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About Camp Adair sentry. (Camp Adair, Or.) 1942-1944 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 13, 1943)
Camp Adair Sentn Friday. August 13, 1943. Fare Four History of The 96th Division: I unch of Guys Named Joe' Near Their Date With Destiny Commanding General of the 96th World War I Division Reborn; Ends 1st Year Ry Lt. Orlando R. Davidson The 96r'n Division is fast approaching its date with des tiny. Saturday we celebrate our first birthday. The story of. cur first 12 months is a modest* story—one we present simply for Hawaii, Mexico ard Puerto Rico the record and wholly as a pro and rose to the position of G-3 of logue. the old Ninth Corps Area. For the history of the 96th Divi Upon activation of the Fourth sion is yet to be written; where Army. General Bradley became i we do not know. Perhaps it will G-3, and subsequently was a be in the fields of Brittany, per pointed Deputy Chief of Staff of haps up the fiords of Norway, per the Fourth Army ard Western haps in the rice paddies of Chira. Defense Command. It was this po It will be scrawled in jagged red sition he left to take command of let ers by the wits and heroism of the 96th. a ' .meh of guys named Joe. This first year has. of course, Ably Assisted The War Department flar.kt d been ore of preparation for the General Bradley with a trio of able job atTiand. But before we review those months, a glance backward assistants—Brigadier General Wil- M. Miley. Assistant Division Com is in order. mander; Brigadier General Paul V. Glancing Backward Kane. Division Artillery Command In the spring and summer of er. and Colonel Hammond M. Mon 1918. a dramatic race was on. Hin- roe. Chief of Staff. Even before denberg’s Prussian armies were activation. General Miley was striving desperately to crack the whisked off to another job and stubborn Allied line before the to replace him came an equally fresh and unlimited manpower of competent officer, Brigadier Gen the United States could be moulded eral Claudius M. Easley. The per into a,fighting force and thrown manent “first team” was complete. into the battle, Conferences in Washington fol It was in this atmosphere that lowed and other key officers were the 96th Division was conceived. selected. Off they went to the var It came into being on Sept. 5. 1918, ious service schools. By this time, at CarnD Wadsworth. S. C., under all but a handful of the Northwest the command of Major General Guy Reserve Officers once marked for Carleton, a master tactician who service with the 96th had already had trained many of the troops al been called to other units and in ready at grips with the enemy. addition the War Department had abandoned the policy of regional Division Dies divisions. Accordingly, the officer But history was too fast for the ‘ young division. Not yet even activ complement emerged as a cosmo ated. it died for all practical pur politan cross-section of tPié Nation. poses on Armistice Day. On Janu More on that later. ary 17, 1919, it was officially buried—with honor but without distinction. Five years passed. Our citizens’ thoughts were far from war. But in Washington, the men directing our tiny peacetime military estab lishment knew that wishing our selves away from war was a poor guaranty of peace. Their job was to keep the powder dry, so, quietly, they laid the framework for our next wartime army. It watein 1923 that the 96th Divi sion came to life again—on paper. Regiments (approximate strength: one man and a telephone i were set up in Portland, Seattle and Eu gene. Reserve officers in the Pa cific Northwest were earmarked for the 96th. On “M” day it would be ready to go. Northwest Division oceans. California and New York each have contributed more than 200 men to the Division. Forty of us are native Oregonians. And we have 85 New Englanders to give us respectability. Pan-American sol idarity is served by our 40 Can adians, 16 Mexicans and 1 repre sentative from Peru and Cuba. If it i« our privilege someday to march down the Avenues of Rer- lin, 23 of our men will be walking on their native soil. Another half dozen are of Italian birth. We have one man from indomitable Malta, and five of us will take a peculiarly personal satisfaction if this Divi sion helps in liberating unhappy Poland. Basic MAJOR GENERAL JAMES L. BRADLEY, commanding general of the 96th Infantry division—which has returned to Camp Adair, is “glad to be back.” and prepared to celebrate its first anniversary with a great, all-around anniversary dac. in this can- tonmen|. tMuorrO.—Signal Corps photo. THE 96TH DIVISION ”We must have such determination to win that we are willing to undergo any hardships in preparing our selves to gain that victory. We will welcome obstacles that we may glory in overcoming them. We will welcome the rain and the mud. We will be as tough mentally as we are physically. “This is the kind of a Division we are going to be; well trained, tough physically and mentally, ready and anxious to fight, not for our own personal glory or ad vancement. but for the honor of the Division and the service of our country.” —Major General James L. Bradley August 15, 1942 The weeks that followed the ar rival of the troops were not ex citing—yet, in a sense, they were. These were the crucial 13 weeks the Army allots itself to transform civilians into soldiers. The paunchy ones grew lean. The scrawny ones put on pounds in the right places, The strong flourished. The weak fell by the wayside. What had been a shuffling mob was becom ing a pyramid of disciplined, func tioning. fighting men. Meanwhile, on Armistice Day, the Division met its commander, General Bradley, at the first for mation of the new Division in its entirety, restated his determina tion to put a hardened combat team in the field at the earliest possible moment, and warned his men: “We must grasp the thorn in our hand and prepare our minds and bodies for the hardships that will come before final victory. Aroused and in condition, we are the best fighting men in the world—a ter ror to our enemies and eager to close with them in eombat.” End of Basic On February 20, 1943, basic training was completed so far as 13 brief weeks would permit, the men of the 96th were trained sol diers. Now the job was to trans form the individual soldier into a w’orking cog.«to mold each unit of the Division into a single-purposed team. This was a big job and another 13 weeks were set aside for it. But while this was going on, the picture was constantly changing, for no military organization is static. But in an important sense, the 96th was still to be a Pacific North wet Division. The site selected for I its training was a raw cantonment, still largely in the blueprint stage, set amidst the fertile farmlands of MORE — MORE — MORE — the Willamette Valley. Appropri ately, it was named Camp Adair in memory of a youthful Oregon officer who died heroically in the Mexican Border campaign. Promotions Early in July, 1942, officers and Men who had but recently been men began trickling into Camp. MISSION: To bring the Division to such a state of privates began wearing sergeant's For awhile officers outnumbered proficiency as a fighting unit that it will be selected stripes. Lieutenants became cap enlisted men. and second lieuten- early as a front line combat division. tains, silver oak leaves sprouted ants lived in daily terror of find- where there had been gold. Officers —Training Memorandum No. 8 ing themselves on the next day’s who had seen the Division born 96th Infantry Division KP roster. The enlisted cadre. moved on to new assignments. drawn largely from the Seventh Others, both officers and men, were Motorized Division, Camp time wasted, and we have no time rive October 19, their teachers were called back to school that they I San Luis Obispo, California. Ap Reborn In Calamity I to waste . . . might return better equipped to do ready. There was never an “M" day, proached full strength, by July 16. | “Our enemies are tough, We their jobs or to tackle bigger ones. This is a good place to tell you but there was Pearl Harbor. Killed and by July 23, most of the officer must be tougher . . . Officer candidate boards began where our men are from. The an in its youth by victory, the 96th personnel was on hand. “Total war calls for total ef- to sift off officer material from swer is simple—everywhere. Speci was reborn in calamity. It wasn’t Activation fort . . . the ranks. The army specialized fically, we were born in every i »» official till a few months later but “ We kill or we get killed . . On July 28, an Army Ground State in the Union, Alaska. Hawaii, .training program came into being, the die was cast on that terrible Forces made its visit and the stage Puerto Rico and 28 foreign coun-f startled soldiers found themselves Knuckling Down Sunday. back at college, while their startled was set for Activation Day, Aug- The character of the new division ust 15. The ceremony was brief, And, tries. No matter where we may superiors quietly went nuts as their fight, it will almost certainly be was determined in May, 1942. when The events of that day were a without further delay, the 96th on homeground for at least one of key men filed off in orderly pro- Major General James L. Bradley pretty good tipoff that the 96th threw off its party clothes, spit on cession, never to return. our soldiers. was chosen to command. From that was to be no “Fancy Dan”—“Good its hands and got down to work. Too, the unfit, physically and Basically, however, the 96th is moment, the throttle wa3 open time Charlie” outfit, but simply a The next two months were rug mentally, were swiftly being weed a Mid-Continental Division. About with battle as the destination. ed out. Also hack to civilian life* hard-slugging infantry outfit, well ged. You can’t teach what you don’t 85 per cent of us come from the went a trickle of men more needed aware that its reason for being was know, so cadre schools sprang up Talent Recognized wide belt of states splitting the The assignment was a fitting to do the dirtiest, nastiest job in from Division down to Battalion. on their farms and behind their country from the Michigan and recognition of abundantly-proven the book of war. General Bradley An Army is supposed to shoot, so machines. hours were spent on the range. An Minnesota on the North to Texas military talent. A native of Mis i set the theme. and Louisiana on the South. More The Cadre souri, General Bradley was a mem I “We of the 96th Division have a Officer of NCO won’t last long if than 2000 of us were born in Illin In April, the Division suddenly if he ’ s not a bit tougher than his ber of the West Point class of 1914. I clearly-defined task,” he said. “It is ois alone, another 1500 in Texas realized it had grown from child men, so there were hikes, hikes, In later years, he was graduated to become a well-trained combat and more than 1100 in Michigan. hood to maturity when it found it with distinction from the Army division in the shortest possible hikes and more hikes. Five other states - Arkansas, self a parent. Trainloads of offi War College, the Infantry School time. We must keep our eyes, we Fillers Arrive Louisiana, Oklahoma. Missouri and cers and men pu’led out for Camp and the Command and General must keep our thoughts on that When the raw material out of Minnesota—all have more than 500 Shelby, Mississippi, charged v^ith Staff School and taught at the lat- goal, Any time spent on efforts which a combat division was to be stars in their windows. rearing a new division, the 69th. ter two. He saw foreign service in which do not lead to that goal is moulded—the fillers—began to ar- But we have deep roots to both (Continued on Page 6, Col. 1) ».i . r • IB • « h