Fort Meade
Aug 1944
Fort George G. Meade became an Army installation in 1917. Authorized by Act of Congress in May 1917, it was one of 16 cantonments built for troops drafted for the war with the Central Powers in Europe. The present Maryland site was selected on June 23, 1917. Actual construction began in July. The first contingent of troops arrived here that September.
The post was originally named Camp Meade for Major General George Gordon Meade, whose defensive strategy at the Battle of Gettysburg proved a major factor in turning the tide of the Civil War in favor of the North. During World War I, more than 100,000 men passed through Fort Meade, a training site for three infantry divisions, three training battalions and one depot brigade. In 1928, when the post was renamed Fort Leonard Wood, Pennsylvanians registered such a large protest that the installation was permanently named Fort George G. Meade on March 5, 1929. This action was largely the result of a rider attached to the Regular Army Appropriation Act by a member of the House of Representatives from the Keystone State.
Fort Meade became a training center during World War II, its ranges and other facilities used by more than 200 units and approximately 3,500,000 men between 1942 and 1946. The wartime peak-military personnel figure at Fort Meade was reached in March, 1945--70,000. This is where Carl entered the deployment phase on his way to the front. Here he was issued his weapons tha the would carry into
combat including the M1 Carbine and a Model 1911 Colt .45 sidearm, a standard defensive weapon for a combat medic.
After being issued his weapons, the meticulous task of moving to and from the ranges at Fort Meade for weapons familiarization and target zeroing of the arms commenced, ensuring the vast numbers of soldiers were prepared to engage the enemy once in theater. Along with these preliminary activities, soldiers attended classes on what to expect in battle, the Geneva Convention, rules of engagement, disease prevention as well as receiving physical training, writing letters, chapel and the occasional Pinocle game.
Even Dr. Seuss was involved in the war effort. Theodor Seuss Geisel collaborated with Warner Brothers, Mel Blanc and the War Department to draw and produce over 100 Private Snafu cartoons used as training tools for servicemen such as the one shown below.
the liberation of paris
aug 1944
25 AUGUST 1944 - LIBERATION OF PARIS -
After LT Gen George S. Patton's Third Army crossed the Seine River, eliminating it as an enemy defensive line, fighting broke out in Paris between French Resistance (FFI) fighters and German occupation forces. To prevent the uprising from being defeated, General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, and LT Gen Omar N. Bradley of 12th Army Group, decided to liberate the city, spearheaded by the French 2d Armored Division, a Free French (FFL) unit. According to the plan prepared by Maj Gen Gerow, commander of the U.S. V Corps, the French
advanced from the west, while the American 4th Infantry Division attacked from the south on 23 August 1944.
Initial progress was slowed by hard-fighting German soldiers as well as crowds of jubilant Frenchmen welcoming the liberators. Several enemy pockets still held out in parts of Paris on 25 August when crowds welcomed French and American troops, and General Charles de Gaulle, commander of the FFL.The next day de Gaulle made his official triumphant entry from the Place de l'Etoile to the Place de la Concorde despite scattered shots from snipers.
American commanders complained that the French were too busy celebrating to play their full part in the fighting that remained in the city and its suburbs, while others believed the French had forgotten who had played the major role in their liberation, but Eisenhower said, "We shouldn't blame them [the French]for being a bit hysterical." He did, however, parade the 28th Infantry Division through Paris on 29 August, partly to get the division through the city and back into the fight quickly, and to provide de Gaulle with a show of Allied support as well as emphasize to Parisians that their city had been liberated not by the Resistance but by Allied arms.
The link below will take you to five sound clips inlcuding extracts from the Resistance radio (‘Radiodiffusion de la nation française) in Paris, which were assembled into a program that was broadcast on 19 September 1944.
Much of the first extract was recorded in September, after the fighting. However, Albert Camus reads his first editorial from Combat at 5:00 and the archive material begings at 6:50 with the first call to insurrection.
This second extract consists of material from 23 and 24 August. At around 3:00 you can hear Parodi (‘Cérat’) reading a declaration, with the sound of German tankfire behind. This is followed by the a description of the situation around place de la République – complete with more gunfire – and an interview with a FFI fighter who explains the situation. At 7:40 you can hear Georges Bidault making a statement, with the sound of gunfire behind him.
This third extract contains material from the evening of 24 August, as the Dronne column arrived at the Hôtel de Ville. Pierre Schaeffer’s call for all the bells of Paris to ring their bells can be heard at 1:00. At 3:40 a rare woman’s voice reads a report of the situation in one of the Paris districts. At 4:20 a gendarme from Antony describes the advance of the Leclerc Division. At 6:05 a journalist reads from an underground book, with the sound of the bells of Notre Dame in the background. At 8:40 a journalist reads a poem by Victor Hugo, ‘A ceux qui dorment’.
This fourth extract begins with the Marseillaise, and at 1:40 Pierre Crénesse gives his on-the-spot account of the arrival of the Dronne column, which he gave over the telephone. At 6:50 there is an English-language broadcast by Bertrand d’Astorg that was made late in the evening. This is suddenly interrupted at 8:00 and d’Astorg reads a warning from Colonel Rol to the German commander of Colombes. D’Astorg then continues in English.
This final extract begins with the Star Spangled Banner. At 1:15 it loses with the final comments on the evening of 24 August, as the journalist recalls those who are yet to be liberated. [ ]
Source: https://elevendaysinaugust.com/
camp shanks
sep 1944
The Palisades, the Camp Shanks, NY newspaper.
This link takes you to the archived paper for September 15, 1944, 3 days before Carl shipped out for Europe on the HMS Maurentania.
The final field inspection at Camp Shanks identified any problems, made any necessary repairs, and replaced anything which could not be repaired. At the beginning of the war, no large depots existed in England from which soldiers could get their equipment. They carried their essentials with them in their backpacks or barracks bags. During the second half of 1944, Camp Shanks was sending tens of thousands of troops overseas. Staging peaked in October 1944, when 78,354 troops arrived while 85,805 had departed.
Camp Shanks, located in Orangeburg, Rockland County, New York (aka "Last Stop U.S.A."), was the final stateside stop for 1.3 million soldiers who were processed through this staging area and prepared for departure from Piermont Pier to the European Theater of Operations. Units bound for France were shipped overseas from a pier, approximately four miles away, where a monument marks their embarkation. Units bound for England were transported to the New York Port of Embarkation (NYPE).
Camp Shanks comprised one of three staging areas on the eastern seaboard. The other two, Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, NY, and Camp Kilmer, New Brunswick, NJ, when combined with Camp Shanks, made the area the largest staging area in the world. One of the primary functions as a staging area was to ensure each soldier and WAC left the U.S. fully equipped before crossing the Atlantic.
By the end of November 1944, all staging areas in the U.S. stopped their final field inspections. Shortages and replacements could be handled from supply depots in England. When the soldiers were notified that they were on "Alert" status, they knew they would be shipping out within twelve hours. The soldiers removed their division sleeve patches, and their helmets were chalked with a letter and a number, indicating the proper marching order from the camp to the train and the railroad car to ride in. It was a short train ride to the New Jersey docks at Weehawken, and a harbor boat ferried troops to a waiting troopship. One source also advised that other troops marched the four miles from the camp to the Piermont Pier, where they boarded troopships.
Piermont Pier was originally the terminus for a ferry that took New York City – bound train travelers across the river to pick up the train again in Dobbs Ferry before completing their journey to the city. Before that, the mile-long pier was originally built to enable the freight cars of the Erie Railroad to load and unload onto steam boats which plied the Hudson River between Albany and New York City in the mid-eighteenth century. During the war, the pier was taken over by the U.S. Government, extended and improved, and used as a principal embarkation point of soldiers heading to Europe. 40,000 U.S. troops per month, including many Hudson Valley residents, passed across the pier where ships were able to dock in deep water. Piermont became known as the "Last Stop USA." After the war was won, over half a million men returned home across the same pier, first setting foot back in the U.S. out in the middle of the Hudson River at the end of the pier.
The telephone center at Camp Shanks was the last chance to call your sweetheart or wife or parents before coming up on alert for deployment. Over these wires were sent messages of love and support and was often the last time soldiers would speak to their loved ones until their return from the front. You can bet Carl called Nila more than once.
After boarding the trains and taking the ferry across New York Harbor, the Winnesoken Pier in New Jersey was the last stop for Carl before boarding the *HMS Maurentania for the voyage overseas. Fully laden with battle gear, rations and personal weapons, soldiers were packed aboard these converted ocean liners and freight vessels. Often billeted in cramped quarters with rows upon rows of canvas hammocks strung six or seven high with 18 inches between, there were few comforts.
Compared to what was soon to come, this was luxury!
Operation Market Garden
Sep 17, 1944
Carl embarked on the HMS Maurentania on September 18, 1944 bound for Liverpool, England. Operation Market Garden commenced the day before and by the time Carl arrived in England, a huge victory was celebrated in the theatre. Imagine being onboard the Maurentania with thousands of other soldiers and hearing the *scuttlebutt on ship of this major Allied operation with no way of verifying the rumors! And what would it mean for them when they arrived?
*Water for immediate consumption on a sailing ship was conventionally stored in a scuttled butt: a butt (cask) which had been scuttled by making a hole in it so the water could be withdrawn. Since sailors exchanged gossip when they gathered at the scuttlebutt for a drink of water, scuttlebutt became Navy slang for gossip or rumours
*HMS Maurantania
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Because of the logistical crisis caused by inadequate available port facilities in the autumn of 1944, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower, assigned first priority to clearing the seaward approaches to Antwerp, Belgium. At the same time he authorized Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group to make a bold stroke to exploit German forces while they were still disorganized from the fighting in France before worsening logistical problems halted the Allied offensive.
Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944) Young Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) is off to college, but before he even makes it to campus, he meets an attractive woman, Kay (Bonita Granville), on the train. Though he's promised to focus on academics rather than girls, he is immediately smitten with his new acquaintance -- until she tells him to grow up. As he is trying to collect himself, he meets a pretty blonde (Lee Wilde) who seems to have a hot and cold attitude. Little does he know that he's actually dealing with two crafty twins.
Montgomery's plan employed the First Allied Airborne Army, under US Army Air Forces Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton, to drop Lieutenant General F. A. M. Browning's British I Airborne Corps, which consisted of one British and two U.S. airborne divisions, plus a brigade of Polish exiles, in support of the British Second Army.
The airborne forces, executing Operation MARKET, were to seize bridges to facilitate Operation GARDEN, in which ground forces, spearheaded by the British XXX Corps, would cross the three major water obstacles in the Netherlands - the Maas, Waal, and Lower Rhine Rivers - from Eindhoven northward to Arnhem and outflank the enemy's West Wall defense line.
If successful, the British would then be in position for a subsequent drive into Germany along the open north German plain. Complete surprise was achieved by the initial 17 September 1944 airdrop, but the Germans were not as disorganized as the Allied intelligence expected. Surprisingly strong resistance limited the gains to a 50-mile salient into Holland along a single major highway, and far short of the objective of securing a usable bridgehead across the Rhine, when the operation terminated on 25 September. It ended as British Lt.Gen. Browning predicted as "a bridge too far.
I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo (1942)
The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Marion Hutton, The Modernaires, Nicholas Brothers, Tex Beneke, Jackie Gleason, Cesar Romero