Camp Abbot, Ore., May 27, 1944
ABBOT ENGINEER
Fage Thirteen
never been in an M2 boat before.
Most everybody, including cadre,
found out that they were not the
men that they thought they were
when they went up the assault
course, but the training division
said they handled themselves
well under battle conditions.
Pvt. Jack Dallas, who trained
in C-52«in the last cycle, is now
in England. Pvt. Dallas has made
his home in Bend fo r the last 25
years, and his w ife is living there
with his parents. Jack was one
soldier who got a break. It isn’t
everybody who gets to train so
close to home.
Pvt. Tole Greenstien, also of
the last cycle o f C-52, writes that
he is now in a replacement cen-
terf in the Hawaiian Islands, and
says that there are about a dozen
men from the old outfit with
him. He knows where he is to be
sent, but o f course he ean’t tell
us. It seems that the Abbot boys
are going both east and west, and
we know they w ill be among the
Above is entrance to Camp Abbot, Arm y Service Forces Training Center south o f Bend, Oregon, on best soldiers in the army. Abbot
U. S. Highway No. 97, with spectacular Bachelor butte in background. The native timber structure is a tough camp, and our sol
was built l>y Engineers in the design of the Corps insignia.
diers are tough soldiers.
Camp Site Created by
Ancient Crater Action
(W hat is the story lieliind
the (dd volcanoes that look
down on Camp Abbot? Phil F.
Brogan, veteran o f World W ar
I and now news editor o f The
Bend Bulletin, member o f the
Oregon Geographic board and
w riter o f geologic articles, has
volunteered some information
on these ancient landmarks, so
abundant in the upper Des
chutes country. W e are sure
men o f Abbot who not only
live among the old volcanoes
o f Oregon, but work among
them, will find his article o f
considerable interest.)
Guarding picturesque Camp
Abbot on Oregon’s upper Des
chutes river is the greatest array
o f extinct volcanoes found in
any part o f North Am erica— vol
canoes which not so long ago, as
geologists measure time, shaped
the topography where men of
Abbot now' play the grim game
o f war.
Abbot's guardian volcanoes
are parts of two separate mount
ain systems, the towering Cas
cades just to the west and the
low-domed Paulina range in the
southeast. These ranges, with
their different types of lava
flows, m erge near Camp Abbot,
although apparently separated
by the meandering Deschutes
above Benham falls and the bot
tom lands formed in ancient
Lake Benham.
Most majestic o f all the aged
volcanoes looking down on the
Camp Abbot terrain-are the tow
ering Three Sisters, each more
than 10,000 feet high. These
great glacierbearing peaks are
the remnants o f a massive
mountain of old, Multnomah of
the Oregon skyline, shattered by
'olcan ic explosions, deeply erod-
ed by glaciers o f the pleistocene.
Most fam iliar o f all volcanoes
looking down on Abbot is beauti-
iul. symmetrical Bachelor butte,
9,044 feet in height and glacier
bearing. This is one o f the most
imposing isolated peaks of the
middle Cascade range of Oregon.
It is directly southeast o f the
towering Three Sisters, and re
ceives its name because it stands
apart from them, austere, cold
and mighty.
The glaciated Three Sisters
and
Fujiyama-like
Bachelor
butte are only a part o f the
great fam ily o f mountains in
the central Cascades overlooking
the Camp Abbot and Bend coun-
tr> on the east and the rugged
upper McKenzie river country on
the west. Other peaks of this
mountain fam ily include the Hus
band, the W ife and the Brother.
Faith. Hope and Charity
In early days, so pioneers say,
the Three Sisters were known as
Mount Faith, Mount Hope and
Mount Charity. In the opinion
of Lewis A. McArthur, author of
“ Oregon Geographic Names,”
the Three Sisters, with Broken
Top and Bachelor, comprise “ Hie
most majestic alpine group in
the Cascade range." Broken Top,
huddled close to the South Sis
ter, is the eroded remnant o f a
secondary volcano.
Immediately southeast o f Camp
Abbot are the Newberry vol
canoes, grouped around the mas
sive shield forming the base of
mighty Mt. Newberry of pre
historic days. When active vol
canoes ruled the Cascade range,
sending billowing clouds o f ash
into the sky by day and illumin
ating the heavens by night, Mt.
Newberry dominated the skyline
just south of the area now' occu
pied by Camp Abbot. This giant
volcano
probably reached a
height of 12,000 feet before its
massive top collapsed, in con
centric faulting, form ing the
present Newberry caldera, lo
cation of East and Paulina lakes,
two of the most beautiful in the
northwest. These tw o caldera
lakes are separated by a series
o f comparatively recent vol
canoes.
Surrounding t h e Newberry
shield, many of them visible
from the Camp Abbot area, are
hundreds o f parasitic volcanoes,
which in the distant past hurled
volcanic bombs into the air, filled
the sky with ash, and sent lava
streams tumbling down the sides
o f the parent volcano.
It is the opinion of geologists
that in no part of the world can
be found more evi(ft*nce o f spec
tacular volcanism than in the
upper Deschutes country of Ore
gon. This is manifested not only
by the cold volcanoes of the
present, but by spatter cones,
fissures, lava floes and lava tun
nels.
Ijiv a Tunnels Fnique
The lava tunnels of the upper
Deschutes basin are among the
most unique features o f the re
gion. These conduits, some of
them more than a mile in length,
are believed to be subterranean
drainage channels, formed when
molten lava seeped out o f a
cooling flow. Lava River tunnel,
the type cave of the region, is
adjacent to highway No. 97, be
tween Bend and Camp Abbot. To
the east is Skeleton cave, more
than a mile long and sufficients
wide for two trains to operate
side by side— provided two trains
could be lowered undeground.
There are scores of such caves
in the area.
Also on highway No. 97, not
far from Camp Abbot, is Lava
Butte, a volcano which hundreds
of years ago sent a flood o f lava
westward to dam the Deschutes
river and force that mighty
mountain stream to cut a now-
channel. It was the damming of
the river by the Lava butte ba
salt that formed the meadow
land on which Camp Abbot was
constructed.
Notes From
_____ C - 52
By Cpl. Low ell Young
C-52 recently underwent a seri
ous operation without benefit of
anaesthetic. The combat engi
neers were removed with one
sweep of the knife, and trans
planted into A and B Companies.
They did a swell job for C com
pany during their 12 weeks here.
They are responsible for the
shields that hang on our mess
hall walls, that signify that they
were highest in the battalion in
Technical, Tactical and Admin
istration training at the end of
the 10th week, and the technical
shield in the 6th week. W e are
sorry to see the old bunch go,
and w e know that they will hold
up their end of the show in their
new places.
C-52 lays claim to one o f the
most expert chow hounds - in
Camp Abbot, if not in the whole
army. Corporal Davis says that
he reached fo r a hot cake the
other morning, and before he
could get his hand out of the
way, Sergeant Krepol had his
hand on a plate, and had it cov
ered with butter and sugar. M ay
be the Sgt. thought the fingers
w ere pork sausage. No wonder
Sergeant Krepol’s pistol belt is
out to the last notch.
The boys here have noted that
K rations are good to eat. That
. was when they were eating D ra
tions. The Ks lost out, though,
when they sat down to a mess of
Blackie’s pork chops after three
K meals in the field.
Sgt. Joe Bombach was being
escorted to headquarters after
he had tried to slip through the
guardhouse around one of our
bivouacs. Ho stopped once, and
the guard had a little trouble
getting him started. The second
time he tried it, Pvt. William
Priel planted the business end of
his bayonet in Sgt. Joe’s poster
ior region with some force. We
think we could put Joe up
against anybody in the standing
broad jump.
Sgt. Krepol was explainirg
some technical matters in the
field the other day, and after
some work was done in training,
he was holding a critique. H e
asked one of the boys a question,
and when the answer was given,
he said “ That’e a good answer,
but it’s wrong.” The sergeant is
an easy man to please.
Pvt. Manuel Bettencourt had
some trouble with his gas mask
when he went through the chlo
rine chamber, and had to he as
sisted outside. As a m atter < f
fact, he got his mask over his
arm, and tried to put his helmet
liner over his face. He says th. t
he is a better man than the re-t
of the company because they all
had to have masks on while th* y
were in the gas, while he d d
O.K. without one (alm ost).
Overheard on the com pary
street: "There is some good n
all o f us. Even the worst bo o
serves a very useful purpose. He
can be set up as a horrible ( \-
ample.”
In the first running o f the ob
stacle course by our new special
ist bunch, the 3rd squad of the
3rd platoon average time was 5
min. 15 sec. Equipment carried
was No. 2 pack, under arms with
gas masks.
Pvt. Bob Earle, who took 1 is
first six weeks with C. company
last cycle has sent us a V-Mt il
letter. He is somewhere in N ew
Guinea, and he says that he likes
it there very well. They h a.e
plenty of jungle and coconuts,
and he says that there are plenty
of places o f interest that be
hasn’t seen yet. It was just nine
weeks ago that Bob came over
to tell his friends good-bye. This
is a fast w ar all right. Bob spent
the last eight weeks o f his train
ing over in B Company, w heie
he learned to be an arm y clerk.
He is an expert on the typewrite r
as well as with the M l rifle.
North Bergen, N. J. (C N S )—
N ew Jersey’s candidate for " y i .
Meanest-Man in • th*“ - W orld fo r
1943” is Charles Malootian, 51, a
|»ants presser, who locked his Wg
year-old mother in th*“ cellar
The boys around here are with only a crust o f bread to « i t ,
plenty good in a couple o f this according to police.
W e hear that the men who
went to the Oil Refinery Bat
talion from here are getting
along O.K. Pvt. J. C. Melody
writes from Camp Santa Anita, |
Calif., that he is enjoying a fine
camp, good food and weather
that . is too warm for “ long
johns.” He says that most of the
fellows from C company are just
finishing a refresher course
down there, but says, “ Don’t bust
your buttons. They make better
soldiers at Abbot." Pvt. Melody
is going back to his old trade of
refinery welding, and expects to
be sent to a refinery in the near
future.
Our new boys in C company
are doing O.K. W e went on a
bunion derby last week, that in
cluded an overnight bivouac, and
that was only three days after
they came to us. They are all
specialists in The outfit, so they
missed a lot of training in march
es and bivouacs, but they sure
learn fast catching on to out-
guard duty :n a hurry, and a
chipmunk would have a hard
time getting past their fixed bay
onets. They made a good assault
crossing near the end o f the
problem, and most o f them had
w ar’s most important items,
namely, movement, cover and
concealment. I f you don’t thick
they know about camouflage,
just try to find a detail arourd
here on a Sunday morning.
rtfr
*5 ffl fe> 6 ®
- r«Q< IKK u*c.. INI
Reprinted from the April issue o f Esquire.
'A m erica q u it fig h tin g soon— mineralde s e rra n t hear
rad io ray, ‘ l ai y p in to I d o ttn , lay p in to ! d o w n '"