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