This is the Army
Pearl Harbor occurred about six months after I graduated from High School. I believe we all were aware it would change our lives and the things we believed in, but none of us knew how much. It placed restraints on our lives. We wanted to keep on working and enjoying our new found freedom of being out of school and, yet, we were all moved by feelings of duty to the country and many of my friends joined the service. I was reading meters for the P.P.& L. and enjoyed the job and the fellows I worked with. It was outdoors with lots of walking and although the pay was not the greatest it provided me with what I needed. I bought an old Harley Davidson motorcycle that was wrecked and fixed it up. My parents had a fit and bribed me with their old car, a 1934 Oldsmobile. What they did not know was I was ready to give the cycle up as it was too heavy and needed a clutch. I sold it for a few dollars more than it cost me and took the car.
In the summer of 1942, I decided I would go to Bethlehem Steel, and on the first day I was off in 1943, I was to enlist. Working at the steel gave me more money and new friends. It also provided me with another form of night life. Steelworkers are hard drinkers and I soon learned to drink my share.
One of the men I made friends with was Nick Mosko, who later joined the Airborne and was killed in the Ardennes. I worked the rest of the summer and part of the winter and in January I signed up.
By this time with the draft in full swing it was no longer enlisting, it was voluntary draft waver or something like that, who cared. After my physical and test I left Bethlehem for New Cumberland on January 21st. On the same train were several men I had graduated with. We only stayed at New Cumberland long enough to get outfitted and tested to see where we would fit in. I remember going down a long hill from the barracks for shots. We walked down a hall and backed into a side room. We were given at least four shots in the shoulders and several in the arms. After the shots we went next door where we received a large duffel bag of clothes and two pair of boots. We were assembled outside until everyone was finished and by that time the shots were having their effect on us. Fever, aches and pain in the arms were soon felt. About this time it was shoulder the bag and up the hill to the barracks. This is the army Mr. Jones!
The Infantry
After a short time at New Cumberland it was on a train to who knows were. One of the cardinal rules of the army is never tell a rookie anything. We arrived in what turned out to be Little Rock, Arkansas. I always was horse nuts, and when we unloaded there on the platform was a horse soldier, shiny boots and all. I soon learned I was in the infantry, Camp Joseph T. Robinson. At this time it was one of the toughest training camps in the army. There were a lot of mothers who complained to their Congressmen about the harsh treatment their little boys received. It was this training that kept them alive and brought them home after the war.
I was in the same little hut with Niles Long from Bethlehem. We went to school together and being from home we became good army buddies. I enjoyed much of the training and the new friends we made. I remember the two Apache Indians we had with us. One of them was always getting drunk and fighting. It was when we had our interview near the end of training I was asked to stay as cadre, and later on after I was more mature go to OCS. This sounded good and I looked forward to it.
About this time we were all given tests. Only a small number passed these tests and we were told we would go to college. The army called this Army Specialized Training Program or ASTP. After we finished the three months of basic they started shipping out. Niles wanted the airforce and he was shipped to an airbase somewhere. I was held back with about a dozen others. We did not have anything to do except loaf for about a week. Then new recruits started coming in, mostly Chicanos from California. It soon became dog eat dog in the mess hall as they were untrained and very anti-social. It was for the best I think that the army shipped us out.
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Next stop Hattiesburg, Mississippi. We found ourselves in the artillery. I found several new friends, Henry Isaac, a Jew from Cologne, Germany. The other buddy was Heinz Glaeser who came from Germany when he was 14 years old. Heinz and I ended up on a gun crew the first time we went into the field. These were old WW1 guns with very little traverse. It took a group of husky men to lift the gun around. We saw an old tank in the field, an old General Grant. These tanks were riveted together and when they were hit the rivets popped loose and flew around the inside. We sure were prepared in those days. The year before they trained with wooden guns.
A short time later, I was assigned to radio and, I believe, Heinz went to the survey group. It was hot and muggy with no air conditioning. We went on leave to Hattiesburg, went to the movies and drank beer. I remember the movies had a tax of part of a cent so you received change in plastic money. I wanted to go to New Orleans but the train was too crowded. Wanting to leave town, I found I could go to Jackson. It was a long hard ride. I wandered around and did not find a place to stay overnight, so I went back to the bus station. The south always had a lot of hardcase M.P.s. I asked if I could stay in the station and sleep in a chair and was told if I did I would be arrested and put in the jail. Asking if they knew of a place to stay, I was told it was my problem not theirs. I went to the rest room and one of them came in. He was decent and told me of a woman who took in soldiers. He told me how to get there and warned me that I would get picked up if I was not off the streets.
I walked up a hill and in the dark I found the house he told me of. I knocked and a little old women answered. I told her I was looking for a place to stay and she said she was sorry but she was full. I said I was desperate and would even sleep in a chair, so she invited me in. She gave me a space in a large closet, sleeping on a mattress on the floor with several other GIs. In the morning, I signed the log and went into the kitchen to eat. She served anything you could possibly want to eat, eggs, bacon, grits, pancakes, cereal and anything else you could think of. I believe it cost me three dollars for room and breakfast. I am sure a lot of soldiers had a warm spot in their hearts for this woman, I know I never forgot that night. I visited the zoo the next day, happy to be away from the soldiers life for a short time.
We quickly fell into barracks life, KP, guard duty, drilling and other normal things a soldier does. I had all of the usual duties such as KP, which meant, among other things, scrubbing out the inside of the garbage cans, real fun. I liked guard duty and usually requested Prisoner Chasing. On this duty you were issued live ammunition, five rounds of 30-06. We slept in the stockade and ran the prisoners around during the day, every where was double time. Most of them were just in because of minor things like late from a pass. One or two were real pains. I was challenged once by one who thought I would not shoot. I convinced him in a hurry that if I had to choose serving his sentence or shooting I would guarantee at least three in him. He never challenged me again but I heard he gave some others a hard time. He later went AWOL and stole boots and a watch from one of us. He was brought back when we were in LA. and later ended up doing hard time.
Maneuvers
After about two months we packed up and went on Louisiana Maneuvers. We stopped overnight and were given leave to go into some little town. I and some buddies ended up in a little bar. We sat by the door in the back room drinking our beers and shooting the breeze. A fight broke out in the other room and we were preparing to leave when a beer mug hit the wall over my head, that speeded up our departure.
We arrived in the national forest in west Louisiana and settled into a routine of four days on maneuvers and three days of rest and leave. I spent most of the four days riding around in a jeep all day with a Lieutenant and a driver, Vignuet, from New Hampshire. We ate C Rations when we were out of the battery area and ate with the outfit on the three day rest. The radios we had were tube type FM and really bad. The range was terrible and the cables connecting the units always broke and were hard to repair.
Our leave town was Leesville, a GI town. The natives had most of the town declared off limits to us, cant’ say I blamed them with the large number of drunken fighting GIs around town. Other than drinking there wasn’t much to do. We didn’t go in every weekend because of this. At this time there was a popular song Paper Doll and on one trip in I found my Paper Doll. I believe it was a Coca Cola display, it was a life-size cutout of a girl holding a soda. I convinced the store owner to give it to me and brought it back to camp. It was dark when we returned and I set it up outside my tent. In the morning I found out I had a lot of visitors wanting to see the Doll that I called my own.
On one occasion when we were on the three-day break we were along a little stream in a cut off forest. One of the guys had a fish line and hooks so he was hooking snakes in the little stream. We washed in the stream and did our laundry there. The snakes would lie just out of reach watching us. No one ever enjoyed this and no one went swimming.
One day several of us walked down to a little development near our area. It was about five houses around a country store. We were enjoying ice-cream and sodapop when a jeep full of MPs pulled up and rousted us. The little store and development was colored and down South you did not associate.
One of our favorite pastimes was catching pigs. Sometimes seven or eight little pigs would wander into our area. This would set off the games, pig catching. The little porkers were turned loose after the game of seeing how many we could catch.
We moved to new positions one night and as usual we left late and not with the battery. We were going up a narrow dirt road with only cats eyes on. These are the lights on army vehicles for night driving. They look like one dim light unless you are too close and the one light becomes two. We missed the turn off into the battery area and went too far. We turned around and started back, hearing trucks coming, Vig pulled up and moved to the shoulder. I was sitting in the rear on my bedroll so I could see better than Vig or the Lt. I saw and heard what had to be a big truck coming so I told Vig he better get over as far as he could.
What we did not know was we were on the edge of a large drainage ditch. When Vig moved a couple of feet we went over and landed upside down. I tried a back flip and landed on my face pinned down by the seat back. I didn’t feel any pain and it was kind of funny listening to the Lt. carrying on, until I heard Vig groaning in pain. I could hear the big truck which was Service batteries big wrecker so I started to yell for help. In no time at all we were pulled out and the jeep righted. Our only casualty was Vig who had broken ribs. We gathered our belongings and walked the few yards to our area. Vig returned to duty in a day or two, none the worse for it except the pain of broken ribs. If nothing else it gave us a taste of what would come.
Camp Iron Mountain
In August we were to return to Camp Shelby. Our kitchen was loaded and ready to leave at midnight when it was halted. We soon learned we were to turn in all trucks and heavy equipment. We went to the railroad and loaded up for another train ride to no one knew where. This was the first and only time I crossed Texas, it was as big as they said. After a long train ride when we unloaded we found out we were in SUNNY California. It was 120 degrees in the shade and there was no shade.
We were trucked to Camp Iron Mountain located on the desert about two hundred and fifty mile from Los Angeles. The closest towns were Parker in Arizona or Desert Center in California. General Patton had started these camps for troop training. There were a total of seven scattered over the barren landscape of this desert area.
We stayed in tents until we built our own area on the edge of the main camp. We raised a canvas roof for a mess hall and dug latrines and a cool cellar for supplies.
We arrived in August and stayed until February. While we were here we spent a lot of time in the field. We were issued new guns with a new carriage. These were the 4.5 howitzers we would later use in Europe. The carriages were a new design and as we towed with big trucks, we broke one axle after another. Later we were issued tracked vehicles, which had a lower tow point and the axles must have been improved because we had none of that type of problems in Europe.
On occasion we went to the Colorado River to swim and eat our lunch. Later we would go to Parker, a sleepy little western town on the edge of a large Indian Reservation. This town was similar to what you expect in a western film, wooden sidewalks and overhangs. At times you could see a horse ground tied while his owner was in some store. Mostly we went to San Bernadino which was as far as we could take the truck, from there it was the Toonerville trolley or the bus to LA.
My father had a relative who lived on the edge of Hollywood. I spent some time with her and slept there many a night. I was treated very well by her and she took me sightseeing where we could go on the bus or trolley. I also did some sight seeing on my own or with a buddy. We checked out Hollywood and Vine, the Stagedoor Canteen which did not impress us too much. We went to the Brown Derby and all the known places. Except for the long ride it was a good leave town, much more hospitable than the southern towns we knew.
The desert area around the camp was almost devoid of civilization so it was a good place for Army Games. We went over the mountain to some canyons, must have been in Nevada close to Needles. There were places we shot our guns at ranges of a least five miles. This area is not as barren today but there is still lots of empty space. Being in the field so much we soon became a close cohesive team.
(To Be Continued)
Published U.S. Legacies Sep 2005
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