The Thunderbolt . . . . . A
Natural
Edward A. Brooks As Rommel threatened the Suez,
Cairo and the entire Allied lifeline to the Middle East, to the United States’
rapidly growing military machine was added, on August 15, 1942, the 11th Armored
Division. Activation of the new armored striking force at Camp Polk, LA,
signalized the Army’s intention to outstrip its original plan for the
inclusion of but 10 armored divisions in the nation’s expanding military
program. In the east, as Nazi legions pushed forward in their last great Russian
offensive, the crushing blow at Stalingrad had not yet collapsed German dreams
of a drive to he Urals; Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, resting at high tide after
his most successful desert journey, paused at El Dab’a within cannon roar of
Alexandria. Japan’s men still poured as an unleashed pestilence over British,
Dutch, Chinese, and American dead in their almost uncontested drive toward
Australia, last bastion of Allied might athwart their course of conquest. The
guns of Corregidor were silent. From the huge pool into which
America poured its military manpower were channeled tens of thousands of men to
make up armored units amassed against the day of Allied offensive. To the nation’s newest armored
division, as its commanding general, came Brigadier General Edward h. Brooks,
who had been artillery officer of the Armored Force. A staff of officers to
assist him first assembled at Ft. Knox, KY, in July, 1942. With General Brooks
came Brigadier General Charles S. Kilburn and Colonel Charles L. Mullins, Jr.,
to captain the Division’s combat commands. Enlisted men to form the initial
11th Armored Division cadre came from the Third, Seventh, and Eighth Armored
Divisions. The Thunderbolt was cast. Flames to forge a Thunderbolt
were kindled among Louisiana’s fragrant pines late in 1942 and fanned to
furious heat under the pressure of a training schedule which required the raw
recruits of the 11th Armored Division to be combat-qualified by April of the
following year. Summer sun, its white-hot rays beating down upon the sultry
swamps of the Pelican State, welcomed to Camp Polk the skilled officers whose
responsibility it was to guarantee the battle preparation of the half-score
thousand of men soon to be entrusted to their command. Close on their heels
arrived great groups of time-tested enlisted men, whose leaven of experience was
to impart the tough texture of training to the transformation of individuals
into groups, men into masses. As the breezes of fall tempered the torments of
summer, the armored skeleton of the Thunderbolt Division was prepared for the
fleshy clothing of manpower to follow. It came, almost immediately. Train after
train brought travel weary men, their unbraided caps and wrinkled uniforms still
stamped with unmistakable seal of newness to Louisiana. Bewildered, lonely, and
wondering, Brooklyn, Boston, and Boise accents merged into a blended chorus of
question. From these men, whose lives a few weeks before were ordered only by
themselves, a mighty, formidable military machine was to be molded. They
blended, and blended quickly, in the crucible of hard, intensive training.
Originally, their lives at Camp Polk were much the same – and much the same as
had been the basic military lives of men of the two armored armies which had
preceded them at Polk, the Third and the Seventh Armored Division. Basic
training at Camp Polk, largest of the nation’s military establishments created
to produce armored might, was hard, back-breaking work – work of the only type
which could produce men whose entry into battle would foretell success. But all
of these things the men who stepped from troop trains were yet to learn ---
learn from hours on a drill field, hours in class rooms, hours – endless –
of marching, hours of instruction. Yet the tired, heavy-eyed men who streamed to
Leesville in November’s autumn today are soldiers. The first memories of men who
wear the 11th Armored Division shoulder patch center on a night when a troop
train from New York’s Grand Central , Kansas City’s Union or Birmingham’s
Southern halted on a single siding and then tumbled off – to meet their
star-shouldered leaders. Many were the tasks of the Division’s nucleus as it
prepared for the arrival of its early members – often at the rate of nearly a
thousand men a day. Truck after truck shuttled endless columns of men from
trains to their new homes – barracks, blankets, hot meals and hot showers. As
enlisted men settled into training routines, staff officers worked endlessly
preparing schedules and programs whose detailed accuracy would determine
eventually the worth of the entire effort. As their integrated effort brought
cohesion of leaders from a dozen branches of military service, promotions
commensurate with their new responsibilities were granted. Twin torrents of American
military might merged at Camp Polk early in the life of the 11th Armored
Division as an endless stream of manpower was matched by as unending a wave of
the products of American manufacture. Troop trains shared railroad sidings with
flat cars bristling with tank guns and artillery pieces. Many future tankers,
artillerymen and peep jockeys received their first view of their new mechanical
partners while still on a troop train. Focal point of its organization,
the impressively greenswarded Flag Pole Square of Camp Polk’s 11th Armored
Division area called the attention, once each day, of every officer and enlisted
man in the fledgling force to the towering reason for his presence at Camp Polk,
for the Division’s being. As sunlight S rays were waning, clear bugle
notes summoned attention to the flag stirring overhead, symbol of the nation
whose defense had become the responsibility of the men who watched it lowered;
symbol of homes under skies rendered peaceful or terror-filled by American armed
forces; symbol of everything American. At retreat, momentarily, eyes were lifted
from the toil of tomorrow to the priceless price of freedom. Without civilian parallel was
the life that men of the 11th Armored Division found when first they surveyed
their surroundings. After seemingly bottomless stacks of classification cards
were checked, endless lines of men interviewed and countless assignments made,
the procedure-sated recruit who a few days earlier had first looked sleepily
upon Camp Polk found himself a soldier. Helmet liners, worn to accustom men to
the heavier steel article which might save their lives in battle, replace the
square-worn overseas caps and pork-pie-patterned chapeaux of reception centers.
“Home” became a square, immaculate barracks’ nook whose care required more
time from inexpert hands than an entire hotel from a chambermaid. A whistle no
longer signaled a change of traffic lights; its shrillness meant move, and move
fast. Meal time no longer was marked by leisurely consumption of individual
portions; the “chow hound” was born. Off-duty hours – few as they were,
those early weeks of basic – meant only movie queues and mile-long beer lines,
or bunk fatigue and bull sessions. This was the Army! The blending of long-prepared
and perfected lecture theories with practical experience was the Division’s
training goal. No detail of application that might possibly be useful in combat
was overlooked. Skill, in the use and maintenance of the medium and heavy
weapons so typical of an armored division’s crushing offensive force became a
prime concern of the knowledge-absorbing recruits of the 11th Armored Division.
Huge-tank-chassis-mounted cannon and pack howitzers, halftrack and smaller
vehicle mounted medium weapons – all required the utmost of intense training
and practice to develop the well-nigh automatic battle skills inherently
necessary in a battle-ready unit of the type the 11th Armored Division was
driving relentlessly to reach in an incredibly few weeks and months. Individual protective measures
in battle reach a peak in the world-famous fox holes and slit trenches which are
each man’s responsibility – and safety. Carelessness in the use of a shovel
or intrenching tool probably has cost many American lives since the present war
began, and the importance of the lowly spade was well inculcate into the mind of
each Eleventh man. The advantages of various entrenchments were emphasized. “Any Questions?” That
familiar concluding phrase of almost every military lecture resounded like a
many-fold echo throughout Camp Polk those early days of basic training, for
instructors worked without let up to cram their students with every phase of
knowledge of an armored division required for men’s self-preservation in
battle. Measures to protect troops and equipment from enemy use of chemical
warfare were taught the men in preparing them for conflict. Not only were the
deadly vapor gases accorded full attention, for training was given in the
decontamination of vehicles sprayed with liquid gases. Plane identification,
highly essential art of recognizing without hesitation friendly and enemy
aircraft and to act accordingly, came in for a concentrated share of training
hours and effort. Men to whom maps had been only
geographical riddles or road aids learned azimuths, compass employment and
contours. Classes were devoted to familiarizing the basics with the scores of
conventional signs and military symbols used to portray graphically and
concisely battle conditions in any given piece of terrain. Extensive, highly
concentrated study was devoted to aerial photographic and photo maps. Newsreel studded scenes of long,
grinding yards of obstacle courses, replete with ropes and scaffolds, became
daily homes of 11th Armored Division men. Aching bodies and wearied minds
trudged back to barracks during initial weeks of the Thunderbolt, as strange,
unfamiliar muscles, seldom used and never mentioned in civilian years before,
awoke for the tasks of training ahead. No taxis traveled the gravel-edged
streets of Camp Polk, and to exhausted men who trooped doggedly homeward after
foot-blistering miles of road marches, the war was real indeed. As valuable in the process of
each individual trainee’s development of split-second timing required of
modern men of war as in the preparation of bodies to successfully respond to
minds so alerted were the mazes of rope-hung swamps and walls and ditches which
dotted Camp Polk’s training areas in early 11th Armored Division days. Brains and brawn from rugged,
intensive training, as the latter months of 1942 passed, became the daily
routine of 11th Armored Division fledglings, as they moved through the decisive
weeks of the basic training upon which would be built their entire military
fitness. Initially, the vital task of hardening the muscles and alerting the
minds of these new fighting men to properly react to the rigid tests of
technical training and actual battle claimed the constant attention, the utmost
efforts of the Division’s leaders who planned their every hour. This exacting
job necessarily brought day after day – and night after night – of
unyielding stress on conditioning. Eternal devotion to the fundamental criterion
of any army’s effectiveness – marksmanship – early entered a permanent
niche in 11th Armored Division annals. Hardly had their untried hands begun to
grasp familiarly the myriad weapons of their training and eventually of battle
when from those weapons, through constant attention, Thunderbolt men began to
derive a sense of their importance. A dozen ranges echoed to the sharp staccato
of firing practice. “Ready on the right” –
familiar preface to the opening clatter of fire on target ranges – sounded
endlessly through Louisiana’s pine woods in the autumn of 1942, as apprentice
Thunderbolts tested their applied skill with weapons previously mastered in long
hours of lectures and endless oft-repeated discussions of each gun’s component
parts, operation and times of employment. Linked by the inseparable bond
of military necessity to the long hours of physical conditioning, however, were
equally long days of repeated instructions in the most basic of all military
matters – weapons. Specialists they were to become in mortars, machine guns
and many-millimetered monsters of artillery, yet each of the trainees must first
master the intricacies of the smaller, universal weapons of combat. Early in
basic training, schedules were heavy with drill in rifles, carbines and
automatics – drill so vital that it might mean life or death in combat. Battle
allows but one mistake. Classic example of the demand,
accentuated by the speed and swift decision of modern battle, for complete
knowledge of the weapons entrusted to the individual soldier’s care, is the
need for blindfolded ability to handle with certainty that weapon’s sections.
On hundreds of blankets, stretched upon Louisiana’s field grass, men of the
11th Armored Division handled, rehandled and handled again the firing pins, the
barrels and the bolts of their mechanical companions. Cleaning, oiling and
oiling again brought unshakable confidence in those companions’ loyalty. Inseparable from warfare,
whether medieval or modern, is the possibility of casualties. “First echelon”
prevention of casualties must necessarily begin with the training of the troops,
and from the Thunderbolt’s earliest ventures into field operations, highly
prized was proper maintenance of men and machines. At the same time, each new
development on the channeling of casualties to proper treatment posts – and
their care en route – was not neglected. First step in the training of
tankers to deal swiftly with disaster was instruction in approved methods for
removal of battle casualties from disabled vehicles to points of temporary
safety, where they might be launched on their journey to rear area hospitals and
treatment stations. Simultaneously, the men who guide the land battle-wagons
were told of the dangers of flaming enemy Molotov Cocktails, of highly developed
enemy weapons fashioned to combat Allied armored attack, and of the measures
perfected to meet these threats. As tankers labored long hours
over the complicated mechanisms of their battle behemoths, men bent on the
preservation of the lives of their 11th Armored Division comrades perused
training manuals and heard countless lectures on the vitally important, many
phased topic of modern preventive and curative combat medicine, last defense
against battle death. Trainees to technicians was the
transition scheduled for the human components of the 11th Armored Division, and
hardly had the basic lessons of early physical and mental conditioning been
stored away when the change began. Basic training, essentially identical in its
close order drill, its instruction in primary weapons and its overall
preparation for the specialization to follow, gave way to the specific training
required by various units of the men who were to take over the tanks and
howitzers and rifles. As modern as a Broadway neon
sign and as swiftly changing in application are the combat techniques employed
alike by Allied and Axis opposing forces in jungles, on beachheads, in attack
and defense. Each of these techniques, and art within itself, became a vital,
life preserving science to men of the triangular “11” patch as their
training schedules became more specialized. The simple fact of a foxhole may by
its skill in preparation mean life or death. So coordinated are the functions
of a hard-hitting armored division that at one and the same time, training
received by all of the Division’s branches may constitute a miniature picture
of the preparation of an entire army for combat. While tankers learn defense
against opposing infantrymen, infantrymen learn offensive measures against
opposing tanks. Far from originating confusion, this widespread versatility of
the armored nit, with its doughboys, cannoneers and tankers, actually explains
its purpose. From the inborn mechanical skill
of the American youth came the quick grasp of the intricate operations of the
countless parts which pour from the nation’s factories to make up its sinews
of steel. In incredibly short weeks, men whose knowledge of machines had hardly
reached beyond speaking acquaintances with garage mechanics, almost
instinctively knew the basic problems of a throbbing tank motor or a huge,
many-wheeled artillery mount. Most striking, perhaps, of
innovations in the present war are the military operations linked with
commandos. Far from a new departure, however, is the stealth, the cunning and
the lightning attack of both friend and foe today. Braddock’s British met just
those problems two centuries ago; Marion’s and Tarleton’s cavalry employed
them a score of years later, and hardly improbable is the conclusion that
American fighting men, with a folklore of Indian wars, have become their most
successful proponents. Jungle and mountain trained snipers reached preeminent
headline positions early in the war, but full as skilled and far more effective
are the well-trained, well-equipped sharpshooters of the American Sergeant York
tradition. Men’s emotions are strangely
alike as they prepare, for the first time to deliberately pass under a stream of
machine gun slugs, over a field strewn with mud-filled craters, and lethal land
mines. Business-like GI trucks discharge their passengers. Officers offer
instructions. Chaplains pass among the men to be entrusted with their valuables.
Parked nearby are ambulances. Medical officers are inconspicuously present.
Grim, perhaps, but the beginning of battle consciousness. One far from unimportant phase
of combat inoculation denies the trainee even the assuring presence of a
comforting bright sky. Under the cover of darkness, the flare of tracers and the
sudden glare of star shells and rockets against the gloom lends an underlined
reality to the task of traversing mine-pocked, wire entangled earth, fraught
with real and imaginary danger. Wedging through strung, rolled
and hooped, many-thorned feet of low barbed wire on an infiltration course
provided an experience without comparison in civilian life. Confronted with an
intricate apron of wire, men whose minds are occupied with ”getting through”
learn to act methodically, almost mechanically. Crawlers are granted no respite
from the constant overhead cross-fire of machine guns as they attack an
entanglement, or encounter a mine crater, and the lesson of concentration and
calmness is one without substitute. Barbed wire battle scars came of
hours and days of experimentation in exact types of nerve-conditioning
experiences needed by men. Until the rigors of highly-paced present day warfare
so vividly portrayed the dire need for pre-combat inoculation in the sound of
exploding shells. The whir of bullets overhead and the scrape of low-hanging
barbed wire, little attention had been given to the preparation of the minds of
men for battle. So the American system of infiltration courses, with their land
mines, low firing machine guns and crawling, creeping men was born. Not only the doughboys who
slither across fields swept by enemy fire must work amidst danger to their
lives, but the supporting elements of any division – and more particularly of
a swift-advancing armored division—must often be called upon to carry out
their missions under attack. Aviation, especially, has erased the safety of
miles separating rear area establishments from front line attack. Early in their
initial stages of training men of the 11th Armored Division support units gained
a crucial knowledge of the advantage of swift operations, carefully planned and
executed without pause, depriving the enemy of ability to concentrate massed
fire, whether aerial or artillery. These principles dictate the tempo of
engineer tasks and ordnance duties. At the height of battle, the
courier can always be depended upon to get through vital information and
instructions when all other more modern systems have failed. Today, mounted on a
motorcycle or riding the most faithful of replacements for the steed of past
generations – the jeep --- the messenger’s task knows no hours and no pause.
Only swift completion of his errand, which can, and often does, decide the
course of a battle and the fate of an army, brings an end to his responsibility.
And often his arrival at the appointed destination means only the end of one
mission and the beginning of another. Streaming Colors and marching
men moved smartly past a reviewing stand at Camp Polk on New Year’s Day, 1943,
to signal the end of the beginning for Thunderbolt men. Brig. Gen. Kilburn,
acting Division commander in the absence of Major Gen. Brooks who was
accompanying Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers on an inspection tour of American troops
in the North African theater, headed the group of Division leaders who viewed
the spectacle of proudly moving men who, a few short weeks before had been the
tired, unmilitary recruits dismounting from troop trains to assume military
citizenship. Banners snapped crisply in the midwinter air as column after column
of infantrymen, tankers, artillerymen, engineers, and ordnance, medical and
headquarters men filed past the point of review, sharply executed “eyes right”
and moved on. Among the first organizations to start functioning with military
precision in the 11th were the bands of the Armored Regiments. Many
were the lessons yet to be assimilated; many were the miles of maneuvers yet to
be experienced; many were the sleepless nights to follow. All these were yet to
come. Yet, as they marched in their first full-fledged review, marched gravely
behind streaming colors, the men of the 11th Armored Division were soldiers –
in name and in thought and in stern, unflagging determination. The critical eye of inspection
studied units and men of the 11th Armored Division early in 1943, when tests
arranged by III Armored Corps weighed progress of the Division’s training in
the first months of its existence. Officers of the Armored Corps, headed by
Major Gen. Willis D. Crittenberger, Corps commanding general, toured motor parks
and marksmanship ranges, watched physical fitness tests and studied every phase
of training. Artillery – crushing,
meticulous weapon of offense and defense alike – reached new refinements in
World War II as the stationary field pieces of the past were transformed into
speeding self-propelled mounts, traveling with the rapidity of a locomotive and
mounting weapons of tremendous devastation. America, in building its own armored
might, did not neglect full exploitation of the new role of artillery. When
Corps inspectors came to Eleventh Armored units to test their training progress,
much attention was claimed by the revolutionary armored field artillery
battalions, most mobile artillery organizations of history. The inspections
produced commendations. So varied are the tasks of the
engineer unit in World War II that its lineal descent from the sappers and
pioneers of the armies of history, although easily substantiated, seems almost
unbelievable. One phase of engineer activity, however, which has constantly been
identified with that branch of service, remains one of its chief functions –
bridge construction. A far cry from the slender causeway of boats which
sufficed, even in the last World War, to carry men and materiel of armies across
the most traditional of natural obstacles – rivers --- are the intricate spans
which must be fitted together today to furnish transportation foundations for an
army of many-tonned tanks, of huge, lumbering ordnance vehicles and a multitude
of lesser land craft. Infinitely more involved than
the rough sketches of terrain which were considered more than adequate for
military purposes in years and wars now history are the minutely scaled maps
which today guide the movement of entire armies for great distances in
fast-moving, liquid warfare. Far from sufficient for the purpose of utilization,
however, are the maps themselves, their careful preparation and wide
distribution. Such is the explanation of the great care exercised in the
training of divisions and armies to guarantee their ability to intelligently
appraise the immediate battle situation from detailed maps furnished to them.
Only when each individual of a modern battle unit can accurately read maps may
that unit be certain that precious combat moments will not be lost in
hesitation. An appraisal of any unit’s
training progress must be based upon each individual’s soldierly qualities.
Emphasis without relaxation on the part of Thunderbolt policy molders early
produced the carefully sought high standard of alertness, neatness and
discipline. Men of the Eleventh were soon marked by their smart, crisp salutes.
The training period devotion of the soldier to his appearance, to his weapons
and to his quickness of response finds its battle counterpart in success. In the manner of their step, the
briskness of pace and firmness of movement, all soldiers blend, regardless of
unit or branch of service, into a unites mass when they march, shoulder to
shoulder, down a drill field or parade ground on dress review. Strong indeed are
the ties between perfection on review and success in battle, for the point of
discipline in a military organization is as important as it is time-honored. The
precision of an organization’s movement, as one man, before reviewing
chieftains is a well-nigh unmistakable index to its fitness in combat, its
ability to carry out commands quickly and without question. Often the impressive occasions
are the high tides of military memories of 11th Armored Division men as they all
gather a thousands-strong Division for important, historic ceremonies. Reviews,
presentations of colors, awards of honors – they were all recorded indelibly
in the mental archives of the men whose many-typed military duties left scant
opportunity for them to recollect emphatically the overall unity of an entire
division. The men who guided the Thunderbolt from its first fledgling flashes in
the mud and dust of Louisiana were conscious of the necessity of molding the
soldiers and steel that made up the organization into a coordinated striking
force. No measures capable of encouraging such a development were neglected.
From the Eleventh’s earliest review until the present time, battalion,
regimental and Division formations have built with care a unit esprit de corps
which will prove invaluable when the Thunderbolt reaches the final tests on the
battlefield. And almost certainly every man of the Thunderbolt, long, long after
the periods of unpleasantness which have already transpired and those yet to
come are quite forgotten, will vividly recall guns flashing, men marching and
colors streaming beneath the sun of the Pelican State. Recognition of outstanding
accomplishment is an age-old and unquestioned military policy, and throughout
the life of the 11th Armored Division, leaders of the Division have repeatedly
called forth from the ranks both enlisted men and officers to receive
achievement awards. These honored men may well be the vanguard of those who will
earn valor awards in combat. Strikingly representative of any
military entity are its battle standards. From the earliest history of armies,
men have prized battle flags as symbols of the nations and traditions for which
the fight. Often those standards are born of trial and blood and in themselves
tell a story of the national heritage of the men who honor them. Such is the
case of the Stars and Stripes, for in its rippling folds is centered the story
of American freedom. Few fighting units trained by
the nation to capture victory in the current war were fortunate enough to
receive from their own leaders a report on the progress of American arms already
engaged in battle. Early in 1943, Major Gen. Brooks returned from North Africa,
where he toured American troops and military establishments with Lt. Gen. Jacob
L. Devers, then commander of the nation’s armored forces, and gave to the
Thunderbolt Division a detailed word picture of the days and duties which lie
ahead when training is completed and the final test is reached. Unsurpassed in impressiveness in
the entire roster of military ceremonies is the full-dress review. Its two-fold
purpose, serving as it does to demonstrate the smartness and battle trim of the
troops reviewed, as well as to instill almost unconsciously in the men who march
a full sense of their own might, has kept it unchallenged on the list of
military ceremonies since the days of the raiding Goths. That men –
well-trained, soldierly men – are the irreplaceable foundation of even the
most modern armored unit is strikingly underlined when they leave behind their
attention-compelling machines to march as did the men-at-arms of centuries long
past. The type of uniform and manner
of marching at the Division formations held at various stages of the 11th
Armored Division’s life as a military entity served as a guide to the progress
of the Division’s training as it moved through months of garrison training and
maneuvers in the field. At the end of basic training, when first full-fledged
reviews were held, the men marched well, with the tense precision of recruits
intent on remembering each drill field lesson. Later, field-hardened and
time-trained, the formations took on the unconscious snap associated with
seasoned troops. Well-favored throughout its
period of training by frequent visits of the Army’s most high-ranking leaders,
the Thunderbolt greeted at Camp Polk, late in April of 1943, the first such
inspecting official – Lt. Gen. Devers, who commanded at that time all the
armored forces of the nation. General Devers, with whom the Division’s first
officer, General Brooks, had previously toured North African battlefronts,
gathered a many-sided picture of the Eleventh’s training progress from a
daylong schedule of inspection which allowed the armored chief an opportunity to
see in action each of the types of units making up the Division. Peculiar to America’s armored
divisions is the Combat Command -- flexible task force which, although it may
contain as many lower units as the occasion demands, if self-sufficient.
Preparation for action of the troops under his control automatically becomes a
chief duty of the Combat commander. Principal unit of General Kilburn’s Combat
Command A at Camp Polk was the 42nd Armored Regiment and he presided
at many ceremonies of that organization prior to its dissolution in the
revamping of all armored divisions late in 1943. The art of serving food, seldom
dainty in army life, rose sharply in favor at Camp Polk when feminine guests
from the nearby WAAC camp began to be often visible in chow halls of the
Thunderbolt Division. Tenderly fashioned designs of carefully called cold cuts
graced many a mess sergeant’s “pride and joy” table while the new
disciples of Emily Post piously poised plates and cups. As spring mildness gave way to
summer sharpness, troops stationed at Camp Polk paused briefly to celebrate the
Easter season. The WAACs, highlighting as hey did all ceremonies during their
all-too-short stay in Louisiana, joined the Thunderbolt men at the principal
observance – and Easter Sunrise service. The mixed chorus shared musical
participation in the service with Division bands. Their feminine voices lent a
touch of home to the Bowl ceremony. Opened with an aquatic-musical
program attended by many of Camp Polk’s high ranking officers, the South Camp
swimming pool, used chiefly by members of the 11th Armored Division and of the
41st WAAC Training Regiment, provided a welcome off-duty relaxation
spot. WAACs and thunderbolt men who in civilian life were expert swimmers
participated in the pool-opening ceremonies, complete with Billy Rose style
water acrobatics and a water-borne salute to visiting dignitaries. Hours for use
of the pool, arranged by Camp and Division Special Service representatives, were
scheduled to include intensive daytime training periods. Units of the Division
visited the pool en masse to receive training in swimming – swimming laden
with full equipment and packs, as the men might someday be called upon to do as
they enter battle. Hot summer days and evenings passed pleasantly at the Polk
pool. WAACs walked the gravel—strewn
roadways of Camp Polk as spring claimed Louisiana in 1943. Thousands of young
women, early veterans in the field of military service for women, arrived at
Polk in April to await assignment to permanent posts in the Women’s Auxiliary
Army Corps. Welcome guests indeed to Eleventh Armored men were the khaki and OD
clad young ladies who became the toasts of countless company parties, dances and
Service Club functions. Continually amazing originally
skeptical “old army” men by their quick adaptation to military routine, the
soldierly smart women of he WAAC staged review after review at Polk for
commanding generals of III Armored Corps, the 11th and 8th
Armored Divisions, and the Camp commander. In many instances 11th Armored
Division facilities for training were made available to the 41st WAAC
Regiment, and many members of the present Women’s Army Corps stationed in
foreign theaters received instruction in such matters as gas mask drill from
Thunderbolt men. All work and no play made no
dull youths among 11th Armored Division men at Camp Polk, for many hours were
allotted to athletics as the Division was forged into a fighting force. Upon
diamonds, gridirons and courts throughout the Division area many afternoons were
spent in pursuit of peacetime pleasures. Sharing with the recreational
relaxation derived by the men from the sports was the quickening of reactions,
the toughening of bodies and the spirit of team-play which, in civilian life,
did much to prepare American youth for the battle tasks war has created for
them. “Play ball” was a familiar cry at Polk. Selective Service’s sampling
of every cross-section of national life sent many former professional and
semi-pro baseball stars to the new armored division at Camp Polk. These men,
whose diamond efforts formerly brought them many thousands of dollars yearly,
speedily united to lend their talent as to the instructions of less-gifted
players to build company, battalion and regimental nines whose games soon
provoked the universal interest of big league series. Scattered, spontaneous games
were not sufficient to arouse the universal sports interest necessary to bring
about widespread participation, and well-organized leagues for play in almost
every popular sport soon were formed. Based, of course, upon intra-company
rivalry, winning combinations soon were chosen to represent the companies in
battalion play, the battalions in regimental play, and the regiments in
Division-wide competition. So arranged as to pit as opponents teams with
approximately the same number of men from which to draw their members. These
leagues did much to build up the spirit of rivalry as American as ice cream
cones. Dodger fans soon found themselves rooting for teams competing in the
Peason – or Kisatchie – league. So late in 1942 was the complete
membership assembled at Camp Polk, and so engrossed were the men when they did
arrive in the all-important job of basic training, that athe Division’s first
fall and winter saw little organized football. However, men, many of them called
from college campuses, to whom football had been a lifelong interest, do not
easily forget pigskins, punts and power plays. Crisping afternoons found many
off-duty hours spent upon real and improvised gridirons. In football, too,
officers and men whose names were famous lent their efforts to the development
of seasoned linemen and backfield artists. Successfully seeking experienced
gridiron men among the membership of the 91st Reconnaissance
Battalion, Lt. Gene Ellenson, Georgia All-American, assembled an eleven which
has remained undefeated throughout the Division’s history. Less widely known in civilian
life than the more famous athletic activities – baseball, football and
basketball – are the mass participation games which have won for themselves a
lasting place in the Army’s athletic program. Volleyball – the game favored
by a wide margin by men overseas; softball; swimming and bowling – all
required little equipment and little training; and this factor rendered them
ranking favorites with Eleventh men at Camp Polk, just as with other soldiers
the world around. Bowling enthusiasts found ample
opportunity at Polk to topple the ten-pins. Leagues were formed within man of
the battalions and regiments of the Division for alley play at nearby cities,
and later two bowling buildings, with three alleys each, were opened within the
camp itself. Competition between major units of the 11th was soon
launched, and trophies provided by at he Division were awarded to league play
winner, both individuals and teams. Eleventh teams also met other units. Invaluable in its ability to
instill cool-headedness and the will to win by absorbing punishment, boxing
early attracted scores of ring recruits to the ranks of seasoned boxers already
counted among he Division’s membership. Cards, including six, eight or ten
three-round fights were almost monthly affairs after the Division emerged from
the earlier stages of training, and from these bouts was formed a reasonably
accurate roster of the 11th Armored Division’s ring champions. Among those
winners were not a few who, as amateurs, semi-professionals, and professionals,
had been more familiar in the ring as civilians. These experienced men did much
to groom plucky cubs into crafty boxers. Wrestling, too, became a popular
Polk Field House occupation, with many former followers of the grunt-and-groan
profession appearing regularly to keep in condition and pass on mat hints to
would-be grapple experts. Contestants in this science of muscular prowess were
never lacking of exceptionally strong support from their units, and the spirit
of friendly rivalry was always loudly demonstrated by good natured heckling from
a keenly enthusiastic audience. Simplicity personifies in its
equipment and skill, volleyball has proven, since the nation’s military
expansion began in 1940, to be almost invariably the most popular single type of
team competition. So few are the items of play required to up full-fledged
volleyball courts that even the smallest of units may carry those items into the
field without undue encumbrance, and the result has been that, in many isolated
war theater. Difficult to supply, volleyball has been occasionally the only
organized sport available. Eleventh men became volleyball fans early in their
army lives, and informal games and teams sprouted with weed-like rapidity.
Formal leagues were organized for volleyball play, as well, and major attention
was given by the men of every unit to the games. Proper recognition for victors
in all competitive athletic activities was as original Division policy, and that
recognition frequently took the form of trophies furnished by the Special
Service Office. The official sanction thus granted many forms of sports enabled
no small number of men to take with them to civilian life material tokens of
their army prowess. Recognition was also accorded to organizations whose members
were most successful in their athletic endeavors. Men of the Thunderbolt were no
exception to the universal rule that men in uniform, confronted by stark
realities, view with a new slant their religious lives. They spent many hours in
the chapels and at the outdoor religious services at Camp Polk. Thoughtful,
considerate chaplains, whose military jobs deal with every phase of the soldier’s
life, became an indispensable part of the days of the Division, and to them came
hundreds upon hundreds of men with countless problems. But most important to the
men who attended the services those same chaplains conducted was the spiritual
guidance they afforded amid unfamiliar scenes, trying days of training and
unprecedented problems. Without ostentation, religion in daily life became a
standard practice of many 11th Armored Division men. Supplementing the services of
the dozen standard Army chapels which dotted Camp Polk’s scenes were the
improvised field chapels which, especially in the early days of the Division,
were often visited by many men. Their homely appearance, however, detracted not
at all from their charm. Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter provided opportunity
for renewal of ties with home and pre-war years. Services for men of all faiths
were arranged by the Division’s chaplains, and Catholics, Protestants, and
Jews alike joined their families at long distance in religious rites. Each
Sunday morning streams of men wearing the Eleventh Armored patch wended their
way toward the white chapels of their units to attend services of their own
faiths, services arranged and conducted by men of God in uniform –Army
chaplains. Lack of large auditoriums suitable for mass religious services often
brought about outdoor meetings at Camp Polk. Notable among these was the Easter
sunrise attended by almost every unit of the Division. Many families of officers
and enlisted men were present as guests, as was the entire membership of the 41st
WAAC Training Regiment. Many were the stage productions
brought to Camp Polk’s theaters and Service Clubs by USO Camp Shows through
the cooperation of the Hollywood Victory Committee. Not a month passed without a
group of sage, screen and radio artists to beguile off-duty hours with music,
dancing and comedy. Delightful as are the appearances of the nation’s top
entertainment names, many of the younger male stars have been called to the
colors and those who remain must necessarily widely space their visits.
Supporting their efforts are the thousands of lesser-known performers who visit
every military base on the globe. To these are due sincere appreciation. Typical
of the spirit of fellowship freely exhibited by each of the world famous stars
who called upon Eleventh Armored men at Camp Polk was their perennial request to
visit each of the scenes of battle training so familiar to their GI hosts.
Dozens of green coveralls, worn by filmland’s most famous names on jolting
tank rides, on machine gun ranges and battle courses are today treasured
souvenirs of 11th men. At Camp Polk’s rugged infiltration course
more than one soldier crawled from the final trench to charge across the road
only to come face to face with Joan Blondell or Bob Hope. Few indeed are the American
fighting men who have failed to attend, either at a training camp, at an
overseas station or a near-battle bivouac a performance by Bob Hope, whose trips
throughout the nation and the world to entertain the nation’s men and women in
uniform have written a splendid page for the story of the entertainment industry’s
war effort. Accompanied by broad-mustached Jerry Colonna and gracious Frances
Langford, whose popularity never fades, Hope, king of comics, visited Camp Polk
in the spring of 1943 for appearances punctuated by endless rounds of hospital
wards and training areas. Bluff, hearty Cary Grant, one of Hollywood’s first
top stars to make a whirlwind tour of Polk, arrived while many Division men
toiled in the throes of basic training. His ready laugh, firm handshake and
throaty, wry comments won for the Hollywood “he-man” a lasting place in 11th
Armored Division memoirs. Gorgeous, gracious Joan Blondell,
her blonde hair following in the breeze from Louisiana’s pine woods, whirled
through Camp Polk for three thrill-filled days late in 1942,impartially
attending mess hall chow assemblies, range firing and tank demonstrations with
unfailing charm. In sharp contrast to the gala
scenery so typical of his quarter-century of stage success, Blackstone,
unsurpassed in the field of modern magic, held spellbound thousands of men who
turned from tank problems to gather around impromptu stages – a half track or
a reconnaissance car – as he dexterously demonstrated his matchless,
mysterious feats. Far from the beaten path of the
familiar scenes of stage productions were many of the varied types of
entertainment featured at Polk theaters, service clubs and recreation halls. The
Serge Platoff Don Cossack Choir, timelessly popular choral group which has
appeared in every major city in America for dozens of years, was not the least
in popularity. Unique is the niche carved in a
soldier’s hall of memories by amateur entertainers who have given freely of
their time and effort to make more pleasant the intensive time of training. At
Camp Polk civilian guests came from a dozen nearby towns to sing, to dance and
to act for the multitude of men in uniform who made Louisiana their temporary
home. Uncounted scores of young ladies from Northeastern Louisiana and West
Texas towns often came many miles to attend Eleventh Armored dances, and their
presence transformed myriad evenings into memorable ones for the trainees. Tribute and thanks, when the
turn of memory recalls pleasant hours at Camp Polk, must also go to military
agencies which carefully planned and as meticulously programmed the visits and
schedules of each entertainer, whether star, singer, dancer or amateur – to
provide satisfaction for the tastes of each individual of the 11th Armored
Division. Truly the entire gamut of entertainment was covered and covered again. America at war has marveled at
the many miles, the long hours and the generous-hearted cooperation the nation’s
entertainment world has given to the men who drive the tanks, sail the ships and
pilot the planes. Dusty, tedious hours of 11th Armored Division preparation for
combat were lightened beyond measure at Camp Polk by the stage, screen and radio
stars who smilingly came and laughingly conquered. Far more demanding even than
the time-honored “four-a-day” of vaudeville were the hour-crammed circuits
they were called upon to play, yet each entertainer brought warm-voiced
assurance throughout days without respite to Thunderbolt men that, in uniform,
they would not know neglect or forgetfulness. Girls of the Women’s Auxiliary
Army Corps, courageous, early pioneers in the nation’s effort to enlist its
woman-power to work beside men in uniform, journeyed often, with 11th Armored
Division men, to Louisiana’s and east Texas’ rich farmlands and cattle
ranches as the weekend guests of hospitably southern families. Farm-born and
reared men and women found mutual interest and many pleasant hours as together
they climbed corral fences, toured corn fields and admired sleek cattle. From
their association with the planters and farmers of Louisiana and Texas many
rurally-inclined men gained a new concept of the ties which unite the nation –
for corn grows in Louisiana, as well as in Iowa; cotton in Texas as well as in
Tennessee. Illness, far less prevalent than
in a city comparable in population to the total enrollment of the 11th Armored
Division, occasionally plagues Thunderbolt men at Polk, although, as they
hardened in the throes of training, the incidence of sickness declined. Always
carefully observed was the Army’s broad policy that men even slightly ill must
be hospitalized, and men suffering only from minor, but a contagious, diseased
were sent to the spacious station hospital, along with those suffering from more
serious illnesses and accidents. There, given splendid care, recovery was quick.
Every effort was made to care for their welfare while confined in the hospital
and on frequent occasions leaders of the Division visited hospitalized men. Pertinent pauses were far from
unusual at Camp Polk, for officers and men of the 11th Armored Division often
turned to tasks beyond the scope of training schedules, but nonetheless
important. Civilian phases of the war effort must be given assistance;
governmental agencies and services frequently were supplemented by comparable
services of the Division; guests must be welcomed to the Eleventh and to Polk.
Such interesting interludes sometimes required the cooperation of but a few men
or units of the Division – sometimes many or all. But their diversionary
aspects were welcome indeed. Full cooperation was given by
Eleventh units to all progress of the war effort, and an earaly1943 scrap metal
drive brought hundreds of tons of contributions from the Division and from
families of Division men who lived nearby. Concrete evidence of the
necessity for combating the Axis treachery and cruelty which we fight today was
often furnished graphically to the Division by those among its own members whose
homes were originally in lands now, occupied by Nazis and their satellites. Barracks to bedrolls was the
transition in store for men of the Division when they moved from Camp Polk into
the field for extensive maneuver problems in the third phase of Louisiana-Texas
maneuvers conducted by the nation’s Third Army. Spotless barracks,
well-appointed mess halls and city-like camp facilities gave way to insects,
blackout marches and chow lines. Introduced to a life as strange
as had been the army itself a half year earlier, city-bred men of the Eleventh
soon pulled abreast of the country-bred buddies in knowledge of the thousand
minute details which are associated with life in the field. Arranged, in
addition to the strategic experience afforded, to acquaint men with the none too
simple science of living and fighting under natural conditions as primitive as
those known to their fighting ancestors centuries before, the maneuver phase of
the Thunderbolt’s history transformed theory-trained recruits into
field-experienced soldiers. Long accepted conveniences of modern civilization
became daily problems to be solved without interference with preparations for
combat. Inextricably linked with training in living in the field were the
lessons in tactical dispositions – strategy and blank-shell combat. Each unit of the nation’s Army
which has “sweated out” a period of Louisiana maneuvers carried away
unforgettable memories grounded in the season of their presence in the maneuver
area. To the Eleventh, no memory of field exercises in Louisiana is more typical
– and more universal – than that of swirling clouds of dust, billowing up
from he tank treads and the wheels of many vehicles. Far from the greatest share of
official attention to maneuver problems may be devoted to matters of supply and
maintenance which pyramid when camps are left behind, for the Division’s
organization must continue to function in every detail just as it did in
garrison. Spacious offices transfer their activities to tents; the tents replace
company orderly rooms and battalion and regimental headquarters – and the
entire transition must occur without disrupting military routine. Observing, correcting,
instructing, Major General Brooks was to every unit of the 11th Armored Division
in the field an oft-seen individual. Covering scored of miles each day and night
to watch the progress of problems, the operation of supply and lines of
communication, General Brooks’ erect figure, as his jeep traveled back roads
and river banks, symbolized the importance of each man’s tasks. Dust, dirt, and digging were the
daily companions of every Eleventh soldier under the blistering Louisiana sun.
Dust which swirled over vehicles covered tents and piled inches-deep embankments
along roadways; dirt which begrimed hands, sullied equipment and left each man’s
face a mottled mask of brown at day’s end; digging in sandy loam, in fertile
black earth and rock-hard red clay – digging slit trenches, digging garbage
pits, digging gun emplacements, digging-in vehicles. Every movement, whether an
individual’s or a unit’s, involved dust, dirt – and digging so frequent
that the shovel seemed the most universal weapon in this man’s Army. Giant trestle-like frames,
appearing often at the exact moment of need, rapidly stretched their tentacles
across pontoons shifting into place with mechanical rapidity to link attack
troops and vehicles with opposite bank objectives. Lessons learned earlier in
brief field exercises in the art of conquering natural water handicaps received
the final touches of experience so vital to successful operations in combat. Man and varied were the tactical
lessons of movement absorbed daily by the men whose vehicles seemed to move
almost without halt across fields, through pine forests and over streams in
Louisiana and Texas. Streams, large or small, defiles
and impassable, rickety bridges even ceased to appear as obstacles to tank
commanders and half-track drivers as they watched the speed and skill with which
the tireless engineers, working by day and by night, spanned the obstacles.
Sturdy, square-log bridges or bypasses were built with miraculous speed even as
the waiting vehicle crews watched. Tanks and vehicles of armor,
capable of devastating and crushing blows, must, at times, themselves be
protected. And camouflage – its methods and adaptations – early became a
prime interest of the tankers emerging as crafty fighter. Not only the heavier weapons of
offensive were found to demand camouflage protection as maneuver days became
weeks, for men of the Division also became adept in the cloaking of machine gun
positions, of trucks and tents and individual foxholes with the vitally
important covering of natural coloring and foliage. No maneuver-instilled lesson
will prove more important to combat-threatened troops of the Eleventh than the
protection of supply lines. From the earliest arrival of supplies at railheads,
where selected troops intelligently guard the rail establishments, to the
arrival of food and equipment in the field, caution was never relaxed. Most convenient late camouflage
invention, irreplaceable in the open plains of West Texas, was the camouflage
net, made to order protective covering for tanks, half-tracks, trucks – for
every vehicle – which also concealed installations. Stealth borrowed from the light
foot-falls of primitive warriors may seem impossible to adapt to the operations
of giant, lumbering tanks, but the same surprise of an Indian attack is far from
impossible in an armored division. Dependent upon factors ranging from careful
preparation for the assault to the individual alertness of each man, surprise is
an essential component part of the striking tactics of an armored unit. Spacing
of vehicles in moving columns to avert permanent danger of air decimation
assumed prime tactical importance. Maintenance of men and machines
to preserve them both in constant fighting trim may not be left for rear areas
or pauses in battle. First echelon maintenance – oft-repeated, never forgotten
phase of any division – claimed minute-by-minute attention in Louisiana.
Minute failures of equipment or manpower, made critical by neglect or multiplied
by duplication in scores of vehicles, may spell quick disaster for an attack of
an army or a nation. In no instance, therefore, was the smallest failure of
maintenance permitted or excused. Unpredictable and muddy, the
Sabine River, state-line border of Texas and Louisiana, loomed early in 11th
Armored Division training as familiarly as deserted, rippling back-home creeks
or crowded city plunges. No new departure in the training of troops is the
matter of instruction in rivers and their ways, but to a vehicle-crowded armored
division the problem of transferring operations across a stream of considerable
proportions are doubled and redoubled. To overcome these problems in training
and preparation for actual battle operations, the Sabine served as an invaluable
instruction area. Every conceivable type of crossing was made by the Eleventh
during two months of swift movement from Louisiana to East Texas and back to
Louisiana. Smoke obscured operations many times; feints were made, establishing
small holding units on hostile shores while actual offensive crossings were made
many miles up or down stream; a half-dozen crossings were made simultaneously
the Sabine was crossed and then re-crossed in the same problem against enemy
opposition. Final defensive preparation
against enemy armored assault, as offensive plans are formulated, is the
many-typed tank barrier. Erected at points of probable attack, the barriers
serve to check or halt hostile tanks. Natural tank barriers, solidly
supplementing the mechanical efforts of defending troops, were streams such as
the Sabine. So tractable, however, was the cooperative river that changing
depths permitted, at times, employment of the oft-used process of fording. The eyes of Texas watched column
after column of vehicles and car after car of trains transfer the equipment and
men of the 11th Armored Division from Camp Polk to Camp Barkeley in the Division’s
first permanent change of station, late in August of 1943. Short weeks at Polk
ended the Eleventh’s Louisiana training period when maneuvers had concluded,
and the migration to the plains of Central Texas began immediately. Welcome
indeed were the wide-open spaces of ranges and ranches after swamps and forests
of Polk’s environs. First armored division to
inhabit Camp Barkeley and make Abilene its off-duty home, the Eleventh found
hospitality far surpassing even the well known stories of Texas’ cordiality.
Extensive, well-planned and well-organized, Camp Barkeley provided gratefully
received diversion, even in its training facilities and geographical location,
for the maneuver-hardened Thunderbolts who arrived in the late summer of 1943.
Much of the Division’s training schedule time at Barkeley was devoted to
matters growing out of necessity of that training was barely matched by the
satisfaction of officers and men alike with their new home. Hardly had the
Division scouted its surroundings when the deorganization of armored divisions
reached the Eleventh, to dissolve three of the principal units which had
comprised the Division from its activation – the 41st and 42nd
Armored Regiments and the 55th Armored Infantry Regiment. When universal reorganization of
the nation’s armored divisions dissolved regiments and launched battalions,
the Thunderbolt’s station was at Camp Barkeley. Among many officers and men
who departed was Brigadier General Charles L. Mullins, Jr., courtly chief of
Combat Command B from the Division’s activation. Barkeley brought many changes in
the lives of the troops of the Eleventh, and most notable of these was the
uniform alteration which omitted, in the oft-baking Texas days, the summer
uniform tie. Authorized by Division authorities in accordance with the accepted
practice of Camp Barkeley, the tie abandonment constituted a physical token of
the Thunderbolt’s change of scenery. Sharing the custom were the men of the
huge Medical Replacement Training Center – together with thousands of men of
other units “deep in the heart of Texas.” Sharing with the appreciation of
men of the Eleventh for the new scenes they found in Texas was the cordial
reception by the Texans of the unfamiliar vehicles and newly arrived soldiers of
the Division. Civic leaders and average civilians alike extended every courtesy
to the Thunderbolt men, and vehicles of the Division formed a major portion of
the purchase attracting displays of central Texas’ participation in the Third
War Loan drive. The welcome of the people of the Lone Star State to the first
armored division to train among them was enthusiastic. World events, as the Eleventh’s
training had progressed, transformed the war picture from a dark one for the
Allies to a scene fraught with the rays of impending success. At Barkeley many
men of the Thunderbolt, Italian born or of Italian descent, joyfully learned
that the nation of their ancestry had deserted the support of the Axis, and a
few weeks later the anti-Axis government of Marshal Pietro Badoglio fully united
with the United Nations for an all out war against the Italians’ German
oppressors. The end of the beginning was near. Participation in frequent
civilian programs planned to stimulate the civilian war effort – particularly
the purchase of war bonds – increased and intensified the men of the Division
in the military equivalents of the same programs. War bond sales among men of
the Eleventh soared at Barkeley, producing one of the highest percentages of
Division participation in the Army’s world-wide bond buying campaign yet
attained. The Division’s bond campaign was sparked by the Commanding General,
Major General Brooks, who made several appearances before Abilene civic groups,
in addition to a 30-minute radio address. Awe-struck children, viewing
movie-pictures tanks in person for the first time, provided gasping, attentive
audiences for many of the Eleventh’s war bond programs in Texas, and the
children’s parents joined in the flattering attention. Every type of armored
unit, from artillery attack weapons to band groups, had a good share in the
highly successful bond rallies. New equipment, replacing much of
the maneuver-worn material which accompanied the Division from Louisiana to
Texas, arrives at Camp Barkeley during the Eleventh’s short stay at the Texas
camp. Many vehicles were overhauled, parts replaced and given paint jobs,
although the Eleventh was destined to use them only for short weeks. New
artillery observation planes also were delivered to the Eleventh at Camp
Barkeley, and when the ships’ pilots, trim feminine members of the WASPs,
women’s ferrying organization, stepped from them, watching soldiers of the
Division gained a new insight into the scope of the participation of American
women in every phase of the war effort. Two young ladies making their first
delivery of planes to an armored unit, were guests of the Division’s pilots
for a few hours before they began their return trip to the factory and looked
over many of the Thunderbolt’s heavy weapons and vehicles. All of the
carefully gathered and renovated heavy equipment, however, was soon to leave the
possession of the Eleventh, for when the Ninth Armored Division quit Camp Ibis,
on the Mojave Desert of California, arrangements were made whereby the two
armored divisions made an exchange of equipment. Unexpectedly soon came the call
for the 11th Armored Division to evacuate Camp Barkeley and prepare for the most
realistic of all battle-training – desert maneuvers. As October of 1943 drew
to its end, train after train jerked from the Barkeley sidings to begin the long
journey to the cactus, sand and sage brush of California’s desert. Uncompromising and forbidding,
the Mojave Desert is a bleakly desolate land of grotesquely shaped and vari—colored
mountains of stone towering over endless miles of arid land long stricken from
nature’s roster of assets. Yet, three years ago, when swift, broad strokes of
creation called into being the greatest Army to wear the uniform of the United
States of America, and the need inevitably arose for some type of domestic
training for the new young giant which would approximate the battle tasks
awaiting, it was to the Mojave, hurriedly plucked from the junk heap of
geography, that the planners turned. Close inspection verified earlier
conclusions that amid the brush-dotted dunes of the desert men might live and
work and fight and plan almost exactly as they would be later called upon to do
where ocean voyages ended. From the matter of organization of the desert
maneuver area, which was carefully modeled on the system employed in overseas
theaters of operation, to the last minute mess hall detail, life on the desert
was a faithful reproduction of life in rear-area camps far from any American
shore. Many individual division camps were established throughout the Mojave,
ranging from the Mexican border to Nevada, from Arizona to the first green hints
of land more favored by nature along the California coastline. Unit after unit
of American armed forces, already fully inoculated with military fundamentals
and field lessons learned in maneuvers in other sections of the nation, came to
California to occupy base camps – cities of endless rows of tents – for
months on end, and then move out for further weeks and months of full-scale
maneuvers. Hardly two months after respite was granted to the 11th Armored
Division at the end of Louisiana maneuvers, men of the Thunderbolt were
streaming from trains at tiny desert railroad stations marked by little more
than water towers and the shacks of section crews. Soul-shriveling, almost, were
the endless, changeless landscapes before them – dreary, billowing and
overpowering as ill-odored drug. On the desert there are no subtleties. Skies
are drab or daubed with Aztec coloring; night are a pitch dark or a neon bright;
the air is motionless or a nor’wester rages. Implacable or tender, the Mojave
has not been slandered by the stories of its swift, laughing abandonment of men
to certain death. Amid such scenes, at Ibis, a score of miles from the
Arizona-California bordering Colorado River, the Thunderbolt settled for the
winter of 1943-44. Vacated a few weeks earlier by the Ninth Armored Division,
Ibis stretched, with symbolic desert expansiveness, lengthwise west to east for
more than two miles. Its tents, its thorn-studded brush, its combat-like
inconveniences – all became the daily life of men who wore the Thunderbolt
patch. Nights of bitter, biting cold followed mornings of warmth and chilling
afternoons through cycles of days, broken only by pauses to celebrate, for the
Division’s second time, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Far different from the
marrow-melting heat experienced by many other units whose desert adventures were
for the duration of torrid season s were the memories stored away at Ibis by
Eleventh personnel. As calendar pages flipped past to record the opening of the
Division’s third dateline year, Ibis became almost a deserted village as
troops began their series of maneuver thrusts and counter-thrusts among the
unmarked, unfriendly waves of the desert sea. There, under starry nights and
brilliant, swiftly ascending moon, after sunsets beyond reproduction, the 11th
Armored Division learned the cold passionless beauty of the desert. There many a
venture led to an experience long to be remembered and storied in the years to
come. Deceptive distances, merging
panoramically into the horizon, became a keynote of daily life of men on the
Mojave Desert. The tented area of Ibis, with its multiple rows of cloth
barracks, soon shared, I the eyes of the men who inhabited these rows, the
colorless symmetry of the surrounding natural landscapes. Tankers, artillerymen
and infantrymen, accustomed to the sharp, land-marked lands of Louisiana and
Texas, added to their training experience in the new problems of range
estimation which required constant use of binoculars and keen vision. Long
distance communication by radio took on new responsibilities, and camouflage, in
the cover-less desert wastes, required constant and unrelenting attention,
Maintenance, too in the wind-borne clouds of sand, assumed new and difficult
aspects. Central point of Division
organization in the desert was the Headquarters Circle at Ibis, situated at the
halfway point of the long Eleventh tent camp area. Here the tents of all
headquarters offices were grouped crescent-like around the Thunderbolt flag.
National colors and the two-star banner of the commanding general marked the
tent quarters of Major General Brooks, a hundred yards from the circle of
headquarters offices. Flanked by the orange canvas of Brigadier General Kilburn’s
quarters and the tent of Colonel Charles D. Palmer, chief of staff. Trackless desert wastes,
uncharted as a sea, where maps and radio sets replaced roads and landmarks,
brought to soldiers of the Eleventh a new understanding of the paramount
importance of permanently endurable lines of communication. Deceiving distances,
obstructing mountain ranges, in a land where every horizon resembles the last,
sharpened compass consciousness and the oft-forgotten, all-important ears of
listening radio men. Only endless hours of care lavished on weapons and
equipment, much of it bequeathed to the Eleventh by units which had formerly
trained in the desert, sufficed to maintain in battle trim, despite wind and
dust and sand, the Division’s striking power. Instruction, often from the
immediate examples offered by field problems did not pause in the desert. Night
after night and day after day found classes in progress, reviewing lessons
previously covered and emphasizing the practical application of maneuver problem
solutions to situations certain to arise in combat. Chemical warfare’s chief
weapon in the present war, smoke, played an important role in many of the desert’s
maneuver phases. Hovering low between desert peaks, cloud-like vapors from smoke
pots rapidly covered huge areas, obscuring effectively all troop movements.
Infantrymen, pressing forward to assault fixed enemy positions, often were
granted the cloak of protective smoke as they moved into battle. Dropping
earthward to fire at shadowy foes, and then leaping forward again, the rugged
doughboys scored many victories. New battle-suggestive maneuver
experiences, far surpassing in realism any training yet devised for
combat-remote areas, awaited the 11th Armored Division when, in the opening days
of January, it moved into the field. Tactical situations, in broad outline
essentially hose of Louisiana a half-year earlier, became serious, grim
business. The clanging of air raid alarms sounded more and more frequently and
the aircraft no longer only theoretically eliminated troops by bombing, for more
often than not the planes swooped low to drop eye-swelling tear gas. At Palen
Pass, scene of attack and defense by most units training in the Mojave,
Thunderbolt men attacked, attacked and attacked again through sleepless nights
and trying days. Chief among the many high
ranking and foreign military guests who visited the Eleventh at Ibis and during
maneuver phases to observe training and tactics was Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair,
chief of Army ground Forces, who arrived at camp a short while before maneuvers
hot under way. Welcomed by General Brooks and General Kilburn, the ground chief
met many officers of the division, watched troops go through training paces, and
dined at the commanding general’s mess. Aside from the visual, physical
aspects of the desert, its relentless, rough-grained atmosphere served to
harden, muscularly and mentally, trained technical soldiers into rugged fighting
men. Conceptions of life under primitive conditions changed from toil to
routine. Minor details of daily existence, once magnified to monumental
proportions by the abandonment of conveniences afforded in training garrisons,
resumes their proper minor roles in the plans of men and of organizations. Chow
lines and mess kits became as widely accepted as the china and chow halls of
previous training stages. Base camp hardships graduated to the status of coveted
luxuries. The Mojave Desert, immemorially bent on forging full figured men or
destroying tem, granted to the Thunderbolt the last leaven of steel-like
toughness required by the Division to finally fit it for entrance into battle. Immeasurably intensified in
value by their scarcity, the rough-hewn recreational facilities available to
troops of the Division in the desert were chiefly tent-housed exchanges which
simultaneously served as drug stores, beer parlors, cigar stands and service
clubs. Across rude, hand-fashioned
counters were dispensed the soft drinks, the beer, soap, cigarettes and candy
which were desert luxuries. Only twice throughout the
Division’s entire period at Ibis and on desert maneuvers was the monotonously
nutritious diet of iron rations withdrawn for a more varied menu. On
Thanksgiving and at Christmas hundreds of plump turkeys, delivered to anxiously
awaiting mess hall staffs, became unprecedented feasts. Training paused only briefly at
Christmas, as every unit’s responsible officers made final preparations for
the maneuvers to follow almost immediately, but the pause was notable for its
informality and peculiarly desert aspects. A midnight mass at the sand-seated,
sky-roofed Division Amphitheater began the religious observance of the day,
after touring singers and public address systems made Christmas Eve visits to
every organization to present the music traditionally associated with the
holiday. On Christmas morning additional religious services were held in tent
chapels, and the Division’s highest officers walked from area to area to
extend greetings of the day to the enlisted men and officers they encountered. Primitive expedients sufficed to
serve the daily requirements of men and officers alike at Ibis, and the
barber-soldier, his talents often unrecognized in garrisons well supplied
tonsorial, presided at candy-pole tents and open air establishments. Entertainment, provided by USO
Camp Shows and the Hollywood Victory Committee, occasionally played to capacity
audiences at the Amphitheater. Stars whose names rank with Hollywood’s most
well-known headlined some of the one-night shows, and appreciative soldiers
audibly welcomed their visits. Hosts of the men of the 11th Armored Division on
their repeated weekend visits to the Nevada city, the people of Las Vegas
watched that Western town’s most pretentious display of military might move
through its streets on November 11, 1943. Tanks of several Thunderbolt units
joined to stage the Armistice parade, when General Brooks shared with the state’s
senior senator, Pat McCarran, chief speaking honors on the Armistice Day
program. Graciously received b the Las Vegas residents, the patriotic expedition
served to enhance favorable Eleventh relations with the city. “A” rations beckoned to
field ration weary men of the 11th Armored Division as they rolled into Camp
Cooke, the prospect of beds and mattresses and barracks for the first
substantial period in eight months sharing their attention. Repopulated for
brief days by men and machines of the 11th Armored Division after desert
maneuvers were ended, Ibis soon rejoined the solitude of the Mojave as the
Thunderbolt Division loaded, bag and baggage, on trains and motor convoys for
the journey to its next training station. Last armored division to visit the
desert, as the turning tides of war caused emphasis to shift to other phases of
training, the Eleventh’s members were the final occupants of Ibis. The Camp
was soon closed. Northwestward to Camp Cooke, vast military reservation jutting
into the Pacific, moved the Eleventh through cloud-hazed mountain passes which
mark the boundary between Southern California’s irreconcilably beautiful
coastal region and forbidding inland area. Rain -- seldom experienced desert
phenomenon – provoked exclamations of wonder and welcome as Thunderbolt men
hungrily watched greenswarded landscape, itself a near-forgotten sight, roll
past. Beauty greeted desert-weary eyes. Typical of the physical evidences of the
Division’s return to training garrison life were the impressive flag-led
ceremonies which followed the Eleventh’s arrival at Camp Cooke. Upon the
broad, grass-covered parade ground which lay before the Division Headquarters
building was established the daily ceremony of retreat, and now-seasoned
soldiers, their ranks thinned by the strain of training, recalled their earliest
retreat formations. So welcome were the pleasant scenes about them, the trimness
of uniforms and the orderly routine of a permanent camp that men who a year
earlier had viewed parades with alarm, welcomed them at Cooke. Maneuver-mauled machines, their
framework groaningly protesting the stress of Mojave miles, began to receive
close attention at Cooke almost before they had discharged their convoy burdens
of men and materiel. Weapons and vehicles, rendered capable of full desert
service only by careful attention to first echelon maintenance, replacements and
revamping, soon assumed garrison-restored freshness, rivaling their well-spruced
crews in mutual cooperation necessary between men and machines. Scientific testing of the
individual and organizational training of men and units began immediately upon
the Eleventh’s arrival at Camp Cooke, and coincidentally final training polish
of many facets of the Division’s battle fitness was carried on. In classrooms
and on drill fields lessons begun almost a score of months earlier were
reviewed, renewed and perfected. Theories carried into practice but occasionally
submerged in the trials of maneuver problems were re-emphasized. Poised for preview at Camp
Cooke, on the eve of weeks-long series of Army Ground Force tests and
inspections destined to determine definitely the efficiency of the months of
training which had elapsed since August of 1942, the 11th Armored Division
surveyed its history as drastic changes were made. General Brooks, commanding
general of the Thunderbolt from its inception, and Colonel Palmer, original
chief of Staff, left to join battle-tested troops awaiting the invasion. To the
post of Division commander came General Kilburn, upon General Brooks’
departure, and a short while later he assumed permanent command. Colonel Willard
A. Holbrook, original Division Trains commander, took over General Kilburn’s
Combat Command A and Colonel Wesley W. Yale, former Eighth Armored combat
commander, became chief of staff. Lt. Col. Robert G. Lowe, former G-2, became
commanding officer of Division Trains. Befitting the universally shared
anticipation of the cumulative battle tests rapidly approaching was the growing
emphasis which its Camp Cooke training period saw placed upon Eleventh combat
practice. Each type of Division unit daily saw more realistic the training
schedules planned for them, until a predominant amount of the Thunderbolt’s
time was hoarded for rifle ranges, tank testing areas, and artillery firing
sectors. Attention now centered on perfecting the precision of each soldier. Spectator-shocking examples of
last-stage practice for transfer from the rehearsal to the professional stage of
warfare were the detail-complete problems staged by the Division’s infantry
battalions which spared no fine-point of timing in the reproduction of combat
conditions to be experienced in times yet to come. Complete villages, containing
all the obstacles encountered by troops who fight through civilian-abandoned
towns and cities, contributed their invaluable share of knowledge to the
mounting store of experience being hoarded against the day of attack by Eleventh
doughboys. Booby-trap strewn streets and houses concealing enemy snipers and gun
emplacements taught by trial the many-sided dangers of street fighting as round
after round of live ammunition thudded into the substantial structures. Repeated
trips were made by the infantry, through the replica of danger-surrounded
villages one day to be encountered. Heavily armed, with every offensive and
defensive item of small arms provided, the Eleventh men slugged their way with
sham-questioning reality. Awe-inspiring sheets of flame
tossed from back-slung flame throwers took high billing in the battle-readying
preparation of the Thunderbolt at Cooke. Duplicates of the terror spreading
weapons which forced the Japanese from Gibraltar-like fortresses on South
Pacific isles, the flame throwers were studied, mastered and studied again by
the men who will carry them into battle and the men who will sometimes rely on
their effectiveness to quell stubborn enemy opposition. Field tests against
blockhouses built to simulate battle objectives followed days of lectures on the
battle-dubbed blow torches and hours of their dissection and part-by-part study. Typical of the critical
attention focused on divisions nearing the end of their training were the
repeated visits paid to the Eleventh at Cooke by the Army’s most important
figures. Lt. Gen. McNair came to the Thunderbolt for the second time in less
than half a year, accompanied by Major General John Milliken, under whose III
Corps authority the Division moved when it arrived at Cooke. The Army Ground
Forces chief’s party inspected many training phases at Cooke, pausing at times
to carefully investigate the individual efficiency of officers and
non-commissioned officers. General McNair’s period at Camp Cooke was but the
first of a long series of carefully detailed inspections by AGF. Most impressive moment of the
11th Armored Division’s training arrived early in May of 1944, when General
George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff and the entire Army’s ranking officer, came
to Cooke for the specific purpose of inspecting the Thunderbolt’s training and
state of battle preparation. After watching tank problems, mine field
deactivation and artillery firing, the General addressed all officers and
top-grade NCOs of the Division, telling them, “I have been very much impressed
with the things I have seen here today.” Organized athletics reached
unprecedented heights of activity at Camp Cooke, and one of the outstanding
single events was the Division boxing tournament held in the spacious well
arranged Sports Arena. Dozens of Eleventh ring enthusiasts participated in the
tournament, which produced the first authentic boxing champions in the
Thunderbolt’s history. Basketball, in full swing when
the Eleventh arrived at Cooke, where one of the West Coast’s top service fives
was based, brought forth two-score Division teams to participate in Thunderbolt
league play, and to capture the Camp tournament. A baseball team worthy of the
Division’s full support emerged from practice sessions in April, and a
schedule arranged b the Division athletic office brought them games with the
first-ranking service teams of the entire Pacific Coast area. The Thunderbolt
nine acquitted itself with distinction in each of its games. Proximity of the eleventh
training site at Cooke to the motion picture center of Hollywood brought many
opportunities for the men of the Division to visit world-famous scenes of the
movie city and of Los Angeles. Cooperation of the Thunderbolt in the filming of
pictures was occasionally sought, and a few fortunate men traveled to Hollywood
with their weapons as official representatives of the Eleventh, only large
armored nit presently stationed near Southern California’s chief city. The
open-handed hospitality accorded to the Division in California and Los Angeles
registered a lasting impression. Entertainment highlights of the
11th Armored Division‘s presence at Camp Cooke were the weekend visits of
hundreds of young ladies who came from Los Angeles, Hollywood and many other
Southern California cities as guests of he Division. Service Club and
recreational hall dances furnished the principal items on the weekend parties,
and General Kilburn, soon after the Thunderbolt arrived at Cooke, removed the
ban on off-duty wearing of civilian shoes, saying, “I had heard that some of
the men of other outfits, not hampered by GI shoes, were outdoing you on the
dance floor. Naturally, that situation could not be tolerated.” A chief attraction for the girls
who visited Camp Cooke dances was the tour of the Division’s heavy equipment
which was always included on the program. Tanks, artillery weapons and
halftracks were turned out in their finest array for the benefit of the feminine
guests, who donned coveralls and field jackets for their informal inspections. Many Hollywood figures appeared
at Camp Cooke as participants in stage productions arranged by the Camp Special
Service Office, which also handled the weekly preparation of variety shows for
the Service Clubs. Lt. Rudy Vallee’s eleventh Naval District Coast Guard Band,
the USO camp shows and independent Hollywood organizations and individuals did
much to give success to the entire Camp entertainment program. Top-flight dance bands, formed
from the Division Band Platoon organized at Camp Barkeley, appeared at countless
Division functions at Cooke, and the premier combination, the Cobandos, rivaling
in versatility and repertoire many of the nation’s big name orchestras, was
invited to fill a two-day engagement at the world famed Hollywood Canteen. Among top civilian notables who
called upon the Division during its training periods was Frank C. Walker,
Postmaster General of the United States, who visited Camp Cooke as the guest of
General Kilburn. After viewing various types of units included in the Eleventh,
the Postmaster General looked in on the Division’s Arm Post Office 261,
inspected the APO’s facilities and went over the problems of handling Army
mail. Later with General Kilburn and General Milliken, he reviewed a ceremony
staged by Filipino troops stationed at Cooke and pinned a Soldier’s Medal on a
Filipino soldier commended for bravery. Mort au champ d’honneur . . .
. . “dead on the field of honor” are those men of the 11th Armored Division
who have given their lives in preparation for that day when we meet and crush
the enemy. The memory of those comrades in arms is eternally etched in our
hearts. Their spirit will lead us in battle and quicken the tempo of our march
to victory.
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