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About Abbot engineer. (Camp Abbot, Or.) 1943-1944 | View Entire Issue (May 27, 1944)
Camp Abbot, Ore., May 27, 1944 ABBOT ENGINEER Page Five a Let us Try!” Battle Slogan Qets Qood Workout in Battalion Bivouac Phase 51st Lives Up To CE Standard Company B constructed a road twenty feet wide that the for- mulators of the problem had ex pected to require the efforts of four or five battalions. It stands a monument to the pride, skill, and braw-n of the 51st Battalion, with a simple timber marker naming it, “51st Battalion Turn pike.” This a cco m p lis h m en t was crowned with the good news that the major part of the air borne troops that had landed at the Bessie butte air strip had been routed by the 91st Division of the IV Corps. The encourag ing effect of this announcement, however, was followed on Tues day by the information that the enemy was planning to attempt reinforcement of its airborne troops operating on the east bank of the Deschutes; that the 51st was to be pressed into com bat service. The order directed the battalion to proceed to Bes sie butte airport and secure it against enemy use, meanwhile building gun emplacements, air raid shelters, a m m u n i t i o n dumps and other allied construc tion, as well as repair the bridge on the main supply route. Accomplishing the difficult maneuver of assembling his two companies from the Bend mu nicipal airport and the bivouac area on the river. Captain Elliot led his troops into bivouac near Bessie butte. They met the en emy in combat Wednesday and Thursday and successfully de fended Bessie butte airport. At about six o’clock Thursday evening, word arrived from the Commanding General of the IV Corps that his men had been successful in holding the enemy around Bachelor butte, and that the 51st could abandon its de fensive positioin and move back and take up the mine fields and barbed wire placed the previous week. Using a map to locate mines, the battalion completely removed the obstacles on both sides of the river during Friday and Saturday, at the same time dismantling bridges previously built and salvaging all usable materials. Sunday again was spent in camp, with Chaplain William H. Andrew conducting the evening (Continued on Page 12) The 51st Battalion, under com mand of Capt. Deon O. Elliot and company officers, moved into camp Wednesday morning after having spent seventeen consecutive days in the field. This was the first bivouac per iod in the year that Camp Abbot has been training engineers in which a unit has remained away from camp for more than a week, and evidences of the pro longed life in the open, with sleeping bags in fox holes for beds, and three meals a day out of doors, were in their faces. The men looked rugged. They looked as though they had ac quired an idea of what war is. In their eyes was that challeng ing look men get when they have proved to themselves they can take it. The 51st had taken plenty in those seventeen days—not as Photo by Signal Corps Photo Lab. hardship is reckoned in a combat First regular Sunday evening religious service for a bivouacking battalion from Camp Abbot, con ducted for the 51st by Chaplain Lawrence A. Leonard on May 14. zone, but plenty for men who only seventen weeks befor had been living in comfortable mountain to Davis Lake, passing ting four spans from dimension lain Lawrence A. Lea nord con along Bachelor Butte and the timber, the battalion was pound ducted the service in anatural horns and catching buses to go Sheridan Mountains. to work. ing the last nails into the dimen amphitheater on the side of a It was understood that the sion timber section when the hill. The congregation came in On May 8, after fourteen weeks o f basic and engineer town of Bend already had been convoy rolled across at nine sat with bared heads. Many re training, they had marched out bombed and all bridges destroy o’clock. A second similar bridge parkas, for it was raining, but of camp under full ¡racks, with ed, and that it would be neces and two foot bridges of expedi- mained after the service for a “ problem” to solve that would sary to build bridges across the ient natural timber also had communion. take them on a series o f march Deschutes river to relieve the been constructed. The grimmer aspects of war es nearly the entire distance to traffic on Camp Abbot bridges, Almost before the last truck were resumed Monday morning Bend and back and require them which were proving inadequate of the convo y had left the when the battalion received or to build bridges before they for the heavy movement of sup bridge, the 51st received orders ders to improve rear installa plies toward the line of resis- could cross the Deschutes. to proceed to a point further tions, roads, and the municipal The problem had been outlined tence. The 51st battalion had the north and help prepare a defen airport in Bend for use by the role of a supporting unit for a by Maj. D. H. Griswold and sive position with barbed wire IV Corps. Under command of Capt. S. M. Johnson under the main defense force designated, and mine fields. Stowing tools Lieutenant Orvedall, Company A supervision of Maj. LeCompte for convenience, the “IV Corps." and supplies in trucks, the moved out and proceeded to the Joslin, director of the Training Theoretically, all units of Camp troops began a foot march north municipal airport. Company B, Abbot had been alerted in order Division. ward, some of it cross-country under Lieutenant Nonemaker, In the nature of sealed orders, to throw in additional troops if- through the woods, generally started construction of a road the problem was revealed to the necessary. following the course of the Des one and two-tenths miles in men a day at a time. They moved At noon Tuesday, the second chutes. Accomplishing this dif length which was to establish out of camp with the mission of day out, the 51st received the or ficult march, the battalion biv itself as a feat even for men of repelling a hypothetical enemy der to rush construction of a ouacked about dawn near the the Corps of Engineers, who, un that shortly before had effect bridge over which a convoy stretch of river bank to be for der the battle cry of “ Let Us ed surprise landings at Seaside would have to pass that night at tified. It was then revealed that T ry !” work miracles with bull and Reedsport, Oregon, had nine o’clock. At the point the the heavy movement of troops dozers and shovels. Utilizing pushed on eastward to occupy bridge was to be built, the river over the bridges constructed more than a thousand pounds Portland, Salem, and Eugene, is approximately 200 feet wide. the evening before had delayed of explosives and felling trees Oregon, and then had moved Using seven spans of expedient supplies and that breakfast over a hundred feet tall and sev eral feet in diameter at the base, even further eastward to a line bridging and six spans of steel would consist of K rations. extending from Three Sisters tressel equipment, and construc- On Thursday of the first week, just as laying of the mine field on the west bank of the river was completed, word arrived that the enemy had landed par atroopers ten miles eastward on the Bessie butte flight strip, and that completion of the defensive position would have to be rush ed. In order to erect the barbed wire obstacles on the east bank, where the enemy might try to effect a landing of their assault boats, it was necessary to con struct a ponton bridge for move ment of the battalion across the river. By Friday morning the bridge had been crossed, and the stringing of barbed wire begun. By Saturday evening nine hun dred yards of wire obstacles had been installed and gaping crat ers had been carved out of the nearby Bessie butte air strip to prevent landing of enemy air craft. Sunday provided the occasion for an inspection of troops and equipment by Captain Elliot and his staff. Sunday also witnessed the first regular church service for bivouac troops from Camp Ab bot. Transporting a field organ, Memhers of 51st battalion constructing dimension timber section of Cot than. ». liaish, commander of l llh Group, inspecting IJu trr three-sect km bridge at about seven o'clock Tuesday evening. May 9. and other ecclesiastical equip hag in field, as mendier of .»Ist battalion draws first canteen of ment to the bivouac area, Chap water. At nine o'clock the bridge had been completed. k r S te ssi C o t i » PWota | ^ ,b