"The young recruit is 'appy -- 'e throws a chest to suit;
You see 'im grow mustaches; you 'ear 'im slap' is boot.
'E learns to drop the "bloodies" from every word 'e slings,
An 'e shows an 'ealthy brisket when 'e strips for bars an' rings.
We were in our final weeks, and now we had to go "out in the field" for a “two-week bivouac” in the woods. During this prolonged field maneuver, we were to be “tested” daily on everything we had learned (or had at least been exposed to). There was to be an “attack” upon a fortified mountain, followed a day or so later by the attack on Tokyamachee – the simulated Jap city.
It was November now and nights were cold and days brisk in the Pineys. The morning of the attack upon the hill (we must have had an appropriate name, as others before us, for this ..”Heartbreak Hill” or something – but strangely, I have no recall of this or any name here at all...) dawned overcast and misty.
We had hot chow in a makeshift field kitchen, then assembled for the march. (Someone else thoughtfully provided the garbage pit this time...). We marched only a short ways through the woods, and then we rounded a low spur on our right. I remember that. And came out into the damndest Hollywood set you ever saw...
Off to our right up a long, bare slope was a “battlefield” right out of the Marne, it seemed! There were fallen logs, and churned up earthworks, trenches, and foxholes in the red Georgia clay, masses of low barbed wire entanglements, and huge “shell holes” from simulated aerial bombardments and artillery “duels.” This scene covered acres and acres of real estate – far as you could see. Way up near the crest of the long slope, you could just make out concrete bunkers and pillboxes behind earthen banks, with ominous black gun slits staring vacantly (we hoped! gulp!) down at us. Actually, tens of thousands of troops before us for over three or four years maybe, had been trying to “take this hill.” It was looking a mite shopworn.
There was a topo map and bleachers at the base of the spur. The sergeants bid us sit down and pay attention. They were all solemn, and looked like ushers at a funeral or something. (Well they worried: this was to be a live fire participation with machine guns firing just over our heads as we ran, and lethal charges being set off beneath and around us as we went!). After all, we might be dumb-ass Yankees (for the most part) but we were, as they say, THEIR dumb-ass Yankees...
Our asses were on the line!
"No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar's downward blow..."
(The machine guns were mounted at the base of the slope here such that they were in a wooden frame affair, and their barrels could not be depressed below a certain limit. This had been calculated to be just enough to clear our helmets – but not a whole lot more (!). Explosives to simulate artillery and aerial bursts, were simulated by sticks of dynamite which hung down on cords suspended about two feet above the bottoms of the “shell holes.” These varied up to maybe 15 feet across, I suppose, and as much as ten feet deep – and most had about a foot or two of muddy water in the bottom. When the dynamite was detonated (by wire from the geniuses who “ran” all this from a bunker back in the woods behind us), the result was a huge explosion as you ran by such “shell hole” – often bowling you “...ass-over-tintype” as Granny used to say, and showering you with mud and water. A very faithful simulation indeed, and to one such I owe a lifetime hearing problem ever since... Of the latter affliction, my mother used to say my only problem was that I had only to "apply myself" and all impediments would vanish. It never worked for me.)
Depp was telling off the rifle squads. BAR men (No. 2 in an infantry squad) were being hustled into position. Grenadiers were hanging “pineapples” on their gear – including “smoke” as various color smoke grenades were to be discharged at various stages up the slope... Machine gun squads were making up: gunners with the barrels, assistant gunners with the tripods (they ran forth first, you see, plopped down in a good spot and slapped the tripod into position – ready then to receive the barrel from the next man – the gunner. The movies often flub this detail...). The ammo carrier came last, lugging the heavy boxes of ammo. To get these troops out of sync in an advance was to invite Chinese Theater...
Depp ran a practiced eye over the rest of us. Many of us were bigger than the others, who had quickly been assigned their roles. For us there was always something “special” – usually something heavy to lift or carry.
I was right.
“Powell,” he said, “I got something here special today for you (I had visions of bangalore torpedo man... damn!) but no... how lucky can you get? ...” You gonna carry the flamethrower!”
Jeezul! The flamethrower! Damn thing weighed 70 pounds and that slope was a long, long way up to the gun slits in those bunkers!
“Get it on, NOW!” he said. The issue I saw, was not negotiable nor up for discussion. Sigh.
Bert or someone helped me get strapped into this thing. God, I hated them! Heavy, and scary to boot! There were two kinds of ignition systems I recall. One, the later model I believe, had a spark plug igniter run off a battery. But there was some kind of problem in design so that the batteries were often "dead" (ergo: no flame!). The other was essentially the same 3-tank gas “pack,” but it had a gadget near the nozzle end that looked like a big, rotary pack of safety matches. To ignite, you pulled the trigger and this pack of what looked for all the world like safety matches, rotated and some of the matches struck and ignited the fuel. Kinda Mickey Mouse.... I am tempted to think this model was as an improvement over the former (to overcome reliance on batteries) - but again I seem to recall it was actually an earlier model and thus, the other way around (?). I have never met anyone else since who was familiar with these "safety match rotating head" types... nor was I able to find a picture of one on the Web anywhere to use for an illustration here. But anyhow, this latter type unit is what I had that day.
A little thin, wiry sergeant appeared out of nowhere - pack- and load-free of course – and said, “Listen, Big Guy! You are to follow me up this hill. I will show you just where and when to run, but you MUST keep up with me!”
The frontline troops were already moving out and the chatter of the overhead machine guns had started... red richocheting tracers flying off into the woods in all directions. Planes flew low over the ridge and dropped smoke... The little Sergeant guy wheeled and started off up a well-worn path. I followed close behind. What a run that was! Holy Gee! The path got steeper and steeper. Stupefying detonations were going off everywhere left and right, ahead and behind us. One knocked me down but I got up and kept after my bellwether. He was half goat anyhow and he ran on and on and up and up. I thought my heart and lungs would burst. He kept turning and saying: “Faster! Faster!”
We finally paused behind a bit of an overhang. He popped two grenades – and dark purple smoke engulfed us and I staggered to one side out of the chemical fumes... It signaled some stage or other in the “advance,” and he was watching the far side of the valley when he saw similar smoke popped in answer.
At this he jumped up, said, “We are lagging behind!” And began to run up hill ahead of me twice as fast.
Finally, when my legs were about to give out on me, we reached the top: right under the looming pillbox I had seen earlier from way down below in the valley! Guys were shouting and firing their M-1’s and coming up the hill right even with us and spread all the way back down the slope as well.
"An' now it's "'Oo goes backward?" an' now it's "'Oo comes on?"
And now it's "Get the doolies," an' now the Captain's gone;
An' now it's bloody murder, but all the while they 'ear
'Is voice, the same as barrick-drill, a-shepherdin' the rear.
I was gulping great gulps of air, and this little Sergeant came up to my side and said, “NOW! Now! You got to fry ‘em! Fry ‘em NOW!”
I knew what he meant – so I ooched up the last few yards of bank under the gun slit and clicked this idiot safety-match thing and pulled the trigger. A long squirt of flame shot out and I could hear the Sergeant back behind me yelling: “IN it! IN it! Not AT it!” as the flames were playing all over the outside of the bunker and scorching it blacker than it already was.
I released the trigger and the flame went out. But inside the pillbox through the narrow slit I could see that some of the fuel had got in, and was burning fiercely inside there. So this time I just pulled the trigger again like we had been taught, no igniter this time, and a stream of unlit fuel shot out like a fire hose and went right in through the slit and burst into horrendous flame inside the bunker!
“That’s it! That’s it!,” he shouted. “You got’em! You did it! Great!”
By now the tanks were all but exhausted and I released the mechanism, then just slid back down the dirt pile like a kid in a sandbank.
And that’s how we – Third Platoon of Charlie Company - the Last of the Mohicans – took the last bunker in the last battle simulation at Camp Wheeler in WWII. One month later, the camp closed down forever.
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