ADVANCED INFANTRY TRAINING

After passing back through the gates of their training depots, after doling out the traditional “You'll be sorrreeeeee!” to incoming recruits, after taking their last look at the instructors who had ruled every aspect of their existence for the longest weeks of their lives, the men who had been mere “boots” became Marines. They entered into a brotherhood of elite fighting men; they were conscious of the reputation they were now tasked to uphold, derisive of anyone wearing any other uniform, and fiercely loyal to each other. However, their training and conditioning was far from over. Though they were now addressed as “Marine,” the fresh graduates had further obstacles and challenges to overcome before facing the ultimate test of combat. They might be assigned to any one of a variety of specialist courses - to train as radiomen, mechanics, artillerists, aerial gunners, clerks, cooks, tankers – or, if they had shown exceptional intelligence or leadership ability, to Officer Candidates School. The majority would attend advanced training in the infantry camps, where the skills needed to survive on the modern battlefield were learned again and again in the hopes that the men would survive the crucible of combat.

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Camp Lejeune: Tent City, New River, North Carolina

Marines at New River, North Carolina, late 1942. From left: Howard Haff, George Smith, Bartholomew Wanagaitis, David Spohn, Howard Kerr, John Franey. Collection of the author.

For the residents of Onslow County, North Carolina, the Second World War began in April, 1941. The impoverished county, covered in pine and pecan trees, tobacco farms, and sparsely populated towns, was bisected by the slow-flowing New River; the nearby beaches and islands bore a peaceful resemblance to those found in the South Pacific. A Raleigh newspaper proclaimed that “war is driving 500 North Carolina families from their homes... to make way for a Marine base in Onslow County as another step in Uncle Sam's national defense preparations.”1 The new base spanned 11,000 acres, including Marine training facilities, an airfield, and a segregated boot camp for black recruits. Though the higher-ups called the base Marine Barracks New River, grumpy Marines quartered in leftover worker's tents dubbed their post “Tent City.” (The base gained its present name, Camp Lejeune, in late 1942. Marines who passed through the base prior to that date use “New River” and “Lejeune” interchangeably, while those who attended later use the current name.)

Construction and training continued through the year, and New River became a common first duty post for recent graduates of Officer Candidate School. One such Marine was Second Lieutenant Irving Schechter, who arrived at New River in September, 1941. Schechter, a first-generation American of Austrian-Jewish descent, was keeping a close eye on the political situation in Europe; while at New River, however, he realized that “the Marines' specialty, the amphibious assault, would be in great demand if we went to war with Japan.”2

On December 7, 1941, Schechter's premonitions were realized. He was on liberty with some fellow officers when a radio broadcast howled the news of Pearl Harbor. All Marines were to return to their quarters on the double.

We returned immediately and found everything in a condition of wild chaos that was to continue for quite a while. The scuttlebutt ran wild. One of the stories that most people believed had German dirigibles bringing paratroopers across the Atlantic to be dropped at our camp. The fact that Germany had not as yet declared war on the U.S. Had not impressed anyone, but neither had the Japanese before Pearl Harbor.... We started digging trenches all over our camp. We were going to be ready for the Nazis when they came.3

Another lieutenant, William Hawkins, was also on liberty when he heard the news. He and a friend were sitting in a bar with some local ladies, when they heard the news on the radio. After recovering from the shock, they dashed back to base. “What a laugh! There really was nothing for us to do Sunday night. We should have stayed with the young ladies.”4

Later in the month, several New River lieutenants – Schechter among them – were ordered to Norfolk, where they took command of five hundred recruits straight from Parris Island. The ad-hoc unit was dispatched to Panama and went into garrison duty. This was not the hard-charging assignment that the young lieutenants wanted, but there they would remain until further orders.5

New River was soon at the epicenter of the reactivation and mobilization of the Marine Corps. Major General Philip Torrey, commander of New River, began scrambling to fill up the four regiments of his First Marine Division.6 With few exceptions, Marines from Parris Island and Quantico were routed to New River for assignment. Robert Leckie, a young man from Rutherford, New Jersey, graduated from Parris Island in early 1942. His platoon arrived at New River after a comfortable train ride; their first impression of the base was one of confusion as NCOs handed out assignments to the new men:

We arrived at New River in darkest night....They fell us out of the train with much shouting and flashing of lights, and we formed ranks on the siding. All was shadowy. None of these yelling rushing figures... seemed related to reality, except when a flashlight might pin one of them against the darkness. Black as it was, I was still able to gain the impression of vastness; the dome of heaven arching darkly overhead and stretching away from us – a limitless flatness broken only by silent huts.7

Leckie and his comrades were among the first enlisted men to arrive at New River. They were marched into one of the huts, where each was interviewed, “name, serial number, rifle number, etc. - all the dry detail that tells nothing of a man.... That was how the Marines classified us. The questions were perfunctory. The answers were ignored. Schoolboy, farmer, scientist-of-the-future – all were grist to the reception mill and all came forth neatly labeled: First Marines.” Leckie was removed from his boot camp friends and assigned, seemingly at random, to H Company, Second Battalion, First Marines. “Someone in that cheerless hut had decided that I should become a machine gunner.” Upon arrival at their new company, “Captain High-hips” ran them through a similarly impersonal process, assigning men who had never met to squads led by NCOs fresh from other regiments.8 Like it or not, these men would serve together for the remainder of the war – or the remainder of their lives.

For some Marines, the assigning of duties was not quite so slap-dash; as the war went on and the immediate need for riflemen diminished somewhat, more care was taken when examining a man's personal background. James “Salty” Hathaway, a native North Carolinian, had earned the single stripe of a Private First Class upon completing boot camp in 1943. When home on leave, his father mentioned that “some civilian people in cheap suits had been there checking on me at the farm and in town, with my schoolteachers and all.”9 Any conclusions drawn by this investigation were taken into account with Hathaway's performance in training, and he was assigned to Camp Lejeune's top-secret Courthouse Bay Camp, where he trained on the latest models of amphibious tanks. “I think we were the first or second group to go through because we knocked down all the trees and vegetation and even tore up a bunch of houses. The amtracs were painted orange so we wouldn't run into each other in the woods.”10

William Manchester, whose attitude towards officer's school led to his dismissal from Quantico, was made a sergeant in command of his battalion's “intelligence section,” which was ostensibly tasked with “scouting, mapping, interrogation of prisoners, and other normal duties.” Manchester reacted to this assignment with his typical scorn. “Mapping in the middle of battle? Questioning POWs whose language we didn't speak? And what were 'other normal duties'?"11 His squad mates were a strange bunch by any standard:

We were in fact very odd. Most of us were military misfits, college students who had enlisted in a fever of patriotism and been rejected as officer candidates because, for various reasons, we either despised the OCS system openly or did not conform to the established concept of how officers should look, speak, and act.... Chet, who had been a running back for Colgate, had a build like Charles Atlas but the voice of a Wagnerian soprano.... Beau Tatum of the University of Virginia had no sense of direction.... Bubba Yates of Ole 'Bama was walleyed.... Wally suffered from exophthalmia, protruding eyeballs, and in addition he wore horn-rimmed glasses that gave him a look of perpetual surprise. He was built close to the ground, like a cabbage... with that and his vision, Quantico had tossed him out. Whitey Dumas had been a confidence man. Jailed in Portsmouth on charges of impersonating an officer, he had talked his way out of it by telling the warden that he could read and speak fluent Japanese.12

Al Abbatiello, a six-foot tall Bronx native, was the second in line to receive his assignment – the Marines had a penchant for alphabetical order – and was horrified to be selected for Raider training. “I said, 'Oh, my God, I joined the Marine Corps but I don't want to be a raider.'” Returning to base after a ten day furlough, he was questioned about his background by another administrator. Abbatiello said that he had worked as a carpenter's helper; much to his relief, he was reassigned to the engineers.13

Experienced drill instructor Robert Williams, who commanded respect at Parris Island despite his single Pfc. stripe, accompanied a group of thirteen other instructors to New River in late November, 1942. They organized under Lieutenant Harry Reynolds and First Sergeant William Dolly, and were told to prepare for an influx of new recruits. Although none had seen combat before, their experience would be needed – the incoming men had had their training period cut short, and would need the guidance of good leaders.14 A new skipper arrived a few days later – Irving Schechter, recently promoted to captain, had cajoled, wheedled, and hitchhiked his way back to Camp Lejeune to take command of a rifle company – the dream of any line officer in the Corps.15 This core of experienced men was the ideal basis for the formation of a brand-new unit.

Camp Lejeune was an ideal location for the daunting prospect of molding men from different backgrounds into a cohesive fighting force. The experience of Recruit Platoon 849 is a typical example of this synthesis. Upon arrival in December 1942, the majority of the platoon was designated as Able Company, First Separate Battalion (Reinforced) – an experimental “super unit,” as George Smith would recall.16 They were spread out among Dolly's coterie of NCOs, becoming clerks, riflemen, machine gunners, or mortarmen. George Smith was assigned to the First Squad of the Weapons platoon, and with twenty-three other men, were marched to their Quonset huts by Sergeant John Yaniga and Corporal Kermit Shaw. Fortunately, Smith knew most of the other men in his squad, and Hut #10 would become the nearest thing to home many of the Marines had known since enlisting. The hut was dry, heated by a semi-functional kerosene stove, and the pasteboard walls with exposed framing provided countless opportunities for improving one's knife throwing.17 After a few days spent acclimatizing, the Captain passed down the word: Friday was to be a “field day,” or general housecleaning, in preparation for an inspection by new “battle-hardened” officers. With the lessons of Parris Island still fresh in their minds, the fourteen machine gunners of Hut #10 soon had their quarters squared away.

At 0900, the bugler sounded inspection call. Shortly after, we heard the inspection party approach.... A fresh-faced long drink of water in new officer greens and WHITE gloves squares himself in the hatch, shoes barley inboard the threshold, raises his arm over his head and passes his hand along the door sill, brings his hand down to eye level, stares, and then says loudly "DUST!" He steps back and is gone, leaving half of us laughing hysterically and the other half dumbfounded. Of course we all thought any chance of liberty was nil. But when Liberty Call sounded and some brave soul checked the liberty list, he found we were all on it. We all agreed we weren't to sure about our Lieutenant being "Battle Hardened," but we were damn sure we had a good one.18

The “long drink of water,” Second Lieutenant Philip Wood, was as new to Marine training as his men, whom he referred to as “a bunch of rookies.”19 He was also experiencing Camp Lejeune for the first time, after paying for his own train ticket from Quantico. “The place is cold as the devil,” he wrote, “and expensive eating, and way out in the middle of the pine and Spanish moss swamps; but all seem to like it pretty well – especially for its informality – wear dungarees and boots all the time.”20 Wood was quartered with five friends from his OCS class, which doubtless eased his transition from classroom officer to leader of men.

Hut 10, New River. JJ Franey, Merle Geesaman (in window), George Smith, Howard Haff, Howard Kerr. Collection of the author.

The training program at Lejeune, while not as dehumanizing as the boot camp experience, was no less challenging. While Captain Schechter rather laconically commented that “My task was basic – to give the men rugged infantry training,”21 the officers and men were put through the wringer in order to iron out their roles within their company. Robert Leckie, assigned to a heavy machine gun, believed most of his training consisted of carrying the heavy pieces of his weapon around in squad formation.

Gun drill and nomenclature. Know your weapon, know it intimately, know it almost with the insight of its inventor; be able to take it apart blindfolded or in the dark, to put it together; be able to recite mechanically a detailed description of the gun's operation, know the part played by every member of the squad, from gunner down to the unfortunates who carried the water can or the machine gun boxes, as well as their own rifles. It was dull and it was depressing, and the war seemed very far away.22

William Manchester's training in battalion-level intelligence was similarly uninspiring.

In Tent City we carried out exhausting exercises in the Carolina boondocks, inflating black rubber boats and silently guiding them towards beaches, carrying out simulated missions at night, and becoming snarled in bales of communications wire.... That was one of our minor disasters. Whenever it was Beau Tatum's turn to keep the map, we were an even greater trial. Our patrols would disappear into the piney woods, subsisting there on K and C rations, utterly lost, until we were found thrashing around in the bush and led back by a rescue party from the battalion's 81-millimeter mortar platoon, our long suffering neighbors....23

Even the officers could face moments of uncertainty. Philip Wood was told to give a series of lectures on chemical warfare, despite having little more knowledge on the topic than what was required to pass his OCS examinations.24 Jim Craig, awaiting a vacancy at OCS, believed his weeks Lejeune were physically tougher than boot camp. He recalled being sent out on a “compass march” - the platoon was dropped in the middle of the North Carolina woods in the middle of the night with only a compass, a map, and teamwork to get them back to base. The Marines had to hang on to each other's rifles just to stay together; navigation was impossible, and after a futile struggle it was decided to wait until dawn before moving out. The exercise was designed to teach Marines how to effectively deal with desperate situations, rather than how to navigate at night.25

Training included focusing on the use of one's assigned weapon, platoon- and company-sized operations, and eternal physical conditioning. Philip Wood commented:

If busy-ness is the criterion of happy living, I’m certainly happy. I’ve always got work to do, and we are out in the field all day, four or five days a week. March seven or eight miles out, have problems, running up and down the walls of these canyons, and march back again – last week I carried a 45 lb. mortar all the way, and it was a job, I can tell you.26

Jim Craig remembered the obstacle course. Marines scaled high walls, negotiated deep mud holes, dodged shell holes, and – most fiendish for Craig – crossed a stream by running across a log suspended by ropes at each end. Craig endured many soakings before figuring out the perfect timing and method for crossing. Sticks of dynamite were detonated nearby to simulate combat conditions.27 Al Abbatiello's engineering course was no less intensive. “As an engineer, what are you going to do in combat? Build something? No. You blow things up.”28 Elsewhere, in other courses, Marines were learning to operate radios, drive trucks or amtracks, or practicing other areas of expertise, whether combat-related or not. Philip Wood's first love was the legal system. After he successfully defended a sergeant in a general court-martial, the accusing colonel - embarrassed at his loss of face - verbally demolished both the senior member of the court and the prosecutor in front of the entire assembly. Wood, on the other hand, was tearfully thanked by the sergeant, earned the enduring nickname "Legal Eagle," and – most importantly – did not pay for a single drink at the officer's club that night.29

Robert Stiles, a Bronx native assigned to the First Marines, arrived at Tent City after six weeks of boot camp. He recalled his time in North Carolina as “an ordeal.” Weapons training was emphasized above all:

The .45s, mortars, light and heavy machine guns, the Tommy submachine gun, everything you can think of. Take the .45 [Colt M1911 pistol]. We'd have to go into a tent where they'd blindfold you. Then you had to take the darn thing apart and put it back together again, naming each part as you put it into place. If you fouled up, good-bye weekend pass – not even any beer at the slop chute – you'd spend Sunday doing the whole thing over and over. We all thought this was chickenshit, but it came in handy later on.30

Occasionally, a Marine would crack up under the training regimen. Stiles remembered a youth from Georgia - “he said he was seventeen, but we all felt he was fifteen – just snapped. He shot his trigger finger off with his '03. Poor kid, he just couldn't take it. But, better that he did it in North Carolina than on Guadalcanal.”31

George Smith with M1 rifle, New River. Collection of the author.

Perhaps the most important phase of training at New River was the introduction to amphibious landings. The base had, after all, been chosen in part for its proximity to beaches providing conditions similar to those found in the Pacific. Robert Leckie wrote of the day his company was marched out to the “boondocks” for the first time. After a series of confusing and conflicting orders, the men assembled their packs into marching order – in addition to the prescribed gear, men would slip in extra soap, cans of beans, or letters from home – and fell in for the procession to the new training area.

Perhaps we walked ten miles; not much by the standards of veterans, but it was a great distance then. The route was through the pine woods, over a dirt track barely wide enough to admit a jeep. A whole battalion was on the march, and my poor squad was tucked away somewhere at center or center rear. Clouds of red dust settled upon us. My helmet banged irritably against the machine gun that was boring into my shoulder, or else it was bumped forward maddeningly over my eyes by the movement of my pack. A mile or so out, I dared not drink any more from my canteen.... My dungarees were saturated with sweat.... My mouth was dusty dry, my tongue swollen. I would moisten them with a swig of precious water, and then, stupidly, dry the whole thing out again with a mouthful of smoke. Cursing, hating both command and commandant, straining, we... began again the dull plodding rhythm of the march.32

At the conclusion of this march, the Marines encountered Higgins boats for the first time. In early 1942 these flat-bottomed landing craft were unfamiliar not just to Leckie, Stiles, and others of the First Marine Division, but to senior Marine tacticians and planners as well. The inter-war years had seen a variety of prototype vehicles introduced as a means of transporting troops for amphibious landings, none of which proved particularly successful. In 1938, the Marines took an interest in Andrew Higgins' “Eureka” boat. Continually modified during the Second World War, the Higgins boat (or LCVP – Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel) became the easily identified workhorse of nearly every Allied amphibious operation. Before being used in combat, though, they had to be tested – and the men had to grow accustomed to them.

Leckie recorded a typical reaction to the Higgins boat:

Hardly had we begun to move than the man on my left threw up.... Junior was no sailor: leeward or windward were all one to him. He vomited to windward. It came back upon us in a stringy spray, unclean, stinking. Curses beat upon Junior's head unmatched in volume even by the thin cry of the gulls wheeling overhead.... Others were sick and were making full use of their helmets. By the time we had reached the sea and were wallowing offshore in the deep troughs of the serf, half the boat had become sick, to the immense glee of the boatswain.... compassionate as a snake, obviously rehearsing the gleeful tale with which he would regale his swab-jockey buddies – of how the stuck-up Marines survived their first ordeal with the great salt sea.33

After practicing landing from the boats – and getting mercilessly soaked and abraded by salt and sand – the Marines were marched to a new camp in the pine woods. For Leckie and his comrades, the frustration and irritation of the earlier march and landing exercise dissolved into a boyish excitement at setting up tents in the wilderness. They padded their beds with plentiful pine needles, delighting in the comfort and pleasant smell, and ended the day with hot chow and hot coffee - “men living in the open demand no more.”34 The “good times in the boondocks” were an indication of how much rough treatment the young Marines could take – and, as Leckie put it, “qualified for the ranks of the gloriously raggedy-assed.”35

Howard Haff and George Smith climbing down the obstacle course. Collection of the author.

Aside from the rigors of training, the Marines were forming the personal connections of comradeship that are commonly invoked but never fully understood by those who have not served. George Smith's bunkmates in Hut #10 became his closest friends – not just in the service, but for life. Aside from knife-throwing practice - “the whole goddamn back of the hut was full of holes” - the hut was the site of endless bull sessions and escapades. The shortage of heating oil was endemic, and when the stove ran low, one or two Marines were dispatched to siphon off another hut's supply. When the hut's lieutenant, Phil Wood, became aware of the subterfuge, he casually mentioned that the officer's hut always seemed to have a good supply of oil. “I guess tonight everyone'll be bedded down early,” he said. The gunners of Hut #10 took his meaning, and with their lieutenant's tacit help, stole enough oil to keep their hut warm for weeks.36 They even had a surplus, which they decided to hide in one of the sand-filled fire buckets. The plan worked well until an actual fire broke out; Smith recalls a fellow gunner chasing a would-be firefighter who had grabbed the bucket of oil believing it to be filled with sand. The bucket was saved just in time.37 “Huts, oil, beer,” wrote Robert Leckie. “Around these three, as around a sacramental triad, revolved our early life at New River. Huts to keep us dry; oil to keep us warm; beer to keep us happy.”

When I remember New River, I remember the oblong huts with the low roofs; I remember the oil stoves and how we slipped out at night, buckets in hand, to pilfer oil from other companies' drums, passing the men from the other companies, thieves in the night like ourselves; I remember the cases of canned beer in the middle of the hut and how we had pooled our every penny to buy them, carrying them back boisterously on our shoulders, shouting and cheerful, because the warm dry huts awaited us, and soon the beer would be in our bellies and the world would be ours. We were privates, and who is more carefree?38

The bonds of friendship forged at Lejeune were more lasting than those at Parris Island – mostly because the Marines realized that these men, and no others, would be the ones with whom they would face the enemy. As a result, they began to identify themselves as members of a unit, forming the cohesive bonds that would serve them in combat. Leckie's experience is typical of many:

H Company was like a clan, or a tribe of which the squad was the important unit, the family group. Like families, each squad differed from the other, because its members were so different. They resembled in no way those “squads” peculiar to many war books – those beloved “cross sections” composed of Catholic, Protestant and Jew, rich boy, middle boy and poor boy, goof and genius – those impossible confections which are so pleasing to the national palate.... Nor was my squad troubled by racial or religious bigotry. We had no “inner conflict” as the phrase goes. These things happen most often in the imagination of men who never fought. Only rear echelons with plenty of fat can afford such rich diseases.... We could not stand dissension, and we sank all differences in a common dislike for officers and discipline; and later on, for the twin enemies of the Pacific, the jungle and the Jap.39

Pals at New River: Luther Diehl strikes his warrior pose, while George Smith sneaks up from behind. Jeff Jowers laughs in the doorway. Collection of the author.

Between the training and the bonding, there was liberty. Though Jacksonville, the nearest town, had a population of only 780,it seemed like heaven to Marines fresh from the confines of Parris Island.40 Officers used to spending weekends in Washington or other metropolitan centers often had gripes; Philip Wood remarked that the place was “expensive eating” and declined to describe his adventures further, in contrast to detailed letters about liberty from Quantico.41 Robert Stiles, a PFC, preferred spending his time with a comrade who had a local girlfriend with a car - Myrtle Beach had “nowhere near as many servicemen.”42 Some of William Manchester's squad took advantage of a rare seventy-two hour pass to drive to New York City in “an incredible automobile they had bought for twenty-five dollars.”43 Still others would travel to Wilmington, hitchhike to train stations, or take exorbitantly-priced taxis – the extra expense was mitigated by the reliability of taxis to get one back to base before one's pass expired.

There were plenty of local opportunities available to the less discriminating Marine. Drinking was far and away the most popular option. Jacksonville had a reputation for young whiskey and old women, but even so, Marines desperate for even this "marginal liberty" managed to find diversion there.44 Robert Leckie, along with his close friends, would walk two miles from their training area to Highway 17 in Jacksonville. “The highway was a midway,” he wrote.

It was lined with honky-tonks. To reach it was to sight a new world: one moment the soft dark and the smell of the wood... the next, cars and military vehicles hurtling down the cement strip, the crude shacks with their bare electric bulbs shining unashamed, their rough joints plastered with Coca-Cola and cigarette ads.45

Leckie and his friends based their activities out of a bar known as The Green Lantern, mostly because it was the first saloon they encountered on their trips to town. Other familiar locations were the Pine Lodge, home of the Jacksonville USO; the Double Eagle, whose jukebox had a single record - “Under the Double Eagle” - and the infamous Second Front, directly across from Tent City in the town of Verona. “Now if you had ever seen anything tough it was the Second Front,” recalled one Marine. “All they had was some old green beer and wine.... Every now and then, [someone] would stand up and shout, 'anybody in here for a fight?' He would get looked over pretty well and someone would say, 'Yeah, I'll try you a while.' Lordy, you have never seen anything like it.”46 As long as they steered clear of the MPs (who seemed to like nothing better than to pick up a dungaree-clad Marine for being out of uniform) and were present and ready for duty when required, Marines were tacitly allowed to drink all they liked.

Overindulgence in alcohol often led to rash decisions. Fights with other Marines, the hated MPs, or with civilians, were so commonplace as to be almost unworthy of notice. Some got up to mischief in the “eat, drink, and be merry” attitude inspired by their situation. With travel plans thwarted by poor luck with hitchhiking, Leckie and his cohorts drank away their frustrations until their money was gone; they then concocted an elaborate plan to steal a case of beer from a local tavern. Though the plan succeeded at first, they were threatened into returning the case by a gun-wielding bartender.47 Tattoos, a mark of the ne'er do well, the world traveler, and the old-salt Marine were popular with the young men, and the Jacksonville ink parlors often had long lines waiting to be scarred with “USMC,” “Death Before Dishonor,” or the globe and anchor emblem of the Corps.48

And, of course, there were women. Jacksonville was not considered prime territory for flirting, but nearby New Bern, Morehead City, and Wilmington were full of unattached young ladies looking to make time with a handsome Marine. Despite the folksy wisdom of a local rhyme: “Don't make goo-goo eyes / At Onslow County gals, / Or you're liable to get / filled with shot and shells,” a young man on the make rarely had to exert much effort to secure some female companionship.49 Some Marines didn't even have to go as far as Jacksonville. Bob Stiles recalled a shady character known as “Mr. Love.”

Every Saturday he'd run a couple of taxis up to the woods near the gate. He'd have a hooker in each cab ready for instant action. It was a little too gamy for me, but several of the boys didn't look at it that way. That creep, the pimp, he made a bundle.50

Robert Leckie described a more common encounter with a “café girl.” The cafés themselves were dingy and filled with cigarette smoke, the marble tables were marred by the sticky imprints of soda glasses and beer bottles, and the jukebox played at an earsplitting volume.

They sat at the tables, drinking slowly, smoking, giggling, their bodies seeming to strain to be free of their tight clothing – mouths working, sometimes with gum, sometimes with words, but no matter, for it was the eyes that counted, the eyes roving, raking the tables, parading the aisles, searching... hunting... hungering for the bold, answering look... and when it came, the deliberate crushing of the cigarette, the languid getting to the feet and straightening of the skirt, the sauntering, thin-hipped progress to the table, as though they had sat through endless showings of “Hell's Angels” and had the sex stride down perfect.51

Though such interactions often began with suspicious motives, not all interactions between Marines and local girls were solely prurient. Wilmington USO organizer Hannah Block took pride in relating that “a lot of girls found husbands... For many [servicemen], it broke the cycle of marrying the girl next door.”52 Leckie's squad leader, "Corporal Smoothface," married a café girl barely an hour after meeting her; the whirlwind romance, ceremony, consummation, and honeymoon were over in time for the Monday morning reveille back at New River.53

After several weeks of this advanced training, enlisted Marines and officers alike had changed noticeably. They were extraordinarily fit, able to march miles on end loaded with full individual equipment, familiar with deployment on the battlefield, and knew their weapons forwards and backwards. They had also learned the personalities and peculiarities of their comrades, formed friendships and enmities, and began to identify themselves with their own unit. Most were bound for California and then an unknown destination in the Pacific. Leckie and Stiles of the First Division spent only ten days on the West Coast before embarking for Guadalcanal; Schechter, Wood, and Smith of the First Separate Battalion spent several months training at Camp Pendleton before sailing for combat on Kwajalein. As they boarded the trains that would take them west to the war, the Marines were secure and confident in their abilities, and eager to put them to the test against the Japanese.

Members of Weapons Platoon, Able Company, First Separate Battalion (Reinforced). George Smith, David Spohn, Jeff Jowers, Kermit Shaw, Tom Hurley (sitting). Collection of the author.

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Camp Elliott: Dago People and Hollywood Marines

In 1914, Colonel Joseph Pendleton lobbied for the construction of a permanent Marine Corps base near San Diego. He cited proximity to the Mexican border, as well as port facilities that would allow for quick deployment of Marines to Central America and the Pacific. The proposed location was visited by Undersecretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt, and Pendleton's plans were approved; construction began in 1916 and continued through the 1930s. The Recruit Depot was established in 1923, and by 1934 it was clear that the Fleet Marine Force would require more land. A First World War-era Army facility, Camp Kearney, was expanded over the following years, and in 1940 was renamed Camp Elliott. Elliott became the home base for the Second Marine Division.54

In the years before World War Two, training at Camp Elliott was as grueling as any other base. Keith Renstrom enlisted in June, 1940, following the example of his father who had served in the First World War. He joined up with Fox Company, Sixth Marines at Camp Elliott, and was impressed by the “old-line regular Marine regiment” whose lineage reached back to the famous battles of Belleau Wood and Blanc Mont Ridge in 1918. “Most of the men in the 6th had at least one cruise (six years) in the Corps, even the privates.”55 As a younger Marine, Renstrom had to make a name for himself quickly. A natural with the Browning Automatic Rifle, Renstrom earned a spot promotion to Private First Class after an impressive performance on the firing range with a malfunctioning weapon. The promotion did not sit well with Renstrom's gunnery sergeant, but after Renstrom repeated his feat in front of the platoon, the NCOs left him alone. “If you showed them you could produce, they respected you.”56 Renstrom's regiment left Camp Elliot for duty in Reykjavik; it would be many cold months before they returned to San Diego.

Edward Driscoll was a scout attached to the Second Marine Division. He completed his boot training in early 1941, and after a course in Morse code was assigned to the new Camp Elliot. Driscoll's unit was equipped with lightly armored scout cars, and he spent much of the year training for an anticipated deployment to North Africa. Two weeks of maneuvers in desert conditions was “rough duty,” but it was mitigated somewhat by a bivouac at a Palm Springs tennis club where enterprising Marines could meet local belles for a date in town.57

The news of Pearl Harbor filled San Diego with the same frantic energy as the rest of the nation; rumors that the Japanese were planning an invasion of the West Coast added fuel to the fire. Driscoll, detached from Camp Elliott to attend a training school in San Diego, had just attended a morning Mass when he heard about the Japanese attack. “Wow! Like every other Marine in town, I rushed back to camp,” he wrote. He was greeted by his old-Corps First Sergeant, “Peep Sight.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” he yelled.
“I figured I'd better come back,” I answered.
“But you're on detached duty.”
“Okay, then I'll go back to San Diego.”
“Like hell you will! Go over to your platoon; they've got work for you to do.”
So I spent the night loading .30 and .50 caliber machine gun belts.58

Driscoll's platoon went on beach patrol for several days, hearing “a different [rumor] every minute. Once we realized what happened to the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, we could believe anything.”59

In this Life Magazine photograph from 1942, Marines at Camp Elliott practice bayonetting Hitler and Mussolini.

In September 1942, as the Marine Corps expanded to contest Japanese expansion in the Pacific, advanced training bases on the East Coast were strained to the limit. Camp Elliott's commandant, Major General C. F. B. Price, was tasked with the training of individual replacements for combat duty. The high standards of pre-war training were maintained as well as could be while the instructors hurried to turn out as many qualified Marines as possible.

For Marines fresh from the rigors of boot camp, duty at Elliott seemed almost like a vacation. Eugene Sledge arrived at his new duty station on Christmas Day, 1943.

No one yelled at us or screamed orders to hurry up. The NCOs seemed relaxed to the point of being lethargic. We had the free run of the camp except for certain restricted areas. Taps and lights out were at 2200. We were like birds out of a cage after the confinement and harassment of boot camp. With several boys who bunked near me, I sampled the draught beer at the slop chute (enlisted men's club), bought candy and ice cream at the PX (post exchange), and explored the area. Our newly found freedom was heady stuff.60

Sledge's first days at Camp Elliott were filled with lectures and demonstrations on company level tactics and weaponry, from the 37mm antitank gun to the .30 caliber machine gun to the Browning Automatic Rifle. Much to Sledge's surprise, he and his comrades were allowed to choose the weapon they wanted to train with. “Apparently the idea was that a man would be more effective on a weapon he had picked rather than one to which he was assigned.” Sledge chose the 60mm M2 mortar; his wish was granted and his training revolved around the support weapon.61

John Barry arrived from MCRD San Diego in September, 1943. He was happy to be out of boot camp, and speculated that he would have a chance to choose his career in the Marine Corps. “I think I'll choose a .50 caliber machine gun, or get into an anti-tank outfit.”62 For one reason or another, Barry was sent to infantry training. “Gerry Nelson said nothing was as hard as boot camp, but he didn't go through a 'stone crusher's' (infantryman) training. It's boot camp all over again except we have 2nd Lieuts. over us. They are pretty good guys. They have to be, because we are going to be fighting together.”63 Arliss Franklin attended Elliott's Combat Intelligence School, which “had nothing to do with spy work or deciphering codes. We were trained as scouts.... Our job was usually to scout the area our company was moving into.”64 Leon Uris's novel Battle Cry was based on his experience at Camp Elliott's radio school. After hours spent listening to coded transmissions over headphones, the radiomen would retire to their barracks only to be annoyed by the bugling of their next-door neighbors in the Field Music school.

The most important aspect of training at Elliott was emphasis on infantry weapons, tactics, and deployment. When Eugene Sledge reported for his first lesson in mortars, he was impressed by the quiet competence of his instructor, a Guadalcanal veteran.

He was a clean-cut, handsome blond man wearing neat khakis faded to just that right shade that indicated a “salty” uniform. His bearing oozed calm self-confidence. There was no arrogance or bluster about him, yet he was obviously a man who knew himself and his job and would put up with no nonsense from anybody.... Sometimes his mind seemed a million miles away, as though lost in some sort of melancholy reverie. It was a genuine attribute, unrehearsed and spontaneous. “Address me as sergeant, not sir.... You guys are U.S. Marines now. You are not in boot camp anymore. Just relax, work hard, and do your job right, and you won't have any trouble. You'll have a better chance of getting through the war.” He won our respect and admiration instantly.65

Sledge's group was divided into squads of five men each. Every man spent equal time training in each position – gunner, assistant gunner, and ammunition carrier – in case of combat casualties. The Marines began to gain a better understanding of the danger they would face, especially when they started training with live ammunition.

When I saw the first of the shells burst with a dull bang about two hundred yards out on the range, I suddenly realized what a deadly weapon we were dealing with. A cloud of black smoke appeared at the point of impact. Flying steel fragments kicked up little puffs of dust all around an area about nine by eighteen yards. When three shells were fired from one weapon, the bursts covered an area about thirty-five by thirty-five yards with flying fragments.

“Boy, I'd pity any Jap that had all that shrapnel flying around him,” murmured one of my more thoughtful buddies.

“Yeah, it'll tear their asses up all right. But don't forget they're gonna be throwing stuff at you just as fast as they can,” said the mortar sergeant.

This, I realized, was the difference between war and hunting. When I survived the former, I gave up the latter.66

John Barry endured lengthy conditioning marches. “Mornings, afternoons, and once at night we went out on battle problems, just like maneuvers,” he wrote. “My biggest trouble was, like everyone else, that we had only one canteen of water for 24 hours. Every morning we filled it up and they dropped in a salt tablet to keep salt in our body and to make it taste so bad that nobody would want to drink much at one time.”67 Leon Uris faced the same marches, but with the added burden of radio equipment. He described the burden of a radioman in his novel Battle Cry:

Ski was all but lost under the quantity of gear: steel helmet, Reising gun, radio, two canteens of water, machete knife, first-aid pack, two hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition. His ass pack sagged nearly to the ground and was topped by an entrenching tool, poncho, and shelter half. He looked sad.68

Forced marches and combat problems could involve any combination of forces, from a platoon to a battalion to a full regiment with Air Corps fighters doing simulated fly-by attacks. John Barry learned to throw live hand grenades on one expedition to the boondocks. “They are bright yellow, and just fit in your hand nice. Two at a time we pulled the pins and threw them at some mark on the ground. They really explode and fling the pieces around. As far as 200 yards away we found little squares of yellow steel.”

Barry also described a “combat reaction course.”

Out there they put on a record of all sorts of loud noises – men screaming, bombs bursting. They actually set off land mines near you and when you see about five heavy lumbering tanks coming at you, you drop in a fox hole – already dug out – and the tank drivers make sure they drive right over each and every fox hole twice. While it's going on it isn't bad, but afterwards I wondered how I went through with it.69

The Marines also took courses in judo, advanced bayonet training, and how to fight the Japanese hand-to hand. Eugene Sledge's instructor told his charges to “kick him in the balls before he kicks you in yours.”70 They were introduced to the Ka-Bar fighting knife, which became such a ubiquitous piece of equipment that the manufacturer's name, Ka-Bar, became a Marine Corps noun when referring to their knife. “I guarantee that you or the man in the next foxhole will use a Ka-Bar on a Jap infiltrator before the war is over,” said Sledge's instructor; Sledge commented simply, “He was right.”71

John Barry was tapped to carry a Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR. This squad support weapon had a twenty round magazine, weighed nearly twenty pounds, and was the building block of the Marine fire team. “[I] am automatically enlisted into the suicide society of BAR men,” wrote Barry. “My Lieut. told us that a BAR is invaluable while he lasts, but an automatic weapon is a Jap's invitation to come in hordes. It's going to be fun with my 480 rounds and my BAR on my shoulder.”72 He completed BAR training with a 95% rating, and shot 171 out of 175 on the range with the complicated weapon.73 Barry was confident: “There's going to be a pile of them squints when I'm through.”74

This confidence in their abilities lent itself to a feeling of invulnerability. “I don't recall that anyone really comprehended what was happening outside our own training routine,” wrote Sledge.

Maybe it was the naïve optimism of youth, but the awesome reality that we were training to be cannon fodder in a global war that had already snuffed out millions of lives never seemed to occur to us. The fact that our lives might end violently or that we might be crippled while we were still boys didn't seem to register. The only thing that we seemed to be truly concerned about was that we might be too afraid to do our jobs under fire.75

John Barry had a surreal experience when he received a misdirected letter, addressed to a man who shared the same name. “This letter was mailed on January 7th, '43. This other guy must have been killed and for almost nine months they had been sending it everywhere to find where a man by that name was, and it finally reached me.” Barry returned the letter, remarking “It sure was queer, but something to think about.”76

After weeks of training and weekends of sampling the varied delights of liberty in San Diego, Camp Elliott Marines received their assignments. True to its mission statement of training individual replacements, many men were sent to replacement drafts intended to fill the ranks of divisions already tested in combat. Eugene Sledge became a mortarman with Company K, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines. John Barry took his BAR to war as a company scout for Company I, Third Battalion, Twenty-Second Marines. Others, depending on their date of graduation and the needs of the Corps, were sent to brand new units; many who completed their courses in 1943 were sent down the road to Camp Pendleton to become part of the brand-new Fourth Marine Division. Before it was handed over to Navy control in 1944, Camp Elliott had trained thousands of Marines. Eugene Sledge leaves an elegy to the education he received:

All of our instructors at Camp Elliott did a professional job. They presented us with the material and made it clear that our chances of surviving the war depended to a great extent on how well we learned. As teachers they had no problem with student motivation.... We trained with enthusiasm and the faith that the battles we were destined to fight would be necessary to win the war.77

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NOTES AND CITATITIONS

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