103D INFANTRY DIVISION SIGNAL COMPANY
REMEMBRANCES
PART 3

Preparation and the 103d Division Signal Company

5. 103d Signal Company Purpose and Organization

 This description of the 103d Signal Company applies to the "Combat Ready" unit that was engaged in overseas action.  During training, manuevers, etc. the organization of the company may have been different.

 The 250 officers and men of the 103rd Signal Company, commanded by Capt. Bernard BECK at the rear Division Command Post, supplied radio, telephone/teletype wired, and messenger service communications for the units from regimental headquarters to division headquarters and beyond to the 6th Corp.  They also provided the communications network laterally from division headquarters to the many attached support units of the division; heavy artillery, tank destroyers, anti-aircraft, etc.

 The five sections of the company supplied telephone, telegraph, teletype, messenger, and radio communications plus cryptographic code services.  The majority of the company was normally located at the forward Division Command Post or with the Regiments.

(1995 Editor's note: There is some difficulty in defining the location and movement of the Division Command Posts.  It is my impression that the administrative headquarters of the division and the signal company were located at the "rear Division Command Post".  The Generals and their staff officers, the signal company administration, support and supply, and Captain Beck and his office staff were also located there.  At the "forward Division Command Post" were the operating section officers, senior NCOs, Message Center, Wirehead, and the wire construction and radio operating teams that were assigned to follow those same type teams assigned to the regiments and the tactical units attached to the division.  Most of the tactical direction and control of the operating sections of the signal company was from the forward Division Command Post.)

  The basic sections of the 103d Infantry Division Signal Company; Radio Operating, Wire Construction, Message Center and Telephone/Telegraph were the main elements of the communications activity of the company.

 They were supported within the company by the Administration and Supply and the Division Signal-Supply and Repair sections.

 With its primary mission to service the operating sections of the Signal Company, the Headquarters Section under the direction of Capt. BECK included the Company mess group, the Company supply group, the Motor Maintenance group, the Headquarters group and the Division Signal Supply and Repair group.

 The service groups were part of the Division Rear CP, with the exception of the Division Signal Supply and Repair groups which were normally located at Division MSR,(Main Supply Rear).

 CWO HOWARD HOPPLE was in charge of the Division Signal Supply and Repair groups which supplied the Division combat units with radios, telephones,switchboards, telegraph sets, batteries, etc. and then had the responsibility to keep all of this vital but actively used equipment in good repair.

 T/Sgt. PAUL GRANT and a very small group of specially trained men were responsible for the repair and maintenance of all of the division's radios and the mine detectors.

   T/Sgt. AL WILLIBRAND and his very competent small group were responsible for the repair and maintenance of the divisions teletype equipment, telephones, telegraph sets and switchboards.

 The Motor Maintenance section under direction of WOJG. EDWIN St.CIN kept the company vehicles in repair and operating.  Many of the trucks assigned to operating sections were on-the-road so much that only the most basic maintenance could often be done - there were very few mechanical breakdowns, more often a collision or combat damage would put a unit out of operation.

 Before it is possible to analyze the operation of the men of the Signal Company, it is necessary to become acquainted with the ultimate users of most of the  communication information handled by the men in the boxes on the diagram.

 Those "Ultimate Users" were the men fighting for their very existence in the holes (man made and other), war wreaked fields, forests, villages, and the terrifying open spaces - the officers and men of the infantry, and their close-supporting, miserable companions.

 The infantry squads, platoon, companies and battalions maintained and operated mobile and in some cases, make-shift  small networks of radio and wire communications.

 The infamous "Handi-Talkie" radio sets and the EE8A crank and battery operated telephones were shown in a zillion "Hollywood War Movies" with desperate men in very dramatic situations who were using these main technical tools of the front-line foot soldier.

 The basic high-technology communication of the foot soldiers was augmented by hand signals, whispering, shouting, throwing rocks and message service by crawling, walking or running between the fire-control and movement points of the confusing battlefield.

 These systems functioned fairly well most of the time to coordinate the action of tactical units from the infantry squad leader up to the commanding officers and men at the battalion level.

 The methods of communication between those last three groups in each regiment and the regimental commanding colonel and his staff used the same basic telephone equipment connected together with light- duty field-wire, however, greater strength radio equipment mounted in backpacks was also used to cover slightly greater distances.

 The Construction Section consisted of six or more wire teams using trucks to run telephone and telegraph lines between the forward CP and the three Regiments, Division Artillery, the rear CP, and to units attached to the Division.

 The Telephone & Telegraph Section ran the telephone lines at the Division Headquarters, manned the Division switchboard and provided teletype communications to the 6th Corp.

 The Radio Section like the Construction Section provided teams assigned to each of the Regiments, Division Artillery and attached units.  A net control station at Division Headquarters also provided radio communications to 6th Corps.

 The message Center section included personnel to supply cryptographic encoding and decoding of messages and also for messenger service.

 The Headquarters Section included the administrative, supply, mess, motor pool, and electronic repair personnel.

 Perhaps a better understanding of the purpose and organization of the Signal Company can be gained by visualizing the mostly small semi-independent groups of men and equipment doing their daily (and nightly) work.

 Extending back toward the Division Command Post and the rear areas was a communications system operated by the 103d Division Company men and their superb "Government Issued - G.I." equipment that had been "innovatively" modified to make it fit the environmental conditions and provide the necessary creature comforts so that,"seldom was heard a discouraging word", almost.

 At each of the 3 Regiment Command Posts was a Signal Company truck-mounted radio-operating team composed of a sergeant and 3-5 men, each of whom was proficient in sending enciphered five-letter groups of Morse code.  This was the most common method of transmitting information between the members of each one of the three regimental radio teams and the very much stronger radio transmitting and receiving equipment operating in a large van at the Division Command Post.

 The operating team in the van was in constant radio contact with the regimental operators, other units in the field, and the next higher tactical unit, 6th Corps.

 These four radio operating units, supplemented at times by additional mobile and radio relay units were the main components of the Radio  Operating Section.

 Teams of men, members of the Construction Section and their equipment from the Signal Company were stationed with, and for all practical purposes were under the control of the commanders of each of the three regiments: 409, 410, and 411 to install telephone and teletype wire lines to division headquarters and beyond to units directly supporting the regiments.

 These wire-teams operated from heavier more open trucks than the radio-teams because they carried several heavy reels of wire containing up to one mile of heavy twisted copper and steel wire that could be placed on a motor driven spindle capable of feeding out wire from two reels as the truck moved down the road.

Each time the regiment CP or one of the support units attached to the regiment moved, the wire team would install a new wire network linking the Regiment CP to its support units and the Division CP.

 Telephone lines were normally laid on the ground as quickly as possible when the Division was on the move.  Lines damaged by tanks or other vehicles were repaired by trouble shooters. If time was available, the lines were later placed in more secure overhead locations by men with pole climbing equipment.

 Between major moves of the command posts, there was always plenty of work for the regimental teams supplying incidental communication for the regimental commander and his staff or resupplying themselves by recovering unused wire from the roadside using the motor driven spindle that was capable of recovering and rewinding wire that was no longer being used for its initial communication purpose or picking up new supplies of wire, gasoline, field rations, etc., usually from division headquarters.

 The wire teams assigned to the regiments operated as semi-autonomous units and had a great deal of flexibility and responsibility in maintaining vital communications under very hazardous and difficult conditions at times.

 At the division CP there were 3-4 wire-teams using similar equipment and trucks to those used by the regimental teams.

 These teams were also composed of a sergeant and 4-5 men but they had varying assignments depending on the movement and deployment of the division CP and its attached units, the relocation of the regimental CPs, etc.

 For example, the 103d Infantry Division Signal Company furnished radio and wire communications crews to front line elements of the infantry regiments, to organic combat units such as field artillery battalions, and to tank battalions and other combat units attached to the division.

 The attached combat units included, at various times, the 756th Tank Battalion, the 761st Tank Battalion, the 781st Tank Battalion, the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion, the 824th Tank Destroyer Battalion, the 534th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Auto-Weapons Battalion and the 991st Field Artillery Battalion (155 mm Gun SP).

The division wire-teams were assigned to their work by Technical Sergeant FRAZIER, a competent, experienced and demanding but fair leader.  The NCO in charge of the Construction Section was M/Sgt. LOVELL COLLINS, who joined the company just before it was sent overseas.  In general the teams were engaged in laying wire to units attached to the division CP or laying wire in the direction of a regimental CP to meet on the road the incoming regimental wire team to re-establish communication after a move of the division or regiment CP.

 Most  of the many wire lines laid by the division wire-teams originated or terminated at a massive interconnect terminal block known as the "Wirehead". After a very short period of operation overseas, a one ton trailer was used to mount the 36 line terminal block and a multi-wire cable was used to connect the trailer and the Message Center.  This configuration was located adjacent to the Telephone and Telegraph operating facility, usually an acquired building, sometimes a more primitive temporary shelter.

 Within the T&T facility were located the switchboards necessary for routing the many communica tions, the telephones and telegraphs necessary for the local operation and the interconnections necessary to route lines to the various Division Staff operating locations.

Very close to the T&T location was the Message Center, the operations and control point for the Motor-messagers arriving and departing usually in jeeps carrying written messages directed to and from 6th Corps headquarters, Division headquarters, regimental CPs, units attached to the division and any other tactical location to which a written message was appropriate. The motor messagers often covered hundreds of miles in a day over good roads and bad, through territory well behind the front lines, and at times into unfamiliar and hostile areas near the action.

Signal Company trucks with radio equipment or wire teams were choice targets for enemy artillery and mortar fire.  The trucks therefore did not usually remain in one place very long unless they were in a more secure area.

(1993 Editor's note:  This description of the organization and operating of the 103d Division Signal Company relied heavily on the contributions of many individuals, officers and men of the sections, those who had been with the company from its early organization and training days. Almost every man who at one time or another attended a reunion, and some who have not, are responsible for the facts and figures.  The errors, B.S., etc. that cause disappointment are supplied by the editor alone.)
 
 

  (The N.C.O. assigned to the Rear Echelon Wire-Teams changed from time to time, but some of the teams members remained the same for longer periods of time.)

    The following radio Men's assignments are unknown, varied, or they did not go overseas.

  James W. Allen  Lowell H. Helmick  Ralph F. Meyer
  John Anderson      Hamilton   Leonard R. Nelkin
  Lloyd M. Bair         Alfred W. Horne Harry Novack
  William G. Ballantine Fred A. Lawrence Robert G. Olesen
  George Bartlett           Hancel C. Light          Jack Owens
  James W. Carr  Norbert N Lloyd           Kenneth Paulson
  Edward W. Dillion          Karl R. Matle   Robert Phillips
  Rudolph Ellsworth              Albert Merz  Vito Pizzo
  Ernest Godfredsen      lyde W. McIntyre        Clemens Post
  Richard E. Preston                Gerald Rivard  Robert G. Rushing
  John C. Sauls   Earl R. Schultz Arnold C. Schumacher
  Stegmeir   Thurman K. Wolf      Lewis Rosenblum
 
 

 CONSTRUCTION    RADIO OPERATING
 Donald R. Gray        John F. Phillips
 Raymond W. Barby                 Frank Applbaum
 William C. Lemon                  Lewis Rosenblum
 Joseph Lafata
 Patrick Faulkner        HEADQUARTERS
 Jerome Waldref        (Most of the section                                            Allen H. Busht       except some of the cooks)   William Strayhorn
 George Maddox
 Abner Royce
 Herman Hallabaugh
 Lester Chastain
 Sidney Tillman

 The following Construction Men's assignments are unknown, varied, or  they did not go overseas.

  Edward Bialecki  Kenneth Hartle
  Willie S. Blanton John b. Hayes
  John F. Bolton  Robert Jackson
  Edward Brietenbach Robert J. Kelly
  Lloyd O. Bull  Richard MacLeay
   Cogdill   Thomas Micek
  Leonard A. Coons O'Hara
   Cosgrove   Kenneth J Perrington
  John N. Cuppy  Joseph F. Riemenschneider
  Arthur W. Decker Edmund W. Diederich  Harry A. Shaw  Ted J. Dines
  George E. Spisak Dorfman
  Taft               Falk
  Ferdinand Tiefenbach  Wilton W. Frank
     Cosimo F. Viola Lee C. Gilmore
  Emlen V. Wistar                        George R. Wooster

      Michael H. Schirm was with us and then became a
      2nd Lieutenant assigned to one of the regiments.

      Emlen Wistar was with us in the mud of Marseille.

 The following Headquaarter Men's assignments are unknown,varied, or they did not go overseas.  Ambrosino  Hack
  Ames     Maurice A. Henderson
  R.L. Anderson  Charles W. Henderson
  Roger B. Andrews Fred C. Jenderson
  Raymond P. Baldwin      William B. Langston
  Jerome P. Beard      John P. Kuehn
   Bingham   Eugen B. Lull
  John O. Busby  John C. Mitchell
  Leonard V. Churilla      Milititsky
  William E. Czich         Morford
  Damon     Frank W. Moser
  Charles A. Dews Harold L. Murphy
  John N. Droulard Peter P Radosevitch
  Wilbur H. Edens Johnnie O. Ramsey
  Charles J. Engelman Olin Smith
  Odes F. Gill  Lyle R. Wentworth
  John D. Gould  Edward R. White
  Charles L. Gummo  John Gurecky
Edgar C. Wilson
 
 

 The following Message Center Men's assignments are unknown,varied, or they did not go overseas.

  Joseph A. Allison Max Gould
  Charles K. Bishop Philip W. Gunderson
  Raymond DeYoung Walter L. Hess
  Stanley T. Drewniak Henry Hook
  Thomas Druggan Kiely
   Ray C. Newman
 

 The following T&T Men's assignments are unknown, varied, or they did not go overseas.

  Everett E. Campbell Lloyd Orndoff
  Dennis Delaney Donald C. Parent
  Gustave M. Nordstrom             Sirrine
         Dawson Stephens
 
 

 The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) was started to provide continuing education for the many college students enrolled in the private and public institutions of higher learning throughout the United States.  Many of these young men had enlisted in the Army Reserve to delay being drafted and/or to continue their education in an orderly manner.  It was also possible for men who had completed high school to take the Army General Classification Test (AGCT) and qualify for pre-induction assignment to the program.

 In addition to these major groups in the ASTP, there were a number of soldiers already serving in the Army who for whatever reason had requested transfer to the program. "Smitty" was one of these men, joining after a period of "arduous service" in the Army Air Corps.

 It may have been planned and anticipated by the Army that the soldiers completing the program would not be available for "field service" until late in a war lasting into 1946 and beyond and then would be used as technical support in the Armies of Occupation.  Some of the soldier-students chose as a cynical theme a variation on a World War One song; "We're coming over, but we won't be over 'til it's over, over there!"

 By April, 1943 the Army decided to call all of the reserve students into active service for assignment to basic military training before being sent to selected Universities which would conduct the intensive ASTP training.

OUR MEN: FADER
 Shortly after my 18th birthday I was called up and assigned to a special training program in radio/radar and sent to Syracuse U. and then to Philco in Philadelphia.  Apparently my selection was connected to my AGF test score.  Finally, in July 1942 I was put into uniform and assigned to the Air Service Command as a radio/radar repairman and my basic training was in the sand of Columbia, SC.  Then I was assigned to Dale Mabry Field in Tallahassee, FL where I poked at blood spattered radio sets and tried to fix them.  It was a P-47 Thunderbolt training base and almost every day a plane would dive nose first into the ground or crack up in other ways.  The P-47 was a powerful but tricky plane to fly.  It kept the pilots honest.

One day at Dale Mabry I was called into the orderly room and told that I qualified for ASTP and OCS and asked which I wanted.  I chose ASTP and was placed in the engineering program.

OUR MEN: ROREM
 At the end of October, 1943, 2000 men happily left Camp Fannin and arrived at the A&M College of Texas in College Station, Texas.  I was assigned to the 6th Student Training Company and life here was true luxury compared to Camp Fannin.  Four men were assigned to each room in beautiful brick dormitories and the food was better than anyone could imagine.  The Navy also had men studying at the college and they allowed us to use their "Ships Store" where we could purchase anything from candy to clothes.

 The men who came from Fannin were joining with men coming from other camps to form the student 'sections' assigned to the college training programs.

 Texas A&M was not a coeducational institution at that time.  It was a Land Grant College college in which almost all of the civilian students were "cadets" in the ROTC program and wore distinctive uniforms similar to the standard army officer uniform of the day. Cadets wore "pinks and greens" and "khakis" or "suntans" with cadet brass.

 During the fall of 1943 the cadet student population was only 2205, compared to the fall of 1942 when was 6549.

 The environment on campus was unique. All of the Armed Services had men in training there, Army (us); Army Air Force, Navy, Marine Corp, and Cadets (them).  All day there were small, and not so small, military groups marching back and forth to classes or drill exercises.

 The military bearing of the groups was distinctive; the Marines were the sharpest (lots of fancy routines), the ASTP men with their infantry drill training looked very good, the Cadets had some unusual style, the Army Air Force fellows moved about fairly well, the Navy - in their rumpled, washed-out-blue dungarees seemed to get from place to place as a free spirited semi-group of individuals.

 We were all there for Thanksgiving day and the BIG GAME between the "Longhorns" of Texas University at Austin and the "Aggies" of Texas A&M with all of its campus spirit, giant bonfire, hard fought football game with the Cadets standing every minute as a supportive "12th Man".  Bear Bryant was still coaching at A&M before going to a record setting period at Alabama.  According to Andy Beck, and son of Capt. Bernard Beck, A&M lost the game the game to UT, 27-13.

OUR MEN: ROREM
 After three months and the completion of the first quarter of basic engineering we were given a six day furlough from January 31 to February 6, 1944.  The 2,000 men leaving on furlough filled several trains and had a distinct slow down on the train schedules.

OUR MEN: BARCLAY
 Jerome WALDREF and I were rooming together as the only occupants of a first floor, corner room intended for 4 men as the result of careful planning and pleading by Jerome.  Why Jerome had picked me as the beneficiary of this and later 'preferential treatment' remains a mystery.  Perhaps he knew even that early in our service I would need special help.

 For some reason, also unexplained, we started off hitch-hiking home to Los Angeles. In spite of the fact we looked like real members of the Armed Forces, at the end of the first day and night into the second day, it became evident that we were not doing well out there west of the Texas Panhandle.

 During one of our few rides, Jerome grew so alarmed by the erratic driving of the old cowboy in his dusty, well worn sedan (I was trying to sleep in the back seat) that Jerry insisted that we be left by the side of the road in one of the most desolate spots in the wide open west.

 When the discussion (argument) of our sorry position; physically, geographically, and financially had ended, it was decided that we would get 'some way' to the next town with a railroad station and finish our trip in some style.  We did finally reach El Paso, Texas - just half way home to Los Angeles, and continued our trip sitting up for the worst parts of 2 days and nights.

 At the end of our furlough time, Jerry, Mike Schirm, and I drove back to Texas A&M in Jerry's car, a sporty 1941 Plymouth cabriolet.

 The car was in good condition until it had passed through a sand storm and an Army tank exercise being conducted in a "Desert Training Area" that had been set up by General Patton before he left for North Africa. We had also sideswiped a longhorn steer, and lost a door handle and some paint just north of Austin, Texas.

OUR MEN: ROREM
 By mid March 1944 and the middle of the second quarter, the Army decided it needed Infantry men more than Engineers and 1000 of us were sent to the 103d Division at Camp Howze near Gainsville, Texas.  The other 1000 men went to the 12th Armored Division.  The four men in my room were split evenly.

John Roselli and Mark Rosenquist went to the 12th Armored Division while Wilson Rodgers and I went   went to the 103d Division. John Roselli and I were the ones who survived the war.

 Our studies were intensive, the living conditions in modern college dorms were great, the dining in great dining halls with eight-man tables served by A&M Cadets working their way through college was as good as it sounds.  It just had to end.  It did end for us as well as many other ASTP soldiers all over the country as outlined in Harold Rorem's narrative.

 Smitty's narrative outlines his transitions into and out of the ASTP program from a different point of view.

OUR MEN:WILLIAM R. SCHMITZ - ("SMITTY")
 In October the training cycle was coming to an end, our basic Air Force training was nearly complete.  It was announced that a program was being started that offered qualified soldiers an opportunity to go to college.

 It was called ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program) . I had already enrolled in the University of Wisconsin prior to enlisting, the Air Force didn't tell me what my assignment was to be, the ASTP announcement did.  So I applied for the ASTP program, was accepted and by November sent to an ASTP testing and reclassification center at Stetson University in Deland, Florida.

  Deland was a sleepy college town within pass-distance of the beach at Daytona.  We lived in a dormitory and dined in a co-ed cafeteria.  There were no formations and no weapons.  Eventually, in late November, the assignments were made and I was sent to Oklahoma A&M at Stillwater to join 1200 other soldiers of the ASTP Program.  I studied American history, and a contingent of WAVES who were enrolled in some other program.

 By January 1944, it was rumored that the ASTP program was not to last.  On 20 February 1944, the axe fell.  Over the nation, 110,000 ASTP students were to be transferred to combat units, including 900 from Oklahoma A&M.  The order read, "the time has come for the majority of you to be assigned to other active duty to break the enemy's defense and force their unconditional surrender...".  My basic training was certain to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy!

 Some of the reassigned men from Texas A&M went to the 12th Armored Division and some of us went to the 103d Infantry Division at Camp Howze.

 On the troop train, with a full load of men headed north through Dallas toward Howze, officers and NCOs from the companies of the 103d went from car-to-car with a complete list of all the men on the train and their assignments.  We all expected to be put into infantry line companies, but as each car was completely processed it became apparent 2 or 3 lucky men out of the 40 or 50 seated there were being assigned to companies of the Special Troops segment of the division.

 WALDREF and SCHIRM traveled in Jerry's car and probably managed some delay enroute'.

OUR MEN:FADER
 One day at Dale Mabry Base I was called into the orderly room and told that I qualified for ASTP and OCS and asked which I wanted.  I chose ASTP and was placed in the engineering program.

 After being shuffled through two staging colleges in Florida I was sent to Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State Univ.) in Stillwater OK where the winds blew in one direction all day long.  Started from scratch studying electrical engineering with a very large group--well, introductory physics etc--and found that I liked it.  Since all study and no play does dull, I decided to become a newspaper editor.  I convinced the editor of the college newspaper, Daily O'Collegian, that with so many GIs (and Navy V12??) on the campus, one page should be reserved for us. So I started writing articles under various pseudonyms since I couldn't interest enough of the ASTPers to become newspaper people and I even had a sports column.  Now, Oklahoma A&M had one of the nation's best college basketball teams, if not the best.  This wasn't much of an accomplishment since most colleges they played had under 18-year olds or military deferred players.  Oklahoma A&M had a 7-footer who played center.  (I can't remember his name, but he went on to become a star with the Philips 66 Oilers.)  I believe he was the first of that size in college ball.  Consequently, they won every game by tremendous margins.  At one game they played a team from a small local college with very small players and as the A&M score mounted, the A&M students kept screaming for their team to run up the score against their overmatched opponents.

 This disturbed me and so I wrote my next sports column criticizing the students regarding their sportsmanship and the humiliation piled onto those poor small college players. It had quite an effect.  Whenever we marched by in formation past A&M students--we always went from class to class in formation--I was booed.

 On top of that my "buddies" tried to ostracize me because they found that most coeds would not date them.  The sins of the...etc.

 Toward the end of the second "semester" we were informed that the ASTP program was discontinued and that we would be reassigned to an army unit.  But, we were told that we would all have 3-day passes with St. Louis being the farthest East we could go.  Since I had been in the AF/Army for almost 18 months without a furlough, I decided to go home to NY.

 The train schedules seemed to be in my favor, but I forgot there was a war on.  I did make it home for 24 hours, but on the return found that I missed my connection from St. Louis to Tulsa.  My train into St. Louis was delayed--the war, you know.  With a charge of AWOL facing me I prevailed upon the conductor to write a note stating that the train was late.

 Finally arrived at Stillwater and found the barracks area completely deserted. I went to the orderly room and there was the company clerk with one of the 2nd lieutenants waiting for me.

  When they saw me they threw papers at me, gave me train tickets and told me that I was assigned to a division signal company and to get to Camp Howze as fast as I could.

OUR MEN: BERMAN
 In 1942 I was attending C.C.N.Y. Upon learning that the entire student body of our engineering school was soon to be drafted, I opted to enlist and I chose the Signal Corps and was able to take a radio repair course as a civilian and was sent to Camp Crowder in Missouri for basic training. Upon completion, I was given the opportunity to attend ASTP at the University of Nebraska Star Unit 8 from there to Oklahoma University to study engineering.

 This was from autumn 1943 to spring 1944. At that time the entire army student body was shipped to Camp Howze and the 103d Division.

OUR MEN: EVANS
 While I was in high school, some officers from the Army and Navy came to the school and gave an exam to those who wanted to take it. It was explained to us that there were two absolutely identical programs, the Army A-12 and the Navy V-12 programs. Those scoring high enough on the exam would qualify to be sent to college to study engineering because both services needed engineers.

We were told that, if we qualified, we would be permitted to select the college that we wished to attend.   The application form had two boxes --- check one, Army or Navy. I checked Army. It was a spur of the moment decision. At the time the choices seemed equal.

 After a few months, a friend who had checked Navy started getting all sorts of packets from the Navy, with more forms to fill out and eventually received notice that he had been accepted in the Navy V-12 program. Meanwhile, I received nothing and assumed that I had not scored well enough on the exam. Then one day, I received an envelope. There was no accompanying letter but the envelope contained a small yellow card stating that I had been selected for the A-12 Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). Only one instruction was printed on the card, "Give this card to the interviewing officer when you are inducted into service."

 Upon graduation from high school, I volunteered for immediate induction.

After several days at the Induction Center, I was called into the office of a 1st Lieutenant. He had my orders on the desk in front of him and was just starting to give them to me when I remembered the yellow card. Luckily, I had remem bered to put it in my shirt pocket.

 "Are you the interviewing officer?" I asked.

 He nodded, "Yes."

 "Then I think I'm supposed to give you this."  I withdrew the card from my pocket and handed it to him.

 He took one look at it and then ripped my freshly-typed orders to shreds.  After an unprintable epithet, he growled, "Why didn't you give this to me earlier?"

 "Because, Sir, I have never seen you before in my entire life, Sir."

 "O.K., O.K., Don't be a smart ass. Get out of here and come back in exactly one hour."

 I returned in an hour and new orders had been cut. I was going to North Camp Hood, Texas for basic training along with a bunch of other  inductees headed for a unit composed of all ASTP candidates.

 Basic training on the Texas desert was literally Hell.

 During basic we caught a lot of flack about the AGCT scores we had made. An AGCT Test score of at least 110 was needed to qualify for Officer Candidate School (OCS) but a score of at least 120 was required for ASTP. We were called the "Hi I's" and must have heard at least a hundred times, "So you guys are supposed to be ten points smarter than an officer --- Well, we'll see about that."

 Our Company commander once dressed us down after a badly performed night reconnaissance exercise, and ended his tirade with, "You are the smartest damn men but the dumbest damn soldiers I have ever encountered in my entire military career."

  We were frequently brought in from the obstacle course caked with mud, seated at a desk in an oven-hot barracks, and given additional exams covering every conceivable subject.

 At one of those exams I was given a form to pick the college that I wanted to attend.

 I picked Duke University.

     What started out as a full regiment had dwindled down to less than a battalion and we began to wonder if any of us would make it to ASTP.

 After thirteen weeks, we all got our orders. I was going to ASTU 3890 the ASTP Unit at North Texas State Teachers College in Denton, Texas.

 North Texas State Teachers College? What happened to Duke?

 I should have read between the lines. They said that I would be permitted to pick the college I wanted to attend, --- but they didn't say that they would actually send me there.

 Denton was wonderful but, in the Spring of 1944, ASTP was summarily terminated and I ended up in the 103d Infantry Division Signal Company.

 Men from the Army Specilized Training Program Assigned to the 103d Signal Company.

 The completion in November 1943 of maneuvers and the transfer of the 103d Division to Camp Howze initiated the process of seriously preparing the Division and the Signal Company for active service in the war being waged in Europe.

 The planning for deployment of the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps forces to overseas assign ments for initial engagements, reinforcements, reserve status, etc. and the actual utilization of our forces had been going on for some time.

 It is probable that just a few of these high level moves, events, and strategies were not noticed or completely understood by the officers and men of the 103d Division and the many other similar units in training.

 One thing was apparent, the focus of the U.S. forces was to bring to full combat readiness as many infantry divisions as possible and to send them to England or elsewhere for the invasion.
 The realization that the 103d Infantry division was being prepared to actually be committed to combat brought an urgency to all the units of the division, including those somewhat isolated Special Troop companies.

OUR MEN: NANEY
 After Claiborne, we moved from Louisiana to Texas by motor carrier and it was good to get away from Louisiana.  But Camp Howze was a different story altogether... more discipline and more training.  But aren't you glad you had it when we got into trouble?  It served all people the same, and we had a lot of work ahead of us in the next year or two.

 Gainesville, Texas, where you could only find booze in an elevator in the hotel.  But Dallas or Ft. Worth was a different story altogether, right?  The Bounty Ballroom in Dallas was glorious, as well as helpful in many ways.  And then there was Pirate's Cave in Ft. Worth, such beauties in there, and when you were A.W.O.L. in Ft. Worth you paid dearly for it.  I know...I had four days hard labor and 30 days restriction.  Those rocks on the sidewalks didn't grow there.  Me and another guy put them there and whitewashed them.  Such fun.  They all came from around the water tower.  Then we had latrine duty with all of it.  Beautiful.  Ha Ha!

 How many can remember not saluting GENERAL WICKS out on the parade field?  Well, we got out of that with COLONEL BROWN helping and Captain BECK got restricted for trying to get us to sit down, get up, salute, sit down... great.  I wish I could remember names, but it has all slid away from me in the past few years.  I can look at the picture and can't seem to put a name with the faces.

 How many can remember guard duty on the chemical dump?  Some of us had to have that duty and, of course, the motor pool with all the radios.

OUR MEN: LOUCHART
 Beth Wheatley and I were married on July 20,1943 in the romantic town of Alexandria, Louisiana.

 The training and maneuvers at Claiborne were hard work. The general conditions of the camp were poor, the weather was hot and humid.

 I met and had lots of good buddies; ANANIA, LaFATA, NATOLI, NANEY, LEMON and many more.

 I remember the trip from Claiborne to Howze, the field problems there, the train ride to New York, the boarding of the ship, the terrible storms at sea, the landing at Marseille and going over the side of the ship on the landing nets. It was nearly 50 years ago - the details are a little hazy.

(Editor's note, 1994) Joe Louchart knew the good guys when he saw them, the first three in that group were as wild and crazy as any trio of characters who ever ended up in one company. The others he named were capable of following these three around, helping them through the important stuff, and doing their own work also!)

OUR MEN: BILL ERMELING
 Our division is what the army calls hot. We are going through an intensive training which includes advance and attack on a small village, the attack on a fortified position and long marches.  Today we had our booster shots for smallpox, tetanus & typhoid.

 My arm is as stiff as a board right now!

 I am still in HQ - however, it won't be for long.  The latest T/O calls for one 1st sergeant and one clerk. S/Sgt. HESS will be the one to stay.  He was part of the cadre and is a top notcher.  There are a lot of ratings open in the message center.  The work is pretty interesting and I have a good chance of getting back into headquarters again if the T/O is changed.

OUR MEN: GILL
 Once arrived, we said goodbye to some of our old buddies as they left to fill in as replacements for other outfits - and hello to another group of kids from the ASTP.  Then began another period of fun - initiated, I guess, by the first field problem out of Camp Howze when a guy got snake-bit and while being transported to the camp hospital the jeep flipped over.  Ah - them were the days.

OUR MEN: COLLINS
 When the 103d was alerted for overseas duty, Captain Beck - who was one sharp Captain - had been looking over my form 20 and he talked me into taking the Construction platoon back to Europe.

 I had been in the army for some time (and had some most unusual experiences in the United States and overseas, including the first days of the war in the Pacific and the early days of the war in Europe!).

 I did my 13 weeks of basic training at the Presidio of Monterey, California overlooking Cannery Row. Basic was a vacation for me since the high school military was so much stricter, and where I grew up, we "cut our teeth on the sights of a gun".

 I was sent to Ft. Monmouth for Dial Telephone Installer and Repair training. I was first in my class and had the option to choose my next training.  I chose Dial Central Office Installation and Maintenance.

 For the completion of that course, I was sent back to my unit in California and assigned to the Bell Telephone school in nearby Richmond.  I was the only G.I. in the school, all of the other students were "Ma. Bell" personnel.  As part of the training, we were assigned to go into the field for practical experience.

  During one of these field experience days, we were learning about pole-line installations, etc. when the field instructor fell out of a tree and broke his arm.  I took the guy to the hospital and then went back to my other assignment of installing telephones, I was in full military uniform.  The lady customer was suspicious of my appearance and called the police. I was taken off to jail, the cops wouldn't believe anything I said for some period of time.

 After completing this civilian course, I joined a Composite Company selected by M.O.S. (Military Operating Specialty) that was being sent to the Philippines to install permanent telephone equipment for use by the Army.

 We assembled in Pearl Harbor to get our equipment, etc.  On 6 December 1941, about 1400 hours we left Pearl Harbor on one of the commercial President Lines passenger ships. All of the passengers were civilians except 228 military men.

 Signal personnel at the time were armed with Army .45 caliber automatics - the only guns on board.

 About 2000 hours on 8 December we were notified of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Our ship was turned around and headed back toward the west coast, bypassing Pearl Harbor and sailing a zig zagging course as a defense against submarines.  We landed in San Diego five days later.

 Back on firm ground, each of us was given a strip map, put on a passenger train and told to report to the Presidio of San Francisco, in Golden Gate Park.  It took seven days to make that short trip, there were many interruptions to accept the hospitality of civilians grateful for the war effort of us "war veterans" returning from the combat zones.

 We were, after a short stay, assigned to the 54th Army Signal Operations Battalion stationed in the Rose Bowl at Pasadena, California assigned to help provide West Coast defense communications.

 My first job was to supervise a platoon of 48 men in building a pole-line from Blythe, Calif. to near Parker, Arizona across one of the world's toughest deserts.  Nothing but sand, rattlesnakes, those big black birds just waiting for you to drop, and an occasional bush.  It was 140 degrees in the shade, and no shade.

 (Editor's Note: At the end of that telephone line was an internment camp for American citizens and others of Japanese descent who had been moved away from their homes and property in Southern California.)

 When this job was completed, some of us were assigned to a project in Iceland, a place of the opposite temperature extremes.  We left from Camp Shanks, New York (which the 103d Division would pass through some time later).  In Iceland, there were two months of hot weather - about 45 degrees, with little kids running around in short pants.  And then, ten months of cold and colder.
 My task was with an Installation and Maintenance platoon installing telephone, teletype and line for remotely controlled radio equipment.  All of this was in lead covered cables buried in the lava rock.  By this time, I had over 200 enlisted men and a 2nd Lieutenant in the platoon.

 The Navy CBs (Construction Battalions) were building a large air base adjacent to Patterson field.  It had, at that time, the longest runways in the world.  Presently, it is the Islandic International Airport.  We installed a lot of lead covered cables around that field.

 This field was used by the military for stop-over and refueling during the ferrying operation of the thousands of airplanes sent to Britain during the war.

 Twenty months after arriving in Iceland, I came back to the States through the hospital with a frostbitten kidney and no hair or teeth because the lava rock had no mineral content at all.
 In April 1943 after being repaired and rehabilitated, I was assigned to the 103d Division at Camp Howze - even that looked good to me after my two adventures across the Pacific  and the Atlantic.  Since I was not trained for a division MOS, I was assigned to special duty at the Post Signal Telephone Exchange.  I then joined the Signal Company.

OUR MEN: "SMITTY"
 On the 8th of March 1944, I stepped off a train at Camp Howze, Texas.  The assignment was Company L of the 409th regiment.  I soon found out what that meant.  It was a different world.  I wondered what it would have been like had I stayed in the Air Force.

 The barracks were covered with tar paper and heated with a coal stove.  It was cold and treeless.  There was a party every Friday night... everybody attended and scrubbed the wood floor.  There was a rifle rack, and everybody had a rifle, a kind we had only heard about before... Garand.
 There were helmet liners with steel helmets to match.  The back packs looked suspiciously like something I had seen in World War I movies.

 The noncommissioned officers were mostly southerners, or so it seemed.  They didn't fraternize with the privates, and when I attained the rank of Pfc. in late April, I found that they didn't fraternize with them either.

 There was a particularly worrisome reminder of the future at Camp Howze.  It was in the form of German POWs.  I never got to see them up close... they were usually lounging about their fenced quarters, or playing soccer.

 To me, they all looked like tall, blond, muscular giants... the enemy!  I, on the other hand, stood at 5 feet 6, weighed 125 pounds (soaking wet), burdened by a 9-pound rifle, helmet, liner, ammo belt, bayonet, canteen, pack, shelter half, a couple pounds of Texas mud on my boots, and another pound in the form of dust on the rest of me... their enemy.  It would be a short war.
 Miles of road marches, infiltration courses, hand grenades, mortars, bazookas, wet runs, dry runs (many in the mud), compounded by inspections at every turn.  In April I was granted an 11-day furlough.  I made the trip home (Milwaukee at the time) and had time for reflection.  I found that in spite of my distaste for life in the rifle company, I had acquired a pride in it.  My comrades were not scholars, but they were good soldiers who had outlived Louisiana maneuvers and they were still going strong.  Besides, each Sunday morning something happened that I will always remember... each man could order his eggs done the way he wanted them!
 

 I was assigned as an assistant Browning automatic rifleman.  The BAR man I assisted was Pfc Patrick H. Robinson of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I learned later that Robinson and his assistant then, Pfc. Jacob A Tillema of Kalamazoo MI, were the first casualties of the 3rd Battalion of the 409th Regiment.  They were both killed by a German land mine in the Vosges on 9 November 1944.

 During a period of time while I was assisting the Company clerk of L Company, 409 Regiment it became apparent that the division would very soon be sent into action and I was asked if I would consider a transfer in rank (PFC) to the Division Signal Company. I requested transfer on 28 June, 1944.

 On the first day of July I was ordered to report to the orderly room of the Signal Company, where a Captain Beck said, "You're in the Signal Corp, what can you do?".

 SMITTY has noted that when he joined a line company of the 409th as a rifleman, his sense of responsibility for his own safety and the well being of his companions brought a greater interest in, and concern for the effectiveness of daily activities.

 The officers and men of the Signal Company began to experience these feelings of uneasiness and intensity.  When those soldiers who were "unprepared or unqualified" for physical or other reasons were transferred out and  bunches of ASTP boys were arriving to fill-in the very bottom positions of the Table of Organization, there could be no doubt - "Damn, this could be serious!"
 The fact is, the signal company the ASTP fellows were joining was already a Combat Ready Signal Company, we did our very best to supplement the training, experience and spirit that already existed.)

 Those assigned to the 103d Signal Company from Texas A&M, were BARCLAY, BIEBEL, ORAL BROWN, FORCHHEIMER, NOVOTNY, JOSEPH PATTERSON, ROREM, SCHIRM, and WALDREF.  Each of those men had some particular experience, history or training that indicated he just might be able to contribute some positive service after being given additional training by the highly skilled, friendly, courteous, and kind officers and NCOs of the very cosmopolitan signal company.

 At the end of the railroad line, there was row after row of 2 1/2 ton trucks to take the hundreds of men to the infantry companies. There were a few jeeps or weapons carriers bearing the identification; Engineer, Medical, Military Police, Ordnance, Signal, Quartermaster, Headquarters, Etc.

Pierce "Andy" EVANS joined the 103d Division Signal Company after basic training at Camp Hood, Texas followed by ASTP classes at North Texas State Teachers College in Denton, Texas.  John DONLAN had also been in the ASTP program at NTSTC, perhaps they were acquainted during that period.

 "Andy" had spent time learning the Morse code and the technical parts of the Amateur-Radio operator's license and was scheduled to take the test on Monday, December 8, 1941 - all testing was canceled. Pierce "Andy" Evans was assigned to a radio operating crew, his written contributions to this narrative will be included in the form:

OUR MEN: EVANS
 It was cold when we arrived at Camp Howze We were put up in tar paper shacks identical to those at Camp Hood, but unlike the searing heat of Camp Hood, these were like refrigerators.  We spent a lot of time feeding the potbelly stoves at the ends of each barracks trying to get warm.

Otherwise, life at Camp Howze was much like basic training all over again except that we got weekend passes more often and I usually headed straight for "Little D"(Denton).

 The USO was still my home away from home and I knew a lot of the college girls who came there on the weekends.  That made Camp Howze a bit more bearable.

 We endured much of the rigorous training that had typified life at Camp Hood. There was a difference, however.  Every aspect of the training seemed much more serious --- and it was.

Clearly, the 103d Division was headed for one of the theaters of war.  It had already gone through intensive training at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana and had been through lengthy maneuvers involving many other units.

 When all or most of the ASTP boys had arrived, the officers and NCOs had the task of determining the assignments for each of them to a Section of the company based on his experience and/or ability to perform or be trained to perform the duties of the open positions in the several operating units of the Signal Company.

 In some cases the placement was an obvious and fairly easy procedure by examining the practical experience or talent of the man.  Some other placements were more difficult and the man was moved about among the sections to find the proper assignment or he would be assigned to a more formal learning environment such as radio code class.

OUR MEN: BARCLAY
 A few of the ASTP boys did not seem to have any real purpose in life, or recognizable talent.  These hapless individuals were temporally tried in one technical assignment or another but were eventually assigned to the Construction section.  I was one of these marginal or "difficult to place" boys.  Some of us did learn to pull telephone wire off a reel on the back of a truck and then to lay the wire on the ground.    My only special talent was to put the wire up in the trees or on poles or buildings by using a long 'pike-pole' and my height advantage.  In a few cases most of this education was gained overseas under less than academic conditions.

 We few very lucky fellows (occupationally deprived persons) who could not learn to do the most basic operations of the lineman MOS-641 were often left on the road behind the moving truck with its well qualified team of crew chief and his talented helpers. We would wander as "carefree, wayfaring strangers", without being properly uniformed or armed for combat defense or offense.  Doing what we could to protect and install the wire, and doing our very best to protect and amuse ourselves.

 ANANIA, in spite of the fact that he could do all of the difficult things required of a competent wire team member; drive a truck, climb a pole or tree, splice a telephone line, get along with the crew chief, etc., more often than not chose to accompany me into all kinds of misadventures and mischief.  It may have been he was aware that the wiremen had by far the most casualties in the company.

 There were times he may have been motivated by wanting to protect, me, his careless companion.  Perhaps he thought that the less he, Anania, followed the trade of the traditional wireman, the safer he would be.

 But more than any other reasoning, he did it because he was and is one of the kindness, friendly fellows I have ever met.  I was just one of the many men in the company privileged to enjoy his wonderful personality and continuing friendship.

OUR MEN: "SMITTY"
 I was ordered to report to radio repair chief, T/Sgt. GRANT.  Radio repair included T/5 Hank KOLANDER (Ann Arbor), T/5 Eddie JALLOWAY (Chicago), T/5 Earl STAR (Minneapolis), Pvt. Leo CHURILLA (Detroit), Pvt. Ben NOVOTNY (Casper, Wyoming), Cpl. Orville CARVER (Nampa, Idaho) and now SCHMITZ (Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin).  My life took on a new purpose... it was radio, radio, radio.  There were lots of inspections, Army Ground Forces physical examinations, equipment was water and fungus-proofed.
 
 

OUR MEN: DONLAN
 I wasn't at Camp Claiborne, but rather joined the 103d Signal Co. (I was in the Radio Section) from ASTP at North Texas State, Denton, Texas in March 1944 at Howze.  The assimilation of ASTP "School Boys" into an infantry division was a bit tough, until the differences were worked out.  The ASTP'ers had been through 13 weeks of infantry (before college) basic, so things got better when we began Signal Company training - going on hikes, field problems, training sessions, doing KP and yard duties, and generally becoming soldiers once more after a short stint in college dorms trying to be "soldier- engineers".

OUR MEN: FADER
 Upon arrival at Howze, after a fast trip from Stillwater, Oklahoma, and presenting my papers to the 103d Signal Company first sergeant, FINKBEINER, I was told that they had no information about me and that I should temporarily stay in the cook's hut until matters were straightened out.
 So I found an empty bunk and for about two weeks lived with the cooks and got to know the Sheriff quite well and some of the "beverages" they brewed.  Ate "good", fell out for roll call and then fell in for sack time.  Then reality hit.  I was assigned to Sgt. BOITOS and a radio crew and learned how to operate a radio and all about 10-mile hikes and KP.  I was rotated among several different crews.  Hennum was not my crew chief until we were getting ready to ship out.

 What do I remember about my stay at Howze?  Bill BARCLAY stands out--the "Preacher" who read his verse almost every night and with whom I had some interesting talks.

...BERNIE BECK, our esteemed Captain, and more about him later, and that I tried to endure Army life and some of the stupidities and artificial bravado exhibited by non-coms whose names I will not mention.  And living in close proximity with so many different personalities from so many different places, I also learned quite a bit about people.

 The 1940s were not like the 1990s socially and morally.  I had a solid, orthodox upbringing.  I knew full well who I was and how I should live.  On occasion I would speak out if I thought something was improper.   This, of course, endeared me with BOITOS who,  I think blessed me with week-end KP and other unpleasantries.  One afternoon, not long after my arrival at the 103rd SC, a notice appeared on the company bulletin board stating that Jewish enlisted men would receive passes into town to attend religious services sponsored by the Jewish Welfare Board.  I was the only one who applied and I remember the astonished looks on some of my co-religionists who had not when I left the barracks in pressed suntans and walked to the bus stop.  But then those were other times.

 The daily routine at Howze is lost in fog.  (I do remember and can still see all the crew chiefs except ZACHACKI.  What a contrast between Immanuel WILK and some of the others.  I think he used a protective cloak the way I did at times.)

On good authority, it has been reported that Immanuel WILK's "protective cloak" was a large manila envelope. Early every morning, he would disappear in the general direction of Division HQ carrying that official looking envelope under his arm as though he was a man on a highly classified mission. Presumably no one dared challenge a person carrying such an OFFICIAL-looking package and Wilke was able to wander all over Camp Howze every day without ever doing a lick of real work. No one remembers ever seeing him doing calesthenics or on a 25 mile hike.

At least, that was the scuttlebutt.

OUR MEN: TOM BROWN
 I graduated from High School and enrolled in Bliss Electrical School, from which I graduated with an equivalency electrical engineering degree.  I was hired by Bell Telephone Company and placed  in the Alexandria, Virginia Central Office, a  part of the Washington, D.C. system.
 I was drafted in February 1943 and sent to Camp (Fort) Lee just south of Richmond, Virginia.  As part of the induction process I was interviewed by a T-5 to determine my military MOS.
 He had difficulty in understanding my telephone company title of "Cross Bar Dial Switchman" Refusing to admit his ignorance, he gave me an MOS of 097 which  was Telephone Company "Installer- Repairman," a person who installed telephone instruments and did minor repairs on the instruments.  This was a gross error that I could never get changed throughout my army career. I was sent to the newly formed 87th Infantry Division at Camp McCain, Mississippi and assigned to a rifle company of the 345th Infantry Regiment.

 Eight months later I transferred to the Air Corps and qualified for pilot training. In the spring of 1944, while in the Aviation Student program at Tuls University, the entire program was canceled, and I was reassigned to the 63rd Infantry Division at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi.  After two months I was reassigned to a rifle company of the 103d Division at Camp Howze, Texas.
 Once again my civilian record was reviewed, and I was transferred to the Division Signal Company.

 While still at Howze I made the division baseball team as a pitcher and outfielder.

 One of the exciting,stimulating and terrifying events of the training for combat was GLIDER TRAINING!  A group of dynamic and spirited instructors and their training equipment set up a training area in the camp and then most of the units of the division - Infantry companies, Engineers, Special Troops, etc. were assigned for the training there in 5 day sequences.

 The training equipment included a number of mock-up wall and floor modules that simulated the cargo area of a glider that were used to teach loading and lashing of equipment and other tools that created "hands on" training experience for men who at some time in the future might be called upon to participate in a glider tactical operation.

 An inspection of the men we were training with and our own personal feelings led most of us to feel that this was a worst case scenario.  We certainly hoped that the General Staff would arrange the war so that the real "Commandos" or Rangers could do all of the glider landings.

 The main focus of attention at the training sessions was real gliders that looked very much like large plywood boxes with wings.

 When we had a chance for closer inspection, we discovered that to be just what they were, "large plywood boxes with wings!" except there was a large door that opened vertically like an overhead garage- door that had been contoured to look like the nose of a turtle or an unconventional airplane that had encountered a concrete wall.

 The glider had no wheels, only skids on the underside of the body.  It didn't have an engine, only a hook on the front for towing by an airplane such as a C-47 (military version of Douglas DC-3).
 The conventional way of getting the glider aloft may have included temporary wheels and a standing start from an airstrip with the glider and the airplane coupled together by a towing rope.
 For the purposes of our training, those careful and reasonably safe procedures would not be used.

  The infantry men were shown that it might be possible to actually get the glider off the ground (if not high enough for flight) a reasonable number of times by having the C-47 fly over the glider and snatch it from the ground with a tail hook on the end of a short boom attached to the tail of the airplane.

 They demonstrated this dramatic procedure to the partial satisfaction of a small number of men in each training cycle.  When the spectators realized that an empty glider might perform better than a glider full of these very men and their equipment, the satisfaction level almost completely disappeared and was replaced by apprehension and anxiety.

 The Signal Company had just a few bivouacs and field exercises after the ASTP boys arrived, the company had been participating in many such training experiences for the men at Camp Claiborne and at Camp Howze before the ASTP boys joined the "real war effort".

 The time for training was running out and the time for putting the whole division into shape for overseas shipment was upon us.

 Because going into the field with a signal company was new and challenging for some of us, many of the experiences made lasting impressions.

 One field exercise took place in the "great outback" of Camp Howze, far away from the main operational areas of the division, that had been used as a landing area for mortar practice, artillery shells, and hand-grenade throwing, etc.

 The fields and countryside had a number of shell and grenades that had landed in the area during "firing practice".

 All of the areas of the "outback" had been used for a very long time by thousands of men in training and evidence of their activity operating on and under the grounds was plentiful.

 One of the first things ground troops do when thy stop walking and plan to stay in an area for anything more than the briefest period of time is to "dig-in!".

 The most familiar "dig" is the fox-hole, usually a pit deep enough so that a soldier can stand upright in it or to squat down for protection and cover.
 

 Another type of entrenchment was the "slit-trench", a "dig"" long and deep enough for a man to stretch out in for resting and/or sleeping.  This was the type of protection that generally was done on an overnight or several day field exercise.

 The order from the officers or non-coms was, "Get off the road, and dig in!" (Most of the orders issued during training were very dramatic.)  The new boys watched the experienced men to see just how it was to be done. We observed a wonderful potentially labor conserving scheme unfold.
 Because many men in past training exercises had already dug trenches just off the road, the job for the new arrivals looked easy.  We began to remove leafs and debris that had partially filled the existing slit trenches.

 The process would have been a complete success if several men had not almost simultaneously discovered snakes (possibly rattlers, in the shelter of the leaves and debris).

 The road quickly became filled with a long and excited extended column of men who had heard the cries of alarm, or who just intuitively, joined any rapid and unexplained movement of their comrades.

 After some counseling by officers and non-coms, we did go back "off the road", but carefully picked areas that were more clear of ground cover.  We dug fresh trenches and/or looked for better and safer places out of trenches, beyond the benevolent supervision of our leaders, and off the ground if possible.

OUR MEN: BARCLAY
 This was at a time when I was still being examined by the leaders for any possible technical talent.  Because I had made a special effort before being called to active service to obtain a FCC Radiotelephone, First Class license, there was some thought that I might be able to learn enough code to be of some value to a radio operating team.

 Before coming out on this field exercise, I had been assigned, as a temporary, potential, trainee radio operator.

   I soon realized that trying to be a radio operator in a 15-25 word per minute network, with a 3 word per minute ability, just wasn't possible.

OUR MEN: EVANS
 The 103d Division was on maneuvers in the Red River Valley during the first week in June 1944.
Our Radio truck stayed at Camp Howze and acted as the Division Headquarters radio in the Division Command Network.

 We made up messages to send to the various stations in the network simulating administrative traffic.  Then the news broke.  It was June 6, 1942  D-Day, and the guys in the field didn't know anything about it so instead of making up messages, I encoded news reports about the landings on Normandy, the number of ships, planes, troops, and news about the progress being made inland.  It was an exciting day but it brought the war suddenly right into our truck and we knew that it would not be long before we would be involved directly in it.

 The physical arrangement of the "Company Area"of the Signal Company was a long row of side-by- side tar-paper covered barracks each of which was long, narrow, ugly and bleak housing for about 40-50 men.

 Opposite the barracks row, across an open assembly area, was the latrine containing long rows of toilets, wash basins, a community shower room, and at the end, in a separated room a hot-water heater of minimal useful capacity and maximum aggravation for the poor "latrine orderlies" assigned to keep the whole drafty complex orderly and warm.

 The Headquarters Office or Orderly Room was to the left of the latrine and separated by a sufficient distance so that screams of outrage and disappointment regularly emanating from either place, were only occasionally heard in the other.

 Some of us thought this was just another example of a military organization designed to keep the commanders and the 'real soldiers' from developing common purpose.  Others thought it was just an accident of nature, like the location of Camp Howze.  It is possible that one or two members of the company, whose minds were focused on just getting through each day, didn't even think about it.

 At the far end of the assembly area was the favorite gathering place of the enlisted men of the company - the Mess Hall (Kitchen and Dining-room), a wonderful place serving pretty good food on a regular schedule.

 The officers had a separate mess for which they paid, but often several of them would be dining in the mess hall.  The reason given for this practice; officers should know how and what the enlisted men ate, it was thought that it might showed interest and concern.

 An attempt was made to put the lower-grade non-commissioned officers and the private soldiers of each operating section in each one of the barracks for what-ever organization unity and control would result.  There was a Construction Barracks, A Radio Operating Barracks, etc.

 There were two notable exceptions to this arrangement of troop housing.  The first-three-grades of non-commissioned officers, Staff Sgt.,Technical Sgt. and Master Sgt. were all housed in a separate Barracks closer to the Mess Hall.

 The reason for this arrangement was to give the primary directors - these very important men - of the company operations the opportunity to share their experience, methods, problems, etc. It was a good productive arrangement.

 The second exception to the troop housing was a building that from most outside appearances could have passed as routine and normal military personnel housing.  It was not.

 It had the best position in the Company Area, right next to the Mess Hall, as far as possible from the Orderly Room - that center of oppressive command and control of the company, and its complacent and anxious-to-please-soldiers in the barracks.

 This "home-away-from-home" was known as "The Cook Shack!"  Entering it, from the well-ordered environment of the rest of the Company Area, was an adventure into strange and wonderful deviations from any other military housing and life style.

 Part of the difference was that the majority of the men assigned there were the company cooks and their regular helpers, who needed to be in the kitchen at various and staggered hours of the day, preparing food and cleaning up after regular dining periods.

 They also had many odd hour (very early morning and late night) assignments to prepare bread and bakery items, or other longer tasks.  As a consequence the sleeping schedules of many of the men in the 'Shack' were quite different than the Reveille to Taps (actually Tattoo) bugle calls of the more nearly normal military day.

 The "Cook Shack" was occupied, noisy and disarranged at times when all of the other men in the company were more or less forbidden to be in their quarters - they were in the field or company work areas training, etc.

 During the normally quiet and dark hours of the signal company and the whole of Camp Howze, strange routines, activities and diversions were happening in the cook shack.

 The military system of command and control just hates variations and exceptions to its traditions and schedules, and as a consequence there was more than a little effort to exercise some discipline on the natives of the shack.

 The opposing consideration to increased control and direction of this motley group was the imperative need to keep the "real soldiers" of the company well fed in a comfortable and happy mess hall.

 If the cooks and their helpers, and their support group, the KPs who helped with the serving, and whose attitude and feelings depended a great deal on the staff "living" in the Cook Shack, were not reasonably content with their status as VIPs, the Mess was an actual mess and not a happy place.

Both sides in this complex controversy, were well aware of the opportunities for the men of the shack to maximize their special status, freedom and deviate life-style, with an evolving series of events and extensions.

 Into this environment were introduced a few former ASTP boys and some recent transfers of regular men who had been assigned into the Construction Section for training.  They had not been able to be assigned to the Construction barracks because it was already filled to capacity.

 Sgt. Jack CONN, Pvts. JOE PATTERSON, BARCLAY, FADER and some others were assigned bunks at the end of the barracks closest to the company assembly area, while the cooks, etc. occupied the other end of the barracks.  There was a section in the middle of the barracks that was not occupied.

 The military as well as nature abhors a vacuum, and this no-man's area only added to the unusual circumstances, especially during the normal Saturday morning inspections.

 The inspecting officers and orderly room record keepers did their very best by observation and penetrating questions to determine who was, or should be present and awake, to be responsible for the "unusual conditions".  Even the regulation soldiers, members of the Construction Section at their end of the barracks couldn't quite reach a level of acceptable appearance and military bearing in the unusual environment.  A "body" partially asleep, drunk, dead, or "heaven only knows" at the other end of the building was completely beyond understanding or justification.
 Officers and other "by the book" supervisors just are not capable of dealing with inert bodies during a formal inspection, when rigidity and respect are almost mandatory.

The end of the "not quite routine" inspection always seemed to end in confusion, disappointment and frustration by the opposing forces; and some "murmuring", and perhaps a few discouraging words by the departing inspection team.

 One of the ASTP boys was outstanding as an unusual member of the shack group. Private JOSEPH PATTERSON did not seem to be well suited to the military occupation any more than many of us.  In addition to his other negatives, he turned out to be an amateur hypnotist.
 This skill gave him immediate standing in a group noted for having and admiring unusual talent and behavior.

 His unusual ability was revealed to the company officers and men during a bizarre late night event in which one of his first subjects, a member of the cook staff "others", while under Patterson's control became wildly "crazy", very noisy and no longer in touch with the "real world" (or Patterson, who may very well been a part of it). It was very alarming to all present inside the shack, and many outside in the nearby barracks, First-three-grades, etc.

 Patterson became an individual of special interest to those in authority, resulting in many special details (work assignments), lots of direction and "consultation", etc.  It almost seemed that Patterson would never become "just another man."  That status was a goal of many privates who recognized the fact that being recognized in a military organization was not always an asset. That oppressive situation lasted for several weeks, until Patterson became an even more unusual and recognizable private soldier.

 The Commanding General of the 103d Infantry Division, "Two Star" CHARLES HAFFNER, sent his staff car one evening to the Signal Company to Pick up Pvt. Joseph Patterson, to have him join the General for dinner in his private quarters.

 The recognition that young Patterson had sought to avoid in the Signal Company was now compromised by the sad fact that he was the favorite nephew of ASSISTANT  SECRETARY OF WAR, ROBERT A  PATTERSON - who met regularly with PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT and ARMY CHIEF of STAFF, GENERAL; GEORGE C. MARSHALL.

 This "unfortunate, but true" change in his condition seemed to change the way the officers and men of the company viewed 'Just Plain Private Patterson'.  He was still a "stranger", but special details and assignments of a different, but more rewarding kind became his way of life.  Kindly assistance and encouragement were substituted for his previous "Involuntary Servitude" and derisive treatment.

 There was another Patterson in the Signal Company - HAROLD PATTERSON. He was a little older than most of the men but had a special talent for individual initiative and trouble-shooting communication wire circuits. He served with distinction in combat with MERRILL LETT on a 2 man "Trouble shooting team" in the Construction section.

 One of the very special occupants of the cook shack was BILL AMBROSE- known as just "AMBROSE", with a lot of personal regard and appreciation.  He was dedicated to being the entertainer and uplifter of morale in the mess hall and any other place he happened to be; which never seemed to include formations, inspections, or any organized or mandatory activity of the company.

 At one time, by accident and not design, he did participate in a hike to the bivouac area, but only after he had removed all heavy or bulky pieces of G.I. equipment the rest of us considered mandatory to pack, and with which we were loaded down.  He even removed the extra heavy bolt firing mechanism from his "Grease Gun" shaped machine gun - a notoriously heavy piece of equipment, leaving only the very light frame of the weapon.  His gas mask bag had its "inners" removed and cool, light, moist edibles were substituted.

 With all of these advantages, AMBROSE still had a difficult time with the exercise in spite of his light hearted spirit and desire to please.  Almost every man in the company made an effort to help him succeed.  He loved the attention.

 Ambrose could be seen and heard out and around the barracks during the after duty hours, at times dressed in costume as a sailor of a strange navy, and playing his accordion, while telling fanciful tales and jokes.

 He really was a guy who made the tedious duty more bearable, and he was given more than a little latitude by the officers and non-coms.  He was allowed and encouraged to weave his magic, and do what he did best - make all of the other guys forget for a little while that we were all far from home.

 Sunday usually was a very special and extraordinary day for Camp Howze, including and maybe especially the Signal Company.  The mid-day meal on Sunday was a very informal affair.  The men, who had been lounging around in the barracks, came out in the most unusual dress to await for the opening of the mess hall.  Perhaps the present day rules posted at all of the best Dining Salons, "NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE!" started at just this time.

 Included in the strange group of soldiers, lining up outside the mess hall on these special days, were occasionally membe