Chapter 3 - Camp Phillips

All the rumors and speculation were wrong. We were being unloaded in a small newly constructed camp called Camp Phillips near Salina, Kansas, and on the night of May 15, 1943, there was snow on the ground everywhere and the temperature was way below freezing. The Army had made its first SNAFU. (SITUATION NORMAL ALL FOULED UP) We were in light summer uniforms and didn't even have a field jacket. The welcoming party, all our training officers and non-coms, had roaring coal fires going in the large potbellied stoves in our barracks and pots of hot chocolate to try and take the chill off. The next morning the first order of business was winter uniforms and heavy coats.

Salina, Kansas claimed the distinction of being the exact geographical center of the United States, if this means anything. To me it meant that I was a long way from home.

Our officers were mostly brand new graduates from the Field Artillery school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Our non-commissioned officers, or training cadre, were from an Artillery outfit recently stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. They averaged being in their mid to late twenties but seemed much older and more mature than we. They had all been in the Army several years, and most of them had Italian or Polish names, and thought they were tough as nails and mean as snakes, most of them were just as tough as they pretended to be.

We were forming the 275th Field Artillery Battalion, which along with the 274th and 276th Battalions, comprised the 405th Field Artillery Group which occupied the entire camp. Part of Smoky Hill Air Base was in sight of Camp Phillips. Sometimes we could see the planes land and take-off which was always a thrill to a ground soldier.

I'm not sure how anyone was selected for what, but I was placed in C Battery, in a barracks with Sgt. Padillo and Sgt. Castleberry in charge. They monitored and commanded our every action and movement. Our Battery Commander at that time was a Captain Fitch. He was rumored to have been nicknamed Bulldog by his fellow officers. He had a face that clearly resembled an English Bulldog in it's make-up. He gave the impression that he was at least as tough as any bulldog living. Our First Sgt. was named Wolvernez, a bull of a man and really as typical of a First Sgt. as he could possibly be. He was over six feet tall and weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds, had a foreign accent and gave out and took absolutely no foolishness from anyone, including the officers. I believe he had more than eighteen years in the army. The army saying was that he had used more ink signing army payrolls than the rest of us had drunk GI coffee.

My training or section sergeant was Castleberry whose nickname was Goose. He was very military with us and of course none of us had nerve enough to call him by his nickname. He quickly informed us that he was Sgt. Castleberry to us. He was very tall, probably about six foot four, lean and trim. He slept in the first cot on the right and I had the cot next to him.

He would go to the PX every night drink beer and usually get into a fight, and would get back to the barracks before curfew at eleven o'clock, wake half the men in the barracks stumbling around getting undressed for bed, "drunk as Cooter Brown", but the next morning you would never know it because he was one of the first ones up and military as all get out. I heard thru the other non-corns that Goose rarely ever lost a fist fight even against two or three men.

We were beginning to get into basic training now, close order drill, how to salute, and the many other things that go along with army life as it was known in the days of World War Two. I certainly received my share of K.P., Guard, Latrine and other duties which had to be shared by all recruits or rookies. The K.P. duties were the worst, because I do believe the meanest people in the army are the cooks, and the head of this list is the Mess Sgt. He is usually a Staff Sgt. and maybe the army picks him for his cooking and planning ability, but I'm firmly convinced that they must give him a test to see if he is really mean enough for the job. The poor old rookies are subjected to the worst treatment in the kitchen, than in any other phase of army life. There is nothing that you can do right, wash a pot then wash it again because it didn't look clean enough to suit the cook, then since it was a ten gallon pot the cook would use it to break and stir up one egg, so you could wash it again. You never got caught up with the work when you were on KP starting at four o'clock in the morning until eight or nine at night. If you got to the point where you thought you might get a break, the Mess Sgt. always came up with another chore such as taking off the tops of the salt and pepper shakers and carefully wiping off the ridges and then replacing them. There was always another meaningful chore in the back of the Mess Sgt.'s mind. He was just naturally mean and would get my vote as the meanest man in the army.

I am reluctant to tell the name of C Battery's Mess Sgt since I've given him such a bad name, but his name was Sgt Wilfred King who would later in time become our First Sgt. I'll probably never see him again, but if I do I'll be sure and tell him.

We rookies were facing at least twelve weeks of very rigorous training so much of it would be intensely physical in nature, but we also had classes every day about what the army was like and what it expected of us. Most of these classes were conducted by a ramrod straight, very military Sgt. Mike Shanahan, who was tall and lean and every inch a soldier. He really knew army protocol and taught us all the finer points of being a soldier. We had to learn how to approach our commanding officer. There was a proper way even to ask for a two hour pass, and we had to do it properly or not at all. You would think that in war time a lot of rules and protocol would be skipped, but that is not the army's way.

As I stated earlier when we arrived at Camp Phillips on May 15th there was snow on the ground, and the temperature was below freezing. Just a little over a week later it turned hot and I mean hot in the daytime, but usually cool at night. The humidity is very low in Kansas and the heat didn't seem to bother us so bad at first, but along towards the middle of June the temperature got up to 115 degrees in the shade, and that would even bother the jack rabbits. The first time we were out in the field and saw our first Kansas jack rabbit, I thought the darn thing was a kangaroo, I'll bet it stood over two feet tall and weighed fifteen or twenty pounds I had seen rabbits all my life, but nothing like this. A large bunch of us boys tried to circle around one of these creatures and catch it but to no avail. You saw them sitting all over the Kansas flat lands, but when they decided to move they could really run.

One day it was to be our first night out in the open, we hiked out about six or eight miles into the range and prepared to spend the night. We put up our shelter halves or sometimes known as pup tents, always two men to the tent since each man only carried half a tent. So you had to have a buddy or you couldn't put up a tent. Anyway the weather was real hot on the way out there, and everyone proceeded to get himself fixed up with a buddy and got their tent erected, but as inexperienced as we were in the methods of installing tents properly, I'm sure not many of them were put up right.

Around mid-night there came up a severe thunderstorm, with all the good stuff, lightening, rain and wind. It blew an awful lot of the tents away and washed a number of tents into a nearby ravine. It also washed away a number of tents that had been installed in the ravine because some of the men including our Captain Fitch, who thought the ravine would protect them from the wind. It rained so hard that the ravine became a raging creek or small river. After the storm had passed the wind came up and talk about wet and cold at the same time! we got down to the kitchen truck the next morning for hot coffee to try to thaw out. I'll bet the temperature was below freezing.

This proves without a doubt why they want only young men in the army. All of this was before the days of air conditioning, the army never did see fit to provide electric fans, The oppressive heat was one thing we had to learn to live with. The cold we could cope with better because they did provide us with plenty of warm clothes. The center of Kansas was rather a bleak place, not many trees and a great amount of open spaces.

I well remember our first fast forced march. It was not particularly long, something like six miles, but much of it was double time (running) and it was over 110 degrees in the shade and there wasn't any shade. We started out with the entire battery of over one hundred men, and returned with about thirteen or fourteen. The rest of them were strung out over the entire course of the march. The ambulance (meat wagon) had to pick most of them up, they had passed out with heat exhaustion. I was one of the survivors of the fast paced march, and we were rewarded by being allowed to police (clean) up the camp area, picking up cigarette butts. Old Sgt. Wolf said he didn't want to see anything but button holes and elbows and that was exactly what he saw.

The army didn't believe in showing favoritism. They would punish you about as quick for doing a good job as they would for doing a poor one, this may be hard to understand , but I'm sure there must have been a purpose behind it all.

We were all there to do a job and get it over with. One famous German General once said that the reason the American was a good fighting man was that he was just trying to get back home, and received no pleasure from the actual battle. I believe that was a very true statement, and adequately described the average American draftee in World War Two.

It seemed that the first twelve weeks of basic would never get over, for we had been told that we would receive furloughs at the end of basic. We were drilled in all the rudiments of being a soldier over and over until some of it became second nature to us.

As time went on things got some better and I'm sure we were looking and acting more like soldiers. Then finally comes the end of basic training and those most sought after furloughs. Naturally everyone could not go at the same time, but about a fourth of the battery was allowed to go at once for ten days, so it took about forty days for everyone to go. This was when favoritism first raised its ugly head. If you were in good standing with your superiors you got to go quicker, so there was a lot of "apple polishing" or "brown nosing" going on. I can't remember making out very good in this department, but sometime in the forty days I did get my ten. This was quite an undertaking for a green country boy to travel all the way from Kansas to Reform, Ala. all by himself, but thanks to God and Greyhound he made it.

When all the furloughs were over we settled down to the business of group training. Remember, up until this time we didn't have any guns or vehicles or fighting equipment. These were all issued and we began the long task of learning to use them.

To regress for a minute, I don't remember much about that furlough except the joy of being home for a few days. I'll tell more about the next furlough later. The battery was divided up into sections at this time and I was placed in the Survey and Recon Section, which was closely allied with the communications section, some of the boys had to change barracks, but I didn't because these two sections were still under the watchful eyes of Sgt.'s Paddilo and Castleberry. There were four gun sections (105 MM howitzers) the rest of the men were in headquarters section, supply, cooks and etc.

We began to know the men in our own section better than the others since we slept in the same barracks and were together much of the waking hours. Some lasting friendships were beginning to develop, and there was lot of competition between the sections as to who had the toughest and most important jobs. Of course our section knew it was the best and most skillful since we had to go out front and direct the big guns where to fire. The communications section were convinced that they had the toughest assignment transmitting all messages from up front to the guns. The gun sections thought they were the most important because without them we would have no firepower. The real truth was ,of course, that each section to a large degree was completely dependent upon each man doing his job right. One man screwing up at the wrong time could throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing. That was demonstrated several times in actual combat later on.