Shaping Up the Troops: A Reminiscence of World War II

Clyde D. Gessel

Shaping Up the Troops: A Reminiscence of World War II

BY CLYDE D GESSEL

CLYDE D GESSEL, A NATIVE OF PROVIDENCE, UTAH, received his commission as a second lieutenant in the Coast Artillery at Utah State Agricultural College in Logan in 1940. He was at Fort George Wright, Washington, when war began and shortly afterward was sent to Boston for transport to Australia. As a young lieutenant he was placed in command of an inexperienced, ill-equipped, and untrained Army Air Corps squadron. Upon arrival in Australia he found things in a state of chaos and was called upon to help bring order and discipline to the American troops there. Later he was assigned to recover and reconstruct Japanese aircraft for intelligence purposes. He returned to the United States in 1944 and ended the war as a major assigned to the Pentagon He continued his military career in the Air Force Reserve The following excerpts from Colonel Gessel's military history describe the confusion at the beginning of the war, his role in assembling Japanese aircraft, and the pleasure of well-deserved wartime leave back in Cache Valley in the fall of 1944.

I was still at Fort George Wright on that Sunday when the war started. We were several hours in time ahead of Pearl Harbor so we got the news about 11:00 A.M Most could not believe? it at first, but we all had believed war would come sooner or later. Our first reaction was to double the guard night and day to improve security and prevent sabotage at the air bases. The overall pace of preparedness quickened

Orders directed me to report to Camp Edwards, near Boston, Massachusetts, by early morning of February 16, 1942. We crossed the country by train Upon arriving at Camp Edwards we ran into the worst fouled up mess that you can imagine. My foot locker had been lost so I had nothing but low shoes with me. Camp Edwards had board sidewalks, 6 inches of mud and water in the streets, and it rained constantly. My foot locker had been diverted to Providence, Rhode Island, because it had my home address of Providence, Utah, painted on the side, but it was also clearly marked Camp Edwards on the tags. I eventually recovered itjust before we boarded ship for the overseas assignment.

The foul ups continued when myself and about nine other first and second lieutenants and one captain reported in. We were each assigned to be commanding officer of one of ten squadrons of about 220 men each I was quite pleased to be designated as commander of Squadron #9. I soon found out my faith and trust in the system was badly misplaced. I was directed to a barracks building where "my squadron" was supposed to be When I entered I found 218 privates, 1 stuttering sergeant, and 1 redheaded corporal. Over 200 of these men had been in the Air Corps from two to six weeks and had been shuttled back and forth across the United States on trains for want of a place to house and train them Most did not have sufficient military clothing, none had gas masks or rifles, and almost none had had medical examinations or immunizations for overseas duty.

We had no idea where our destination was before we boarded the ship as it was supposed to be super secret We were no less chagrined when we finally boarded the luxury liner Queen Mary and learned our destination was Australia. This knowledge was gained from other officers aboard who had known three months before that they were going to Australia and had left Fort George Wright in plenty of time to take a month's home leave and get prepared for overseas duty.

Nevertheless, before boarding, I took charge of my squadron and tried to get them equipped. Many of the men were carrying civilian clothing, radios, golf clubs, musical instruments, and other possessions that obviously could not be taken overseas. I ordered them to tag the items for shipment home, and we left them in a pile in the barracks. After procuring military clothing we were issued gas masks in metal containers with no way of opening them. I told the men to get the fire axes from the barracks and a chopping block. We ruined a few masks but got all of the cans opened. The worst mess was getting rifles cleaned, which were issued to the men with a quarter-inch covering of cosmoline—a really greasy preservative

The men were largely assigned to the hold area in hammocks and used the huge first-class dining room as their mess hall. Our food was good, but, unfortunately, the ship's crew was entirely English so the great bulk of the enlisted men's food was kidney stew or boiled something or other The majority of the enlisted men simply would not eat the stuff and tried to live on one candy bar a day. A standard joke was, "How do you cook kidneys?" Answer: "You boil the out of them."

Our time aboard was largely taken up by drilling the men, stripping down rifles and putting them back together, and other instruction that we could give We didn't have much to work with Most of the men had not been immunized properly for tetanus, typhoid, typhus, and other tropical diseases because they left the States in such a hurry. Typical of Army routine, the commander decided to give all of these shots while we crossed the Equator when it was sticky hot About one-third of the men fainted when a shot was given in each arm. We had a detail of men who dragged them away to bed until they recovered.

We arrived in Australia during a period of monumental confusion. The Japs were having great military successes. Our troops had largely been chased out of the Philippines or were trapped in Corregidor and on the Bataan Peninsula, and most of the East Indies and other islands had been captured. Morale was at a low ebb in Australia, and the Australian government had essentially decided not to try and defend the northern part of Australia Gen Douglas MacArthur had not arrived, and it seemed no one was really in command of even the U.S. troops, let alone the Allied Forces.

As an example of the general confusion that existed, a train rolled up to Camp Darly one day with a few officers and about 1,000 to 1,500 men. The few officers on the train marched the men over to some barracks and then got on the train and went back to Melbourne, leaving all those enlisted men with no commissioned officers.

I was then assigned two new squadrons aggregating about 300 men. When I investigated I found one squadron of about 135 young men, largely college graduates and recent graduates of technical training from Chanute Field, Illinois. Only two were sergeants and the remainder privates To my pleasant surprise these two sergeants had taken charge, organized a mess, had regular exercise and study routines, and had their camp area spic and span.

On the contrary, the other troops were composed of many senior noncoms, including three sergeants major, many master sergeants, and on down. The senior noncoms had organized a senior noncom mess and were taking all of the choice food They were lying in bed late, doing no training, and had no discipline. Most of them were peacetime regulars and a sorry bunch at that. When I took over there were about 100 of them absent without leave, mostly running around the countryside staying in farm homes and in town I immediately organized a jail compound, passed the word that any one absent would be classed as a deserter, disbanded the senior noncom mess, and put them into exercise and training. It took about four days for the absent ones (except one) to show up As fast as they came back I would put them into the jail compound under armed guard and let them sweat it out for a couple of days. They shaped up pretty well. One young fellow never did show up I learned later that he had moved in with a farmer, taken off his uniform, and gone to work for the farmer. They tracked him down later.

On January 22, 1943, I proceeded to New Guinea to salvage some recently captured Japanese aircraft on the landing field at Buna on the north coast of New Guinea These airplanes were to be reconstructed and flown for flight test and technical intelligence purposes. I obtained some experienced aircraft mechanics and equipment and set up camp on Buna beach in company with some Australian soldiers who also helped We located and began to salvage the Japanese Zero airplanes from the Buna landing field that the enemy had used. All the aircraft were shot up rather badly, so we had to select enough engines, airframes, instruments, and other components to make sure we could rebuild at least one airplane and fly it Later, we attempted to salvage all repairable Japanese aircraft and components and other equipment throughout the southwest Pacific and continued the study of nameplate data to determine the rates of production and places of manufacture. Much of these data were later used to select targets in Japan for bombing by B-29s.

On June 23, 1944, I was ordered to Headquarters, Army Air Forces, Washington, D.C, by the first available water transport I was to take some Japanese equipment and officers and men with me. The equipment was loaded on a small U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.

We sailed from Brisbane aboard a. Liberty freighter bound for San Francisco on July 4, 1944. Passing under the Golden Gate Bridge was a great thrill after nearly two and a half years away from the United States.

I finally obtained two weeks leave on October 23, 1944, and flew home to visit my parents and others for the first time in about three years I flew as far as Colorado Springs and then had to take the bus the remainder of the way. The bus ride was interesting, but it seemed so slow that I could hardly wait to get home My Mother and Dad were overjoyed at the visit, and it was a great feeling to be home again. Dad and Mother cried. I visited all of our family and many others around the valley. Brothers Homer and Ted arranged the best pheasant hunt I've ever been on. We had the valley to ourselves Most young people and hunters were either still in the services or away to work.

NOTES

This interview was part of a joint oral history project conducted by the Utah State Historical Society, Weber State University, and California State University, Fullerton. It is part of collection B-195 in the USHS Library, Salt Lake City.