This is an essay about my military career which ended about 65 years ago. The essay will necessarily record the incompetence of the United States Army but at the same time will celebrate the decency of one commissioned officer. This essay is being recorded at this time prior to my brain delivering a “don’t answer” to my questions. It is also being recorded now because I realize that there are small chunks of my military career that could never be answered by anyone else but myself. So in one respect, the essay has a public service quality to it. In other respects, the essay will record a town or two and a battle that frequently escape my memory, but which I have recalled for this essay.
No one should contend that my military service was a gorgeous piece of work. The Second World War was upon us and I did what I thought every decent citizen ought to do. In the summer of 1942, I enlisted in what I thought was the United States Army. By that time, the military authorities had created the “Army of the United States” which was aimed at distinguishing between those who had served before Pearl Harbor and those of us who came afterward. So my discharge reads that I was discharged from the AUS (Army of the United States) rather than the USA. I am here to tell you that if you get hit by a bullet fired by a German machine gun, the effect is exactly the same whether you are working for the US Army or the Army of the United States.
In December of 1942, we set sail from Charleston, South Carolina, on a freighter that was named for one of Christopher Columbus’s ships. It could have been the Nina or something of that sort. In any event, the two-week trip, or perhaps that should be as many as three weeks, was quite unpleasant. Enlisted men were required to sleep in bunks piled six in number from the bottom bunk to the top bunk.
Eventually, some time in January, we landed at the port of Dakar, Senegal. For many years, Senegal had been a possession of France. This was a period of great turmoil in Europe and the French had been defeated. Putting it properly, there was no law and order in Dakar. When the French went down, everything went down with them.
Shortly after our landing, we were moved to a place called Rufisque, also in Senegal. It was about 25 or 30 miles outside of Dakar. Within two or three days, a message arrived urgently requesting that aerial engineers with some exposure to machine gun training depart for “detached duty” with the Twelfth Air Force.
At that moment, there was a fierce battle going on in Tunisia at Kasserine Pass where the American First Army was involved in a blood bath. In short, it became clear that the American First Army was about to be defeated by Field Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Corp. The idea was to use air power to try to turn back Rommel’s assault.
At that point, Walter Bednar from Cleveland, Eddie Boyce from Brooklyn, and several others of us were placed on detached duty and assigned to the Twelfth US Army Air Force. There was no formal designation in our departure. It was simply a matter of “We need you at Kasserine Pass” and that pretty much settled the matter. In the final analysis, Walter Bednar, Eddie Boyce, and several others of us had spent thirteen or fourteen months on detached duty with the Twelfth Air Force.
Detached duty has great drawbacks. It means that promotions go to those who are regularly assigned to that air force. We were considered fill-ins and as a result we flew missions as gunners, often with pilots with whom we were unacquainted. But, that is what the Army wanted and that is what they got.
It took about a week, if my memory serves me correctly, for the battle at Kasserine Pass to be settled. Unhappily our First Army had its nose bloodied. Several of us went on from Kasserine to stay with the Twelfth Air Force through the invasion of Sicily and then to fly missions in support of the British Eighth Army in Italy.
People on detached duty come at the end of the line. The table of organization in the Army apparently makes no mention of those of us on detached duty. In any case, our situation was resolved by the American landing in France in June of 1944. Shortly thereafter, the Twelfth Air Force folded its wings and we were sent back to our regular duty in the Air Transport Command, as the Twelfth Air Force passed into history.
I did not realize at the time that Captain Bell, the man in charge of flight line operations, was aware of the plight of the detached duty men on his roster. When the time came, I believe, in December of 1944, there was a flight of a C47 from Naples, Italy back to the Douglas factory in California, where the oldest airplane in the European theater was to be recommissioned and sent out on a war bond drive. With very little fanfare, I was told that I would be the aerial engineer on that flight. Naturally, I was delighted because I had been absent from my home for more than two years. But apparently Captain Bell recognized the unfairnesses that had been visited upon those of us on detached duty and picked me as the aerial engineer instead of someone on the regular roster of the Twelfth Air Force. Naturally, Captain Bell has my undying admiration.
I thought no more about the detached duty business until November of 1945 when it was time for me to receive my honorable discharge from the Army of the United States. On the morning of November 8, 1945, I arose early and caught the 5 o’clock street car that would take me from my in-laws’ home to the bus station in St. Louis where Army transportation was available to take me to Belleville, Illinois, the home of Scott Field. In essays previous to this one, I have recorded the bitter argument that ensued when I presented my orders to be discharged. To put matters briefly, the Army did everything it could to make me re-enlist or get me to join the Ready Reserves. After 38 months, I said that they were making no headway with me and to please lay off with respect to further involvement with the Army.
I had arrived at Scott Field before 7 o’clock and hoped the discharge would be delivered before noon with the thought that I might take my new wife to lunch that day. But the discharge was delayed by the haranguing of these people who wished me to stay in the Army. When there was a reference to my patriotism, I responded with the most vulgar oath in my repertoire. That produced results and shortly after 7:30PM, the “ruptured duck” signifying a departing soldier, was sewed on to my uniform. All things considered, the day of my discharge, which should have been a happy one, turned out to be sort of unpleasant. My mother-in-law was angered because I did not show up for dinner. Apparently the roast that she had bought had cooled off, which was matched only by the coolness of her greeting when I arrived back in Maplewood, Missouri at her home to have a drink.
The major problem holding up my discharge had to do with the fact that the Twelfth Air Force had not communicated with the Air Transport Command, and as a result none of what I had done with the Twelfth Air Force was ever reported in the Air Transport Command’s history of my service. This was a case of gross incompetence. Those of us on detached duty had come to expect that sort of treatment. I know that in my case as well as in the cases of Eddie Boyce and Walter Bednar none of our decorations had been transmitted to the Air Transport Command headquarters. Later I found out that a fire on Goodfellow Avenue in St. Louis where the Army records were kept, had destroyed millions of records. Were my records in that fire? I have no idea. But the main fact is that the Army stored its records on Goodfellow Avenue, which came as a complete surprise to me.
When the clerk typist was kindly typing my discharge papers, I noticed that he was copying from someone who had a hatful of decorations. When I pointed that out to him, he said “Forget it; it will look good later on.” Later on, of course, when I applied for new discharge papers, there was no entry for decorations and that sort of thing. I also noticed that the Army had given me credit for 28 months overseas. My calculations had been that I had spent only 26 or 26½ months overseas. In my great desire to get out of the Army, I thought that this mistake would be useful. As it turns out, nobody cares whether you spent 26 or 28 months overseas. So I guess I made a mistake. I learned not to argue with these people who were trying to type my discharge.
Well there you have the gross incompetence of the United States Army in record keeping. In fairness, you have to recognize the decency of Captain Bell, who passed over all of his other aerial engineers to give me the trip home. Captain Bell has my enduring admiration.
Well that is about all I have to say about my service in the Army at this point. It seems to me that the moral of the story is that if one becomes embroiled in service to the United States Army or the Army of the United States, one should avoid detached duty at every opportunity. I don’t know whether this is much of a lesson, but it is about all that I have today.
E. E. CARR
January 27, 2010
Essay 434
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Kevin’s commentary: There are elements of Pop’s service about which he will never write, so I am always surprised when I encounter essays that touch on the experience.
It strikes me as somewhat odd that the army would name ships after the Nina and (presumably) Pinta, even though these ships are notable chiefly because they failed to ever reach their destinations.
So far as flying on detached duty goes, it makes very little sense to me that they would split up the gunners from the pilots such that the combinations may not have worked well together.
I have yet to read the essays about the 38-month badgering period but I suppose I will soon, as I work my way back in time through these essays. It seems obnoxious, though.
Speaking of older essays, I hope one day I shall find an essay devoted to Mimi’s parents, because I never met them and I think it could be an interesting learning experience. Also the potential for comedy seems high.