Don R. Marsh: Introduction
On
September 4, 1942 I had turned twenty years of age. Although it would be at
least one year or more before I would be eligible to receive a Selective
Service Board draft notice, in keeping with family tradition, as my father and
his father had done before me, I made the decision to volunteer to enlist in
the U.S. Army. This would allow sufficient time for me to sell my car and wrap
up my personal affairs with the tentative enlistment date of December 1st
in mind. At the time I was employed by the J.I. Case Company,
Our
daily local newspaper kept the city aware of who had entered the Aviation
Cadets or the Aerial Gunnery schools and were undergoing training with their
photos of the candidates in brown leather flight jackets accented with a white
parachute scarves, wearing leather flying helmets, with goggles attached on
top. No doubt this patriotic publicity attracted many applicants, myself
included. After a few visits to the Army Recruiting Office in the
The
remaining days and nights slipped away rapidly and soon the end of November
had arrived. Being single and unattached spared me the need of asking anyone
special to “wait for me.” Came the morning of December 1st, my
mother called me early at the crack of dawn and had a hot breakfast waiting
for me before we said goodbye. I walked up old
My civilian life, while expected to be placed on temporary hold, was on the verge of ending for a long period of time – much longer than I had ever imagined. It wasn’t until thirty-two years later on November 1, 1974, that I received my final discharge from military service to the country. From this day forward of my enlistment all decisions, both minor and major, would be made for me by others, whether I agreed or disagreed, as the military is not a democracy. This latter point would be hammered home to me on all too many occasions in the decades to come as I later pondered each new set of superiors, duty assignments, circumstances and situations. Admittedly, a difficult challenge for one who had been a “free-thinker” and not used to the strict regimentation of military life dealing with mundane routines and repetitive asinine instructions, and often rendered in a threatening manner by my superiors. Along with the ever present silent command of,”Comply or else!” But, I suspected all this when I volunteered and raised my hand in taking the Oath of Enlistment accepting orders from all those commissioned and non-commissioned appointed over me.
Due to
the large number of volunteers on this first day of December, I was held over
with many others until the next day when the oath was then administered and I
was given the serial number AUS 16155906. I was now a number among the million
others and no longer an individual person. We were quartered overnight in a
downtown hotel where my roommate was Thomas Gillet from
Our
first stop was to the
No one was permitted to
leave the latter room until you “volunteered” to sign for the GI insurance
policy and Government savings bond drive as the Post Commander prided himself
with 100% participation. Next came the batteries of IQ tests known as the AFQT
(Armed Forces Quotient Test) to determine your mental category ranging from I
through IV. Category I being collegiate and Category IV border line
illiterate. I scored in the upper Category II and was assigned to the Signal
Corps much to my chagrin and disappointment of not being assigned to the Air
Corps. There went my dreams of flying off into the wild blue yonder -- my
wings were clipped! I was being transferred to a
I was assigned to Company B, 28th Signal Training Battalion under the command of Captain George A. Patterson. Our Platoon Commander was 2nd Lt. John Richard Webb, who would become a post war movie actor with his own TV program called “Captain Midnight.” Close friends in my platoon were Tom Gillet (Wisconsin), Joe Cowgill (Indiana), George Deeley (Wisconsin), and Bernie Tatcher, a tough street smart Jew from Philadelphia. Thirty-five days later on 7 January 1943, my name appeared on Special Orders #6, Transfer # 2658, Paragraph 38 and promoted to Tech 5th Grade Temp By order of Major General Prosser: Signed by Lt. Col. F. Butler, Field Artillery, Adjutant.
After the initial phase of Basic Training was completed, I was assigned to Company A, 33rd Signal Corps Training Battalion on the other side of the Post. While undergoing additional military indoctrination of viewing training films and attending lectures, we would be attending night classes at the same time on a monthly rotation basis. The dual schedule consisted of Monday through Friday, while Saturday mornings were reserved for the standard barracks inspections. Our days began with Reveille at 0600 hours followed by four hours during the a.m. of training followed by six hours of schooling until 2000 hours (8 p.m.) for a long grueling 14 hour day. Fighting sleep in class was a challenge as the instructors droned on and on in monotone explanations and instructions of amperage, electrons, ohms, volts, resistors, circuits, tubes, VHF receivers and transmitters, wave lengths, wattage, current -- positives and negatives, continuity, conduction and a myriad of electronic technical terms studied and read from an Army Signal Corps manual. The military instructors stood at their desks and blackboards with a yard long wooden ½” dowel rod with an empty brass .45 caliber shell casing attached to the end. The moment the NCO instructor saw a dozing student’s head bobbing and chin resting on his chest he would walk up silently and tap the sleeping soldier on the head with the brass end of the pointer. All of us suffered the rap of the .45 shell casing more than once during the night classes. The seeds of resentment had their beginning in this style class instruction.
One day in late spring, an announcement on the Company Bulletin Board said the Air Corps had adopted a new policy and was accepting applications from qualified candidates with a minimum of a high school diploma for pilot training. I obtained the necessary forms, wrote to my former high school for the required verification copies of my scholastic records, obtained three letters of recommendation (including one from my former high school assistant principal Robert Smith) and two others from hometown businessmen, Joe Jacobson and Dr. Hyman Soref, along with a copy of my birth certificate and submitted my complete application immediately; knowing full well it would take time to process and time was not on my side.
It
wasn’t long before the warm weather arrived and my thoughts turned to
outdoors and other possible pursuits – namely, escaping from this school
before I passed the point of no return in this ten month course. Luckily I
found the sympathetic ear of my Electronics Instructor by the name of 1st
Lt. Auriello Santa Ana. I explained that I had enlisted for the Air Corps
Aerial Gunnery program and instead was shuffled into radio repair. Whether it
was the Army’s way of putting the square peg in the round hole or just a
case of burn-out, I convinced him that I wasn’t suited for this technician
bench work future. By being up front and explaining my candid lack of interest
in becoming a Radio Repairman for the duration that working with tube testers,
ohm meters, walkie-talkie hand held radios, VHF radio chassis and soldering
irons had become a boring way of life and I needed a change. He then advised
me on how to submit a voluntary request for a withdrawal from the class and a
transfer to another field. After a week on hold, the school headquarters
processed the request with orders transferring me to the
The
The pole
yard class separated the men from the boys. We strapped on Lamon steel
spur-climbers to the inside of our leg from the instep of the heel of our shoe
to just below our knee joint. The safety belt was not hooked around the pole
as you climbed up until you had reached the top – then you would unsnap the
keeper on the belt and circle it around the back of the pole to your other
hand and then hook it onto your belt. It was also the “tool rack” for
carrying extra hand tools and became the “seat” after you had reached the
top of the pole. Climbing the pole was altogether another challenge. After
months of daily class wear, the creosote coated wooden poles had become a mass
of slivers from top to bottom. We were issued heavy leather gloves to lightly
grasp the sides of the pole as we kicked the sharp 1½ inch steel spur into
the wood and straightened our leg to stand, alternating each straight
leg as we went up. The trick was to keep your weight on one lower leg
straight with that spur dug into the wood. Bend the lower leg and the spur
would fail to hold and down you went! We were taught not to look down at your
feet, but to look up where you could see what was above you. The Nervous
Nellys would freeze half way up the pole and the instructor would climb up
under the recruit and try to quiet his fears and to stop him from hugging the
pole. By the time the recruit got down from the pole, more often as not, his
face had souvenir splinters imbedded. Those of us who quickly mastered the
climbing were then given a basketball to toss back and forth while
“seated” in the safety belt – all this built confidence and became easy
as one-two-three. Lost in the details was that in
On
October 7, 1943, a large number of us newly graduated from the
“Think
where man’s glory most begins and ends.
And
say my glory was that I had such friends.”
--William Butler Yeats
Publication
or reproduction, in part or whole, is prohibited without written
permission
from the author, Don R. Marsh. All rights remain the sole property of
The
Marsh Family Trust.
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