks to attack German coastal batteries.  I don't know if these commandos
were British, Canadian, American, or a mix, but it is possible that these men
trained at Dover.  However, I consider this little more likely than the
Pointe du Hoc suggestion.


    - Jim Landau