Letters Home: From a World War Ii “Black Panther” Artilleryman

Contents

Also by Philip M. Coons

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

Leaving Home

Chapter 2

Basic Training, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Chapter 3

More Training, Camp Rucker, Alabama

Chapter 4

Camp Shanks, New Jersey

Chapter 5

Going Across

Chapter 6

Camp Blandford, England

Chapter 7

Sinking of the SS Leopoldville

Chapter 8

L’Orient Sector, France

Chapter 9

Baumholder, Germany

Chapter 10

Arles, France

Chapter 11

Pass to Switzerland

Chapter 12

Back in Arles

Chapter 13

Criminal Investigation Division in Paris

Chapter 14

Homecoming

Afterword

Chapter Notes and References

About the Author

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Also by Philip M. Coons

Multiple Personality and Dissociation: A Complete Bibliography (With Carole Goettman and George B. Greaves)

In Their Own Words: Hoosier Ancestor and Family Journeys

Psychiatry in Indiana: The First 175 years (With Elizabeth Bowman)

Dedication

To my father, Harold M. Coons, the soldiers of the 66th Division, the WACs and Red Cross women who supported the soldiers, and the wives and sweethearts who kept the home fires burning; they are all a part of the Greatest Generation.

Harold Coons ready for combat in L’Orient sector, Brittany, France. Author’s photo.

What a wonderful invention is the steel helmet. It’s used to wash your face, wash clothes, shave in, wash feet in, take a bath, a necessity for sea sickness, sometimes eat out of, and now and then it is even worn on the head, strange as it may seem.

Harold Coons, April 25, 1945

Foreword

This book is an important contribution to the history of the Greatest Generation during World War II. Through the letters that Philip Coons’ father, Harold Coons, wrote to his family, extensive research, writing, and editing, the author has provided his readers with a window through which the military lives of thousands of citizen soldiers and the lives of their families on the home front can be glimpsed.

Unlike the wars of the twenty-first century, World War II played out in a world where all able-bodied adult males were drafted into U.S. military service if they did not volunteer before their number came up for the draft. It was also a time when the American population in general knew what it meant to have a relative or a friend serving in the U.S. Armed Forces and actually facing the dangers of fighting a war on foreign shores. It would have been a rare family in a neighborhood, town, or city who did not have a family member or close friend serving in uniform and facing America’s enemies on foreign battle fields or in combat zones.

Citizen soldiers marched off to war, and Americans left behind had a decided interest in what befell the soldiers and in how they were treated when they returned to civilian life. It was a time when the majority of those serving in the U.S. Congress also had served in the U.S. military and/or had a family member or friend who was subject to the draft. Perhaps more than at any other time since World War II, America and her people went to war together. As they might say in the South, Everybody had at least one dog in the fight. And it was not just those who wore the uniform who made sacrifices and paid the war bill; the American people shared the sacrifices and costs together. It was a philosophy and practice based on values and ideas that might seem foreign to the American people today, values such as fairness and obligation owed to one’s country. By 2001, it would be rare to find such dated values in the United States of America.

Philip Coons, M.D. has researched, written, and edited a book that gives the reader a window on the world and on the Americans who fought World War II, both on foreign shores, and on the home front; both in uniform, and in civilian clothes. I know Philip’s father would have been proud and appreciative of his son’s efforts and pride, and I join him in thanking both the author and the Greatest Generation for the gift each has given into our care.

Evelyn M. Monahan, Ph.D.

Preface

A Brief History of the 66th Black Panther Division

Having just returned from an inspection of our troops, I should like to take this opportunity to reassert my pride and confidence in the officers and men of the Division and its attached units. Our mission of caging up 60,000 battle-wise and toughened Jerries in their Atlantic Wall may not seem to be a spectacular or glamorous job, but neither is any tough job in war. We have an arduous mission here and you may be sure that history will record it as an important one in the defeat of Germany.

Major General, Herman F. Kramer. March 13, 1945

Commander, 66th Black Panther Division

The 66th Division¹-⁴ was activated on April 15, 1943 at Camp Blanding, Florida. Its commander, Major General Herman F. Kramer, continued with the division until August 1945, when he was relieved by Major General Walter F. Lauer. General Lauer commanded the division until its deactivation in November 1945. The 66th Division was part of the Sixth Army Group and participated in the Northern France campaign.

The division was formed and had its initial three month’s of training at Camp Blanding in northeastern Florida.⁵ The division then moved to Camp Joseph Robinson⁶ near Little Rock, Arkansas for further training. They completed their training at Camp Rucker, Alabama. In November 1944 the division arrived at Camp Shanks, New Jersey, its final stop before being shipped overseas. Part of the division sailed for England on November 15, 1944 aboard the George Washington and the George O. Squier and the rest of the division sailed on the HMS Britannic on December 1, 1944. While in England the division was billeted in small towns and barracks at Camp Blandford in the County of Dorset on the southern coast of England.

General Herman F. Kramer. Photo courtesy of National Archives.

The 66th Division consisted of the following units: 262nd, 263rd, and 264th Infantry Regiments, Headquarters Battery, 721st, 870th, 871st, and 872nd Field Artillery Battalions, 266th Engineer Combat Battalion, the 366th Medical Battalion, 66th Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment, 66th Quartermaster Company, 66th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, the 566th Signal Company, and Headquarters Special Troops, including a Headquarters Company and a Military Police Platoon.⁷

The 66th Division crossed the English Channel on Christmas Eve 1944. The majority of the infantry troops were on board the SS Leopoldville and the HMS Cheshire. Just five miles off shore from Cherbourg, the SS Leopoldville was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Fourteen officers and seven hundred forty-eight servicemen were lost.

After arriving at Cherbourg the 66th Division regrouped and headed for the L’Orient and St. Nazaire sectors in Brittany to relieve the 94th Division which had been guarding the German submarine base pockets that were left after the D-Day invasion. Estimates of the number of German forces left behind in these pockets ran from fifty to one hundred thousand.³,⁴ The 94th Division was sent to the Battle of the Bulge. While in Brittany the 66th Division carried out daily reconnaissance patrols along the one hundred and twelve mile front and conducted periodic artillery fire on the pockets of resistance. The artillery fire disabled a number of big German guns and sank numerous re-supply boats. Upon the German surrender on May 8, 1945, the 66th Division moved to the area near Koblenz, Germany for occupation duty and to guard German POW camps.

Map showing the movements of the 66th Division within the European Theater of Operation. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

In late May 1945 the 66th Division moved again, this time to the Marseille area on the southern coast of France to staff the staging areas in Marseille, Arles, and St. Victoret from which troops were being sent to the war in the Pacific. Once situated near Marseille, the 263rd staffed the St. Victoret staging area and the 262nd and 264th staffed the Arles staging area. The 870th was assigned as a MP unit, the 871st guarded the Miramas Depot, and the 872nd was stationed in Marseille. The 721st became a transportation unit. The 266th Engineer and 366th Medical battalions performed their usual duties. While in the Marseille area the 66th Division constructed a total of eight outdoor motion picture amphitheaters where the GIs were treated to numerous USO shows. Many 66th Division athletic teams played one another on newly constructed athletic fields.

With the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific a small part of the 66th Division sailed for home in late October 1945. The remainder of the men in the 66th Division who did not have enough points to return home was either sent to Delta Base in southern France or to Germany and Austria to serve as occupation forces.

Overall the 66th Division suffered the following casualties: 804 killed, 268 wounded, seven missing, and nineteen captured. There were 1098 battle casualties and 849 non-battle casualties.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost I’d like to thank my wife, Elizabeth S. Bowman, M.D., who graciously consented to edit my contributions to this book.

My first stop in researching material for this book was the United States Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Without a doubt this library has the best resources for researching the United States Army. Registrar Michael Mira was very helpful in guiding me through the library’s vast holdings.

Steve Maxham, Director of the United States Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama graciously gave me some WWII era pictures used in this book as did Donna Tabor, Airborne Historian at the Airborne Museum, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Thomas M. Culbert of the Aviation Information Research Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia spent numerous hours searching for photographs at the National Archives and the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Lloyd Knackstedt of Kansas City, Kansas kindly permitted me to use his picture of the LST [Landing Ship Tank] on which he crossed the English Channel on that fateful Christmas Eve, 1944 when the SS Leopoldville was sunk by a German U-boat. Chris Howell allowed me to publish his picture of the Arosa Klum, formerly the Ville D’Anvers.

Beth Swift, Wabash College archivist and Linda Petrie, assistant archivist, were very helpful in researching classmates of my father at Wabash College.

In researching the names of my father’s fellow soldiers in Company A of the 870th Field Artillery Battalion of the 66th Division I was saddened to find that many had died. I did find one living survivor, Richard Huber of Wellman, Iowa, with whom I had several telephone conversations about his experiences in my father’s company.

Finally, I wish to thank at least two individuals for their encouragement in the writing of this book. The first is author Evelyn Monahan who, with her coauthor Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee, wrote several books about nurses in the United States Armed Forces.¹-³ She pointed me to research at the National Archives and the United States Army Heritage and Education Center. She also graciously consented to write the Foreword to this book. Secondly, I wish to thank Lenore Angelo, second generation Panther Veterans’ Organization (PVO) member and organizer of the PVO reunions over the past decade. Her enthusiasm for this book was quite remarkable.

Introduction

Right now over here boys and girls find it too cold to play in the sand because it is still winter. The little boys wear jackets and short knee pants which are sometimes patched. You see the Germans were here for about four years and they haven’t had new clothes. Some of their daddies are still prisoners in Germany. They also wear wool knit stockings and wooden shoes. When it’s cold their knees are red and I expect they are cold because they stand around and shiver. Because of the war there is no leather to make shoes and therefore they have to wear wooden shoes.

Harold Coons, March 5, 1945

The only child of Merle Fuson Coons (1887-1940) and Clara Leona Van Cleave (1889-1967), my father, Harold M. Coons, was born on July 31, 1911 in New Market, Indiana. After graduation from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana in 1932, he received his LLB degree from Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington, Indiana in 1936. On April 9, 1938 he married my mother, Margaret Louise Richman (1913-1998) in Columbus, Indiana.

Dad briefly attempted the practice of law in Crawfordsville, Indiana, but because of the continued Great Depression, he was unable to make an adequate living by practicing law. Subsequently he began work for the Aetna Insurance Company¹ as a casualty insurance adjustor. His work necessitated much travel, primarily in the northern half of Indiana and required him to be absent from home three or four nights a week.

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the United States officially entered World War II. At that time my father was age thirty, married, and had a six-month-old infant son, Stephen, or Stevie, as my parents fondly referred to him. At first, married fathers were not drafted, but as WWII dragged on and the casualties mounted, older fathers were drafted. In order to avoid being drafted and perhaps go in as an officer, my father applied to the United States Navy but received a rejection notice in April. The reasons for his rejection were listed as being twenty-six pounds underweight and nearsighted. Although a handsome man who wore glasses, he was extremely slender. He eventually received his draft notice on December 20, 1943. Apparently the United States Army by this time was far less choosey about physical requirements.

Draft Notice of Harold Coons. Author’s photo.

Just prior to my father’s induction into the Army, my parents lived in a modest, one-story, two-bedroom home on Riverview Drive on the north side of Indianapolis. Their home was situated directly in front of the White River levee. Earlier in their marriage they had lived in a walk-up apartment on Meridian Street just south of 38th Street.

Coons’ residence, 6517 Riverview Drive, Indianapolis, Indiana. Author’s photo.

While Dad was in the Army he carried on an almost daily correspondence with my mother from February 1944 when he left Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Indiana by train until his return by ship to the United States in March 1946.² This series of letters is a family treasure trove. The entire series consists first of a set of one hundred sixty-three letters written stateside from February 9, 1944 to November 28, 1944 prior to my father’s shipping out to the European theatre. Nearly all of these letters were written from Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Camp Rucker, Alabama.

The second series of three hundred fifty-four letters extends from late November 1944 when Dad sailed aboard the HMV Britannic until February 13, 1946 as Dad was leaving England to return home. These letters cover Dad’s trip to Europe aboard the HMV Britannic, his short sojourn in England before being deployed to France, the sinking of the S.S. Leopoldville as his unit was crossing the English Channel on Christmas Eve 1944, his unit’s assignment to guard the submarine pens at St. Nazaire and L’Orient in Brittany, a brief assignment to guard a displaced persons camp near Baumholder, Germany after the war ended, reassignment to Arles, France where soldiers were shipped from the European theatre to the Pacific, and his final assignment to the Criminal Investigation Division in Paris, France.

In these letters my father described Army life during basic training, his combat assignment in Brittany, and his post-VE Day [Victory in Europe Day] assignments in southern France and Paris. He also offered a rich description of the countryside in both England plus his unforgettable eleven-day furlough to Switzerland in September 1945. Like all Army recruits he participated in much complaining about the rigors of basic training, Army chow, the incompetence of superiors, etc. In his correspondence with my mother and his mother he engaged in a lively discussion of his missed family life, what non-nuclear family members were doing, and what his co-workers at Aetna were doing.

My father’s story is both a war story and a love story. It is marked with humor, sadness, anger, and much tragedy.

In editing my father’s letters I noticed that his writing style was wordy and often redundant. In order to keep the action flowing, I have edited the wordiness and redundancies and have left out entirely some non-essential discussions of car maintenance, financial matters, sewer problems at my parents’ rented home on Riverview Drive, and the malfunctions that my mother experienced with Dad’s cameras. In order to save space, I have left out his salutations (He always began with Dearest.) and closings (Dad invariably sent much love and affection to his family.) Also in the way of editing, I have cleaned up some of my father’s spelling and grammar.

Other material that I used while editing my father’s letters include both his service records³ and a small daily diary⁴ that he kept on the sly. Both sources proved invaluable in unearthing important dates and places and censored information that he did not include in his letters home. Another source that I used was the few photographs that he took while overseas.⁵ The majority of the photographs that he took were ruined due to light leakage into his camera.

One of the things that I discovered about my father while reading his letters was his early-life ethnic and racial biases. I was surprised at this, since I had never experienced my father as biased. However, after some reflection, I came to understand Dad as having grown up in the American Midwest, and other than a few trips to Florida and Colorado and a few fishing expeditions to Michigan and Minnesota, he had never left Indiana. In his letters he expressed some rather strong prejudices against African-Americans, Jews, southerners, and easterners, primarily Italians and New Yorkers. In order to avoid offense, I have left out his more inflammatory remarks.

My father was very fond of punctuating with dashes, which he used with abandon, often in the place of commas. At other times, he utilized long sentences with many phrases and omitted both dashes and commas. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of editing his punctuation for ease of reading.

My father made liberal use of abbreviations, probably much to my mother’s chagrin, and only rarely explained to her what they meant. Accordingly I have included several pages of abbreviations in Appendix A.

Appendix B contains a chronology to enable the reader to easily follow where Dad was at a given time. Appendix C contains lists of soldiers in the units in which he served as well as a list of other soldiers who he knew from other units. Two invaluable aids in compiling Appendix C were a Directory of the forty-four thousand men in his division⁶ and a list of the men in his company.⁷

Dad was a member of Battery A, 870th Field Artillery Battalion, 66th Infantry Division. During his time with the 66th Division he performed numerous jobs as a private, private first class, and technician fifth grade. During basic training he was a guard, kitchen helper, traffic cop, and grease monkey. He was eventually assigned to fire control in the field artillery. While he was in Brittany, in addition to his duties in fire control, he was a construction worker, stone mason, and tinsmith. After VE Day he helped the quartermaster, was an MP, and functioned as a desk sergeant. As a CID [Criminal Investigation Division] agent he worked as both an outside investigator and an inside desk sergeant.

I know that my mother also wrote my father a series of letters during the war because he repeatedly referred to them in his letters and mailed them home along with numerous souvenirs. Unfortunately, these letters must have been destroyed since they were missing when I went through Dad’s possessions after his death in 1999. However, those letters written during World War II by my mother to my father’s mother, Clara Van Cleave Coons, survive.⁸ I have chosen to include portions of these letters in this volume because they describe life on the home front.

My mother’s letters are gut-wrenching in places. For example, she spoke of the capture of her friend Tilla’s husband, Stephen K. Plume, Jr., a captain with the 99th Division in Europe ⁹ Mother expressed her displeasure with the Army’s point system, which was established to determine when soldiers were to be shipped home from the front. She dryly joked that she would need to have quadruplets to give Dad enough points to return home quickly after VJ [Victory in Japan] Day. There are humorous anecdotes, including one of my family’s favorites, where my brother hopped out of his bath and ran stark naked through the Bradenton Beach neighborhood to announce the cessation of hostilities in Europe.

I have also included portions of letters that my father wrote his mother when he wrote about some things that he did not share with my mother. Also included are several darling letters that my father wrote to his son, my brother Steve.

During the war, when my father was overseas, my mother lived in Bradenton Beach, Florida during the winters as my parents had rented out their small home in Indianapolis for the duration of the war to make ends meet. During the summer of 1945 when I was born, mother lived first with her parents in Columbus, Indiana and then with my father’s mother on her farm in Montgomery County, Indiana.

Sharp readers will wonder what a hurricane had to do with my conception. It has always been a family joke that I was conceived in a tempest. Apparently I was conceived in a Bradenton hotel during Hurricane Eleven, which hit southeastern Florida on the night of October 18, 1944. This storm occurred on my father’s last leave before he shipped overseas.

In order not to confuse the reader, I need to identify a number of family members that my parents refer to in their numerous letters. At the outset of WWII our nuclear family consisted of my parents and my brother Steve who was born in 1941.

My father was an only son. His father Merle had died of a heart attack in 1940. Prior to his untimely death he had been a teacher, school principal, and Montgomery County, Indiana school superintendent. He was a member of the Indiana State House of Representatives from 1934 till his death in 1940. Dad’s mother Clara took over her husband’s seat in the House of Representatives in 1941 and served intermittently in the legislature until 1957. Both had worked selling textbooks for the Webster Publishing Company, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

My mother’s family consisted of four children. The eldest, Charles Philip, was born in 1911. Like my father, he was an attorney and had worked for Aetna. During WWII he was in the United States Air Corps and served both in the United States and Puerto Rico. After WWII he worked as a civilian briefly but then joined the Air Force and worked in intelligence until he retired as a colonel in 1967. His overseas assignments included both France and Germany. He married Mary Frank Teddy Sullinger. They had two children, Thomas Nelson, born in 1942 and John Philip, born in 1945.

My mother, born in 1913, was the second-born child. Like her other two younger sisters she was a very attractive petite woman. Her sister Frances was born in 1916 and married Bruce Johnson. Together they had two children, Judith Ellen, born in 1942, and Gregory Bruce, born in 1946. The fourth child, Elizabeth, arrived much later in 1929.

Richman sisters: Seated left to right Margaret Coons,

Elizabeth Richman, and Frances Johnson. Author’s photo.

My mother’s parents were Frank Nelson Richman and Edith Elizabeth Rogers. My father refers to his father-in-law in his letters as the Judge, since he was an Indiana Supreme Court Justice from 1940 until 1947. Interested readers can read about my family members in one of my previous books.¹⁰

Finally I would like to stress that no two stories of soldiers are alike, even when two soldiers fought alongside one another. In my research for this book I have uncovered numerous other stories of soldiers in the 66th Division, three in book format¹¹-¹³ and numerous others in survey format.¹⁴ Each and every soldier’s story is unique.

Chapter 1

Leaving Home

A troop train is an experience. The place freest of smoke was the smoking room. The Pullman was frequently like a poolroom. There were a number of Kentuckians in the outfit and their speech was picturesque and profane.

Harold Coons, February 9, 1944

In Chapter 1 my father described leaving Fort Benjamin Harrison on a troop train, the major form of transportation within the United States for soldiers during WWII. Leaving my mother and brother behind in Indianapolis and bound for Fort Bragg, North Carolina, this must have been a terribly sad and lonely experience for Dad.

Wednesday, 2/9/44

We lined up ready to ship at 2:45 p.m. and left Fort Harrison¹ at 4:00. We waited on a siding at Union Station until 6:45 when the train pulled out on the NYC [New York Central Railroad] for Cincinnati. Although we changed over to the C&O [Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad] it didn’t take long. There were a hundred in our outfit in three Pullmans. Though Tevis and I shared a lower bunk, I slept well and was getting up when we stopped at White Sulfur Springs. I recognized Charlottesville from the university buildings. At 2:00 p.m. we arrived in Richmond and sat on a siding until 6:30 when we transferred to the Atlantic Coastline and finally arrived at Fort Bragg at 3:00 a.m. in the rain. There were no sheets on the Pullmans so they were made up with blankets and I slept like a log with my pants and shoes off.

Troop Train at Fort Bragg. Photo courtesy of the 82nd Airborne Museum,

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

It was raining and cold when we arrived at Bragg. Some of the boys were lucky and had a covered truck. I caught an open job and it wasn’t over a half mile with raincoats and helmets.

We slept until 6:00 a.m. and then spent a couple hours waiting in a recreation hall with our raincoats and luggage. Finally at 1:00 p.m. we marched in the rain to chow and afterwards were assigned to barracks.

The basic is seventeen weeks but doesn’t have much walking since we usually ride. Speed marches of five miles are the rule. The battery trains with 105 mm howitzers. The last two weeks we go on a problem and are out in the open. It will be late spring so it should be warmer than it was for the boys who just finished.

If it weren’t for the rain and mud I think I would like it.

We are quarantined for two weeks so I won’t be able to telephone you until then and we will be confined to our barracks except when on duty or training.

Chapter 2

Basic Training, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Sgt. Winkosky’s favorite way of starting a sentence is, ‘Goddamnit soldier!’ and it all sounds like one word.

Harold Coons, May 21, 1944

My father took his basic training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.¹-² It was initially named Camp Bragg after Confederate General Braxton Bragg and was constructed in 1918 and situated near Fayetteville, North Carolina. During WWII infantry and armored units trained there as did the 82nd Airborne Division. Today Fort Bragg is home to the United States Army Airborne and Special Forces.

Dad arrived at Fort Bragg after a thirty-six-hour train ride from Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Indiana. He remained at Fort Bragg from mid-February to nearly the end of June 1944. Basic training began with a series of films and lectures and progressed to the field with calisthenics, running the obstacle course, training on the rifle range, grenade throwing, and training on the 105 mm howitzer. Dad endured the usual KP [Kitchen Patrol], guard duty, and barracks inspections.

Almost immediately after entering the Army Dad fell into the use of Army slang and used such words as chow, going to the can, catching shuteye, etc. which I had never heard him use at home. During his basic he also started the time-honored Army tradition of complaining about anything and everything in Army life. One thing surprised me, however; he liked C-rations [Combat Rations].

C-rations included a series of prepared military foods developed for WWII. A-rations consisted of fresh or frozen foods which were served at Army mess halls. B-rations were foods prepared and served in the field by Army cooks. C-rations were canned meals used by combat troops who were not close to field kitchens. The C-rations consisted of M-units or meat and vegetable meals and B-units consisting of hard crackers and drinks. The K-ration was a later addition for WWII airborne troops and troops on the move. These meals were also canned and included breakfast, lunch and supper. These WWII rations were eventually replaced by MREs [Meals Ready to Eat] in the early 1980s.

Early in his basic training Dad developed blisters from marching and developed cellulitis on one ankle which necessitated hospitalization. In the hospital my father discovered that he liked being off duty, enjoyed hospital food, which was better than mess hall food, and liked the attention of the nurses. The father I came to know, however, was not a goldbricker. He was a hardworking conscientious man who took his family responsibilities seriously.

Dad quickly discovered the Service Club where he enjoyed great breakfasts and steak dinners. Although the Army supplied weak beer, he missed his evening bourbon or scotch and begged my mother to bring down a bottle or two when he had his first furlough. Dad also utilized the Service Club library where he could read and write letters. Phone calls were placed from the Service Club and usually took hours to connect.

While at Fort Bragg Dad missed his sixth wedding anniversary He was confident that he would not miss his next anniversary nor would he be sent overseas. Little did he know!

Dad provided rich descriptions of Army life. His elaborate description of an obstacle course is without peer. What surprised me most was my gentle father’s love of explosions, whether they were from throwing grenades or firing a howitzer.

While Dad was at Fort Bragg, my mother had moved from their rented residence in Indianapolis so she and my three-year-old brother could live with her parents in Columbus, Indiana. The Richman family home in Columbus was situated on a hill overlooking the Flatrock River. The river was a dangerous place but the neighborhood afforded a rich opportunity for exploration and the possibility of relationships with other children. Once, apparently while my mother wasn’t looking, my brother sneaked off to the unattached Richman garage, opened up a paint can, and proceeded to paint the garage door. When queried by my mother about how Grandfather would feel, my brother exclaimed, My, my, how fine, how fine, Tee-Tee painted the garage.

Service Club Library at Fort Bragg. Photo courtesy of

the 82nd Airborne Museum, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Sunday, 2/13/44

It’s 10:00 a.m. and I’ve been up four hours and just got back from church. Since we’re still in Q [Quarantine], there is nothing to do except stay in the barracks and read or write. Those of us who wanted to go to church lined up about 8:45 and marched to the chapel. The interior of the chapel was simple and in good taste. The chaplain, a Methodist, was alright but not outstanding. A person can sleep after 6:00 a.m. if he wants to skip chow but I decided to get up and eat. Not over ten of us made chow, but everyone was up by 8:00 a.m. because they couldn’t sleep with all the men milling about.

I miss you and Steve. Fortunately we’re kept so busy that a person hasn’t time to think about home and family. Beginning tomorrow we’ll be busier and the time should go rapidly. From what the fellows that have been through the course say we will train on the 105s.

They just caught me on a detail. A Cpl. from the orderly room asked if a fellow named Johansen was here. I had a copy of our roster in my note book, flipped it open, ran down the list, and told him, no. He put me to work alphabetizing the battery roster. If I don’t watch out, I’ll end up in a clerk’s job. You can’t tell. They might send me to Headquarters. It adds to life here not knowing what’s coming next. I think I’ll be able to take care of myself.

I was called to the orderly room. There are five of us doing what I could do more efficiently alone, but I guess that if one man could do the job alone, get a detail of half a dozen. Oh well, the taxpayers are paying for it. The inefficiency gets me.

Monday, 2/14/44

Today we started the cycle. It would have been pleasant if it hadn’t rained. The company streets were almost ankle-deep with muddy clay. We marched to the chapel for a series of talks by the various chaplains. Then we saw a training film on military courtesy and had a lecture on war bonds. This afternoon we had a training film on the carbine and two lectures on the RTC [Recruit Training Command] personnel and air alerts.

Tuesday, 2/15/44

We just finished chow and cleaning up the barracks. The streets are still muddy and thirty-five men can track in enough to make it look like a pigpen, so we are constantly sweeping and mopping.

Typical barracks at Fort Bragg. Photo courtesy of the 82nd Airborne Museum,

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

This morning we visited our trucks and howitzers and learned the nomenclature. We saw a film on Army organization and another on first aid. This afternoon I received the works in shots, one for tetanus, one for typhoid, and the third for smallpox.

We are all tired this evening, so after I clean my shoes, shave, and shower, I’m going to bed.

I haven’t had any mail from you yet but expect I’ll get some tomorrow. I probably won’t get a chance to write Bob Pruyn³ until Sunday. I hope to write Mother tonight.

Wednesday, 2/16/44

Today we had drill and motion pictures of drill. Tonight we marched to the PX [Post Exchange] and I made some purchases including stationery, towel, tooth powder, soap, shaving cream, hair tonic, and Listerine.

We got ready for an air raid alarm which was scheduled for 8:00 p.m., but it never came off, so at 9:00 we undressed and showered. None of us would be surprised if they pulled the alarm after we retire.

We were interviewed today by the classification section but whether anything comes of it, I don’t know. His name is Gottfried and he’s from Indianapolis, a Staff Sgt. I told him I’d like to get into observation or intelligence and apply for OCS [Officer Candidate School]. He said that chances were slim, but he would do what he could. My best chance appears to be CID [Criminal Investigation Division]. The more I see of the Army the more I realize how fortunate Philip Richman⁴ and Roderick Keeney⁵ are.

Saturday evening, 2/19/44

Thanks for the Valentine. I wanted to send you one, but I couldn’t due to Q. I would have liked to see Stevie running around in church. From his letter it seems that he must be talking more. Please keep writing letters, even if it’s only a short note daily. It helps a lot.

I’m glad Roger Billings⁶ and Donald Fobes⁷ got JGs [Junior Grade] in the Navy.

I have a cold and went on sick call and asked for some Sulfa, but the orderly said they didn’t have enough to pass out as they were going to give it to all new arrivals. You don’t just ask for things in the Army. When you do, they give you a glassy stare and say, Move on, soldier. Remember, I’m just a number, and fellows beginning their basic are the lowest known form of human being.

Thursday night they gave us a five-mile fast march in muddy clay. It was raining and rather chilly, but by the time I got back, we were all sweating.

You want to know about a typical day. Lights go on at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. and we have fifteen to twenty minutes to dress, wash, and make beds. Then we have chow. Afterwards we return to the barracks, sweep and mop, and shine shoes. Then we have reveille for fifteen minutes. At 7:45 we march to the drill field for calisthenics. Then we have a training film or lecture, an hour of drill, another lecture, and then chow. The afternoon consists of four hours of lectures, training films, and drill. Chow is at 5:30 p.m., and just before that, we fall in for retreat. Later we are supposed to be on our own time, but there may be special duties and there is always the barracks to police, laundry to do, and shoes to shin. It takes a lot of time and work to keep ourselves, clothes, and barracks clean.

Thursday afternoon we saw the premier of See Here, Private Hargrove. Many background scenes were taken here. The gun or howitzer used in the movie is the type we train upon. The crawling under the barbed wire with live fire over the men and the swamp scene where the men jump over logs with dynamite thrown into the water is all authentic.

Sunday night, 2/20/44

I just finished shaving in cold water and taking a cold shower. I am lying on my cot in my shorts, smoking, and sharing the top of a shoe-shine can as an ash tray with my next door neighbor, an eighteen-year-old boy from Allentown, Pa.

Rumor has it that we will be out of Q Tuesday. Our overseas caps will have red binding and we should get our insignia too.

I was on KP from 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. I washed the grease and food scraps from all dishes before they went into another tub of soapy water. I used to think washing at your mother’s sink for a family dinner was hard on the back, but not after doing it for three meals for two hundred fifty men. I also helped set twenty-two tables and mop the floors.

Monday night, 2/21/44

I certainly appreciate this damned government, taking a man away from his family and job, working his fanny off and after all the deductions, giving him about fifteen dollars a month, and then to top it all off telling him for how much he can rent his home.

The weekend of April 9 sounds nice. I certainly would like to see you and Stevie. The devil of it is you can never tell when you might be on detail. If you get gigged, you don’t get a pass, but I don’t intend to get gigged.

I may get a picture taken at the PX of my present appearance. Promise me though, that you won’t divorce me when you see it. I don’t look like the guy you married.

Today we had more calisthenics, dismounted drill, lectures, training films, etc. Tomorrow we go out to the obstacle course for a preliminary look and out to the rifle range, but not to fire, just aiming, etc.

This morning they tore up the beds, mine included. I don’t think they picked the bad ones because some good beds were torn up and some poor ones left alone. Then we had to GI the barracks and clean the windows. With all the money the government spends I can’t understand why they can’t furnish us with soap and cloth and mop ringers to keep things clean. I cleaned windows with a spare shoe-shine cloth and did my laundry in a bucket.

Wednesday night, 2/23/44

I wrote Bruce Johnson⁸ about the OPA [Other Procurement Army] and the obstacle course we went over yesterday and today. It’s tough.

Today I had a letter from Phil Richman. He didn’t have any information on the CIC [Counter Intelligence Corps] but mentioned AAFCIC [American Air Force Communications and Information Center]. I hope he is able to do something because at this late date the chances for OCS are slim in the FA [Field Artillery].

There is a rumor of a night hike tomorrow. I am stiff and sore from running the obstacle course. My appetite is tremendous. I feel good but tired, but so does everyone else.

We have finished our first aid classes and are having two-hour classes on the howitzers about a mile and a half from the barracks. Part of the way is done on the double, a dog trot, and since today was a warm spring day, we were sweating when we returned at 3:00 p.m. We have an hour to two hours of drill every day besides marching in formation wherever we go. My leg muscles are getting as tough as hell.

Last night we got additional clothing, two fatigue jackets, fatigue trousers, leggings, leather work gloves, and insignia.

Lights are out and I am finishing the letter in the latrine. Now I’ll take a shower and hit the bed.

Sunday, 2/27/44

It’s about 1:30 p.m. and I’ve been waiting for the call in the Service Club since noon. They said it would probably be a four or five-hour wait. I had lunch here and it was better than the chow line.

Yesterday we got out of Q and I got a pass and went to town. I had collected money for white towels from the boys to be used for inspections. I had to stand in line at the orderly room for an hour for the pass and then waited another hour for a bus, but they were all full, so I ended up riding with twenty others in the backend of a beer truck and sitting on empty cases of beer. Fayetteville hasn’t much to offer, a Service Club, beer parlors, hamburger joints, shows, and Army stores. We went to twenty stores before we found enough towels and bought out two.

The Prince Charles Hotel is nice and reservations run three weeks in advance. Before we decide, you better find out about rail reservations and connections, time of arrival, etc. I have to find out if I would be on guard duty that weekend. Transportation and the limited time I could be with you seem to make it hardly worthwhile for you to come. I want to see you, but I know something of the difficulties involved. If you could drive, it would be much simpler, but I don’t suppose you could get the gas. It is hell here without a car and public transportation is awful. I rode back on a bus last night packed so tight I couldn’t move.

There is a rumor that our cycle may be reduced to fourteen or fifteen weeks. We are working an extra hour from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. every other day and we had the obstacle course and a seven-mile march this week. There is also a rumor that the RTC is to be turned into a hospital outfit like Camp Atterbury.⁹

I got three or four blisters on the Thursday night march. I went over the obstacle course three times last week and still survived. It gets easier every time. Maybe you’d like to know what one is like. You start off making a running broad jump over a four or five-foot wide trench, next hop and jump through a maze, scale a twenty or twenty-five-foot platform using cargo nets, roll across the top platform and start swinging down the other side, duck walk through another maze (It has logs on top to keep your head down.), walk with your hands on horizontal bars up and down for about twenty-five feet, then under or over a log fence, run up a four-foot ramp and jump down and across another four or five-foot ditch, run and jump and grab a rope and swing across a twelve-foot trench, climb up horizontal bars to a height of about fifteen feet and jump off, take the bicycle ramp (an inclined wood platform), and finish by crawling through a concrete culvert and somersaulting out the end of it. That, my dear, is the finish, both of the course and yours truly. Some fiend invented the damn thing and I bet he never took it.

Monday, 2/28/44

I was surprised to learn from your letter that Stevie can undress himself. I’d like to see him squirming out of his shirts. I hope he doesn’t become so interested in the wa-wa at the river that he goes down by himself to see it.

The weather has been quite changeable and half the men have colds.