Service of Supply WWII Information page

Bryan Dibble's Grandfather with his platoon of US Marines after the Tarawa Battle. He is Don McNees of Wenatchee.

Our reenacting unit had the pleasure of posing for his Walter Elhers Big Red One painting.

Here is one day at Toccoa...not every day...but a typical day:

0600 Reveille0610 Formation, police call

0630 Shave, tidy barracks

0700 Calisthenics...Intense to the point of exhaustion

0800 Wash up..

0810 Breakfast

0900 Barracks Inspection

0930 M/W/F Currahee T/TH/SAT Obstacle Course

1045 PT drills (ropes, log lift/carry, etc)

1115 Outside Lecture

1200 Lunch

1330 Mail Call

1345 Lecture/Classroom

1500 Parachute Training (tower, PLFs, mock exits,etc)

1700 Drill

1800 Supper

1900 Lecture/Classroom

2100 Return To Barracks (cleaning, letters, etc)

2300 Taps

All movement was at double time -no walking outside of the buildings. Friday nights had cross country field problems until 0200 or Road Marches until 0200, starting with 10 miles then going to 20 miles. Saturday night and Sunday were OFF days.

Currahee and the Course were not run in heavy rain, drill was given for bad weather. Lecture and classroom would include knife fighting, self defense-judo, bayonet drill (32hrs) as well as the usual VD classes, military courtesy, tactics, etc..

Until the march to Atlanta PT garb was trunks, t-shirt, and GI shoes. Training clothes were OD coveralls. By time they reached jump school they were in better condition than the instructors at the school and PT was waived. One man in Fox carried his 30 cal and tripod the entire route from Toccoa to Atlanta (120 miles) for a steak dinner and five bottles of scotch. They were some tough kids...

OD Flat Paint Recipe for WWII Gear and Equipment. I took a mint pack board shelf to Home Depot and had it color matched. I use this paint for helmets, e-tools, cot frames, and footlockers. Have at it boys! Keep things looking sharp- paint 'em!

If you have not heard of this, try it sometime. You can easily open a beer bottle with a regular G.I. fork or spoon. Put the pop-top sideways in the open hole in the handle of the spoon or fork and pry upwards and out. POP! No need to bring farby bottle openers to reenactments any longer. Preserve history, use only the best G.I. openers!

"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire
when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular
in what's left of your unit."
-Army's magazine of preventive maintenance.

"Aim towards the Enemy."
-Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher

"When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
-U.S. Marine Corps

"Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate.
The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground."
-U.S. Air Force

"If the enemy is in range, so are you."
-Infantry Journal

"It is generally inadvisable to eject
directly over the area you just bombed."
-U.S. Air Force Manual

"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword
obviously never encountered automatic weapons."
-Gen. MacArthur

"Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo."
-Infantry Journal

"You, you, and you . . . Panic.
The rest of you, come with me."
-U.S. Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt.

"Tracers work both ways."
-U.S. Army Ordnance

"Five second fuses only last three seconds."
-Infantry Journal

"Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last,
and don't ever volunteer to do anything."
-U. S Navy Swabbie

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."
-David Hackworth

"If your attack is going too well, your walking into an ambush."
-Infantry Journal

"No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection."
-Joe Gay

"Any ship can be a mine sweeper... once."
-Anon

"Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do."
-Unknown Marine Recruit

"Don't draw fire; it irritates the people around you."
-Your Buddies

"I remember standing in the door and getting the command to 'go,' but I don't remember anything until the chute opened. What a great feeling- suspended in the air and it's so peaceful and quiet... It's a tough racket, but the thrills you get and the glorious feeling of descent more than makes up for the risks you take." -From All the Way to Berlin pg. 15, by James Megellas, A Presidio Press Book, Random House, 2003.

"Our soldiers weren't very responsive to the Sicilians' greetings. They were too busy getting equipment ashore, rounding up the real enemies and establishing a foothold, to indulge in any hand-waiving monkey business. After all we were still at war and these people, though absurd and pathetic, were enemies and caused us the misery of coming a long way to whip them." -From Brave Men pg. 31, by Ernie Pyle, Henry Holt & Co., New York.

"I chose for my own life jacket one of the aviation, Mae West type. I took that kind because it holds a man's head up if he's unconscious and I knew that at the first sign of danger I'd immediately become unconscious. Furthermore, I figured there would be safety in numbers, so I also took one of the regular life belts. I was so damned buoyant that if I'd ever jumped into the water I would have bounced right back out again." -From Brave Men pg. 13, by Ernie Pyle, Henry Holt & Co., New York.

"Then down out of the fight came a boy from South Dakota, Flight Leader Duke Hedman. He had been a farm boy before he became a pilot. Ground crew and pilots (momentary idle), Stowe, and I, gathered around. 'What did you see, Duke?' 'Plenty. The sky's full of them.' 'What did you get, Duke?' 'Five.' 'WHA-A-T? Hey, who are you razzing?' 'No, it's right. Four bombers and a Navy Zero.' He was not fooling. He had set up a world's record. Five enemy planes in one flight. Just like that. He had been up with two other P-40's for an hour and a half without seeing any Japanese. Then the flight ran into a formation of twenty-seven bombers and fighters. The running fight that ensued lasted for half an hour, during which Hedman got his five. Another A.V.G. pilot, Wingman W.E. Bartling, put up a world's record that day too. He attacked and shot down two Japanese, and was himself attacked and shot up so badly he had to make a forced landing. He did so beside a railway line. No sooner had he climbed out of his P-40 than an Englishman stood beside him and said: 'You must need a drink,' and took him a few yards to a parked railway coach. The Englishman was a railway overseer, and this was his traveling home. They sat down and drank beer... As Bartling said: 'I claim a world's record. I shot down two [Japanese], got shot down myself, and, in five minutes, I had a bottle of beer in my hand. How's that?'" -From Action in the East pg. 133-136, by O.D. Gallagher, Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. New York 1942.

In the late afternoon of July 26, 1944, the cruiser Baltimore, flying the presidential flag, eased alongside a pier at Pearl Harbor. In the brilliant sunlight a row of admirals from Nimitz's headquarters, their head was Nimitz's chief of staff, Admiral Charles H. McMorris. "Right face!" ordered McMorris--and two of the admirals promptly faced left, much to the delight of the Baltimore's sailors. Seldom had they witnessed such a graphic confirmation of their private views of the competence of "the top brass." -From Eagle Against The Sun; The American War with Japan pg. 417, by Ronald H. Spector, Vintage Books, New York.

For the tired soldiers and marines, the conquest of Guam held an interest lacking in other central Pacific battles for the Japanese had apparently used the island as their main liquor supply dump. "Nowhere else did troops on our side ever come on such prodigious stores as were captured there; Scotch and American whiskies, and Japanese imitations thereof, sake galore and beer in quantities...Before occupation was far along, men who would have given there all for a snort of jungle juice... were becoming choosy as to brands and accepting no substitutes." -From Eagle Against The Sun; The American War with Japan pg. 320, by Ronald H. Spector, Vintage Books, New York.

The Seabees landed on Los Negros under intermittent machine-gun and mortar fire. They immediately began to clear and enlarge the runways at Monote. "One fifty-year-old operator drove his grader the full length of the strip three or four times, drawing sniper fire from the coconut grove. When he came in he said: 'I'm sure glad Mother let me come this time; you know, she wouldn't let me go to the other war'. -From Eagle Against The Sun; The American War with Japan pg. 282, by Ronald H. Spector, Vintage Books, New York.

The briefing was opened by a dignified middle-aged major… He opened the briefing in a calm and scholarly voice, “Gentlemen, may I have your attention? This morning we have quite a show.” So saying, he drew back the curtains that had covered a large-scale map of Europe and the British Isles. In the hushed room all leaned forward to intently study the map with its heavy black yarn marking the routes over Britain, the Channel, across the occupied countries to a point deep in Germany. “It’s Schweinfurt again,” said the major. For a moment there was dead silence as the major’s words struck home with the full impact on the minds of the men. Then a buzz of unintelligible comments filled the room, punctuated by whistles, curses, moans, and just plain vocal explosions. Above all came one remembered phrase that stood out in the tumult of vocal sound, “Son-of-a-bitch and this is my twenty-fifth mission!” Eyes turned toward the speaker and there were expressions of sympathy and condolence until a young baby-faced pilot spoke, “What the hell are you crying about? This is my first!” -From Heritage of Valor- The Eighth Air Force in World War II by Budd J. Peaslee, Colonel, USAF Retired, page 209.

"One young Italian officer, sporting the uniform of a Bersaglieri lieutenant and three rows of medals and tokens, began talking of the Ethiopian campaign and Spain. 'Our Duce,' he said, 'ordered us to take Ethiopia and we took it in the face of fifty-one nations determined to destroy us. He told us to take the Iron Ring about Bilbao: the next morning it was ours. We have eight million bayonets- nothing can stop us. Let us be frank about it: if the Duce ordered his army to march into France tomorrow, what really could stop us?' he asked in a tone of victory. For a moment there was an embarrassed silence. Everybody knew that French wine is too heavy for Italians and that the lieutenant had imbibed rather freely. 'Yes, who can stop us?' he demanded once more. 'Monsieur seems to forget about the French customs service,' came back a French correspondent suddenly. " -From Days of Our Years pg. 185, by Pierre von Paassen, written in 1938.

"I recall an incident in 1932 which revealed not only the hold [Hitler] had on the people, but also the manner in which it had been established..." "It was with difficulty that a Herculean usher elbowed himself up to the front to give me a seat at the press table. A band on the platform was playing "Der Gute Kamerad," "Heil dir im Siegerkranz," and other patriotic songs. After about three quarters of an hour, a bald-headed Nazi mounted the rostrum and, after beckoning for silence, announced that the Fuehrer was being held up by a thunderstorm which had broken over the Rhine. He asked the crowd to be patient for a little while longer... When another half hour had passed and the Fuehrer had not put in an appearance, the same Nazi returned to the speaker's tribune and shouted that although the storm was redoubling in violence, Hitler had just telephoned from a village up the Rhine valley that he would be there in less than a half an hour. "Er Kommt", bellowed the announcer. "Durch den Sturm" -through the storm. Never will he disappoint us!" Again, the band struck up "The Good Comrade," and the crowd rose to its feet. When it had finally been worked up to a feverish pitch of expectancy, the Fuehrer, who had been sitting across the street all the time with his friends, walked in, dressed in his brown raincoat. He was splashed with water and mud from head to foot. The crowd was delirious and sieg-heiled the unsmiling Fuehrer for five minutes. A middle-aged man, sitting in the front row near the press table, wiped the tears away from his eyes and remarked to me, "Alles tut er fur das Deutsche Volk!" - He does everything for the German people!" -From Days of Our Years pg. 166-167, by Pierre von Paassen, written in 1938.

"Information has just been received about a new Jerry mine. It has no official designation, but the Yanks call it 'the 50-50 mine'. It has the general characteristics of the 'S' mine, but, instead of the ball bearings, a sharp steel rod flies up. The name is derived from your chances. If you hit with the right foot, the rod flies up past your right side. If you hit it with the left, you'll be singing tenor." -R. M. Wingfield

"I hear that the whole position of the Commandos is being questioned. They have been told 'no more recruiting' and that their fortune is in the melting pot... For every reason therefore we must develop the storm troop or Commando idea. I have asked for five thousand parachutists, and we must also have at least ten thousand of these small 'band of brothers' who will be capable of lightning war." Winston Churchill, 25 August 1940

For those of you who dig through our website deep enough- do you know of an obscure WWII monument?

"Found your site while perusing the web for reenactor stuff. You asked for obscure WW2 memorials/monuments. Thought this one might fit the bill... can't see flocks of visitors going to find it." -Dave

"Grave of unknown soldier of Great Patriotic War, in unknown village, near Chernobyl."

This one sent in by Chris, in Washington D.C. He took the picture in Franklin, Louisiana while on a trip there. The sign reads, "Located 1 mile West is the site of a W.W.II prisoner-of-war camp. Formerly a 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps camp, the low-security P.O.W. camp opened October 14, 1943. It held captured German soldiers of the Afrikacorps who worked in the area sugar cane fields. Area citizens remember them for their friendly behavior."

Dedicated to Mark Clark, this bridge goes over what is really a large ditch. Once long ago, the Island was really that, but over the years the land between Camano and the mainland has filled in. I haven't been able to figure out why this bridge, and why General Mark Clark.

While not a WWII monument itself, it is dedicated to all the Purple Heart recipients in all American wars. Placed outside the Evergreen Aviation Museum in a kind of out-of-the-way place.

Send us your photo of an obscure WWII monument. I'm fascinated by these, and I think others will be interested too.

Picture #1 Early WWII 1938-41/ #2 Pacific Theater 1942-43/ #3 Class A Uniform 1938-1942/ #4 USMC Tarawa 1944/ #5 D-day Infantry 1944/ #6 Class B Paratrooper 1943-44/ #7 USN Landing Craft Crewman. #8 Paratrooper 101st D-Day 1944/ #9 Air Corps C-47 Crew 1944/ #10 Class A uniform 101st 1945/ #11 101st Paratrooper 1945/ #12 Korean War Infantry 1952/ #13 US Army Utility Uniform 1962/ #14 Class A Uniform 1972