Parades,Visitors, End of Basic Training

Usually after having a hard and full day’s work and training, we’d get back to the company just in time to hear the charge of quarters come and tell us that we were having a BN or regimental retreat parade, and be ready to fall out in 20 minutes. In that time, we’d have to shave, clean our rifle, take a shower, shine our shoes, and put on a clean pair of pants, and pressed ones at that, this was the infantry. We’d fall out on the Company street and usually wait. They’d pick out the 6 ft fellas and put them up in front of the column, that took quite a while to do this. After the CO was organized we’d go pick the rest of the companies up, and that was the same thing over again, finally we’d get down past the parade grounds and we’d stand there until we’d looked like a dish rag, clean clothes didn’t look clean anymore. It was retreat time and the rat race was on. By that time this Mississippi sun was beating down on us. You could look around almost anywhere and see fellas just fall down on a heap. Pass out from heat. Finally it was over with, and were we glad BOY. We’d get back to the tent, rest up a bit, grab chow, sometimes we didn’t wait for it as it sometimes wasn’t worth waiting for. We’d head for the PX and that beer would taste mighty good to us. They’d call us out to the Company street and always make some kind of a comment on the parade, sometimes it was OK other times we did rotten, so said the battalion commander. So then we’d practice again the next night for the same thing. By that time our morale wasn’t any too good. What could we do about it? The weekends were always welcome at camp. Albert Duhn, a kid from EMMETSBURG, IA, would usually go over to the park just across from the service club and spend the afternoons on Sundays, writing letters, and taking in a good show in the evening. By this time we had a few bad actors in the outfit. One fellow named Garvey was acting nuttier than hell, guess maybe the heat was getting him. He managed to give the boys in his tent the run for their money one day. He took after them with a straight edge razor. Well the boys took off on the double, and kept on going until they were way out of his sight. Couldn’t blame them anyway. Garvey was watched pretty closely the following days. He did go to FT ORD, CALIF with us, but that was the last we heard of him. We had one alert while we were at Shelby, and that came while “GONE WITH THE BREEZE” was showing at the post theater. Pretty nearly all of the guys took off to see the show, only to be rudely interrupted by this alert that was pulled, everybody was chased out. That night we stood by. We thought this was it, that we were going to be on the way now, but it wasn’t. We had to pack all of our stuff and be ready to pull out, packing all of our clothes, equipment and be ready to fall out in the Company street with our combat equipment on our backs, also including our gas mask, steel helmet, rifle, side arms, and pack. This alert lasted about an hour, and the next day we were told that our company pulled the alert faster than the rest of the companies in the battalion. We felt as though our morale had gone up quite a little. Our efforts hadn’t been in vain at that. Then a few weeks before we left SHELBY I received a telegram one day, that BILL and JO were paying me a weekend visit. Boy wasn’t that going to be a good weekend for me. Well then I had to get busy and find a place for them to stay. I got my pass, and then started looking. I had them stay at the service club, a good place for visitors to get a bed, And they were pretty well satisfied with it. They came to have a good time, so I showed them the best I could, especially in an army camp. In the mean time we had plenty of good eats at the club, where we took all of our meals, including some good Dixie watermelon, that was delicious. We spent one night at HATTIESBURG, what a town. We took in a show one Saturday night to a wild west thriller, then going in for a bit more to eat, and hitting the hay and calling it a day. Here my company saw a retreat parade for the first time in our lives, and on Sunday we went to the show at the post theater. Bill got quite a bang out of those G.I.’s ramming around there. He thought that song we had there at that time was quite a deal and the name of it was “We’ll slap that dirty little Jap.” By the way we did. We had fun that night. We saw the best movie on the post and all for the grand sum of 20 cents too, that’s all it ever did cost us. Bill met Hill, Pop Rholf, and quite a few of the boys in the outfit. Of course Pop Rholf had to show Bill the manual of arms. POP thought he was hot shit, maybe he was. Bill and Jo left for home Monday morning. guess they had quite an experience that weekend way down south way. They stopped off in Chicago and took in a few sights in the windy city. We weren’t in Shelby very long after that, in fact we were on an alert then. Our basic training was almost concluded and we were getting ready for a long train ride to the west coast.

Sore Feet and Foxholes

The next day we had off long enough to take care of our feet, soak them and let the rest of the guys go to the hospital who needed to go and there were a plenty of them. In the meantime, the rest of the guys in the tent slept so Albert Duhn and myself took another hike and that was a three miler up to the main P X, post office, grocery store, and cafeteria. We stopped at nearly every PX on the way up there and got ourselves revived by sipping a few drops of beer, then we proceeded on, we finally made it. Both of us did spend an enjoyable afternoon, but we took a bus back though. Anyway we didn’t get as sore and stiff as the follows did back in the tent, who lay around all day. When we got back they wondered where we had been, we told them, they thought we were plain nuts. Ain't you fellas got enough dam walking yet, next time they’ll take us out on a 25 miler. Poor LES HILL’s feet did hurt him so. That evening we wrote a few letters, saw a good movie, brought back some ice cream, had a lunch, and then we hit the sack, called it a day. It was mighty sweet of them to give us a day off; we wondered if they could afford to do that. We later found out they could, for the next day we were out in the training area digging fox holes in the prone position. What a job that was. We were always wondering just why we were carrying that shovel on our backs for, but we found out that day too, it wasn’t used to cover up military secrets with. For days we dug trenches, different types of fox holes, and there are plenty different ones, also machine gun placements. Camouflage was an important idea so they told us to use branches, twigs and grass to do the trick. Another fellow and myself dug a fox hole at the training area one morning. so completely did we camouflage it that one of the officers in charge of training couldn’t find it, in fact he almost fell into it then we had to show him where it was.. Well both of us got a very nice complement for it. Next day we dug some more, by that time we thought we were a bunch of gophers, we dug gun emplacements then there were 4 or 5 men assigned to a hole, and it was our job to go ahead and build an emplacement to their satisfaction. That day the whole battalion was out there doing the same thing. We also had to dig intercommunication trenches leading to the said gun position. Digging wasn’t too bad that day, as this Mississippi dirt is rather sandy, but it was difficult for us to keep them from caving in. Along about this time we were being instructed on guard duty. We rehearsed that a couple of days then finally Company D’s turn came for pulling area guard. I hit it pretty lucky, didn’t have to pull any of that at all, until part of our company pulled out for a 5 day problem, then so many men out of each Company were picked and detailed to pull a warehouse guard for a solid week, while the rest of the outfit was gone, we hit it pretty lucky as it rained almost every day, and it really was a mess out in the field, most of the guys almost washed out there. However, we fellows didn’t have a snap exactly either. We were on guard 6 hours and off 12. It was always nice and quiet back there in the company, no one to bothered us, and no one to blow a whistle, or hollering at you. I’d really enjoyed that peace around my shack, and I could sleep, write letter, go to the service club or up to the PX anytime I wasn’t on guard. It was heaven for us. Another fellow and I had the two laundries to guard, he had one half and I had the other. It was a good go, with the exception of those grave yard shifts from 12 at night until 6 in the morning... These hours did drag pretty heavy. At the post there we had access to a coke machine as long we had plenty of nickels and the Officer of the Day didn’t catch us, we didn’t go thirsty anyway because it gave us that extra lift. One Saturday afternoon we were through with guard, and I never did catch any kind of guard while we were at Camp Shelby. By that time I had a few blisters on my dogs, carrying that old M1 around fully loaded. We had a fine chance to get a good look at those southern gals who worked at the laundry there, 50 % were black babes the other 50% were white at least they looked that way, maybe their darn souls weren’t, never asked them.

Hikes, Bayonets, Drill

We had been going on short hikes prior to all this, however, I mustn’t forget to say something of the first hike we took, it would of liked to have killed most of us. We were still pretty soft as far as a thing of this nature was deeply concerned. We’d throw on our packs because we never went anywhere without them, and that went for steel helmets, cartridge belt and the rifle of course. That rifle was a must, especially in the army, an infantry outfit. When our outfit was fist organized at Shelby, there were around two hundred men in the outfit, it made 14 men to a squad, but after a short time it our reduced to 7 men, the rest of the guys were transferred to other outfits, making a number of about 180 to the company. Talk about hating to see the mornings come, well we did. as they were rolling the ball, they were really throwing things at us right and left. We were trying to absorb the darn stuff, we did. Guess they thought we liked to go to a lot of movies, we saw them every day, Inf., medical bulletins, etc. After we had reveille we hit the chow line, that was around seven o’clock, not giving us much time before falling out again at eight. We’d fall out in front of the First Sergeant's tent then he’d turn the company over to the platoon leader, and then we’d do a snappy right face, column right then column left. That would take us down to the drill field where we were to begin the day’s work. First we did physical exercise, ½ hour of it, then about an hour of close order drill until we were all hot as an alligator, but they didn’t leave it go at that. If they thought that we did a pretty good job of it we’d get a ten minute break, and that was always welcome. That would give a guy a chance to get his breath, tie his shoes, tuck in his shirt and pull up his pants. Then you were ready for another 45 min of bayonet drill and this was the torture that makes this old blood boil in a hurry. Were they going to kill us right there so we didn’t have to fight? During bayonet drill we had all kinds of positions to go through, until we felt like falling down in the prone position for keeps. It our READY, GUARD, SHORT THRUST and hold, LONG THRUST and HOLD, HORIZONTAL BUTT STROKE, VERTICAL BUTT STROKE and this continues forever you think. After that’s finished and you’re soaking wet clear through, we’re going to have an hour’s close order drill. Then it’s ATTENTION, right face, column right, forward march, we get to moving’ right along at a snappy cadence. A non-com SHOUTS to the rear march, it’s S.N.A.F.U. the order has been executed, but some guys just keep going in the wrong direction. The detail gets halted; somebody’s beastly mad about something. What can it be? That’s the drill sergeant’s voice you hear, is he ever mad. He just can’t understand why people can’t understand the English language anymore, anticipating commands while we are all scattered all over the drill field by that time. We try it again, the same old thing happens, by that time somebody gets on someone else’s shit list, from those second Louies on down. We keep on drilling, just on account of someone not being able to get this stuff through his thick skull, too bad these people don’t know their right from their left. Finally finishing drill we’re marched in platoon formation to an area where we all squat on the ground like a gang of ruptured Indians and listen to a long winded officer give us a lecture on combat tactics, and above all let’s not forget military courtesy, we’ve heard that more than anything else. That seems to be the big issue here. By the time they figured we had enough of that they’d take us in the theater for films and more films. It was nothing but a large tent where we saw all of our shows; it held around a battalion of men. And we’d have some more close order drill. Our training was becoming more advanced right along, so then we started out on those 10, 12, and 15 mile hikes around camp and back. Everybody had to make that 15 miler including the drivers, and did they ever do some moaning that day. Well believe it or not they went along with us. On that particular trip we started out at 8 o’clock in the evening and got back the next morning. at about the same time, most of us were dead droopy with fatigue, our feet hurt, our backs ached, we were disgusted, and you can say that again. As we were coming up the last leg of our hike, on up the pavement, we all at once heard a noise; some smart guy got a smart idea, and had band out there on the company street playing like hell. What were they playing? Well it sounded like HAIL, HAIL, and THE GANGS ALL HERE. By that time we were to d—tired to care. This was the last straw we thought. Here they were trying to cure our tired dogs with music and serenading us. Anyway the infantry walks.

Weapons Training

The next few days we were real busy people, having our equipment issued out to us, that included our rifles, which were GARANDS semi-automatic, packs, web belt, steel helmets, a few extra clothes, we were then all fixed up as far as an infantry soldier was concerned, without the necessary training of course, and that had already started, we were going to get hikes galore. About the first thing we had to do was tear that rifle down clean it, put it back together, and we did that about 50 times a day until they had it figured we had it pretty well mastered. CPL. Andrews our squad leader had the patient privilege of showing us guys how. Well he had us field strip those rifles the first time, then he turned around and had us detail strip them. What a mess that was in that tent of ours. He had us down on the floor with them and you should of seen the parts we had scattered all over the squad room floor. It didn't look much like a floor after we had about two pounds of cosmoline smeared on it. We almost had to use a tooth brush to get it loose. My there were a lot of parts to a gun of this nature we thought, but we hadn't even begun to touch upon what we were going to learn about all sorts of weapons in the infantry, and they weren't woofing any either. They gave us just a couple of days to learn that weapon. The nomenclature of all the parts had to be learned, how it operated, and just what made it tick. There were driving rods, followers, bullet guide, lands and grooves in the barrel, stacking swivels, upper and lower hand guards, cartridge ejector, front and rear sight, chamber, bolt, and heel, muzzle velocity, size of cartridge. Then came operation of said weapon, also stoppages. By this time we had all this stuff mastered we thought. We were then put on the rifle range for two days, did we ever get some headaches while on it. The Shelby range was out of camp seven miles, they took us out in trucks, and came back every night, but we put in some mighty long days and even nights. Each group of men fired in relays so many to a relay, and we had to coach each other on the target. We had to note carefully trigger squeeze, watch if the guy flinched when he fired his rifle, see to it that he always had his gun pointed down range when not firing, as this could cause a hell of a lot of trouble. If you wanted the company commander to jump your ass, all you had to do was point it in a different direction. After we had been out on the range with the rifle, the next time we took the machine guns out there, that was four hectic days of shooting. We took our tents out there with us including the kitchen unit. We ate our meals right out there on the field. We had eight machine guns a going’ at one time, you never heard such a darn racket in your life, talking about headaches the next few days, we had them The range looked pretty leafy and grassy before we started firing, but when we were through, it looked pretty darn bare, we had everything mowed down to a crisp. We started on the 1000 inch range first, then to the 300 yard. Our individual targets had to be pasted, put up, and these in turn were checked by our company commander himself. If he thought you weren't shooting good enough you’d dam soon hear about it, in fact you were dealing with him personally. A fellow had to have a pretty good excuse of not hitting that target at 300 yards. We had quite a few dry runs on this stuff before we began firing these weapons, dry runs and more dry runs. We came back from the ordeal in good style but very tired, but not too tired to hit the PX for a few rounds of beer, and ice cream that we devoured with gusto. Next day we spent cleaning and oiling the machine guns, they were in pretty bad shape, all gummed up with carbon. We washed those barrels with strong soap water, polished them until you could see yourself in them Those weapons had to be cleaned for three consecutive days, and they were also cleaned if they were not fired. Our squad was always on the ball as far as these details was concerned.

Arrive at Camp Shelby

By Sunday morning we were getting close to our destination, which by that time we knew it was going to be our home CAMP SHELBY, MISS., supposed to be one of the worst camps in the states, boy it was too. Our morale dropped to a new low. After we got it all cleaned up it wasn’t too bad a place, but there are a lot better ones. But still a hot hole as far as weather was concerned. We arrived at noon, got off the train at camp, we had to carry our bags about a ½ a mile, then we were loaded on trucks and taken up to the area where we were going to stay, in some of the damndest tents that could be set up for people to try and stay dry in and also keep clean, what a mess that turned out to be. Calling our names off we split into six men groups, and these were the guys you were going to live with for the period of your basic training, which was going to be twelve weeks. In this God forsaken hole they call MISSISSIPPI. We had really been taken for a ride south and it wasn’t any more. When we arrived at our company area, the first thing we had something to eat, which wasn’t very darn much, in fact all we had was a half cup of black coffee, one piece of dry bread, and one soft boiled egg, about the same menu you'd find at Alcatraz, because we were now already fenced in. Orders were being handed out right and left, scrub the tents, get your beds set up, grab yourself a mattress, go to the dayroom the supply SGT was handing out your G.I. blankets, mattress covers, along that time the whistles were blowing like mad, here it was already late Sunday afternoon and they were now starting to organize the company. Weren’t we busy people, you aren’t just a bird tirdin any. The six of us moved into that tent that day got everything in line, were we ever tired bunch of guys. Cpl. Lee Andrews was in charge of our shack, along with him were PVT. GARMOE, PVT. JOHN CURRIE, PVT. LESTER HILL, PVT. ALBERT DUHN, PVT. POP ROGERS, and yours truly PVT. JOHN SCHAEFER, I nearly forgot PVT. ZEEK RHOLF or POP as we called him. Later, after getting all settled in our living quarters that afternoon we sat there trying to figure each other out looking at one another. Along came Texan named HOPPY. He informed us that if we liked beer we could bring it in the tent and drink it, providing of course that we would police the bottles up and take ‘them and pile ‘them in back of the latrine, also bust then up and we did. So the next morning. It was to somebody’s disliking that this was no place to throw broken beer bottles. We policed then dam bottles up slick and clean. An order came through, no beer in the tents anymore. That fixed things for a while, until we were more acquainted with the First SARGENT. We got acquainted with him in a hurry, he was a big guy and could lick any one two times his big.

Drafted

It was the 19th day of May 1942 I made my appearance at Cedar Falls, Iowa, so to be able to proceed under my own power, if I had any by that time, to Des Moines, Iowa, where we were going to be officially sworn into the conflict and also where we were going to meet some pretty tough gentlemen, we thought and weren't too far from being wrong, those corporals and privates first class. We had breakfast at the Black Hawk coffee shop. Who in the hell cared for coffee then, could be to sober us up on. Prior to this we had to march from the armory to the above mentioned JAVA joint down the middle of the street, what were we then, just a gang of civilians who didn't know shit from shinola, trying to walk behind one another, not even trying to keep in step with a band that was doing it's dam best to make noise, what was noise? Well we were also going to find that out too. Weak and staggering we arrived at our tables to sip a few licks of java, eat a couple rolls then to be merrily on our way, it was merrily for some of the boys too, as they were beastly ill from an overdose of inebriation. But we weren't in the army yet; yet we didn't know how damn close it was for most of us including myself. As the bus plunged on in the early morning hours, it came to a halt in front of a building called a barracks, that’s where we got our first glimpse of FT. DES MOINES, IA.

At Fort Des Moines we naturally got off the bus, us civilians who were going to learn things in a hurry, no fooling. Just then a certain corporal and sergeant took us over; they were men in our estimation, men of authority on affairs of this nature, the job making a dog-face out of a civilian. I must say they started to do a good job of it right there, the 4 days we spent there.

We were called into a room, where first they asked if we were Catholics or Protestants, we told them, a guy then put that on a piece of paper, our records began to take shape right there, we thinking perhaps and wondering if there were any Christians in the gang. All these things were a fore runner of events to come and they did......

Prior to approaching this building, a non-com came out and asked us if we smoked, or if we didn't, I might just as well confess that right there, and then we had our first policing up to do, we weren't going to get any free cigarettes at all, just helping to keep the side walk spick and span. Our barracks assignment came next and we were shown our bunks, the diligence of a corporal, he showed us how to make those beds up then tore them up again, now you fellows go ahead and make them we did, what a job we thought it was, but we were to make many, many more like it. I mustn’t forget the physical examination we had, that was also an experience none of us will forget either. We were told to strip and it wasn't going to be any tease about it, tossing our civvies in our suit cases, which we brought along for the occasion.

To see such a gang of guys in the nude, you'd thought we were all going (NATIVE). Our Medical examination didn't take very long, they looked at this and they looked at that, we jumped 15 times on one leg and the 15 times on the other, until we almost had a Charlie horse, bending this way and that way, hope they got a good look,(AT OUR CHEEKS). And they're not on your face. Hearing was tested, eye sight was checked, but I say again, all a good soldier has to be is able to crawl, if he can do that he's a damn good physical specimen, and he's all set.

Now came the juggling act of these notorious medics, who wielded that needle in the most reckless fashion, we stripped again, can't see why we had to yank our pants off just to take a couple shots in the arm, but it's the army. Fellow it's the army; we were slowly beginning to find that out. It was a double needle jamming affair, one guy grabbed one of your arms the other guy grabbed your other arm, (WOW). No it didn't hurt. You couldn't even get away or even fall down. BUT WHO WANTED TO FALL DOWN.