OSS CBI Photobook 8 - Travel Orders, 9 December 1944

(If you are reading this in email, remember: you can see this post in all its glory at Gene & Clara's.)

(And its glory will be undimmed if you download the free, simple, and effective ad-blocker from ghostery.com)

Gene was in Washington, D.C. for November and the first part of December, 1944.  See here, here, here, and here, and oh yes, here. On page 8 of the photobook we see the transition set into motion by the related documents.

They are four mimeographed copies
of the same document, in fact.

"HEADQUARTERS AND HEADQUARTERS DETACHMENT"
"OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES"
"ROOM 23, 2324 F ST.,  N.W."
"WASHINGTON, D.C."

"220.453 (30 Nov 44)"

"9 December 1944"

 1.  The following named enlisted men, this organization, will proceed by rail on or about 11 December 1944, from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, California, reporting upon arrival to Mr. Martin Easton, Room 1130, Rowan Building, 458 South Spring Street, Los Angeles, California, for Government transportation to Headquarters West Coast Training Center, Newport Beach, California.

Tec 5 Jack N. Hammond 20 527 564

Pfc Peter R. Beckett  36 645 366

Pfc Marcello G. Rotundo  12 138 361

Pfc Eugene J. Zdrojewski  42 021 053

Pvt Howard C. Lyon  37 896 (or maybe 096 - JZ) 032

Corporal Hammond would have worn insignia like this:

Hammond's monthly base pay was $66.  His rank was Technician Fifth Grade.  You can see insignia for all the Technical Sargeants 1942-1948 here.  Apparently, in some instances a Sargeant was addressed as "Corporal."  Why?  Beats me.  Still, we can look in these photos for his insignia.

I wish I could tell you, Dad, how artistic
and intriguing your arrangement is here.
And with you and your buddy at the top corners,
cameras in hand on the Mall,
we can know how important he was.
Which one of the four was he?
What was his name?

You let the ground tilt
so he would look right.

Hey!
I don't appreciate you letting
the Washington Monument tilt!
I'm going to override you here, Dad.

More from the Travel Orders:

2.  Upon arrival at Newport Beach, California, enlisted men will report to the Commanding Officer, Headquarters West Coast Training Center, for temporary duty of  approximately thirty (30) days in connection with the OSS activities and upon completion of this temporary duty enlisted men will return to their proper station, Washington, D.C.

3.  . . . It being impracticable for the Government to furnish rations in kind, the Finance Officer will pay enlisted men monetary allowantces in lieu of rations and quarters at the rate prescribed . . . $3.00 a day for  five (5) days . . . 

So, did they make it to LA?  To Newport Beach? And then what did they do for "approximately 30 days?"  And by golly did they get their lunch money?

They got on the train all right.
Here they are at a stop at Lynndyl, Utah.
Founded in 1907, named after Lynn, Massachusetts,
Lynndyl's population had grown to 366 by 1940.

Is this Los Angeles?
Is that Eugene's personal camera?

Gene and his buddy.
I don't know his buddy's home town,
but I can tell you that Gene did not see palm trees
in his own hometown in December
or in any other month.

They got the same amount for lunch money in L.A. for the return trip.
But that was later.

Next up:  Santa Catalina Island, or at least the patrol boat there and back, along with a surprise.

Julie

OSS CBI Photobook 7 - Further Outtakes - The Newsboy

This newsboy sits on a D.C. sidewalk, counting his change.

"ALLIED ARMIES AT LAST BARRIER SHORT OF RHINE"
and in the photo, a man leans over to examine some smashed thing.
What is it?

Which of these images do you like better?
Top one is "Enhanced" by iPhoto; bottom one is not.
If you don't give me your opinion I'll just do what I want.

See the wire with which the roll of papers had been bound?

"PATTON GAINS 2 TO 5 MILES"
and
"Patton (something) Only (something) 9th Army (something)"

Which of these images do you like better?
Top one is "Enhanced" by iPhoto; bottom one is not.
If you don't give me your opinion I'll just do what I want.

I have tried to date this photo by way of these newspapers, but have had no luck yet googling Times-Herald or The News plus headlines or headline keywords.  Maybe someone smarter than I will figure it out and write to me.

In the meantime, we some dates and approximate dates.

Late August 1944:  Patton, having raced from the Seine to Lorraine, runs out of gas;                Eisenhower refrains from sending other, slower, Armies' gas to Patton.

September 1944:  Wehrmacht can't believe their luck, use subsequent weeks to strengthen defensive fortifications at Metz;

                 The die is cast: World War II will now end months later than otherwise, and will include a Battle of the Bulge.

09/07/44:  Patton sends General Stafford LeRoy Irwin to cross the Moselle.

Is this the subject of these our Mystery Date headlines?  Is the "Barrier" the Moselle River?

11/08/44: Patton's first units advance on Metz,

11/09/44: Metz offensive well underway.

Is Metz, city and fortress, the subject of these our Mystery Date headlines?  Is the "Barrier" Metz?

11/18/44:  U.S. Army enters Metz.

11/25/44: Metz, city and fortress, capitulates, captured for the first time since 451 A.D., when it was Roman "Divodurum," sacked by Attila.

12/09/44:  date of orders for Pfc. Eugene Zdrojewski and three others to entrain for California within the following two days.

Julie

OSS CBI Photobook 7 - Further Outtakes - DC-3

This photo of a Douglas DC-3 just up from the tarmac we find on Page 7, on which all the other photos are recognizeably of Washington, D.C.  Did his group fly from Chicago to Washington, D.C.?

Or did they go up a few times with their new camera equipment to practice taking clear photographs from the airplane?

After all, photographs of the terrain, useful to military planners, was one of the objects of the entire mission in contemplation.

Below is an example, courtesy of a quick trip in True Tardis to a future page of the Photobook.

Julie

OSS CBI Photobook 7 - Outtakes 2

In the primary post on Photobook, page 7, we saw our EJZ and his group training on this camera:

Prints related to this page show a second camera:

I would appreciate any information about these cameras; no luck so far in my attempts to identify them.

Is the bracelet in the photo the same as the one we have?

Was the jump medal soldered on to his original bracelet, or did they just give him a new one?

Next up: airborne photography, or maybe the timing of the Battle of the Bulge.

Julie

OSS CBI Photobook 7, continued: Outtakes

Last post dealt with the first of a couple of pages of photomontage of Washington, D.C. images.  We have as well some related, separate prints.

We also have a better scan of that Mystery Church, to include a tiny little tourist in the bottom-right corner.

In this group shot on the Mall, the seated figure at the left has something on the grass next to him:

It looks like a leather satchel with a hinged, rigid opening, like a medical bag.  What are those white boxes in it?

More outtakes next time - 

Julie

OSS CBI Photobook 7 - Washington, D.C., November-December 1944

Suddenly on the next page, we're not in Chicago any more.
A.S.T.P. was formally disbanded late-March, 1944.
We infer that our EJZ was in a group that stayed on
at the University of Chicago for the full 10-month course
in Japanese language and doubtless other things.

They are out on the Mall practicing with their serious cameras.
The job for which they are preparing is that of photographing
terrain in western China, so that the planners can plan for the
anticipated invasion of Japanese-held Chinese territory.

I wish I had an expert at my elbow telling me about this camera:
the big-box viewfinder; the set of five or six lenses that look
like they might rotate into position; stills? movies? both??

UPDATE:
See the Update post of 03/05/2020
for descriptions of this 
Cunningham Combat Camera.

I also wonder how much of this he was allowed to tell his
father  - our JPZ - at the time.
Did his family even know that he was in D.C.?
Very possibly not.

Well, I can tell you about that single chevron on his sleeve.
Private First Class (base pay: $54 per month.)

What's that ring he's wearing?  Will it show up
as we go through all that stuff upstairs?

Somebody help me out here.  What church is this?  Where is the steeple?

Same camera, but now one of the long lenses is up top.
So someone took a photo of someone taking a photo
of - what?  Is this another view of the Treasury Building, below?

Interesting strap on that camera; it's wound around his shoulder twice.

Top left, we see someone posing at the side entrance to that church.
We shall return to that photo next time, I promise.

"TREASURY DEPARTMENT"

"BUREAU OF  ENGRAVING AND PRINTING"

At least one sailor is in this group; interesting.

The "Salem" or "Saler" Avenue bus;
Florsheim Shoes;
Sears;
"Hotel ???yander"

DC-3.
Landing? Or taking off?

So, what are these guys doing in Washington, D.C. for these weeks?

As we shall see, they will receive orders to take a train to California from here.

Julie

The Waters Start to Get Murky

We have been following a fairly clear trail so far.  Our EJZ's outfit completed Basic at end-November, 1943.

Nice clear date at the bottom of the
Second Company's book.

The War Department ended the Army Specialized Training Program at end-March, 1944.  The men were put into Army Ground Forces, in preparation for the upcoming invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.

December through March, four months, agrees with the statement typed on EJZ's Discharge Papers, to the effect that he served four months of a 10-month Japanese-language course.

Ten full months would have gone to the end of December, 1944.

Now, although the very next page of the Photobook is all photos of Washington, DC in the autumn or winter,  we have evidence of Eugene remaining in Chicago from at least April through August.  Here it is:

April 27, 1944, to Pfc Zdrojewski, in Chicago.
This is the first evidence of  "Private, First Class."
It is from Camp Savage, which was the HQ
of Military Intelligence Language School
("HQ MIS Lang Sch, Cp Savage, Minn.')

So for some reason he applied to transfer to the
class at Ann Arbor, Michigan.
They were full up,
so he stayed at U Chicago.

You've all been wondering where he got those sexy eyeglasses, right?
From the U.S. Army, of course: two whole pairs.

The point is that the prescription order is dated
"27 July 1944."

That brings us back to Photobook Page 6.
That top-left photoportrait
has always seemed a little goofy,
but now we have figured it out.

Gene had flipped the negative in order to make a print
of a horizontally-flipped image.
I admit to the internet for all time
that I failed to recognize that my Dad's hair
is parted on the wrong side in this photo.

But when it is flipped back using Preview (thanks, Jim!)
we really see the real Pfc. EJZ, jokester.

And we see that his Furlough pass has a date:
"31 (Something!), 1944."

Dan Ehrlich ran this through his PhotoShop-with-Extras
until the image was "pixeled out."  Thanks, Dan!
"31" - check;
"1944" - check;
The abbreviated name of the month
begins with a letter that has at least one
straight line segment and also has a curly last letter.
I'm guessing it's "Aug."
They were at the beach.
We can infer the shore of Lake Michigan.

Next post we will pick him up in D.C., after which things get murkier yet.  Right now we can suppose, perhaps, that although A.S.T.P. was formally at an end, Eugene was in a group already earmarked by U.S. Military Intelligence for the land invasion of the Japanese Empire.  The Joint Chiefs realized, with dread, that such an invasion was very likely going to be necessary, as the Tojo clique showed no willingness to give up - quite the contrary - even after their irreversible setback at Midway.