"DON'T FIRE UNTIL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 71, 11 May 1943, Page 3

"DON'T FIRE UNTIL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES

Not long ago, Jim Moran, America's Number 1 Prankster, put this advertisement in Boston newspapers:

WANTED: 12 men; must be unemployed, betwen 21 and 40: for one. day's work. Salary 4 dollars. Must have following qualifications: Nos. 1 and 2 must be nearsighted; 3 and 4 must be l'arsiglited; 5 and G must have normal vision: 7 and 8 must be bleary-eyed; 9 and 10 must be bright-eyed; No. 11 must have pink-eye.: No. 12 must be cross eyed. Applj r 9 a.m. More than 250 men showed up, and an oculist examined, them while ; Jim stood by; two bj r two they were chosen. Next day Jim, arrayed in the uniform of a colonel of the Revolutionary Army, disclosed his plan. "I have rented costumes* for these 12 men," he said. "Six will wear American colonial dress, the other six the redcoat uniforms of the British. This afternoon i will take them out to Bunker Hill to prove a pet theory of mine. 1 am going to show that the command shouted by - Colonel Prescott —'Don't fire until you see the whites of their cyjs' —was the stupidest command ever uttered by an army officer."

Arrived at the battle see;<.c, the motley array of soldiers were given muskets loaded with blanks. The Redcoats were instructed to charge up the. hill; to the Continentals at the top was given Colonel Prescott's famous command. The result ■was chaos. The two i'arsightccl men opened, fire when the enemy was 75 feet away. The enemy advanced another 25 feet before the men with normal vision opened lire. The nearsighted man 011 the Continental side never did shoot —theoretically he Avas skewered on British bayonets. And when the cross-eyed man pulled the trigger his musket was aimed in the general direction^of the Boston customhouse tower.