Ferry G. Schoonover
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It was a great experience serving with the brave men of the 35th!! Ferry G.
Schoonover The war years 1940 to 1946 By Ferry Schoonover The war years--1940 to 1950 In 1940 there wasn’t any jobs available in the
automobile industry or anywhere else, so I worked home on the farm, and
also on the farms of neighbors--- these jobs were mostly for Lou Schultz
on his farm ---hating, threshing, and silo filling. Although this was hard
work, Mr. Schultz always treated me fair, and his mother always fed me at
lunchtime with a great meal! He also sent me to work for his neighbors
when they threshed--- the Geberts', Heinzs', Millers' and Harold
Tessmer. At home there was always lots of work to be done. Dad
raised quite a lot of vegetables---green beans-lima beans-potatoes. He
also trucked potatoes, eggs, and all kinds of poultry. He would go up into
the "thumb" area of Michigan to buy from farmers, and then would haul the
things he had bought down to Detroit, Highland Park, Hazel Park and
Hamtramck to the family owned grocery stores. The potatoes were usually in
bushels or in 100 lb. Bags, and had to be carried down to the basement of
the stores. The poultry was sold live, as each store would process them,
as they were needed. He also dealt with a hospital on Carpenter Street and
a junkyard on six-mile road. The junkyard was run by two very kind Jewish
gentlemen--- when they would get a real good used automobile in, they
would tell dad, and if he wanted it, he would pay for it with eggs,
poultry, and produce!!! Much of the winter was spent cutting wood for my
mother’s cook stove---she made her own bread and some of the best
rolls---plus a lot of pies. She al ways asked us on our birthdays if we
wanted a cake or a pumpkin pie---nearly al ways we would choose the pie---
this meant we would have an entire pumpkin pie to eat ourselves!!! 1941 The economy was improving in 1941, so in April I
applied for a job in Pontiac at the general motors Pontiac motor division.
The job was in the axle plant on the 11 pm to 7 am shift working on pinion
gears. This involved working on milling machines, drill presses, lathes,
stamping machines, and sometimes they would send me to other departments
to work on the automatic gear making machines and Bullard machines. The
pay was, after 30 days, a few cents over a dollar an hour. Since we worked
only 37 1/2 hours during the week, we had to return on Saturday night to
work an additional 5 hours--- this would make a gross check of about
$43.00 a week. One day dad came up stairs to my room and asked me if I
had any money--having accu1vfuated several of my pay checks, I told him
"yes" and asked him how much he needed--figured he was short on his
payment on the farm. When president Roosevelt closed the banks, they
demanded payment of Anything owed them--dad had borrowed money on his
property and because of the depression wasn't able to give them the
payments. He ended up losing the farm to the bank, but later bought it
back. The funny thing about this is that the former bank president was the
one that ended up with it and who knows how many other people’s
property!!!! When the changeover came for the 1942 models, there was
a layoff, but I was called back to work, not in the axle dept. This time it was in the
sheet metal section. They put
me on a large draw die press, and I was too short for the job. And became
very sore, so I complained and was put on another job. The war was making
steel very hard to get ---the factory was using all the old steel they
could find---this meant an end to auto production early in December and a
permanent lay-off for me and thousands of other workers. One day while listening to my favorite music on WJBK or
WJLB, suddenly the music stopped, and the announcement came that the Japs
had sneaked in and had bombed pearl harbor and destroyed many of our ships
that were in the Navy yard there--this was Dec. 7, 1941. War was declared
on Japan and soon after on their allies---nazi Germany! This not only
saddened me, but every other American. Brother Carl had been drafted into the $21.00 a month
army earlier in 1941, had been sent to camp Polk in Louisiana for basic
training, after which he was transferred to fort Knox, Kentucky to attend
mechanics school---he was in the third armored division. In the summer mom
and dad, and several of my brothers made a trip there to visit him. Some
of us boys stayed home to look after the farm. In December before the war
started, Carl’s feet started to bother him and the army gave him a
choice---an operation on his feet with no guarantee that he would ever
walk again or a medical discharge!! Of course he took the discharge and
came home, and worked at general motors truck and coach during the
war. When I worked at Pontiac motor I purchased my first
automobile---a 1937 dodge four-door sedan for $325,00 from "Hodges for
Dodges" in Ferndale. It was a great car and after the war ended, I drove
it for many more years. It was a stick shift and had a fine western- auto
"wizard" radio in it. Just before war was declared, dad, Carl and I ordered a
Farmall "A" tractor with plow, starter and lights. There was some concern
because of the war whether we would receive it---we did around Christmas
time. It cost $750.00. It could do a lot more work than 2 horses, and used
only about one gallon of gasoline an hour! Later a cultivator was bought
for it. While pulling the corn binder, I turned too short, and punctured
one of rear tires--- this made me a lot more careful, when I drove it
---as I had to pay to have it vulcanized!!!! One of my good friends---earl Parrott--decided to join
the u.s. coastguard and wanted me to also join, but I declined. When he
left to go I had the pleasure of driving hi1vi and his father and mother
down to Detroit to the train station, where he left for his military
service. 1942 On about July 1, 1942 the boys that were 20 years old
became eligible for the draft and as I turned 20 on my last birthday in
November, I was of draft age!!!! Not having a job, as jobs were very hard to get, I
decided to help out on the farm, and had ordered a lot of garden
seeds---Lima beans-green beans-carrots-beets- water melon-muskmelon-okra
and other seeds. These I planted, but not with the idea of getting a draft
exemption, but to help my mother and dad out!! When I received my notice,
I applied for a possible farm exemption, and the draft board said that
since there were so many younger brothers at home "no way". If dad had
been a well to-do person, he could have bought me a herd of dairy cattle
and set me up in the dairy business as so many others did!!!!! This is
something my dad or I wouldn't have even thought about!!! This is the year my only sister Beatrice married John
Winne on May 1, 1942. He was a Albany, New Yorker, who she had met either
at Wayne or the University of Michigan. He went into the army air force
and was stationed at the air base in Wichita Falls, Texas. She joined him
there and lived in Wichita Falls. She had graduated from Wayne University
with a degree in chemistry. Alfred, my oldest brother, was married Nov. 21, 1942 to
Betty Cooper of Clawson, and joined the ferry command of the army air
force, where he was stationed at Romulus air base near Detroit. His job
was ferrying combat air craft from there to South America, over North
Africa to Italy. Before going into the service, he instructed naval
students at the Pontiac airport---he had his instructors, instrument, and
pilots licenses before that. Donald, who always had a love for radio--he put
together a radio kit and enjoyed anything to do with radios! He joined the signal corp. Reserve and was sent to
Chicago to attend a private radio or communication school there. Early in August I receive my notice to go down to
Detroit for my physical and other exams. My first try I failed to pass my
physical and had to return, but this time I passed with flying colors, was
sworn into the Army, sent home for two weeks, until august 26th to get my
things in order. By then the crops I had planted for my folks were growing
great!! You can bet I was pretty excited about leaving for the service,
but there also was a lot of sadness too!! On the 27th of August, mom and dad took me up to the
Romeo draft board--mom cried and that was something I had very seldom seen
her do, and dad did look worried. They gave me my papers--put me on a bus
to Detroit grand trunk railway station. There I had a voucher for my
lunch--the man behind the counter, because I didn't use the entire amount
of my meal voucher gave me a candy bar, so he could collect the entire
value of the voucher after I had signed it!! Just another crook, I
thought!!!! This was to be my first ride on a train and of course I
was excited about it!! My ticket called for a stop-off in Durant for a
change of trains, and then to continue on to Battle Creek and Camp Custer,
the train left the station and headed north through Royal Oak and Pontiac
to Durant. Mom told me later that they had went up to Pontiac to see the
train go through. The station at Durant was huge as it was the crossroads
of many railroad lines. After changing trains I arrived in Battle Creek at
the station, where I waited for quite a while before the army personnel
arrived to take me to camp Custer. The barracks I was put in had bunks three tiers
high--lucky I was on the bottom bunk! The first day I was issued my
clothes, shoes, and the rest of the stuff issued to a new recruit--lucky
for me everything was a perfect fit! The next day everyone was given the
aptitude tests and I really tried my hardest to get a real good score.
Here I had my first taste of K.P. (Kitchen Police)---it was a hot, rough,
hard, long hours job working in the mess hall, when one considers that it
fed several hundred new soldiers three times a day! One fine morning the sergeant came around and announced
that he had a very import ant job to be done, and he needed some
experienced truck drivers and asked if anyone had the qualifications for
the job?? Quite a few men raised their hands, and he led them off for the
days work. It sure sounded like a great deal, but when they returned late
in the afternoon, they were dirty, tired and totally disgusted!!! They
were hauling gravel for the railroad bed, shoveling it into wheelbarrows
and then putting it between the ties!! Right then my motto became "never
volunteer for anything, stay out of sight, never raise your hand, and keep
your mouth shut if you can keep it closed!!" At Custer I didn't have time to become acquainted with
any of the other recruits. For some reason I had thought that my parents
might drive out to Custer and they did with Carl and his future wife
Lucille. They arrived after I had left. They did hear the name Schoonover
called, but it turned out to be a young fellow from Ohio. By that time I
was already on a troop train headed south and west!! When our orders came to leave camp Custer, we packed
our gear w our duffel bags, and marched down to the railroad siding, and
boarded the train, the railroad cars were loaded to the hilt with us
rookies, headed for "god" knows where!! On the train one of the fellows
wanted to sell his "Gruen" wrist watch for a few bucks, so I bought it.
About all I can remember about the train ride was the stop we made in St.
Louis at the station there. All of us kind of kept track of the direction we were
headed and the towns and cities we passed through. One of the last places
we went through was Weatherford, Texas and shortly after we pulled into
the railroad siding at our basic training camp--Camp Walters, Texas, where
we disembarked and I was assigned to a heavy weapons training
battalion-there the training is, not only to be a rifleman, but also to
use mortars and machine guns!! This of course was not much to my
liking--but here I was!! It was a few days after we arrived that one of the
sergeants came around and called off a bunch of names of men that had a
high enough IQ. To qualify for radio school. We were marched down to the
52nd training battalion for a radio aptitude test. The test consisted of
listening to Morse code and grouping and identifying the letters and
numbers we heard over our headsets. On our test papers we would mark
whether the two sounds were the same or different. To me it was fairly
easy! Out of the many men that had taken the test, it ended
up that only four of us were chosen to attend the radio school of the 52nd
battalion. It was a very wet-rainy day when it came time to transfer down
to our new barracks. The four of us put on our raingear, picked up our
belongings and were marched down to co. "a" of the 52nd. Two of the men
were older--Allan Tibbitts of River Rouge and John Palmer of Detroit. The
other fellow was a young man from Onaway, he was quite a short little guy,
and his raincoat almost dragged the ground!! What a sight we must have
made marching through the heavy rain. The 52nd infantry training battalion consisted of Co.
"A"-companies "B"- "C"- and "D" trained wiremen, message center men and
intelligence personnel. The camp was fairly new and everything there was
clean and tidy!! The four companies faced a large open training area--
with two companies on each side. The lower numbered battalions below us
was where they trained men to become truck drivers, mechanics, cooks, and
bakers. Above our battalion were the many barracks where the rifleman and
heavy weapons soldiers received their training. Finally we learned that our training was to consist of
six weeks of basic infantry training followed by seven weeks of radio
school. Ft. Worth and Dallas were off limits to us, but the little town of
mineral wells was a place we were allowed to go on a pass, and I went
there several times. Our first sergeant was Henry Rosa--believe he was
from Brooklyn. The company was housed in two two-storied barracks, with
the lower-lettered last name recruits in the first barracks and the others
in my barracks. Basic training went off real good-- there was close
order drill, hikes, practice making our bunks, pitching our tents, bayonet
drill, hand to hand combat practice, army information movies to go and
see, plus a whole lot of other classes and army instruction!! On Friday
nights everyone pitched in to scrub the barracks floor-- the buckets were
brought out and the good-old-G.I. soap and scrub brushes, then every one
got down on their knees and scrubbed and scrubbed, and then came the
rinsing process-- this was all done in preparation for the big Saturday
morning inspection. After the inspection was over and every thing was up
to the army standards, passes were issued to mineral wells! Everyone was required to go out to the rifle range to
qualify, so we spent several days there, not only shooting our old
Springfield 1903 bolt action rifles, but also taking our turn in the pits
operating the targets. This was a lot of fun, but truthfully, it wasn't
something I was a master of!!! There was a contest on between the first
and second platoons to outdo each other. The losers had to treat the
winners to a big steak at the "baker hotel" in mineral wells. My platoon
ended up beating the first platoon, so they ended up paying for our steak
dinner. One evening we all went into town to the hotel for our banquet
--what a meal it w as--a big juicy steak with all of the trimmings!! Mine
was as tough as leather but after all it was on the first platoon!! There
also was a program and rewards given for the sharpshooters. Our greatest joke about the rifle range was working in
the pits under the targets. When the rifleman missed the target
completely, we would wave the long pole with the red flag on it to signal
to the scorekeeper that the shot had been amiss!! It was called "Maggie’s
Drawers". The hits on the target were also made known to the
scorekeeper. Mineral wells had two large hotels-- the baker and the
crazy hotel. The crazy was so named because mineral wells was the home of
the famous "crazy water crystals", a product that was extensively
advertised on radio stations throughout the U.S.A. this was the first time
I had ever walked on board sidewalks in an old western town!! They had
their share of shops for us G.I.s to buy our needs. On a Saturday I would
catch the bus to spend a few hours shopping and looking over the town--I
loved the small town atmosphere-somewhat like good old Utica,
Michigan!! On one of our field training days, we went out a way
from camp to a field with tall grass to practice falling down with our
rifles and then crawling on our stomachs-- with our butts down naturally!!
During these exercises I lost the floor plate out of my Springfield '03
rifle--it had been popping out every-so-often. When the days training was
finished, I took off to attempt to find the missing floor plate, but to no
a v ail!! When I took the rifle into the supply room, the sergeant simply
said, "You will have to pay for a new one!” Seems like the tab came to $4
to $5 for a new one--all the time I’m thinking that a brand new one would
be installed in my '03. Lo and behold, that sly old supply sergeant slipped me
in another old worn out floor plate!! It was just as bad as the other one,
and kept falling out. Jokes on me! From then on I made sure I didn't have
to pay for any lost army property. Just once at camp Wolters I was assigned guard duty. My
assignment was to take my rifle, go down to the stockade, and pick up a
prisoner, and take him: out to the open area across from the barracks to
police up the grounds. I’m not sure how foolish he felt about it, but I
sure as heck felt that way when formations of troops passed us!! It was
supposed to be the truth that if you let a prisoner escape, you
automatically assumed his sentence. Everyone always said, "If he tries
anything, shoot the S.O.B.!! Of course he gave me absolutely no trouble,
but I was more than happy when the day ended, and I returned him to the
stockade. While guarding the prisoner I had noticed an officer pass by
marching his troops and for some reason I thought it might be Bob Rankin
my brother Al's good friend from Utica--never did find out. My best friend at boot camp was my little buddy from
Onaway, Michigan--Art Vashon. During our time there we did many things
together and often talked about getting together after the war. He did
some boxing at matches held at the field house. John Palmer and Alan
Tibbets were also real good pals!! Everyone there was friendly and kind--
that kind of reflected the quality and intelligence of the men in the
radio section. One of the great experiences of being in the service
was getting the required medical shots! One sunny day we were all marched
down to the field house to be inoculated with our tetanus shot-- we lined
up and proceeded forward until it was our turn. After the damage was done,
we were told to go outside anti sit down--or else we would probably fall
down. That shot hit like a bullet and some of us were lucky to make it out
side to sit down! The army must have given us an extra large dose of
tetanus --we sure had some mighty sore arms!!! Most of us spent hours
exercising our arms to get rid of the soreness-- tetanus shots have to be
the worst of the worst!! While at the field house one afternoon someone was
calling "hey Schoonover" and I assumed he was yelling for me, so I
proceeded to look for him, and he said that I wasn't the one he was
calling. He finally found ids friend and introduced me to him--he was from
Ohio--probably a 25th cousin!!! Out of the men in the two barracks a selection was made
for a student company commander and various other student non-coms. A
Texas boy (Allan Zoll--High School R.O.T.C.) Was chosen to be the student
company. Thanks goodness these duties were not offered to me, as I would
have declined!! The countryside around the camp was beautiful! The
hikes we took out in the surrounding hills and v alleys were quite enjoy
able despite the sore legs and aching feet!! Radio School 1942 After our infantry basic training was finished, we
started our radio school classes at the 52nd battalion radio school--not
only learning Morse code, but radio procedure and operation. To everyone
it was a real challenge to learn Morse code and then being able to pass
the required receiving speed of 14 words per minute. Our sending speed was
much slower. Every morning after breakfast and making our bunks, we
marched in formation down to the bu1ldings where the radio section was
trained. At lunch we marched back to the mess hall for lunch, after which
we marched back to school for our afternoon classes. The classes were only
for the five days, as Saturday was the day for inspection--our
footlockers, bed, clothes, the barracks, latrines and our personal
appearance had to be accept able to the inspecting officer or one ended up
on some detail as punishment. During my stay in Wolters I did not do any
extra duty!!! After learning the Morse code and proper radio
procedure we took to the field to learn to operate the radios that the
army had at that time. It was all signal corps equipment---some of it
quite ancient!! There we practiced our sending and receiving of Morse
coded messages and also voice transmissions. The radios had a hand
operated generator to produce the power to run the radios. This meant that
two men were involved in the operation---one on the radio-with his headset
on operating the set and the other turning the handles on the generator.
At that time of year the sun in Texas was mighty hot and the small scrubby
trees weren't much help. We wore our old green fatigues with the ugly
fatigue hat, which was our dress for all of our training at camp Wolters!!
It all was enjoyable and fun. During the 13 weeks of training we had to take our
regular turn at K.P. the mess sergeant insisted that the dish water be
boiling hot when the dishes were washed. Al Tibbetts had that job one day
and burned his hands quite badly, and Al always swore that he would kill
that d____
mess sergeant someday! Know he meant it!! K.P. usually involved one
of the following assignments--dish washer; pots and pans; dining room
orderly; the outside job--garbage engineer first class!! This job 'was
taking care of the garbage, scrubbing the cans, tidying up the area, and
sometimes the stinky-smelly job of cleaning the grease pits. During one of my tours as a K.P. first class, one of my
duties was peeling potatoes-- the spuds were fresh from the farm: complete
with sand and dirt. Quite unexpectedly I was ordered to report into the
mess hall. Along with my fellow K.P.'s we were lined up against the wall
for an inspection by a general inspecting the sanitary conditions of the
mess hall!! '-"1ien he came through, he told us to hold our hands out in
front of us for him to see. He naturally looked at our fingers, but was
more interested in my fingernails!! He saw the sand undermine and turned
fiercely toward the mess sergeant and asked: "what is this man doing with
dirty hands and fingernails"? When he was told that I had been peeling
unwashed spuds, he calmed down and continued on his way!! For a minute I
really thought that I had had it! At least a general had inspected my
fingernails!! Every Sunday I attended chapel and enjoyed it. Col.
Baker was the chaplain, and always had a very good sermon. The organist
and soloist was a fellow from the Detroit area by the name of Jacoby. The
service was very similar to the one at troy Methodist church. When our training was nearly finished at Camp Wolters,
we learned that many of our buddies had applied for and were off to
various other posts for special training-- Tibbetts, Palmer, and Zoll were
off to officer candidate school-several had enlisted in the ski troops and
were off to Colorado springs--my best buddy art Vashon along with several
others had joined the paratroopers. The paratroopers had a special
incentive--for a private they received the customary $50 a month plus
another $50 a month for jump pay! The double pay wasn't enough to get me
to volunteer. When our training finally ended, we were marched down,
with all of our belongings to the railroad siding, and were assigned to
our coaches. Along with the radio operators, the train was loaded with
other 52nd battalion men. The rest of the train was loaded with men from
the other battalions-riflemen, heavy weapons men, cooks, bakers,
mechanics, and truck drivers. Presently the train pulled out of the camp
Wolters siding onto the main track. Where we were headed, we had no idea,
hut once the train headed west, we were puzzled whether we were headed for
the pacific theater of operations to a camp on the west coast!! Since I had never been out west, I really enjoyed the
desert, the mountains, and all the scenery in western Texas, New Mexico,
Arizona, and southern California! Among the new things I saw was the
salten sea, date palms with the big bunches of dates covered with white
bags, and many beautiful rock formations. Personally I didn't care for the
sand drifting through the windows of our coach. This had been my first Christmas day I had spent away
from home and my first while in the service--I had al ways loved those
Christmases at home, when we always had a terrific meal-- turkey and all
the trimmings!! Mom always made a slew of pies--pumpkin, elderberry, and
mincemeat. She usually made a suet pudding with a white sauce
topping-boy was that good!! This Christmas dinner was to be far
different--my worse ever!! With the desert sand drifting through the
windows, we were brought a glob of canned army stew--half warm and
tasteless!! That was the main course and if we were given anything else--I
just don't recall!! It was Christmas day, but our morale and spirits were
sure low!! California We finally realized that our destination was
California-either to board a ship for the pacific theater of operations or
to some Army post. It was late Christmas night when our train pulled into
the Los Angeles railroad station and we disembarked and lined up in
formations wondering what was next!! Finally they began calling out names
of the men and they were assembled in groups to go off to their new
destinations. Mine was finally called and I went off with a group of other
men to the anti-tank co. Of the 137th infantry regiment of the 35th
infantry division. When we finally arrived at our barracks, they had to
hunt up bunks, pillows, and blankets for us--seems they had no prior
knowledge that we were to join their outfit on Christmas night!!! They had
no mattresses for us, so we slept On the old wooden cots just with blankets. The small
one story barracks were heated by a small stove, and by morning it was
real cold in there!! I do believe that the air outside in California was
as chilling as that old Michigan air in December!! We soon found out that we were stationed in
Recreation Park in the city of Long Beach, a short distance from the
Pacific Ocean and a huge amusement park called "the pike". When we found
out that we were in the infantry, we were pretty disappointed--having been
to radio school, somehow we had assumed that we would be members of the
Army Signal Corps!! Now we were feeling low and discouraged because we
were thrown into the bottom of the barrel "the good old infantry"!
Although we all felt that way at the time, we soon adjusted and ended up
feeling proud to be apart of "uncle Sam's dough foots"!! The park was next
to a golf course and full of giant eucalyptus trees and palm trees. These were fine for shade, but every Saturday one of
the chores was raking up the leaves and trash from these trees. Of course there wasn't a fence around the park or any
guards. Among the men that joined the anti-tank company at the
same time I did were: Bob Oster, Bill Reagan, and John Lynn from the 52nd
Battalion radio section and the following from the other sections of the
52nd--Max Idler, George Murphy, Bob Solberg, Jack Cody, and Fred Rockey.
We soon all became the best of friends!! Several times I received a pass to go to long beach and
down to "the pike". My favorite ride was the roller coaster-there were two
of them running side by side--I enjoyed them and the other rides plus the
various carnival attractions. Nearby was the municipal auditorium--it was
a beautiful building that extended out over the water. When at home our
family would listen on the radio to Dr. Ralph Fuller and "the old fashion
revival hour" his program always had great singing and Dr. Fuller was a
great preacher!! As I recall Dr. Fuller had been a big wheel with the
Sunkist company and gave it up to become one of the great preachers of
that time!! Shortly I was transferred over to our "mine platoon"-it
was at North Long Beach at another city park—Houghton Park--where the
regimental headquarters and headquarters company were stationed. My
platoon sergeant there was a tall Kansas national guardsman Mel couch who
had been mobilized in 1940 with the 35th infantry division. The mine
platoon was assigned there for K.P., guard duty, and all the other dirty
jobs that came up!! The captain there was Robert E. Richardson and the
mess sergeant was a little guy by the name of Phil Payton--both were old
national guardsmen. Besides our regular duties, there was a large junior
high school we were to go to in case of an attack by the Japanese. The
post was to patrol around this school, as the civ1lian population was to
seek shelter there. This was serious business--at least it appeared that
way--we always carried a belt full of 30 cal. Ammo for our rifles--at that
time we were equipped with the M-1 Garand semi-automatic rifle. The time I
was at Houghton Park we only had one alert, shortly after I arrived there.
We grabbed our rifles, ammo belt, and other equipment and ran the distance
to our post--it ended up being only a practice run so we were soon waved
at to come in. After being back in the park, here comes Sgt. Couch mad as
hell, and he gave a good chew from one end to the other--I can still feel
it!! He said, "Why didn't you tell the next man around the corner of the
building that the alert was over???" "He’s been out there for two hours
patrolling back and forth!" chew-chew-chew!! The man out there in the hot
burning son was my friend from Lansing, Michigan--Irving Christian it had
been a terrible day--not only a big, big chewing, but somehow I had lost
my five buck Gruen watch!!!!! The real funny thing about this incident
was: no one had told me a thing about what my duties were in case of an
alert!! At Houghton Park we slept in squad tents on wooden
cots. When I arrived there, I had to stuff a mattress cover with straw to
use for a bed!! In the daytime we would roll up the sides of the tent to
air them out, and move our cots outside in the sun in front of the tent to
give them a good airing. Some mornings when we fell out for revelry the
grass would be so slippery with frost, that we would slid all over the
place--but by noon time it was so hot that we could have run around in our
birthday suits!! The K.P. duty there wasn’t bad and the food was good.
They always had avocados real often and one of our men loved them--Cyrus
cannon- a Californian. That was one food I didn't care for the and still
isn't something I crave!! My one pass to Los Angeles and Hollywood was a dream
come true. In L.A. I wandered about the downtown area and was amazed at
the super long lunch counter at the Woolworth 5 and 10 cent store-- after
which I took a bus to Hollywood to see the sights on sunset blvd. Visited
the "stage door canteen", "Grumman’s Chinese theater", several motion
picture studios, and the radio broadcasting facilities. Also took a good
look at the giant "Hollywood" sign on the top of the mountain there. This
had to be one of the best passes that I took during my time in the
service!! Californians were very special people! If you as a
service man needed a ride, all you had to do was to go out to the side of
the highway and before you ever raised a thumb, tires would squeal and
someone would give you a lift--most of the time to anywhere you wished to
go!! My thanks go out to them for their favors and patriotism!! When the 35th divisions' duty with the west coast
defense command came to an end, the mine platoon was transferred back to
long beach and Recreation Park to again be apart of the anti-tank co. At
that time our company was made up of the following: headquarters
platoon--cooks, mechanics, radio operators, plus the various drivers,
non-coms, and officers, the mine platoon, and three 37 mm anti-tank. Gun
platoons. The mine platoons job was to put out mine fields, to use mine
detectors to find and then destroy enemy mine fields. The three 37 mm
anti-tank platoons each had three guns and gun crews, and their duties
were to set up with infantrymen--1st platoon with 1st battalion--2nd with
2nd BN.--the 3rd with 3rd BN. Our commanding officer was a Kansan--Capt.
Quentin Donnellan--other officers were: Lt. Joe Gill, Lt. Adelbert
Gilbert, and some others I can't remember. The first sergeant was a former
Topeka policeman and national guardsman-Henry "Hank" Bausch---his son John
was one of the platoon sergeants and when his dad was called up with the
national guard, Johnny joined up to go, although he was underage!!! Hank
when we in combat was in his forties!! They always were fair and square
with me!! Often we would mount up and go down to Irvine Park to
shoot our rifles and the 37 mm guns. It was a beautiful drive down there
as we would go through Orange County past the many groves of orange,
lemon, and English walnut groves. There were many times we would march in formation or
hike in the city of Long Beach. Once we took a hike up the dry Los Angeles
river bed! One of the amazing sights there was signal hill--it was full of
oil wells--almost on top of each other!! On April 15, 1943 we were slated to depart from
Recreation Park, and I was notified that it was jv1y turn to catch K.P.,
and to report to the kitchen early that morning (in the middle of the
night) to do my duty!! We helped put up box lunches for the entire
company, besides doing the breakfast chores and cleaning the kitchen, get
the kitchen ready to move, besides have our own belongings packed and
loaded to move. Finally we were ready to mount-up and move out!!! Leaving
long beach, we headed north 1brough Santa Barbara, seeing some beautiful
country-side, to the San Luis Obispo Army Camp. The camp was made up of small tarpaper shacks that had
been built on the wooden platforms that once were used for tents. Four of
us were assigned to each hut. No sooner had I gotten settled, wren the
word came down to report to the mess hall to complete our days K.P.
duties. After the evening meal was over we still had to work until nearly
midnight before we were released to return to our new home!! Talk about
being tired---we were all bushed!! This had to be my worst stint of K.P.
duty. One of the fellows that was on K.P. the same day never forgot it
either---Norman Wensky. The camp was a neat place, not only was the small huts
we lived in, but all of the camp was great!! They had a very good P.X.,
and I enjoyed going to the service club to read books. On one of my
journeys there I went up the steps into the building and noticed this big
M.P. on duty. Our eyes met as we recognized each other--we both exclaimed
at the same time-----" what are you doing here?" it was John Mohritz, also
from Utica and a former student also at Utica High. Seems that he had been
in the new regiment being formed-the 320th infantry regiment. He was able
to transfer over to the 35th division military police platoon. We soon learned why we were at camp San Luis Obispo--
the 140th infantry regiment was taken out of the 35th division and sent to
the Aleutian Islands to quell any invasion by the Japs. We were to train a
new regiment that had been formed as the replacement for the 140th. The
process of doing this was as follows: one third of the men in the 134th
regiment and one third of the men in the 137th regiment were sent to be a
part of the new 320th regiment and in return one third of the recruits
from the 320th became part of the 134th and one-third came to the 137th --
this gave each regiment one-third of the recruits and two thirds of
trained men and national guardsmen!! This meant that we all began what was basic
training-this involved close order drill, map reading, trips to the rifle
range, and everything else involved in basic training. Three things that I
remember most about the training at camp San Luis Obispo: 1. Practicing
guard mount in the sticky, gummy, soil in the rain, and how hard it was to
march with that goo on our feet!! 2. Going out in the surrounding hills on
compass problems and trying to find our way in those dark eerie-rainy
nights!! 3. Getting poison oak all over my body and going to the medics
and getting calamine lotion to put on the rash-this stuff was almost
useless to cure it or to ease the itchiness!! Finally my avocado eating
friend--Cyrus Cannon gave me a small jar of a brownish salve (probably
Watkins petro carbo salve)-- this relieved the itchy feeling and after
many weeks cured the darn rash!!! The company took many hikes out into the country
side-to Morro Bay, were we saw the giant rock sticking out of the
Water--Morro Rock, and to Pismo Beach. The farms in that area were neat
too and one in particular caught my fancy! It was a wheat farm with huge
rocks sticking out of the ground surrounding the farmhouse. Also on these
hikes I also saw my first "California gate"--an entrance with rails laid
horizontal so the cattle couldn't exit the field. Since the only way to get to the town of San Luis
Obispo was by taxi I never bothered to go there! The P.X. in camp had
everything I needed anyway! The men of the 35th signal co1mp any had been sent to
the Aleutians or overseas with another outfit, so they were in need of
replacements-- two of the anti-tankers had transferred to them, so I
decided to go up there in my spare time and see if there was a chance for
me to do the same. Up I went and received permission to talk to the
commanding officer--captain Amos. He questioned me about my radio training
and said if I could pass a Morse code test and my commanding officer
agreed to transfer me, he would accept my transfer. So back I go to our
orderly room and get permission to speak to captain Quentin Donnellan.
Well that to my disgust didn't work out too well!!! The captain plainly
told me: no we will not transfer you, as we need you here as a radio
operator!! Boy! Was I mad!! The time I had been in the company, there was
no time when I had had anything whatsoever to do with radio operation!! Of
course the good captain knew that we were to lose our communication
sergeant and one of the two radio operators in the shift of men to the
320th. Regiment and in forming a new cannon company. Sergeant Paul Randell
was to go to the new cannon company and Dick Diehl would transfer to the
320th. Anyway at the time I was not too thrilled about being turned
down!!! We also was to lose quite a lot of the old national guardsmen plus
my Camp Wolters buddy--Bill Reagon -- he hailed from around Cleveland,
Ohio, but in return there were many new younger men to replace them--a
good lot of them boys from the southern states! We departed from San Luis Obispo in April of 1943 by
rail in Pullman cars-- two men were assigned to both the lower and the
upper berths to sleep, but during the day would ride in the lower berth,
which was converted into seating for four men. It was my luck to be paired up with my good Washington
state buddy frank levering--he was a giant of a man, but we made the trip
just fine!! The ride was terrible-- the Pullman car we were on w0uld kind
of coast along and then it would give a big jerk, and this made sleeping
almost impossible!! As we chugged out of California and across Arizona,
Texas, and New Mexico we all enjoyed the beautiful 'western scenery. The
train passed within a few miles of camp Wolters-my old alma- mater. The
troop train w as delayed when we reached New Orleans, so it was backed
into a siding. The lt. Colonel in charge came around and informed us that
we would be there for a couple of hours, said we could do as we pleased,
but to be sure to be back in our seats on the train at a set time. The men
took off to sightsee, get a snack, or to the various bars. I stayed fairly
close to the train because I feared that I might get lost in a strange
city!! When it came time to leave, roll call was made and everyone was
present And accounted for!!! The train continued on its way into Mississippi, along
the coast, where we saw the army air force field near Biloxi, and some
scenery along the gulf coast. Finally later in the day we would reach our
destination--camp Rucker, Alabama, which was located near Ozark,
enterprise, Daleville, and Dothan. Camp Rucker When we arrived at camp Rucker, we took over the
barracks formally occupied by the 81st infantry division (the wildcat
division). The whole camp was a mess for it being a new camp, and every
company had a tremendous job of cleaning The barracks, mess halls, and the entire camp area!!
The 35th division was an outfit that believed in good housekeeping, and
when ever we would leave a camp. Everything had to be spick and span!!!
This was undoubtedly due to the quality of the officers and men that made
up the units of our division!! In place of our old 37 mm: anti-tank guns we were given
57 mm: anti-tank guns-- these were bigger and more powerful, and of course
required the men to train on them. This meant a lot of gun drills to
become acquainted, and many trips to the anti-tank gun firing range. The
target on the range was a movable target mounted on rails. Here I spent
most of my time while out there, helping operate and repa1r the targets.
Although I had never fired the 57mm, by some mysterious reason I was
qualified as an anti-tank gunner!!! At Rucker, Roland Robins and I suddenly became company
messengers! I still don't know what this involved to this day, but it must
have been the prelude to my finally becoming a radio operator! We both got
into a bit of trouble one Saturday at the weekly inspection-- the
inspecting officer took a quick look at our M-1 rifles and declared both
of them very dirty!! Of course the platoon sergeant was told to give us a
little punishment and deny us any passes for the weekend until the chore
was completed to his satisfaction. We were to scrub all the windows in the
upsta1rs of the our barracks. We both took this with a grain of salt and
went to work on the job--finishing before noon -free to do what we
wanted--as for myself I always felt that my rifle wasn't dirty, but they
needed a couple of scrape-goats to clean those windows!!!! Summer in Alabama was a hot torrid season, and during
our stay there we made almost daily marches out to training areas and also
quite a number of hikes of twenty-five miles or less. Our canteens were al
ways full when we departed from our barracks and this meant that we had to
use a certain amount of caution as to the amount of water we drank when we
had our ten-l\1inute breaks. On one of the marches I had started from camp
feeling half sick and as we progressed up and down those red clay hills,
the men began to fallout and I felt worser, and worser!! I told the
officer-in-charge that I wasn't feeling too good, so he said: "fall out
with the other drop-outs, and make sure that they all get to the medics.
So I did, and that was the only time I failed to complete a march! Captain Donnellan left us sometime during our stay at
Rucker and 1st lt. Rex hopper was made company commander of anti-tank co.
He was a big, big man, that all of the anti-tankers greatly admired, and
respected--from Arizona. On many of the marches out to train we would end
up near the camp reservoir (lake Tholocco), and he would let us take a dip
in the water below the dam--of course in our birthday suits!!!! This not
only cooled us off, but was a lot of fun. On one of overnight problems we went out to the field,
and I was assigned to one of the 57 mm gun squads. That night we didn't
pitch our tents, but just slept on the ground in our fatigues. Finally
morning dawned and the sun came up and I awoke --lo and behold!! Here I
was in the middle of no-where-all by my lonesome--everyone else had left!!
So I started out walking in the hopes of locating the anti-tankers, and
finally ran into some other 35th division men and asked them if they had
seen any of our guns, and they gave me directions to one. When getting
there, I found it was one of our squads, but not the one I was assigned
to. The sergeant in charge told me to stay with them until the problem
ended!! When I confronted the sergeant I was assigned to he said: "I
forgot to wake you up when we left, because I hadn't remembered you being
with my men. I'm very sorry about that!" guess I could feel mighty lucky a
jeep or army truck didn't run over me!! One of my buddies, Eugene Burr of Sayre, Alabama asked
me if I wanted to write to a nice girl from near where his girlfriend
lived. I said: "Heck no, I don't want to write to any girl period!" he
kept on bugging me about how this was really a nice girl, and it soon
seemed that he was trying to match us up!!! Getting tired of the bugging,
finally I told him to give me her address and I would write to her.
Thought her first name was Senella, but later learned that her "g" just
looked like an "s". She sent me a picture of herself, and boy was I
impressed --she was a mighty good-looking gal!! It wasn't long until he
asked me if I wanted to get a pass and go up to Birmingham to meet her. Of
course I agreed to go!! On a Saturday we took the camp bus to Ozark,
boarded the big dog (greyhound) to the Birmingham station. Quite a few of
our buddies also took the bus--Odis Isbell, Frank Bailey, John Lawrence,
Charles Brown, and Grady l. Davis. Then we had to go over to the place
where the old bus ran out to Brookside and the other small towns north and
west of Birmingham. We exited the bus at his girlfriend’s house, out a
ways from Brookside, only to discover that his girlfriend and her sister
were at a nearby church. So we walked over there and when the girls saw us
they came out. We then footed it over to Brookside to where Genella lived.
One of our buddies (Charles Robbins) had also came up to date Geraldine's
sister Wanetta, and he was waiting for us there. The Colburn house was the
middle one in a row of five fairly new homes just out of Brookside. Finally I was to meet
Genella Colburn and she was as shy as I was, but a very pretty
seventeen-year-old girl that I liked immediately!! My first thought was
that she was much too good looking for a guy like me!! Guess-we had a bite
to eat and then boarded the bus to go back to Birmingham to see a movie.
We saw the movie called "Stage Door Canteen" at one of the large theaters
there. Of course I put my arm around her and we did a little smooching—she
liked it and of course I didn't complain, as I had decided that she was
the girl for me!!! After the movie we took the girls to the Brookside bus
station and after they left we went to the greyhound depot to get the bus
back to Camp Rucker. Whenever possible I would get a pass and proceed up to
Brookside to her house. Usually after Sunday dinner Genella and I would go
into Birmingham to see a movie or walked down to the little village of
Brookside to get the mail or a sundae. Saturday nights I would find a
place to stay in Birmingham at the Salvation Army or a room at a small
hotel. Genella’s family was very kind to me every time I went there. She
had a brother in the air force in Peru - Cecil, an older sister- Geneva
Elliott-that had a small son- Terriel, a brother-Euel- lived next door and
had a six year old son-Lecil, and a younger brother-Ralph- thirteen years
old. Brookside was about fourteen miles northeast of
Birmingham—a small coal-mining town with mountains surrounding it and
five-mile creek flowing around the perimeter of the town. There were
several grocery stores there, a drug store, two clothing stores, a state
liquor outlet, post -office, and a hardware store. The busy rail line was
across the road from the Colburn home, and during the war the frequent
long trains carrying coal shook the whole neighborhood! ! It was said that many years ago, Wallace Beery made a
silent movie there called "black gold or black diamonds" about the coal
mining and coke industry. This was based on a book by the same name. During our stay at Camp Rucker, we spent much of our
time out in the field on tactical problems that involved a week, or
sometimes as much as two weeks. On one such exercise I was buddied up with
Asbury—he was from Oklahoma and went by the name of "Peapicker" and we
became good friends. We had pitched our two shelter halves together to form
a pup tent to sleep in. In one area of the camp there was a spring that
had a pipe running out of it—that had to be the best tasting water that
any of us had ever drank!! While in tids area one of our officers wasn't
too pleased with the amount of pull it took to pull the trigger on our new
carbines, so he decided to file the seers on them to make them easier to
fire!! It sure made them easier, you can bet, but also turned
them into semi-automatics—firing more than one round at a pull of the
trigger!!!! All of this hiking out to the training areas and the many
nights we spent out in the surrounding forests helped us get into physical
condition for future combat duty. The anti-tank co. Conducted some radio and other
communications classes during the fall, since I had finally became one of
the radio operators, Sgt. Jesse Isenagle (a Garden City, Kansas national
guardsman) and I taught some of the others from the company code, radio
procedure, and other communication skills. At that time I had been given
the one stripe of a Private First Class. My Camp Wolters buddy Bob Oster
was my fellow radio operator. One of the courses that we had to go through besides
the obstacle course was the infiltration course—it was a place where we
had to crawl across an open space with our rifles, under barbwire
entanglements, with machine guns firing over our heads. I set out
determined that I would be the first man to complete the course and when I
arrived at the finishing point I discovered that I had come in second!!!
Our commanding officer—first Lt. Rex Hopper was already there!!! Late in September I was told to report to the orderly
room, and was informed that I would be leaving around October first to go
up to the infantry school, near Columbus, Georgia to Fort Benning to
attend the advanced communication course. As usual I was thrilled with the
thought of being on the road again and going to a new camp to attend
school!!! The worst thing about the whole deal was leaving all of my
buddies and perhaps not being able to go up to see Genella on the
weekends. I packed my belongings and was taken into Ozark where I
caught the small bus that ran between there and Columbus. The ride was a
lonely one, but I did enjoy the scenery--finally the bus arrived in
Columbus (my first time to be in the state of Georgia) where I was
provided transportation into ft. Benning. The school and the barracks were
both in the main post area. The barracks were huge brick two story
buildings and our class enlisted communication course #54 was billeted on
the second floor of one of the buildings. This was part of the infantry
school that also trained all the new second lieutenants to serve in the
infantry. Fort Benning, Georgia
Eventually all of the men in the class arrived—they
were from all of the infantry Divisions in the Army, plus paratroopers,
Marines, and one man from the 442nd infantry regiment—all of the enlisted
men were Japanese-Americans. The entire class (enlisted communication course # 34)
was housed on the second floor of one of the huge brick buildings in
double-decker bunks. The view out the windows was the paratrooper training
area—the various towers and other training facilities. It was tiring to
watch these soldiers—every movement was on the double and Gung-ho!!! Made
us happy that we didn’t join their outfit!! The mess hall was on the first
floor. It wasn’t long before I became acquainted with the men
in the nearby bunks—above me was an American Indian-Succahosie was
his name, but the spelling may be wrong—we called him "chief". Beside me
were herb baker from New Hampshire; Al Miller from Hickory, North
Carolina; and Alex Greensher from the Bronx in New York state. They were
my best friends there and we made many trips down to the main post PX to
enjoy the "best hamburgers that I’ve ever tasted"!! Our course started out with Morse code, both receiving
and transmitting. I had learned it at Camp Wolters and it all came back to
me quickly and it wasn’t long until I had passed the 20 words-a-minute—
this was the maximum taught there, as this was about all a person could
print by hand. Working the key to transmit was a little difficult for me
to catch on to, but finally it too was accomplished!! This course not only
involved field radio operation, but courses in the work done by the wire
section, the message center section, and the intelligence section of both
the infantry regiment and the three battalions of the regiments. During our stay at benning, we were not given close
order drill, K.P., guard duty, or required to go on any hikes. We did
march back and forth to the school, and eventually did spend a lot of time
going out in the surrounding areas to set up and operate the radio sets.
There also were many tests and exams to be taken!! Naturally we were
required to go to the beaut1ful main post theater to view many Army films
on disease, "Why We Fight", and various other Army topics!! We were warned
not to cross the "Chatahoochie River" to go to phoenix city, as it not
only was off limits to all military personell, but was also "Sin City
U.S.A."!!! But we were allowed passes to Columbus, and that is where I
ended up to shop the many Army supply stores there. Whenever possibble,
iwould catch the Camp buses (they were converted automobile carriers) into
Columbus to the Greyhound station and then ride up to Birmingham and
Brookside to see Genella. Just can't recall how many times that I was able to
make the journey up to see Genella, but I do remember that I had great
plans to spend Christmas day with her and her family, and after awakening
that morning I was to leave the Camp, but the weather didn't cooperate!!
In the nighttime it had rained and frozen—one couldn't even walk
outside—the Camp buses and Greyhound buses were all confined to their
kennels!! It wasn't until after the war ended that I saw her again!! But
we did write to each other quite often in the meantime!! Of course I spent
the day in the barracks and wished that I was in brookside in the colburn
home with Genella!!! During this Christmas holiday, my fellow Anti-Tank Co.
Radio operator—bob oster had been also sent to benning to attend the
communication course in a different class than mine. He had his motorcycle
with him, and went up to Atlanta to visit an aunt that lived there. He was
on his way on the icy highway and slid off the road into a ditch. Someone
came along and found him and he ended up in the Fort Benning hospital with
a broken neck. When I visited him, he had a cast from his waist over his
head with just his face visible—he looked like "the phantom,” but was in
good spirits. During a trip to Niagara Falls way after wars’ end I visited
him in Avon Lake, Ohio and he said that he had fully recovered and had
been sent overseas to serve in another outfit. When our schooling was nearly over, word got around
that many of the men were being granted furloughs and delay on route (a
certain number of days of leave, plus traveling time). On hearing this, I
penned a request to the 137th regimental personnel officer—Capt. Arthur
Kraft, asking for some leave time, and not really expecting any
results—the answer came giving me 10 days plus traveling time. When the
classes ended we were all given a certificate noting that we had
successfully completed the infantry school course in ECC-34!! Finally the time
came to say goodbye, and I hated to leave all the men I had became
acquainted with, so I packed my belongings and took either the train or
bus to detroit, where my dad picked me up at the station. Enjoyed being
home that 10 days in January 1944 in the beautiful wintertime and finally
getting some of mom's home cooking!!! My delay-on-route papers had a specific date that I was
to report to Camp Forrest, Tennessee to again be back with the Anti-Tank
Co. and my buddies! The outfit was just finishing the Tennessee maneuvers
in the surrounding countryside. Dad and Mom took me to Detroit to the
train station to catch the train to Nashville, and then to Tullahoma,
where I was to be picked up and transported to Camp Forrest. The stay in
Camp Forrest was not the greatest!! Seems the Camp regulars were always
after someone to do all their dirty details—I managed to duck all of them
by making myself scarce!! Finally one of the Anti-Tank Co. Jeeps arrived
to take me back to the outfit. The whole Anti-Tank Co. Was camped in their pup tents
in a patch of woods with a big campfire blazing and everyone gathered
around trying to keep warm—after all it was January!! We all said "hello"
to each other and our company commander-Rex Hopper shook my hand and said:
“we have had a lot of good reports from Fort Benning about your
performance there!” My reply to him was that I had done my very best!!
This made me feel appreciated. My duffel bag and other luggage were shipped from Fort
Benning, but had not caught up with me, so one of my good friends—Sgt.
W.A.A. Walker - the Reconisson Sergeant of our company-he was from
Portland, Oregon and owned a couple of drive-in restaurants there.
Although he was well-to-do and knew General Dwight Eisenhower and many
Hollywood celebrities, he was one of the kindest most understanding men in
our company, said I could bunk in his pup tent for the night as he had an
entire tent to himself. This was to be the last night of maneuvers, and
early in the morning we would be moving out in convoy across Tenessee and
North Carolina to a new Camp. Boy! Was I lucky to get back to the 35th the
night before they departed for a new area! We were awakened early in the morning, packed our
trucks, and mounted up for the long trip ahead of us. It was the
eighteenth of January 1944. The trip itself was beautiful as we journeyed
across Tennessee over the Smokey Mountains. One could understand why they
were called the smokey mountains—the haze and fog hung over them like a
cloud of smoke. The roads over them were winding, narrow, and
dangerous—our truck drivers sure did a great job of driving, as this trip
was nearly 500 miles long. Our trip was all well planned—routes, places to
stop over for the night, places to chow down, exact places to stop for
rest and breaks. There were no problems with our Army vehicles and for my
part I enjoyed every mile of the trip!! Camp Butner, North Carolina We arrived in Butner to find the barracks there were
painted brown, and the Camp appeared to be much older than Camp Wolters or
Camp Rucker. The 77th Infantry Division had trained there prior to our
arrival. After we had settled in, we learned that one-half of each convoy
was going to leave on 15-day furoughs and two weeks later the rest would
be eligible to depart for home. I happened to be in the first wave, and
often thought that I sure was lucky to get to go home again so soon!!
There was only one big problem—I hadn't been paid and so was very short of
cash! One of my good buddies—Bob Lee from Detroit lent me the money to pay
for the train ticket back to Michigan. A whole bunch of us took a bus into Danville, Virginia
to the train station. The bus driver was soon tired out, so several of the
35th G.I.s took a turn assisting him, and we arrived in Danville safely
and in plenty of time to catch our train. It was about a 70 to 80 mile
trip. Then we arrived we found the station was old and beat—full of
Sailors and Marines. We purchased our tickets and of course had to wait on
the train heading north to Detroit. Of course my family was very surprised to see me back
home on another leave!! Again, I enjoyed being with my brothers, parents,
and friends, and most of all some more home cooking and some more of Mom's
pies and bread. This made it all the harder to return back to Camp
Butner. On returning to Camp, we did a lot of training, plus
some more radio classes, while we waited for the other half of Anti-Tank
convoys to return from their two-week furoughs. When we were all together
again, the 134th regiment and the 137th received orders to go by convoy to
the mountains in West Virginia for mountain climbing maneuvers. It was
about a 400-mile trip across Virginia to our destination. The trip
involved one stopover at Virginia Military Institute to Camp the night on
their grounds. We pitched our pup tents in neat rows, each convoy in their
own designated area. In the morning we again mounted up and continued our
journey to the mountain training area. West Virginia Mountain Maneuvers An advance party had been sent to learn the art of
mountain climbing and repelling on Seneca rocks, and these men would teach
us what they had learned!! On arriving there we were issued a two-man nylon tent,
insulated snow pack boots and other winter clothing and equipment to use
while training there, as the weather in the mountains was mighty cold at
that time of year with snow. For the mountain climbing and repelling we
used cliffs above a slanting hill above a good-sized river. We spent
several days climbing up these cliffs freehand, and then learned to repell
down them with ropes. The repelling was something that I really enjoyed
and doing it was an exciting experience!! Lt. Kjer was one of our
instructors and he emphasized all of the precautions to be taken. One of
these was to never hang on to bushes, rocks or rocks, as too many times
they would break loose. Later that same day he took a hold of a small bush
while repelling—It up rooted and he plunged down the cliff, and hit the
ground on his back, and bounced like a rubber ball and slid down the slope
toward the river. The fall broke his back and he was taken to the hospital
where he eventually recovered—he never returned to the 35th Division. That
accident ended our training for the day—In fact we never resumed that part
of the mountain training—the next day word came down that all the ropes
that we were using had been condemed as being unsafe!! The memory of Lt.
Kjers body bouncing when he hit the ground is one thing that I’ll never
ever forget!!! On one of our problems, we were sent out in the
mountains near a gristmill to deploy around the area on a guarding
mission. At a mountain cabin nearby lived a couple and her blind brother—
their son was in the Army and her brother was staying with them during the
winter months. The brother had a small house closeby, so they invited us
to stay in his house, as they realized just how cold it was outside. The
whole bunch of us stayed there and slept wall-to-wall on the floor keeping
warm with the stove there and the wood they provided!! He made corn brooms
in part of his house. We really weren't supposed to be inside of a
building but out in the surrounding woods. Nothing was ever said about it
by any of our officers. We deeply appreciated the generosity and kindness
of the couple and her blind brother!! During the maneuvers the rifle and heavy weapons
companies had to cross the swollen black water cat'non river where three
enlisted men and one officer lost their lives. When the maneuvers were nearly over, we ended up in a
Monongahela National Forest Park. The word was passed around not to damage
any trees or to remove any pine boughs from them. The ground was covered
with deep snow and the temperture was below zero on top of the mountain
where we Camped, so many of the pine trees were trimmed of their boughs
free of charge by the men of the Santa Fe Division. Some of us decided to
sleep in our truck, but nearly froze to death doing it!! When the
maneuvers ended, we again moved by convoy—our destination—Camp
Butner, North Carolina. The route back was the same one we traveled going
to West Virginia, and we again spent one night Camping on the grounds at
Virginia Military Institute near Lexington. Like many of the men I
journeyed into Lexington to sightsee and to find a place to buy a decent
meal!! Back at
Camp Butner N.C. During my stay in Camp Butner I never visited Durham,
but took all of my passes to Raleigh, the State capital. One weekend I
stayed in town sleeping in the basement of a large church—the State
Capital Building was there, plus North Carolina State University and there
were many good city parks and stores to shop in. Most of my other buddies
preferred Durham as it was the home of Duke University and an all girls
College!! Here the Division was reviewed in a combat exercise by
secretary of war Patterson and senator Harry Truman, who had served in the
35th in the First World War in the artillery. The doughboys went under
machine gun fire and followed artillery in one of the most realistic
combat-like exercises attempted by any unit prior to combat!! The Division had to take part in an Army fitness test
—this involved many forms of physical exercises ending with a three-mile
hike with full pack and our rifles— this hike was to be completed in 50
minutes or less and included everyone from the company—truckdrivers,
cooks, the mess Sergeant, the supply Sergeant—all had to take part!! Many
of us younger, better-conditioned men helped the others by toting their
rifles and encouraging them on!! Everyone in Anti-Tank Company was able to
finish the hike in less than the time alloted!! Much to our supprise our
company had finished first among the companies in the whole Division—our
reward was a three-day pass to anywhere we wished to go!! At this time brother Donald was stationed in
the Signal Corps. In Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, so somehow we were able to
plan on a meeting in Washington D.C. My good buddy Marvin Elkins from
Corunna, Michigan, was also planning on spending his pass there too—he had
a sister that was in the waves stationed at the Pentagon building—so we
planned to travel together on the train and to get a room there. After
arriving at Union Station, we found a room to rent not far from the White
House on a side street—It wasn't anything fancy and in an older
neighborhood. Don wasn't due to arrive for a day or so, because his pass
was not for the same day as mine, so we took off and went to the Pentagon
building to find Elkin’s sister. For two days she showed us all around
D.C. When Don did arrive (can't recall how we planned a
place to meet) he and I spent the rest of my pass together. I hadn’t seen
him in over a year and one half, so we did enjoy the time together!! During the time there we saw a lot of the National
Capital—Arlington National Cemetery—my uncle Ferry Houghten (1\10thers
brother) was buried there—he had died a short time before while serving in
the Navy as an officer. While visiting there we went through General
Robert E. Lee’s home and his slave quarters, and saw the changing of the
guard at the tomb of the Unknown
Soldier. Other
places we visited were the Smithsonian Institute, the Capitol Building,
the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and Lafayette Park—which was
across the street from the White House. Pepsi Cola also had a canteen
nearby for service
men—there they sold hot dogs and hamburgers at a very reasonable price,
and provided all the free drinks of Pepsi Cola a serviceman desired!! This
really set great with me! So I’ll always be a Pepsi fan!! Finally the time arrived for Elkins and I to end our
stay in D.C. and to return to Butner and so we said good-bye to Don and
Elkins’ sister and went down to Union Station to board our train. Don
remained in D.C. until his pass ended—he rented the same room Elkins and I
had rented for his two remaining pass days. I had been a Private-First-Class for a while, and was
given a promotion to Technician-Fifth-Grade—It was a Corporal with a "T"
under it while at Camp Butner. This was a rating preverent to
cooks, mechanics, radio operators, our mallman, and truck and jeep
drivers. The rating gave no authority over any other soldier, but at least
Corporal’s pay went with it!!! We received a new Company Commander—Captain Robert E.
Richardson (former Company Commander of Regimental Headquarters and
Headquarters Company) was given command of Anti-Tank Company, 137th
Infantry Regiment. Our former Company Commander Lt. Rex Hopper was to have
a different position in the Company—he was someone everybody looked up to
and respected, and perhaps the best officer I had ever met in the Army!!!
Shortly after phit., Peyton (the old mess Sergeant in Regimental
Headquarters under Capt. Richardson) came into the Company and was
promptly given a Private First Class rank only because he was an old
cronie of the Captain!!!
On may 4, 1944 we departed from Camp Butner by train to
go to Camp Kilmer and we knew that we were headed for overseas duty in
Europe. Camp Kilmer (named for Joyce Kilmer who wrote the poem "trees" was
located near Elizabeth and not far from New York City. Because I didn't
waste my money, I was able to get a pass nearly every day to go to New
York City. By now I was smart enough to know that the ones that stayed in
camp would end up with all of the dirty details!! On these passes many times I would take the bus to NYC
with my Alabama buddies Frank Bailey and Odis Isbell and Charles Robbins
from Oliver Springs, Tennessee. While there we rode the subways out to
Coney Island (we rode the roller coaster there), to Washington Square, the
Empire State building, Central Park, Palisades Park, Times Square, and a
lot of other NYC landmarks!! Since Anti-Tank Company did not have their own kitchen,
the food was all cooked in one of the large kitchens and we ate in a large
dining hall. The food left much to be desired as some of it was almost
uneatable, but since I went on pass a lot and ate away from the mess hall,
I sure wasn’t starving to death!!! One of the meals I really remember was
the enormous amount of tough liver the cooks prepared and how terrible it
tasted—nearly all of it was eaten by the garbarge cans!! The question of having $10,000 worth of government life
insurance before one could go overseas for combat duty came up at this
time. When I entered the service, I decided that I only desired to have a
$5,000 policy as that had cost $3.25 every month and the larger policy was
twice that. Anyway everyone without the full amount were called aside for
a sales talk, but I stubbornly refused to change policy!! I could plainly
see that the officers were disgusted with me, but the more they talked the
stubborner I got!! They said "wouldn't you lIke for your parents to have
$10,000 if you were killed over there.” To this I replied, "no, I believe
they woud be happy with the $5,000." Finally I gave them my answer, "if
you want me to have the full amount of insurance, you pay for it, as I am
not going to sign any paper to authorize the deduction from my pay check!!
So I went overseas with my $5,000 policy—more than lIkely the only one in
the Santa Fe Division!! Then I got the news that I and several other men were
not qualified on the M-1 carbine or the M-l garand rifles, so we were
carted off to the rifle range at Camp Dix, New Jersey to fire the weapons
to qualify—can't recall how well I did, but any way they were satisfied
with my making expert or sharpshooter on both weapons. The thirty caliber
and .50 caliber machine guns, the Thompson sub machine gun and the .45
caliber pistol were all guns that were out of my spere of weapons. At one
time I did take instruction and fired one of our bazookas!! It was a scary
situation!! Our time at Camp Kilmer came to an end and we went up
to the harbor in New York City and walked up the gang-plank of the S.S.
Thomas H. Berry and set sail on may 11, 1944, past the Statue of Liberty,
out into the Atlantic Ocean bound for merry old England!! The entire 137th
Infantry Regiment was aboard! An advance party had left on the Queen Mary before our
ship had sailed, to get everything ready for the arrival of the rest of
the Division. Also on our ship was the following units-the 35th
Quartermaster Co.; the 735th Ordnance Co.; and the 11th Medical
Battalion. The trip was a long 13-day voyage—zig-zagging across
the ocean to avoid the german U-boats. At that time it was supposedly the
largest convoy to have crossed the Atlantic Ocean!! The ship was equiped
to transport troops and the hold had stacked canvas bunks jammed together
closely. While at sea everyone was given a packet of tiny seasick pills,
just in case we needed them. It wasn't long before we discovered that the chow was
anything but good!! At one meal they served us beef tongue for a
meal—bad-bad-bad!!! Because of it or some other food nearly all of the men
became sick with the G.I.S , dysentery, runs, or whatever your pet name is
for the condition!!! With so many men aboard and so few latrines it posed
a smelly problem!! Men were sitting on the trashcans, butt cans, and
anything available and having a terrifying time waiting for a seat in the
latrine!!! Including me!! On the ship they sold candy bars, but only by the
carton, so waiting my turn I purchased a carton of Hershey bars with
almonds. These I rationed out for the rest of the voyage-taking only
the fruit and other safe foods for the rest of the time aboard ship. No
more problems!! The galley was on the rear of the ship’s lower deck and
was made up of narrow elevated tables large enough to hold a tray. After
we got our tray of food one had to stand up to the tables to chow down!!
The ocean was very rough and this made the rear of the ship flop all over
the place!! The trays would leave the tables and soon the deck was full of
food and trays—this made it nearly impossible to stand up—It was more than
a nightmare!!! The huge convoy was escorted by many U.S. naval ships,
and a german submarine was supposedly spotted, and the navy dropped quite
a number of ash cans (depth charges) off the sides of them vessels— these
exploded with a high spray of water and apparently scared the sub
away!! Finally we sighted land and someone cajoled up the
rumor that we were headed for Ireland to a gravy job of guard duty on the
island!! This rumor soon was nulified when we docked at a vonmouth in
merry olde England on may 24, 1944 this was near Bristol or Bath— we
disembarked from the ship and climbed aboard a British passenger train for
a fast scenic journey across the beautiful English countryside through
Exeter to the station called Bodmin Road. We then left the train and
marched to the small town of Bodmin and to our barracks where the Duke of
Cornwall’s troops were billeted. The barracks were two storied frame
buildings set away from the more permanent stone buildings where the
British troops lived. The 29th Infantry Division had been there before us.
The British trains were divided into compartments with outside and inside
doors— they seemed to travel at a higher speed than ours in the good old
U.S.A.!! At least the slow pokey troop trains. My one and only assignment as C.Q. (Charge of Quarters)
was in this Camp. It was a job where you spent the evening in the orderly
room and then bedded down on the floor to sleep until morning when the
first sergeant came on duty. There wasn’t much to do—answer the telephone
and sorta guard the place until morning—I was a bit nervous about the
whole thing, but made it fine!! Also one day I was put in charge of the
garbage detail—with an Army truck my crew and I picked up the full garbage
cans and hauled them off to a dump out in the country. The guys gave me
heck because I helped them empty the cans, but I only was anxious to get
the smelly job finished!! During our stay in England we still used APO-35 (Army
post office) as our address, as we had from the time I had joined the 35th
in Long Beach. Only here they had started to censor every letter we wrote,
and would cut out any words or lines that were not permissable to be sent
in the mail. In one of my letters that I wrote, because I was a
little teed off about the two details that I had been assigned (C.Q. and
the garbage), I wrote that “they could take and shove those two stripes
that they had given me!!!". I felt that I had earned them by going to
school both in basic training and at Fort Benning, and besides I had no
authority over any other soldier. This letter earned me a call into the
orderly room to face the officer in charge of censoring our mail!! He
politely showed me the letter I had written—all that was left of it was a
ragged piece of paper—he had cut out all the lines that were not
permissible. Then he asked me "Do you want me to mail it lIke this?" so I
told him to file it in his wastebasket!! From then on I never was put in
charge of any details— they got the point!! Although I didn't go, the Company went out into the
surrounding moors on several training exercises. This was the setting for
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" —Sherlock Holmes" —"Home of sir Arthur
Conan Doyle”—and near the "Jamaica Inn". At that time the Regimental
Headquarters was conducting a radio school for all of the radio operators
in the 137th Infantry. The Regimental Headquarters, third
Battalion and special units were all in the Bodwin complex. The rest of
the regiment was scattered in the small surrounding villages and in some
of the coastal towns. Several times I wandered into Bodmin (it was right next
to the Camp) to the movies. It was a small theatre and when one entered,
an usher took you to be seated. There really was not any place to shop
there as the stores appeared to have next to nothing in them—empty
shelves— this made me wonder if the civilians had any food to eat or a
solitary thing to buy!! During our stay there, on Sunday several of us
G.I.'s would attend church at the local Methodist church—the service was
great and very similar to the one in Troy. But the big difference was the
way the English would sing the hymns-they must have all had
tremendous voices!! It was in Bodmin where my buddy—Frank Bailey met his
future wife Mary—she was on holiday there and when they met!! At the radio school I was able to again see several of
my old Camp Wolters friends, as most of them ended up in the three
battalions of the 137th Infantry. Also I met a fellow from Washington,
Michigan—Carl Dawson, who was in Regimental Headquarters radio section.
Milton Mrjorian from Detroit, Michigan, a transfer from the 320th Regiment
became the other radio operator for anti-tank Company, but before we left
England he became ill and left for the hospital. His replacement was
William Solomon from Endicott, New York. Sergeant Jesse Isenagle, from Garden City, Kansas was
still our communication Sergeant. Some of our officers and men did a
little boxing just for the exercise—Lt. Rex Hopper, PFC Garnett Potts and
several others took part. As for me, those guys were too big and well
built for me to fool with!!! Several times during the nighttime we were arroused
from our sleep to fall out and jump into the trenches near the barracks
when the krauts came over to bomb in the nearby villages. The sound of the
planes, anti-aircraft, and noise from the exploding bombs was
terrifying!! On June 25, 1944 we marched out to a level field
overlooking a bluff and lined up in formation facing that bluff to be
inspected by General Dwight Eisenhower (Ike), General George Patton (old
blood and guts), and our own General Paul Baade and regimental commander
Colonel Grant Laying. Since the regiment was from Kansas, as was Ike, he
circulated among the rows of troops chatting and visiting with many of the
men in a friendly and a courtious manner. Gen. Patton stayed up on the
bluff looking us over in his sullen almost worried looking manner!! Seeing
these two great men has always delighted me!! (Patton I saw again around
the Moselle river area, but I did not see Eisenhower, until Genella and I
went to the automobile show in Detroit and he happened to be there making
a speech, when he ran for president the first time. On July 4, 1944 we marched out of the Bodmin complex
with full field packs, our rifles, a full belt of .30 caliber ammo a
bandolier of ammo, our gas masks, with our plastic helmet liners on our
head, our steel outer helmets on the back of our packs, and our huge
duffel bags hung over our soldiers!! It was a long hike down to the
railroad siding at "Bodmin Road", and the terrible thing about it was that
the weather was as hot or hotter than any Fourth of July that I could
remember!! This was quite a long hike and we were given several chances to
stop and get our breath. Private Don Cater's steel helmet liner somehow
became unhooked and fell to the ground. He recovered it and was promptly
told by one of our officers: "hope you’re the first one to get it over
there!!" To me it was a very dumb statement, but perhaps it was the result
of the scorching-hot temperature!! Again we had a great ride on the British railway system
to a marshaling area, where we stayed in tents. Here our radios, trucks
and other equipment had to be waterproofed for the English Channel
crossing with a gooey putty-like paste and the trucks had to have an
exhaust extension installed so they would be able to drive through deep
water -just in case!! From the marshaling area we marched down to
the docks at Falmouth to board the S.S. Lou Gerhig—It was a liberty ship,
and all of guns, trucks and other equipment was put down in the hold, as
we occupied the upper decks of the ship. On July 6 or July 7 we sailed out
into the English Channel. Knowing full well where we were off to!! The Channel crossing was rough and of course the top
deck was packed with soldiers. For our meal that day we were issued 10 in
1 rations. These rations came in a 18-inch by 24-inch by 8-inch box, made
up of four boxes of equal size, which were split up into one box of each
type of ration to feed five men. The first problem we had was with the
breakfast ration—It contained a can of raw bacon!! Just how can anyone eat
raw bacon or find a way to cook it on a troop ship??? One quick thinking
35th Division man solved the problem for everyone-he put the raw
bacon on the very hot steam pipes of the ship, where it cooked enough to
be eaten!! These were very good rations and the rest of the contents gave
us very little trouble for the rest of the voyage!! Finally we came to the end of our crossing the English
Channel as we dropped anchor just off of Omaha Beach. The area was crowded
with a great fleet of ships, barrage balloons, the ships that had been
sunk to make a breakwater, and a great number of ducks (trucks that were
made to travel on land or in the water). It was an awesome
sight-unforgettable or unimaginable!! The night was spent on the ship and one time a
Luftwaffe plane came over on a recon mission and the anti-aircraft
batteries nearby opened up on him—missing of course!! The next morning we
disembarked onto a large barge made up of steel tanks, and we were taken
up to the sandy beach where the invasion had taken place a month earlier.
From there we went to an area that was undercover where our first task was
to remove the waterproofing putty we had put on our radios, trucks and
other equipment. This took a lot of time to get all of the sticky-gummy
goo off. Our SCR 284 and the SCR 300's were the worst!! Omaha Beach was a
busy place with all of the "ducks" going out to the ships and bringing
onto shore the supplies and materials to be unloaded on the beach. That
evening we again mounted up ready to move out under the cover of darkness,
and in a short time we sighted the flashes of artillery fire on the front
lines—soon we would not only see the flashes but the sound of the
exploding shells, and all of this was scary—the front lines of the
infantry were close in front of us!! Soon, we were stopped by a soldier, and he asked "where
are you going?" "You know that there is nothing ahead of you but
Germans!!” Lucky us, we could have become casualities the first day in
Normandy!!
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