Talk:Army Specialized Training Program

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To the explanation of the WWII Army Specialized Training Program add the experience of those who were transferred to the infantry as the Army disbanded the program. Below is my infantry memoir that may also typfy that of some other soldiers who also became infantrymen as the program closed out. My actual experience at the ASTP unit of Rhode Island College can be viewed with others on the Army Specialized Training Program wqeb site. Stephen Ambrose's book, "Citizen Soldiers" devoted an entrire chapter to the program.

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PFC Malvin L. Shar YD Memoirs And association with T5 Alfred Wilson who received the Congressional Medical of Honor posthumously

Background

About March 1944, in preparation for the Invasion of France, the Army reduced its Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) and transferred to the infantry all soldiers enrolled in the first three semesters. My unit (Providence College, Rhode Island) shipped out to the 26th Inf. Div.which was almost finished with maneuvers in Tennessee. Most of us had never been in the infantry and some like myself had been in the Amy for one year without ever going through Basic Training. This was possible because I was originally a civilian employee (aircraft engine mechanic of the Air Corps at the Rome Air Base in New York State). Upon induction into the service I was merely shipped directly back to the Rome Air Base, without the benefit of Boot Comp. Subsequently to this, I took an examination to enter the ASTP. The Selection Board found that I lacked a major requirement before attending college. This was completion of my Basic Training. In order to fully qualify me, the selection board arranged for an assignment to the Guard Squadron (Military Police) at Rome; this would be regarded as equ1valent to Basic Training after a reasonable amount of time. Of course the actual quality of training and time spent did not truly equate with a real Boot Camp or “basic infantry” type of curriculum. Most of my time was spent either on guard duty or directing traffic. The firearms training were totally inadequate and lacked any in depth preparation (such as lectures, disassembly/assembly, breathing/trigger action, dry run firing etc.). So from comfortable college dormitories, within about 2 days, we found ourselves dropped off into the hills of Tennessee and parceled out to different battalions of the 328th Infantry Regiment. The regiment had been assigned to the 26th Infantry Division, known as the Yankee Division (YD) because it was formerly part of the New England National Guard.

C Company and Alfred Wilson

About 8 of us (ASTP) were assigned to C Co., each one to share a pup tent with an older, experienced YDer. This was a wise procedure because most of us had never been in the infantry and it served as a graceful introduction to service in a combat unit, making us feel as welcomed/accepted members of the company. Alfred Wilson shared the pup tent with me during those few days before we moved on to Fort Jackson, SC for the intensive training and preparation prior to shipment overseas. We discussed the future and speculated on what fate awaited us overseas. Alfred had a philosophical/pragmatic outlook towards the future, but what I recall best and what impressed me most about his personality (in addition to his compassionate nature) was his wish, in event that he was badly wounded and faced the loss of a 1imb. His desire was not to survive a crippling disability which he perceived would make him a burden to others and which would in turn interfere with his obligations to others. I don't remember the exact words, just the implication. As a religious pacifist (Church of the Brethren) he could have avoided military service as a conscientious objector, but he wanted to save lives and therefore he became a combat medic.

Fort Jackson

The next few months training served both to prepare the division for action overseas and to integrate the ASTP and new Air Corps soldiers into the division as trained infantrymen. The instruction and exercises were superb. Our own officers and noncoms, serving as teachers, had the incentive to provide the best instruction since we were destined to go overseas together as a team. This contrasted sharply with the training received at the Rome Air Depot in New York. As a consequence, while I did poorly in marksmanship at the Air Corps, I scored very high with the rifle at Fort Jackson. The rifleman training in the necessary combat skills, basic survival outdoors, map reading, the installation of self confidence and self discipline, and the team working spirit, have served me well for the rest of my life.

At this point of these memoirs I should digress and explain how I got into the Army. In 1940, after graduating high schoo1, I tried to enlist in the Army. After passing the physical exam, when it seemed that I would be inducted, an eye exam was performed using s1ide projectors to disp1ay the eye charts. There were four separate screens, so that four recruits could be examined at the same time. I rattled off the letters without any trouble, but then the examining sergeant shouted, “Take off your g1asses and read it’. All that I could see were four big blurs of light. I was rejected. After Pearl Harbor, the Army relaxed the visua1 standards to 20/200 without glasses, so I volunteered again. This time a wall chart was used, so I memorized the first few lines just before my turn. Passing that test, I accompanied the new recruits to Governor's Island for induction into the service. But before induction an army doctor made us go through another eye test, using a slide projector. By squinting my eyes I cou1d see the first few letters, but once again It was no go; the doctor shouted, “No squinting”. Failed again. About six months later the Army relaxed the visual requirements without glasses to 20/400 and set up a special category of limited service for those soldiers who barely passed. The Intent was to use limited service personnel in non combat categories such as supply, maintenance of equipment, communications, etc. Eventually, by the time I entered the 26th Division, 1imIted service was effectively abolished as a separate category.

The Lorraine Offensive -November 1944

Based on memory after almost 48 years

The 3rd Army started the offensive on November 8th to break out of the province of Lorraine and move into the SAAR valley. C Company was in reserve f or the 1st Battalion as it attacked towards Bezange la Petite. The town names that I remember are not always the same as in the volume to the official books (US Army in World War II, European Theater, The Lorraine Campaign). I remember being told at that time that we were to move towards a town pronounced as Aircourt. This may have been the town of Arracourt in the attached map, but the same map shows the 328th Infantry as facing the towns of Bezange la Petite and Moncourt. Whichever town it was, we moved forward at about 0600 and I could see in the distance the tracer bullets fired by the 761st Tank Battalion, which supported the attack. As some bullets started coming directly at us, the entire company hit the dirt. I remember then our Regimental Commander (Col. Jacobs -the "old man" -also a WW I veteran) walking up the road as though nothing was wrong; whereupon we all got up and moved forward. We finally reached our position and shortly after watched as the newly captured prisoners were marched back to the rear. A soldier (possibly from D Company) came limping through, wounded high up on the thigh. I patched him up with my first aid kit. --About 5 days later, lacking a replacement kit, Lt. Kuligowskl patched up my knee with his kit--. I was then told to help the soldier get back to an evacuation area. When I got there I saw one of the company cooks with a jeep, waiting for me to guide him back to our position. Upon returning there, Lt. Noblet said that I had just gone through a mine field; we had never noticed the markings. About that time, word came through about heavy casualties. The wounded were trapped in an area between our position and Bezange la Petite. Although the town had just been captured and our first elements moved out forward, the Germans had left an artillery observer in the church steeple. He had an excellent view of the area from the town out to our position. Every time an attempt was made to help the wounded, the observer called in artillery fire on the wounded. Lt. Noblet assigned a sergeant (probably from the weapons platoon) to lead a rescue squad and I volunteered to go with them. We put down our rifles, put on Red Cross insignia, and picked up stretchers. As soon as the observer spotted us, the shells hit close by. It would stop when we stopped and hit the ground and then commence as we moved forward. Finally the sergeant led us up the side of the adjacent hill, away from the road, but we must have been spotted again because the shells came closer. As we were pinned to the ground waiting for the shelling to stop I noticed some grape vines. I still remember the strong taste of the grapes as I helped myself to them while waiting for the sergeant to decide what to do. He decided to lead us back to our position in favor of a better tactic. As we returned, I noticed that a shell must have hit close by because there was evidence of a small fire. The new tactic involved an armored vehicle. When the tank destroyer vehicle came up to our position I spoke to the soldier and told him what was up ahead. He said that his unit was always called in for "suicide missions". When the Tank Destroyer moved forward, it wasn’t long before Alfred Wilson could be brought out to our position. Later I spoke to a soldier from Sgt Moyes squad in the 3rd Platoon, C Co. (I knew him well but I don't recall his name; his home was In the borough of Queens, NY) who was with Alfred W1lson, and helped him with the wounded. Al had multiple wounds, his 1egs were badly hit and one of them in almost amputated condition. The on1y clear memory that I still have was as he was brought over to our position, and I helped lift his stretcher on to the evacuation vehicle (I believe it was a jeep). I just couldn't get any words out to say anything of comfort; I could only just touch him and observe the silent stoic acceptance of his fate. Much later we received word that he had passed away, a fulfillment of his wish expressed almost 8 months previously.

C Company suffered many casualties on that day. An explod1ng shell decapitated Lt. Swan of the 1st platoon. He was the youngest officer, and had been married shortly before we left for Europe. Several others, whose names I no longer remember were also killed. That evening the 1st p1atoon moved into the town to seek out the German artillery observers. They were ambushed and sustained further casualties.

Three days later (11 Nov.) the temperature dropped and the first snow started. Many weeks of almost constant rain had saturated the division, which lacked proper footwear. The galoshes had been taken away from us before commitment to the 3rd Army and only the officers were suppl1ed w1th the early version of combat boots (which weren't as good as the modern boots). Most of us still had the old shoe and canvas leggings, vulnerable to the weather wetness, terrain and mud in which an infantryman survives. This set the stage for the large scale outbreak of frozen feet (mislabeled as trench feet), coinciding with the first snow. This subject will be further examined at the end of these memoirs.

During the late afternoon (about 12 Noon.) as we moved through a wooded area, a long line of German prisoners came through, marching with their hands behind their heads. Strange how that moment is so fixed in memory. They must have been new recruits drawn from near the bottom of the manpower pool. They were both very old, looking like WWl Veterans, and very young. Their new, clean 1ooking uniforms contrasted sharply with our own tattered, often torn mud-encrusted clothing. We must have looked like a bunch of sad sacks in comparison.

C Company spent that night on a hillside in the snow amongst the guns of a field artillery battery. I covered my feet as best as I could and soon probably looked like just a mound of snow and suppl1es. In the morning the company assembled down by the road and stripped our packs down for a light combat pack. Most of our belong1ngs were to stay with the company rear. Our first trench foot casualties were evacuated at that time. We moved out most of the morning and then stopped while the officers got out maps. Lt. Kuligowskl let me see the map and I not1ced how our objectives had German names now. This was unusual for me. As I understood it much later, we were to move into a gap in the line first. We moved through the woods with fixed bayonets, ever on the alert for tree snipers (there were none). Coming under a barrage of tree bursts we hit the dirt as the shells exploded around us. Suddenly, feeling a sharp pain on my right knee I must have shouted "OUCH”, because Lt. Kuligowski asked if I had been hit. Answering "I don't know", I slowly moved my hand to see if the leg was still there. Luckily the shell fragment had hit with only a glancing blow at the side of the knee. Since I had previously used up the first aid kit on my ammo belt, Lt. Kuligowski patched me up with his kit. There were several men killed and wounded during this barrage. When we got up. I could walk only using my rifle as a cane. We settled down for a miserable night. The ground was too hard, rocky and rooty to even dig. Lacking our full packs, we huddled together as best as possible, but our feet were unprotected. In the morning as we tried to get up off the ground we fell down. Finally, after getting up and stomping around we got enough circulation bock to stand up and walk so that even I could hobble about (with more of a numb knee than a painful one). I still remember passing the body of PFC Ventamiglia as we moved out through the area of our fallen comrades. At the assembly point, a jeep arrived from the company kitchen and the driver passed out C rations. We had run out of food the previous day and missed at least two meals. The entire communications team was a casualty the previous day, so therefore I was assigned to carry the manpack radio and our company commander operated the handset attached to the radio. I forgot his name; he was the replacement for Capt. Batista who was promoted to Major and reassigned a few weeks previously. Even though I had never received any communications training, this was a sensible decision because all my glasses (four pairs) were muddy, my handkerchief and hands were dirty (I was encrusted with mud and dirt from head to feet) and therefore I couldn't see well except to follow the captain and keep the radio antenna from hitting the tree branches. As we went in to attack the division objective, the German machine gunners spotted us and poured an effective rain of bullets on us. The entire company hit the dirt, and before we could crawl towards the machine guns we were hit with an effective barrage of mortar shells. All movement stopped. I was so hungry that I ate my can of C rations while prone on the ground. I remember mumbling something like let’s not be sitting ducks; go forward or fall back. The captain finally made radio contact with battalion and he was told to fall back about 200 yards. Before we could move back one of our tanks came through, and shortly after that the Germans surrendered and came out with their hands behind their heads. Because of the casualties, some soldiers were so wrought by the events that I heard shouts of “Shoot them”, but we didn't shoot any one, it would have violated the Geneva Convention. What was left of the company (I found out many weeks later that only about 25 or 30 men were left by the end of the day) then moved back to a clearing in the woods and started to dig in. By then I could barely stand and I couldn't dig; the shovel kept slipping out of my chapped hands. 1st Sgt Thiebault then appeared with fresh radio batteries, and since I had carried the radio, he told me to open the radio and replace the batteries. Never having been trained with or exposed to the radio before, I told him that I didn't know how to operate or maintain the radio (though I would have liked to do so). For some reason our riflemen training at Fort Jackson covered only weapons, and ignored radio or wire communications. This seems strange because many ASTP soldiers like myself had the potential to be good radiomen, not only because of education, but also for proven technical skills and work experience. Perhaps the urgency of training and integrating large numbers of college boys into rifle companies precluded anything else. A very few hours of orientation, reinforced during field exercises and combat would have sufficed.

About this time the lieutenant of the 3rd platoon came by and said that the battalion aid station was examining the feet of all the wounded. Then he and Lt. Noblet looked at me and asked if I could make it back to the aid station. I wasn't sure and couldn't see good, so another soldier (I believe it was Frank Senko, the medic replacement for Alfred Wilson) helped me get there. So leaning on him with one arm, and using my rifle as a cane, I finally reached the aid station.

Twenty-three years later, now a civilian employee of the Army (electronic engineer) at Fort Monmouth, NJ, I stopped off at the Lab Director's office to pick up my travel orders for Vietnam. One of the employees in the office mentioned to me that he was in C Company of the 328th Infantry also. It was Frank Senko, also an electronic engineer.

At the aid station, after the medics tagged us with description of wounds, they told everyone to remove their shoes and socks. Within a short time our feet swole up like balloons. We could not be evacuated until nighttime. Trucks, filled with hay were brought in and the medics carefully lifted us up onto the trucks. An ironic sequel to all this came some 37 years later. Infantry casualties although awarded the combat infantry badge on the personnel records often did not receive the actual badge itself. Therefore upon request and documentation check, the infantry veteran would receive the badge. So after 37 years a box arrived, not only with the combat infantry badge, but also with all the other decorations that I had forgotten about. Missing amongst them was the Purple Heart. At the field hospital I told the doctor that I didn’t need the penicillin shot that he was prepared to give. At the first hospital in France I told the doctor there that I didn’t need any treatment for the knee wound. I didn’t want a casualty telegram from the Army going to my mother. My father had died just the year before and I didn’t want her to panic at the sight of the telegram. At that hospital, the nurse gave each soldier a shot of whisky. I told her that I don’t touch the stuff but she said it was necessary to start circulation to the feet; so down the hatch it went. Later she came with some sleeping pills and I told her that I don’t need any. She told me that I would need them later as my feet thawed and the pain started, so I should call her for the pills then. Sure enough I had to get the pills later.

After several weeks at a hospital (near a town that sounded like (Barley-duc) I was transferred to a hospital in England to receive experimental treatments for trench feet (frozen feet). Up to that time the treatment involved staying in bed and rubbing the feet with some kind of ointment. Fortunately for me only the toes were turning black with gangrene, but the treatment saved them. The treatment in England involved placing a needle in the spine and injecting a "spinal block”. This affected the circulatory nerves so that there was a sudden increased blood circulation to the lower extremities. For the first time in more then a month, my feet felt suddenly warm. This procedure undoubtedly saved many toes and feet. Unfortunately many soldiers lost toes and some may have lost feet before this technique could be used.

The sudden increase of trench feet (frozen feet) puzzled the Army commanders. The initial reaction (based on ignorance and lack of sensitivity to the foot soldiers living conditions) was anger. At first General Patton blamed the officers for not enforcing the care of foot discipline such as frequent change of socks and keeping feet dry. Then when the true facts were known he blamed the supply managers because the men lacked galoshes and proper equipment. But the reasons are far more complex. The Germans did not experience this sudden problem, in part, not only because of their experience on the Russian front, but also because they were in a defensive front, housed in well prepared positions. The American foot soldier, constantly on the move, had less time to prepare a more comfortable habitat. Often moving without a full pack of his major necessities he could not always keep dry and warm. But despite this, all during the rainy season there was no real epidemic of trench feet. This attests to the training end care of feet by both the officers and the enlisted men. It was only with the sudden drop in temperature and an early snow fall that waterlogged feet were now highly vulnerable to freezing. Another possibility exists. Many soldiers like myself were not smokers. But because we were literally inundated with free cartons of cigarettes we felt a psychological impulse to keep a lighted cigarette in our lips during the cold and wet days from the start of the fall season. A doctor at the hospital queried us about this because of the effect that nicotine has on blood circulation. Perhaps the worst attitude prevalent at high levels was the refusal to recognize that the problem was more frozen feet rather than trench feet; the insistence that this was a trench foot problem seems like a convenient ploy to shift responsibility somewhat. This erroneous implication puts the blame on the foot soldier himself. An honest rectification of this would correct those trench foot records to read “frozen feet”.

Malvin L. Shar former PFC Shar in the 26th Infantry Division (Yankee Division) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nivlam (talk • contribs) 20:52, 17 June 2006 (UTC)