OT: a problem about text manipulation

["Paul Smith" <phhs80@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All

I have a text file with more than 300000 of lines like the following:

1	E	E	E
2	C	D	
3	B	E	D
4	C	E	D
5		D	E

I am looking for an automatic way of transforming my text file into
another one with the format

1	E
1	E
1	E
2	C
2	C
3	B
3	B
3	D
4	C
4	C
4	D
5	E

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Paul