Sport: Track!

Fifteen years ago America's 75 ski clubs counted a mere 3,500 members—a cult of shoptalking zealots ("I schussed the slope, tried a stem christie, made a sitzmark"). After the 1932 winter Olympics at Lake Placid came the avalanche: in 1940-41, some 2,000,000 U.S. skiers spent about $200,000,000 to twist ankles and chap cheeks.

Last winter the U.S. 10th Mountain Division—skiers turned mountain fighters —swept across the Apennines, took Mt. Belvedere, which two other divisions had attacked in vain. There died Torger Tokle, the towheaded ex-Brooklyn carpenter who became America's greatest ski jumper. The loth, only U.S. division trained for combat on...