Chapter 5 - The War of Tennessee

We finally arrived by train in this small town, I can't remember its name, near Camp Forrest, and hitched a ride on some outfit's mail truck into Tent City. It was about dark, and the dust on the ground was ankle deep. We were tired and dirty and needed a bath and shave, but no facilities.

These people really knew how to make visitors welcome. They showed us to a pyramid tent with cots for five men. The dust was just as deep inside the tent as outside. We were so tired that we immediately went to bed, and had just dozed off when some non-com woke us up with the good news that we would go on KP the next morning at four o'clock, and we would be clean-shaven or else.

We asked him if we could have hot water to shave with and he said no, there was none available, So the five of us shaved in cold water in our steel helmets.

He was as good as his word, and we were up and about KP at 4 A. M. and I don't believe I've ever worked harder and got dirtier in my life than that day which went on until after eleven P. M. As I said those people were expert on knowing how to welcome visitors. Sometime around noon the next day the 275th mail truck came in and we gladly hitched a ride back to the battery area. C Battery men were busy setting up tents and we were a complete surprise to them. Captain Brundage even acted like he was glad to see us, and to this day he won't admit saying what he did to us when we left.

We were glad to get back to the 275th. The men seemed like old friends now, and we had to admit that we had missed them, but the next couple of months of simulated battle on the Tenn. hills was the hardest living conditions that any of us had ever seen. We were either cold or wet, or cold and wet all the time - had to sleep on the ground or in a foxhole every night. After going into real combat, we found that actual living conditions were no worse and most of the time better than Tenn. maneuvers. The biggest difference on maneuvers no one was shooting at you. The war rules were more strictly adhered to, and you were observed much more closely by your superiors. In other words you couldn't "get by with nothing" on Tenn. maneuvers.

We stayed on maneuvers about eight weeks I think, which we thought was terribly long. On our last movement before going back into permanent camp we were moving by convoy to bivouac near Murfreesboro, Tenn. My good friend Joe Baker and I were set out ahead to serve as what was known as "Route Markers" in some small town in Tenn. Now generally the army always let you stand out there on a street corner for several hours. So Joe and I figured we had plenty of time so we strolled up town to see what we might see. About the time we reached downtown, we looked up and the convoy was passing and turning in the wrong direction.

We knew we were in a heap of trouble but we managed to flag them down and turn them around and head them in the right direction, knowing we'd hear some more about this when we reached out destination. Sure enough that night Captain Brundage called the two of us in along with another buddy, K. E. Biggs, who had been discovered singing into what he thought was a dead microphone about good old Col. "Mud." By the way I don't guess I've told you that our Battalion Commander was named Col. Roy U. Clay. This little song had been heard by the Col. and anyone else who had a field radio. This went over like a ton of bricks.

So the Col. had instructed Capt. Brundage to take stern military action against the three of us. He sentenced us to two weeks without passes and extra duty four hours a day. This extra duty consisted mostly of digging holes and then filling them back up again, but we were not closely watched and we really did not hurt ourselves. This was the only formal military disciplinary punishment that I ever received.

A really sad and disgusting thing happened to the 275th at this location. One of the older guys who was part of the training cadre for C Battery (I just can't remember his name). Went into town and raped a little three year old girl. The law tried to arrest him but he evaded them and came back to the C battery area, probably thinking that someone would protect him. The law had informed us about this crime before he got back and his best friend put a gun on him and marched him back to the waiting sheriff's forces. This naturally put an end to anyone in our outfit ever again wanting to get a pass to go into that town. It was such a sad and disgusting thing that anyone in our particular uniform would have been ashamed to be seen in town. So I believe the entire outfit was very glad and relieved to leave this area.