Fort Benning Columbus, Georgia June, 1943
In late May, having received orders to report to
Officers Candidate School the first week in June, I asked for a short
leave, to allow me to stop off at home in Monroe for a few days, turned
in my gear to the Company Supply Room and left Fort Lewis for the South.
Rather than wait around a couple of days for Army
authorized transportation, I went to the railroad station and asked
for a ticket to take me as far as possible without changing. Due to
wartime travel, I was not able to get a ticket all the way through but
went from Tacoma to Portland, Oregon, to Denver on the Portland Rose.
Our chair car was somewhat aged, as was much of the rolling stock pressed
into service by the railroads, with plush maroon upholstery and hanging
lamps which were probably oil burners at one time. From Denver to Dallas
I rode the Texas Zephyr, a very modern train at the time, getting aboard
just as it was pulling out of the station. From Dallas, I changed trains
again for Shreveport, all of this with several close connections and
additional ticket purchases along the way. Fortunately, I came straight
through, without any layovers. From Shreveport, the best I could do
was a bus to Monroe, but I was home for a few days.
When I left Fort Lewis, we were in winter uniforms and wearing our overcoats
at night to walk the two or three blocks to the Post Theater. Coming
to the South brought a change in the weather.
After a few very happy days in Monroe with my family
and friends, and acquiring some summer uniforms, I took the train again,
this time for Columbus, Georgia and Fort Benning.
I reported to Fort Benning a few days before my twentieth
birthday, was assigned to an Officer Candidate Company which was being
formed, drew some bedding from the supply room, moved into the barracks
and began to check out the set-up.
Our barracks, like others in the Training Area, were
of the usual temporary design, two story wooden structures, with a large,
open squad room on each floor, but well kept, clean and airy. They were
painted white on the outside, which served to reflect the heat in the
Georgia climate, as contrasted to the olive drab exteriors in Oregon,
and unpainted on the inside. Beds were standard army cots, lined up
along each long wall of the squad room, heads to the wall, a small double
shelf with hanging rod at the head of each and footlockers at the foot
of each. Rifle racks stood on the floor down the center of the room.
I chose a spot about midway of the room on the first floor.
All of the candidates to make up our company did not
arrive at the same time, and we did not complete our roster for a few
days, during which time we remained on post. The company mess hall was
not open, but we had access to the post exchange and to a nearby cafeteria.
We took the time to relax and get to know each other.
At about this time, LIFE magazine carried a good pictorial
article on the officer candidate training program at Fort Benning. It
documented the thoroughness and toughness of the course, both physical
and mental. When our group was complete, we were divided into platoons,
introduced to our training officers, issued equipment and supplies and
the work began.
Our days were long and full. We rose early, fell out
for roll call, had breakfast, got the barracks in order and fell out
again for the beginning of the day's training.
Training was both in theory and in practice, classroom
instruction, demonstrations, field exercises, day and night, lots of
vigorous physical exercise, not the least of which was the obstacle
course, familiarization firing of all the basic infantry weapons and
instruction in and practical application of command responsibilities.
Field demonstrations included live firing of artillery and mortars,
as well as demonstrations by school troops of infantry tactical formations
and operations. On one of our night exercises, they hit us with tear
gas, to test us on the use of our gas masks. In that heat, it was not
much fun, but quite realistic.
After supper each day, we had classroom instruction
in such subjects as map reading or study hall for a couple of hours.
A joke went around that a student dropped his pencil in a map reading
class, leaned over to pick it up and missed two years of trigonometry.
An attempt to mention all of the areas of instruction
would be impractical, but suffice it to say that the program was most
well planned and organized and that the instruction was top notch. Much
of the instruction would seem to have required more formal education
than some of the students had, but the instructors imparted the necessary
in every case.
Our group included an ROTC class from California,
of which Bob Waterfield, a well known football star and married to Jane
Russell, the movie star, was a member. She came to Fort Benning with
him, lived in town and occasionally came out to visit Bob or go to the
movies. She spent a good deal of time at the Officers' Club on the main
post. We usually had Saturday afternoon and Sunday off, so Bob did get
to spend some time with his wife.
After about two months, my class from LSU showed up
and was billeted in an area close to our company area. I got to visit
with them and found that, while our course was three months, changes
had been made and their course was to be four months. That meant that
I would be commissioned some four months ahead of them. My plan had
worked. The odds must have been terrific, but, with the help of the
Good Lord, I did it.
We graduated the first week in September, were commissioned
second lieutenants and ordered to Camp Stewart, at Macon, Georgia for
orientation and assignment. We were also given about a week's leave
before reporting to Stewart, so I got in another visit home. Although
I had no word of it at the time, Tom Terry Milliken, from Bastrop, a
member of my class at LSU, came home with the information that I had
finished first in my class at Benning. I had the opportunity to stay
on as an Instructor, or to attend the Advanced course, but I wanted
to get back to the troops.
As I recall, some twenty-five percent of the men who
started out in our class did not make it through the course. It was
about as tough as it could get, but we were prepared as best we could
be for what lay ahead.
Preamble
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3 | Part 4 | Part
5 | Part 6 | Part
7 | Part 8 | Part
9 | Part 10 | Part
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