PRE COMBAT #1

Memorial day 2009 is an opportunity to revisit 60 years ago. I have written a condensed version of my involvement in the Bulge and crossing the Rhine , but not about in service events leading up to those episodes.

On January 14, 1944 I reported to the Carlisle Barracks. This was one of the two army medical field schools in the United States and was preferable to Camp Barkley in Texas. Barkley was notorious for its heat and dust.

Although it was winter we were given instructions on how to treat malaria. The Army brains seemed to have had a fixation that the war was going to be fought in southern Asia. We were also given instructions on Army tank operations by Col. Higgins, an old Calvary officer who, during the first Louisiana maneuvers, had lost his entire command to air attack. Of course they had no real tanks, but were using trucks with a sign on them saying they were armored vehicles. There were courses and instructions, based on World War I experiences, on care of the battlefield wounded. The inappropriateness was revealed in our first combat experience. We also had a night compass exercise on South Mountain. I don’t believe that any one failed to find their way back.

While I was at Carlisle, Helen gave birth in Plainfield to our first child.
During that indoctrination period, I was able to get leave to come to Palinfield several times. That involved catching a New York bound Pennsylvania RR train to Elizabeth and transferring down stairs to a CNRR train to the Grant Ave. station and the two block walk to my parents home. The trip back was of course in reverse. Obviously the schedule was tight especially the Elizabeth connection.

From Carlisle I was ordered to report to Finney General Hospital in Thomasville GA. I was assigned as a general medical officer to the medical services. My immediate superior, a Captain was an older practitioner who taught me more physical diagnosis than I had learned in medical school or internship.

Interestingly enough the pathologists at the hospital was Col. Darlington who was the pathologist at the hospital in Plainfield. When and if I write about Muhlenberg I will include a segment about him. Every night in the officer’s club he would introduce me to his family. It never failed during my entire stay at Finney.

We had several soldiers admitted to Finney General Hospital from Camp Rucker, who had been wounded on the infiltration course when the infiltration courses machine gun’s muzzle’s wooden mounts had become depressed from constant firing..

After six weeks I received orders that, after a brief home leave, I was to report to the 17th Airborne Division at Camp Forrest, Tullahoma, TN. I was being “volunteered” for the airborne service.

Once at Finney, on a moonless night, I had to go out into the Georgia countryside to pick up a sick “coal black” soldier. There was no electricity only a kerosene lamp in the cabin. He had a high fever. The family said he had a rash, but under those lighting conditions, I could not visually perceive any lesions. In the dark, on tactile examination of his skin, I felt small bumps and made a diagnosis of measles, the correct one, I was proud of that.

Another married medical officer from Finney, also a lieutenant, was going north with me to his new assignment. Since we would have a six-hour lay over in Savannah before catching the train north, we decided to rent a room in the hotel near the station. After leaving our gear in the room, we went to the bar to have a drink and get something to eat. Within five minutes he picked up a girl at the bar and went back to the room. I never got to rest there. Perhaps it was Divine retribution, the next time I saw that officer was as the interim head of the Venereal Disease Service in the 23rd General Hospital, the only Army hospital inside Paris, when he was being treated for syphilis. No, I did not sas revenge use a blunt needle for his injections.

Supposedly all the airborne troopers were volunteers. Most of the men in our regiment, and probably division, came from the Pittsburg or West Virginia areas. When inducted, they were asked if they wanted to fly. They thought that they were going to be sent to the air force and of course said yes, which made them volunteers. Instead they wound up in the gliders. Initially only the parachutists received hazardous duty pay. When we were in England all the glider troops were retroactively granted hazardous duty pay. However, the basis differed from the jumpers who received a percentage increase. Every one with glider qualifications, for the first time, received a flat $100.00 a month for the officers and $50.00 for the troopers extra; plus several months back pay. You can rest assured that, for several days, until the initial disbursement was “readjusted”, there were some good crap and poker games. I still consider myself a good poker player but could not make two passes in a row at craps so I did not participate in that sport. Our poker games in the officers quarters were pot limit, thus large sums could change hands.

During my internship at Syracuse, I suffered from kidney stones Never the less, despite my medical history, I was not only inducted into the Army, but ultimately assigned to an airborne unit which by design could be isolated and in short supplies including water for long periods of time.

At Camp Forrest I was assigned as the second battalion surgeon to the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment, First Battalion medical section which was part of Headquarters Co. My superior officer has graduated from University of Virginia in the class before mine, so we had a slight acquaintance and got along well all through our time in the 194th.

I was issued not only combat uniforms and subsequently, before going overseas, a mountain trooper’s sleeping bag. I also had been given as a bonus, a pair of prized paratrooper boots in addition to the regulation issue army boots plus, an Air Force leather jacket which lasted over 20 years. Additionally, I also received an Air Force officer’s sleeping bag the size of a single bed which I used as a mattress. I was one of the last officers to receive such booty, since no more were issued to the airborne. I carried the sleeping bag with me all throughout my Army time until landing back in the states at Camp Patrick Henry. I gave it to an officer who liked camping.

end part #1