Descending from the Clouds

by Wurst, Spencer F. ; Wurst, Gayle;

  When the word came down that the Carolina maneuvers were at an end, there was much shooting of blank ammunition and many shouts of joy. We soon received orders to halt the celebration and general carrying on. Oddly, the thing I remember most was laying my shelter half on the ground and crawling in under my blanket. It was a clear night, and there was a full moon that looked ten times larger than any I’d ever seen before. I lay there thinking of the past days, with the song “Carolina Moon” going through my mind. I fell asleep thinking how well that moon fit the song.

  Chapter 4

  Units in Turmoil: Pearl Harbor, Southern Training Camps, and War-time Expansion

  On the morning of December 7, 1941, we were en route back to Indiantown Gap, riding in two-and-a-half-ton trucks. Just before noon, we were given a ten-minute rest stop to relieve ourselves. Our platoon sergeant, who had been riding in the cab, must have had a portable radio. He came around the back of the truck and told us what had happened at Pearl Harbor: “Boys, you are now veterans of World War II.” It was the first time I had ever heard the term “World War II” applied to me.

  The first thing we asked was, “Where the hell is Pearl Harbor?” We were stunned that such a thing could happen to the United States. We rode the rest of the day full of gloomy thoughts, wondering what would happen to us, both individually and as a unit. Some soldiers who had been called up for only a year, myself included, had been looking forward to getting out in February. We knew this would all change.

  At nightfall, the whole regiment disembarked in a huge pasture somewhere in Virginia. It started to snow as we moved into the field. We had started picking spots to sleep when the company commander called the NCOs and gave us the official word on Pearl Harbor. Usually, when a regiment assembles in a non-tactical bivouac area, there’s plenty of talking, shouting, and joking. That night it was completely silent. By then, the snow was coming down steadily. There must have been two thousand men in that pasture, but you could have heard a pin drop anywhere.

  We woke up with a layer of snow on our shelter halves. We brushed ourselves off and proceeded to Indiantown Gap. On our way to the Carolinas, our convoys had attracted little attention. But on December 8, our final day on the trip back, the streets and sidewalks of every community were crowded with shouting civilians. From the truck it looked like pandemonium; the population had no idea of how the attack would affect their personal lives. The crowds, clapping and cheering us on, thought we’d been mobilized in reaction to Pearl Harbor.

  Back at the Gap, there were eight to ten inches of snow on the ground. They must have sent in an advance detail, because the barracks were warm. That first night, my cot seemed like the softest bed I’d ever slept in. I heard President Roosevelt declare war on the Axis powers. There would be no leaves and no early discharges. All periods of service were extended for the duration of the war plus six months.

  We were constantly on some alert or another. Our battalion commander, Colonel Peterson, was an unusual character reputed to be a veteran of World War I. He was hard working and conscientious, and did everything possible to impress upon us the need to do the best job we could, no matter what it was.

  The snow was deep on the ground. He often formed us up in the battalion area, and we fell out with full combat gear and marched into a square formation. In the middle was a platform six feet high on which Colonel Peterson stood. He then called a soldier out of the ranks: for example, “First scout in the 3d Platoon of Company E: fall out and come up here on the platform!” The soldier broke ranks, double-timed, and got up with Colonel Peterson, who checked his equipment from helmet to shoelaces. He even made sure the man had his dog tags. If anything was missing, he called the soldier’s squad leader up on the platform and chewed him out in front of the whole battalion. Then he maybe called up the platoon sergeant and did the same thing. Sometimes he even called the platoon leader to the platform. This certainly got our attention, and made us strict about inspection. His tactics were humiliating, but he instilled in us the responsibility to do our job, keep our weapons clean, and take care of our men. I can still hear Colonel Peterson up on that platform: “The Japs are knocking the hell out of us over on Bataan! Clean that weapon! They’re closing in on Corregidor! Fix that vehicle!” He made us understand we needed to perform now that we were at war.

  Another thing I can still see in my mind is our men from Alabama and Georgia, who had never experienced a real winter before, having snowball fights and carrying on like a bunch of kids. We were all happy when we heard that the Army was giving us furloughs after all. They were very short, but a whole lot better than nothing. Half the company got sent home for Christmas, but had to be back by New Year’s, when the other half went home. I was one of the lucky ones to get home for Christmas.

  Indiantown Gap was used as a staging area for overseas movement throughout the war, a place for the Army to move divisions for their pre-embarkation checks. This change in function meant the 28th Division had to move out. Just before the transfer, a directive was issued that all men who were still under eighteen could apply for discharge. I thought it was my duty to stay with the unit.

  In January 1942, the division was transferred to Camp Livingston, Louisiana, but there wasn’t enough room for all of us. The 32d Infantry Division was being sent from Livingston to the Pacific, but they hadn’t entirely vacated the camp. The 112th Infantry always seemed to get the rawest deal when it came to living conditions, and this time we got stuck in Camp Beauregard, a regimental-size set-up with squad tents. It can get very cold in Louisiana in January, and all we had for heat was a Sibley stove, literally a leftover from the Civil War. It was a metal, wood-burning stove that sat on a large wooden box filled with sand or dirt. It wasn’t safe to leave it burning at night, so we let it die out. The sanitation and other facilities weren’t what they could have been either. It was three hundred feet to the nearest latrine. There were wooden buildings for mess halls, but no room to sit, so we placed our mess kits on a one by six foot board mounted between two poles, and ate standing up. Not a very nice arrangement.

  Many of us had never been in Louisiana before, so our orientation included warnings about poisonous snakes, chiggers, and the huge mosquitoes that bred in the swamps. With typical Army humor, one joke had it that a soldier woke up to discover two enormous mosquitoes sitting on his chest. One of them was holding up his dog tags and reading them off while the other checked out his blood type to see if it was a match.

  We fell out for reveille before daylight. Our old Sibley stove would have long gone out, and it would be freezing in the tent. Typically, we stayed in our cots as long as possible, then, at the very last minute, we jumped out, put on our shoes, and threw on our overcoats without the rest of our uniforms. After the sergeants took account of their units, they dismissed us, and we went back in to try to warm up by getting dressed. Rohaly got wind of this trick. One morning, instead of dismissing us after the reveille report, he walked down the ranks with a flashlight and made every one of us open up his overcoat. This put an end to our stunts.

  The combat effectiveness of the 28th Division and all its organic units took a nosedive immediately after we entered the war. The Army had gone into high-gear expansion, and our division experienced a huge attrition of key personnel because we were providing cadres for new units. It got so bad that one newly assigned second lieutenant was signing the morning report for two different companies. Now, too, on some occasions, it was Sergeant Rohaly, the senior first sergeant in the battalion, who led the company and battalion out for training. Out of five company units, not one officer was present for duty.

  NCOs were all but ordered to go before an examining board and apply for Officers’ Candidate School (OCS). The Army was also expanding its Air Corps, asking for volunteers to be aviation cadets, and forming new divisions for which many of our officers and NCOs would serve as cadres. To say the least, our unit was in a state of turmoil. I did not apply to OCS, because I thought I was too young. I also
knew the Army might run a tight security check on applicants. I was still underage, and thus afraid they might discharge me.

  Throughout this situation, First Sergeant Rohaly remained a holy terror, flaunting his authority and trying to rule by an iron hand, but he was somewhat subdued by Captain Hoffman. I remember one close encounter, when he stood me at attention and chewed me out for half an hour for asking a simple question about the guard duty roster. I replied that I would like to see the company commander together, which we did, and the dispute was resolved in my favor. Rohaly in his prime was quite a character.

  In April 1942, I received a promotion from corporal squad leader to section sergeant. This made me a three-stripe buck sergeant at the ripe old age of seventeen. I was responsible for two machine gun squads in the .30-caliber water-cooled machine gun platoon. I considered myself to be earning a very good wage, $78.00 a month—almost four times the amount I’d been earning when I had joined the Army two years earlier.

  About the time I received my promotion, the other units bound for overseas moved out, and the 112th moved into Camp Livingston. This was a much better billeting area, with winterized tents housing six to eight men. For the first time, we enjoyed the luxury of a gas stove in every tent. They even had wooden floors! At last we had regular mess halls, too, and much better latrine and sanitation facilities. To make things even better, our mess sergeant left us; the cooks finally got rid of him. I later learned they’d slipped half a cake of GI soap into the coffee urn, which created quite a diarrhea problem in the troops.

  In the summer of 1942, I got another furlough and went to Erie. We had to make the trip by milk train, and the crowding was almost unimaginable. For hours and hours, there was standing room only; GI brides, girlfriends, and families were moving between the camps and home, and we were obliged to give mothers, fiancees, and wives of servicemen our seats. For the most part, we rode standing for the day and a half it took to get home.

  The return from leave to camp was a sad affair. We all expected this to be our last furlough home before we were sent to war. It was bad enough for the single man, but married men and fathers with children had many moving scenes at the station. As the train pulled out amid desperate farewells, I was very glad I was single and did not have to go through those emotional departures.

  Chapter 5

  From the 112th Infantry to Parachute School, Fort Benning

  Major General Omar Bradley took over as our division commander in June 1942. After a few weeks of observation, he decided too many friendships or cliques had formed, and decreed that all company commanders had to divide their NCOs into three groups. They would retain one group and transfer out the other two, but they wouldn’t know which of the groups they’d be allowed to keep. This prevented them from padding one group with their best NCOs and passing off the less efficient ones. I was in the third of H Company that went to M Company in the 3d Battalion.

  To say the least, Bradley was not very complimentary about the condition of the 28th Division, but I don’t think he gave us a fair shake. The National Guard divisions made a huge contribution to the war effort by providing so many people for cadres and new divisions, armor and parachute school, and officers’ candidate schools. Our situation could not have been helped, since higher headquarters had required us to provide so much personnel for other units and branches of the service. This rapid response to wartime mobilization left all the pre-Pearl Harbor infantry divisions in a state of turmoil from 1940 until they went overseas.

  The strength of the 112th Infantry and the 28th Division got so low that it was eventually decided to fill the division up with draftees. We received them directly from the induction centers, and each regiment formed a training cadre responsible for basic infantry training. I was selected as a basic training NCO—what we now call a drill sergeant—for the first group of selective servicemen. When these people arrived at Camp Livingston, they were civilians. From the day they got into uniform, we took charge.

  Physical training began from scratch. On the first day, even as we marched the inductees the half-mile from their billeting areas to their training areas, some men fell out. To make bad matters worse, the higher-ups now decided infantry troops had to go through speed marches of up to twenty-five miles a day with a single canteen of water. Twenty-five miles may not seem like much, but when you’re carrying a full field pack with limited water in the hot, humid, Louisiana climate, it becomes a real task. People who fell out had to complete the march on their own time, or start again and take it for its full length in the evening or on the weekend.

  After December 1941, and starting with basic training in 1942, the quality of training programs greatly improved. For example, we now had gas identification kits. These contained small samples of each kind of gas, which came equipped with explosive caps. We’d go out in the field and explode one cap at a time. Each produced a small, low-density cloud. The trainees then rapidly moved through the area for a sniff test, which taught them to identify the odors of different gasses. Once they got the first whiff, they were supposed to stop inhaling and clear out to minimize exposure.

  Numerous periods of instruction were devoted to the use of gas masks. After many drills, we took the men into a tent where, at a certain point, gas was released. At the command “Gas!” they had to whip out their masks and put them on. If the mask did not fit correctly, they got whiffs of tear gas. This exercise was designed to approximate conditions a soldier could likely encounter, as well as test the fit of every mask.

  The military also now contracted out to the motion picture industry to produce lengthy training films. Some of the producers and executives took on “dollar a year” employment in the Army, donating their services to make movies against the injustices of Fascism. And so we marched into the huge post theater to watch films with titles like Why We Fight and The Enemy. So it was, too, that we were treated to graphic training films about venereal disease that showed all the terrible things that could happen to a soldier who contracted even the most common type of sexually transmitted disease. These were often shown right after lunch, and the close-ups of hideous canker sores and displays of deformed body parts did not exactly help our digestion.

  My duties as a drill instructor involved numerous other tasks such as teaching the M1, at which I became quite proficient, although this still was not my primary individual weapon. Even when preparing my lesson plans, I continued to learn, and as our officers returned from officer training at Fort Benning, where they had followed classes in methods of instruction, they, in turn, passed on their knowledge to the NCOs. Slowly, then, the quality of our training increased. They used to say, “If the student fails to learn, the instructor failed to teach.” I don’t agree 100 percent, but there’s a lot of truth to the saying.

  I also became a better NCO because I learned to evaluate men, and I became seasoned in sizing up a man’s character and leadership capacity. But a man’s real leadership qualities cannot be determined until he is in combat, in a stay-alive, minute-to-minute situation. There are no more snappy orders in these conditions; leadership is often quiet, even mute. But soldiers always sense the real leaders after the first days of combat, and leadership qualities come out at all levels, from privates as well as soldiers in the higher grades. I learned very early on that you cannot pull a bluff on the soldiers under you—not as an instructor, and certainly not in combat. The American soldier is always smart enough to recognize the real thing.

  All this said, by the early summer of 1942, I had had my fill of basic training. I’d been soldiering for a year and a half. I was well aware of the combat readiness of the 112th and the 28th Division as a whole, and knew we would not be entering a combat zone for some time. I wanted to get into an outfit where I would see some action.

  If I had to soldier, I wanted to soldier in an elite unit, not in an average infantry regiment. I went through the thirteen-week training cycle with the first group of Selective Service people, but when the rumors started that we
were going to receive a second group, I objected—to myself, of course. I made up my mind to get out of the unit. I knew that when I was vetted, my true age might come to light, and that Personnel flagged the file of anyone who applied for a transfer, and would not approve a second request. But I was so eager to get out of my current situation that I applied for OCS and the parachute troops simultaneously. I don’t know how they let me get away with it, but they did. I said I would take the first transfer to come in.

  My application to the parachute troops came in first. This was a completely volunteer, elite unit. All transfers had to be in the grade of private, but I was so eager that I was willing to accept the reduction as the price of admission. A huge expansion of the parachute troops was taking place, and the Parachute School at Fort Benning was the only one in the Army at the time. The parachute troops had started there with a test platoon in the summer of 1940, and by the time I entered in 1942, they had already formed at least three parachute infantry regiments and four independent battalions.

  Three or four of us from the 112th Infantry Regiment traveled from Camp Livingston to Fort Benning, Georgia, on the same set of orders. We boarded the train on the post at Camp Livingston and shuttled off onto the main track. I can tell you this: the trip from Louisiana to Columbus in hot, old coaches was a slow, tedious, filthy ride. And I emphasize slow. I don’t think they’d improved on the locomotive system since the Civil War. They still had a steam engine pulling the train. It was so hot we were forced to open the windows, only to be assaulted with a cloud of cinders billowing out of the old coal-fired locomotive.