The column (.1D) input function only reads numbers, not labels. It reads everything as numbers, THEN edits out the unwanted data. This is the source of the problem.
If your system has the
cut command, perhaps you could use this to edit the file. For example,
cut -d" " -f 2- fred.1D > fred2.1D
would remove column 1 on my Mac. See
man cut for details of the options.
bob cox