Basic Training, Fort Benning, continued: Marksmanship

The folder contained two or three more surprises.

Special Orders of November, 1943,
HQ 5th Training Regiment,
Army Specialized Training Program,
Basic Training Center, Fort Benning, Georgia

"The following names Pvts (Trainees) have qualified
with the U.S. Rifle Cal. 30 M1
(Course "B") as indicated: "

32 men qualified as "Expert"
that October 19th and 20th.

Good old Wikipedia has the goods on this.

Our EJZ qualified as "Sharpshooter"
on the 20th.

Some men qualified as "Marksmen"
on those same days.

Signed by a Major of Infantry
who was also an Adjutant,
from "adjuvare," "to help."

The Special Task Force of the Coot Hill Historical Preservation Society
is starting to get somewhere with identification of insignia.
The top two in the center look relevant today.

Sharpshooter, awarded 10/20/1943
as per the Special Orders of 11/23/1943.

Expert

Also in the folder: backup ribbons.
They must be from later,
because they are:
"WW2 Victory,"
"Bronze Star,"
and "Asiatic-Pacific Campaign."

Julie

Basic Training, Fort Benning, Georgia, August -November 1943, continued

(If you are reading this in email, remember, you can read it in all its glory at Gene and Clara's.)

9" x 6"

There is no telling who in fact took the photo below, but it is easy to imagine Dad setting up a shot like that.  From boyhood he arranged people for wedding photos, working for his father, our JPZ.  So, "Would you stand under the sign, please?  Fixed bayonet would be very, very good.  Go ahead, start lighting your cigarette.  Okay now, look up! There!"

"Nothing for an MP to do.
Christ, these college boys play bridge during their training breaks!"

The Roster of the Second Company
has 238 names on 9 pages,
of which this is page 3.

This and another page fold out
to accomodate the group photo below.

Looking for Eugeniusz?  Try the second row from the back,
start at the left end of this photo and count 6 faces.
Somebody - not I! - circled him in pencil.

Inside back cover

There are several A.S.T.P. memoirs published in the "Personal Accounts" part of the A.S.T.P. site.

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when

But we'll meet again some sunny day!"

Julie

Book: OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War

The mailman just brought me a copy of Maochun Yu's 1996 OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War.

The Annapolis professor has studied recently-released archival material, and appears to relate matters internal to General Donovan's new organization to broader geopolitical events. Looks good; who's going to read it first and write up chapter summaries for us at Gene and Clara's ?  

Back to scanning - 

Julie

Basic Training, Fort Benning, Georgia, August -November 1943

The folder contained the orders and records shown in the previous post.

The folder also contained the memorial book
of the Basic Training at Fort Benning
of the Second Company,
Fifth Training Regiment,
Army Specialized Training Program.

Not in the folder but rolled up next to it
were the two torn parts of this photo print,
19 1/2 inches by 8 inches.

Georgia Pine trees in the background
remind me of Scarlett O'Hara
simpering to Frank about "all that good Georgia pine"
as she takes over his lumber mill.
That movie had just come out four years
previous to the snapping of this photo -
everyone knew it.

Did Gene make this print himself?
He was the sort who would get himself into
a darkroom if there was one.
See the tailgate of a car, off to the right?
Officers' transportation?

I count 62 Privates in this group, and I diagnose them by the facts
that they are standing up, have no insignia, and wear no pins on their
field caps.  Many look young enough to have sat that national test
as high-school students, and may be just 18 years old.

I diagnose 5 officers by the fact that they are seated in chairs.
Four of them have two-chevron insignia of Corporals.
The fifth, seated second from left, wears 3 chevrons.
(See photo above this one.)
He is a very nice-looking Sergeant
and his post-1942 monthly base pay is $78.
Corporal Slouch, seated at end right,
is the only officer with no hat jewelry.
I wouldn't give him any either
until he started sitting up straight.

EJZ is back row, ninth from the left end.

This was carefully preserved in that brown folder,
in pristine condition.

A note from his Dad, our JPZ, is at left.
A note from his mother,
Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska,
is at right.

"I Wish I had a wishing rod

a rod that would make every

Wish come true. You know what

I would wish you? - Health & Happiness

                                               Dad"

"Did I tell you how much Mom

is proud of you wishing

you the best of luck in

many year to come

    . . . from your Mom."

While Gene was at Fort Benning, Julia died of heart failure in Buffalo.

Induction and Basic Training, August through November 1943

The True Tardis continues smoothly on course in its little epicycle off of the Chicago Language school trajectory, in order to survey what we have from end-sophomore year in June 1943 to the start of the Chicago studies.

Last post we saw, in Mind's Eye, Gene with a bunch of Buffalo guys entraining at Central Terminal in Buffalo.  Destination was Fort Upton Induction Center on Long Island.  His vaccination record form says at the bottom "HQ 1222d Reception Center, Camp Upton, NY."  Looks like tetanus toxoid and triple typhoid vaccine were given August 8, 1943, maybe the day they got off the train.

Variola vaccine against smallpox was given a couple weeks later: August 28, 1943.

He had to wait until 1-22-45 for his plague vaccine.

Here is a carbon of the Will they had him make.  First beneficiary is his father, our JPZ.  Second, in the event that JPZ would have been no longer living, is brother Casimir.  What about his mother, Julia?  She is not mentioned, although I will offer proof next post that she was still alive at that time.

So either this was the way they did things, or this is a carbon of a replacement Will, following his mother Julia's death a few months later.

Life insurance pre-application.

Below are the orders saying "You're in A.S.T.P. so come to A.S.T.P. Basic at Fort Benning."  Seems like he would have received this at Upton, then been sent on a train down to Georgia.

Notice that the recommendation is for "Foreign Area Language Polish Term 4."

So as he sat on that train going down the Eastern Seaboard, he must have figured that he was going to Europe - to Poland.

Something happened.  What?  Why did he end up studying Japanese?

Hypothesis #1:  They recorded his Polish speaking voice at Fort Benning, not in Chicago, and thought his Polish too American-sounding for covert work in Poland; he would blow his cover.

Hypothesis #2: The Army was already planning for a land invasion of China and other areas held by Imperial Japan.  It had been more than a year since Midway (June 1942.)  At Midway, Tojo's military was strategically done for - it was obvious that it would lose -  as I understand from my scant reading.  Yet they did not surrender - we know what it ultimately took for Tojo to surrender.

Hence the War Department was already preparing in 1943 to interrogate Imperial Japanese prisoners.

In fact a Fort Benning item, not Chicago?

Here are the Fort Benning things.

So Basic Training was August 30-November 27, 1943.

Your true Dr. Who