Chapter 5: Military Personnel and Training
During the years between the two world wars the number of officers and enlisted men in the Ordnance Department was never large. The Department was limited by law to 350 Regular Army officers, and lack of funds kept its actual officer strength during those years to an average of only 275. By June 1940, in spite of the increased tempo of national defense activities, the total number of Regular Army officers in the Department had risen only to 375. There were, in addition, 3,000 Ordnance Reserve officers on the rolls, but nearly two thirds of these were earmarked for duty with troops or with other arms and services and were not under the jurisdiction of the Chief of Ordnance. The average number of enlisted men in the Department during the years between the wars was only about 2,200, and by June 1940 had not risen to much more than 3,500.1 During the latter half of 1940, with larger appropriations available, the military strength of the Department rose rapidly and continued to rise throughout 1941. The ranks of the officer corps were filled at first by calling Reserve officers to active duty and by granting Reserve commissions to qualified civilians, and later by commissioning graduates of the Officer Candidate School.2 At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor the Department had 410 Regular Army officers and 3,338 Reserve officers on active duty, and approximately 30,000 enlisted men. A year later the number of officers and men had jumped to 235,000, a 700 percent increase within one year.3
During the prewar years the “regulars” who carried on the work of the Department were professional soldiers well trained in both military and technical subjects. The rapid expansion of the war period, however, brought in so many thousands of untrained or only partially trained officers and men that an intensive, large-scale training program became necessary. New schools and training centers were established to produce automotive mechanics, ammunition handlers, and experts in repairing small arms and artillery—the “fighting technicians” who were to supply and maintain the complicated weapons and vehicles used by the US Army in World War II. Although many officers and some enlisted men were assigned to procurement, storage, and inspection functions at depots and district offices, the majority of Ordnance troops
were assigned to duty with maintenance units in the field, and the Ordnance training program had to provide the skilled manpower needed. The number of officers engaged in training activities in 1943 far exceeded the total number of officers in the Department during the prewar years, and the number of Ordnance men trained during World War II was greater than the total of the peacetime Army.
Ordnance Schools, 1920–40
From 1920 to 1940 the Ordnance Department maintained two schools at which small groups of officers and enlisted men were given formal training. The Ordnance School at Watertown Arsenal offered a comprehensive two-year ordnance engineering course in which twenty officers were normally enrolled.4 The Ordnance Specialist School at Raritan Arsenal offered a number of nine-month courses in the repair, maintenance, and storage of Ordnance matériel for groups of carefully selected enlisted men.
Enlisted students at Raritan were given no military training because they were all veterans of two or more years of active Army service. Each student enrolled for a period of from nine to twelve months in one of the specialized courses for armorers, artillery mechanics, automotive mechanics, carpenters, welders, or other specialists. In addition, each year a group of about twenty-five enlisted men took the noncommissioned officers course, which gave them a broad survey of all aspects of the Ordnance sergeant’s duties. The Ordnance Field Service School, as it was renamed in 1931, was essentially a trade school for enlisted men with about 150 students normally enrolled, but in 1932 the curriculum was extended to include a three months’ course for officers.5
The facilities at Raritan were never adequate. The buildings were of temporary World War I construction, and by the middle 1930s were in urgent need of repair,6 There was no outdoor range on which students could fire weapons, no cross-country course for maneuvering vehicles, and only limited amounts of equipment for teaching repair of optical instruments. Further, since Raritan was principally an ammunition depot, it had on hand very little Ordnance equipment for the students to observe and study. When officers of both schools surveyed the situation during the summer of 1936, they reached the conclusion that Aberdeen Proving Ground, the center for Ordnance research and learning, was the most suitable location for all the educational activities of the Department. This conclusion was approved by the Secretary of War early in December, but funds were not made available for the needed construction at Aberdeen until nearly eighteen months later.
The final impetus for moving the enlisted men’s school to Aberdeen came from the swift victories of the German armies in the early summer of 1940. In May of that year, while Lt. Col. Julian S. Hatcher, commandant of the officers’ school, was
en route to the Army maneuvers in Louisiana, he read in newspapers of the German invasion of the Low Countries. “Before proceeding further to the maneuvers,” Major General Hatcher wrote later, “I dispatched an informal letter to Maj. Gen. C. M. Wesson, Chief of Ordnance, making the urgent personal recommendation that, without delay, the schools at Aberdeen and Raritan should be consolidated and suitable emergency facilities found at Aberdeen for a greatly expanded training program.”7 Although the new buildings were still incomplete, General Wesson approved the proposal to combine the two schools as soon as possible. Early in July the 40th Training Company, which had been stationed at Raritan Arsenal since World War I, moved to Aberdeen.8 This step marked the end of relatively leisurely training of small groups at separate Ordnance schools and ushered in the period when tens of thousands of men arrived at Aberdeen every year for intensive, high-speed instruction.
1940 Plans for Training
As the possibility of American involvement in the war daily came closer during the summer of 1940, War Department plans for training troops were hastily revised and brought up to date, but they had to remain in the blueprint stage until the Congress enacted legislation to increase the size of the Army. During that summer legislation to draft men for military service was under protracted consideration by the House and Senate. Huge sums of money were voted in June for the procurement of military supplies, but it was not until 16 September that the Selective Service and Training Act was passed.
Anticipating enactment of this legislation, the G-3 Division of the General Staff in August completed a tentative plan for mobilization training and forwarded copies to all interested agencies.9 This plan called for the establishment of a score of Replacement Centers to receive “enlistees” who volunteered for military service and “selectees” inducted under the Selective Service Act and give them thirteen weeks of training in basic military and basic technical subjects. The Replacement Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground was to be used to train Ordnance troops and was to have a capacity of 5,800. At the same time the G-3 Division approved an increase in the capacity of the Ordnance School to 2,200 and the establishment of three Ordnance Unit Training Centers (UTC’s) with a combined capacity of 3,700.
Although these plans existed only on paper, they outlined a well-rounded program of Ordnance training. The Ordnance School, with its long experience and its competent staff, was designed to provide technical training for both officers and enlisted specialists. It was also to serve as the source of cadres for the new training centers. The Replacement Center, later renamed Replacement Training Center, was to teach newly inducted men their military ABC’s and give them an elementary course in some phase of Ordnance service. The Unit Training Centers were to receive graduates, both officers and enlisted men, from the Replacement Center and Ordnance School, organize them as companies, and, with the aid of an
experienced cadre assigned to each unit, give them a thirteen-week course on working together as members of a team. The whole program of Army training in 1940 was geared to crowding as much instruction as possible into one year since the Selective Service Act provided that men would return to civilian life after twelve months of military training.
Actual establishment of the proposed training centers was not authorized by the War Department until several weeks after the enactment of Selective Service in mid-September.10 Then began the long process of erecting barracks, shops, and buildings for classrooms, acquiring training equipment, and organizing staffs of instructors. Because the Ordnance School, Replacement Center, and Unit Training Center were all to be located at Aberdeen, an Ordnance Training Center was formed there to provide unified control of all training activities. The Ordnance Training Center was officially activated on New Year’s Day 1941 with Colonel Hatcher in command.11
The Ordnance School at Aberdeen, 1940–45
Within a few days of the transfer of the 40th Training Company to Aberdeen in July 1940, the Ordnance School was conducting classes for both officers and enlisted men at its new location. Instruction began while partitions, plumbing, heating, and lighting were still being installed. The unfinished barracks offered only cold showers, screenless windows, and beds without sheets or pillows. An old museum building provided makeshift classrooms and shops while new buildings were being erected. At the same time, preparations were being made for the future, although no definite long-range training objectives had yet been set by the War Department.
Streamlining the Curriculum
The pace of Ordnance training before 1940 had been slow, and the instruction had been thorough. Classes had normally been small and students had been specially selected, above-average, career soldiers.12 The enlisted students who came to the Ordnance School after 1940 were not experienced Regular Army veterans, but young men who had been drafted for a year of military training under the Selective Service Act. There was not time to give them nine-month courses in various phases of ordnance. They had to be trained quickly—and in large numbers—and then be transferred to the field forces for additional training in large-unit operations. To meet this situation the Ordnance School streamlined its courses by eliminating all but the most essential material and reducing the time allotted for each subject.13
The first course given at Aberdeen was a shortened version of the former NCO course, lasting only twelve weeks instead
of nine months. During July, a few days after the 40th Training Company had moved to Aberdeen, a group of two hundred enlisted men—eight times the number usually enrolled at Raritan—arrived at the school to take the NCO course.14 Later in the year, as construction of more classrooms and shop buildings was completed, the specialist courses in artillery, small arms, automotive vehicles, fire control instruments, carpentry, and welding, formerly conducted at Raritan, were included in the curriculum at Aberdeen. Each course was given in three months instead of nine and, as time went on, other short courses were added for machinists, clerks, munitions workers, and antiaircraft fire control specialists. In addition to the courses for enlisted men, the Ordnance School also developed a streamlined program of officer training. In June 1940 the two-year course for officers was discontinued and several short, specialized courses, designed chiefly for the large number of Reserve officers who were being called to active duty, were substituted.15
In the summer of 1941 the demand for enlisted specialists became so great that the Ordnance School had to speed up its training process. The school authorities adopted the methods of industrial mass production, setting up many different production lines to turn out specialists just as factory production lines turned out interchangeable parts for a machine. In the automotive section, for example, the attempt to produce in thirteen weeks versatile automotive mechanics capable of repairing all types of vehicles was abandoned. Instead, students were divided into three groups—tank mechanics, tractor mechanics, and wheeled-vehicle and half-track mechanics—each group being given a short but intensive course in its special field. Meanwhile, the general-purpose NCO course was dropped because it proved to be less valuable than the specialized courses, particularly since it could no longer be restricted to highly qualified, experienced veterans. As General Kutz, who became chief of the Military Training Division in 1943, described this move: “We discarded the time-consuming endeavor of trying to train a Jack-of-all-trades and concentrated, instead, upon turning out highly skilled technicians in specialized fields.16
A new form of specialized training was added to the curriculum early in 1942 when the Base Shop School was opened. In 1940 it had generally been assumed that, in time of war, ordnance in need of major overhaul would be returned to the arsenals in the United States, as had been the procedure in World War I. Although several officers on the Ordnance School staff had dissented, and recommended that troop units be trained to operate Ordnance base maintenance shops overseas, no provision for such training was made during the first year of the school’s operation at Aberdeen. In the fall of 1941, however, it became apparent that such instruction was needed, and a few weeks before Pearl Harbor General Wesson directed the Ordnance School to establish an organization to train personnel for overseas base shop units.17
Factory training class at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Akron, Ohio
Decentralization of Technical Training
The Ordnance School steadily increased in size during 1941, reaching a capacity of 1,500 by the end of the year.18 After the outbreak of war in December the school area was extended until it eventually covered 275 acres, with more than 300 buildings, and, at the peak of the training load, the curriculum included more than 70 different technical courses. But even with this rapid growth, the school was not able to train all the Ordnance technicians required by the Army, and an elaborate program of decentralization was adopted. To supplement the facilities at Aberdeen, the Ordnance Department turned first to various civilian trade schools, then to specialized branches of the Ordnance School, and finally to factory schools.
As early as November 1940 the Ordnance School had adopted the practice of farming out a few of its students to civilian trade schools. At that time, a group of 50 student machinists had been enrolled at the Springfield Trade School in Massachusetts, and in July 1941 another group of students had been sent to a civilian trade school in Baltimore for training in electrical maintenance. Contracts for training Ordnance troops were made with several other civilian trade schools in 1942.19 At the same time the Ordnance School established branches at Ordnance depots. In
January 1942 after the UTC at Savanna had been closed, the clerical and ammunition courses at Aberdeen were transferred to Savanna to release facilities urgently needed for the expanding Officer Candidate School which had been opened at Aberdeen in July 1941. As the problems of distributing and keeping records of spare parts for all kinds of Ordnance equipment became critical during 1942, a school for training parts clerks was organized at the Rossford Ordnance Depot, Toledo, Ohio.
In 1942, as it became apparent that the Department would not be able to train all the technical specialists needed, the Military Training Division asked manufacturing concerns holding war contracts to train Ordnance personnel in their own shops and classrooms. In many instances these concerns were ideally prepared to train maintenance mechanics as they had staffs of expert instructors and ample supplies of tools, equipment, and technical literature. The manufacturers entered wholeheartedly into the task of producing “factory-trained soldiers” to maintain the weapons of war coming off the production lines.
The largest single addition to Ordnance training operations during World War II came in August 1942 when responsibility for Army trucks and other vehicles was transferred from The Quartermaster General to the Chief of Ordnance. Included in the transfer were a score of Quartermaster automotive schools, both military and civilian, with a combined capacity for nearly 15,000 students. Most of these schools were comparatively small, however, and were closed during the spring and summer of 1943 in an effort to consolidate automotive training in a few large centers.20 By December 1943, when the automotive school at Holabird Ordnance Depot in Baltimore, Maryland, was closed, only four Ordnance automotive schools were still in operation—Atlanta, Georgia; Normoyle in San Antonio, Texas; Fort Crook, Nebraska; and Mt. Rainier in Tacoma, Washington, Normoyle was closed in March 1944 and Fort Crook in April 1945, leaving only Atlanta and Mt, Rainier in operation at the end of the war. For some months after the transfer of motor vehicles to Ordnance, the Quartermaster Corps trained men for the Ordnance Department at its two large replacement centers.
Ordnance school training expanded so rapidly during 1941 and 1942 that it was impossible to keep an accurate and detailed record of the number of students trained. “We were adding new schools so rapidly in 1942,” Col. George W. Outland later remarked, “that I would have been hard pressed to tell you on any one day exactly how many we had.”21 New courses were added to the curriculum and old courses were revised and redesignated. Not all students assigned to the Ordnance School followed the simple pattern of completing a single course and then moving on to a new assignment. Some took several short courses in related fields before leaving the school while others, for one reason or another, were transferred before completing a single course. The courses varied so in length that statistical tabulations of courses completed are virtually meaningless. The following table of the number of men graduated from these courses is based on the best available estimates for the
period between January 1941 and September 1945:22
| Officers | Officer Candidates | Enlisted Men | |
| 1941 | 1.400 | 37 | |
| 1942 | 2,400 | 4,600 | *12,000 |
| 1943 | 5,000 | 6,100 | 15,000 |
| 1944 | 3,500 | 1,800 | 12,000 |
| 1945 (to Sep) | 2,300 | 700 | 5,000 |
| Total | 14,600 | 13,237 | 44,000 |
* Total for 1941 and 1942.
Teaching Methods and Training Aids
The veteran instructors on the faculty of the Ordnance School in 1940 had learned effective teaching methods through many years of experience, but most of the new members who joined the staff in 1941 needed instruction in the techniques of teaching. In September 1941, therefore, Colonel Outland created a Training Methods Branch and assigned as its head a senior instructor from the automotive section who had extensive civilian experience as a teacher of engineering subjects.23 Beginning in September the new branch gave a thirty-hour course in teaching methods to all officer instructors. The course included discussion of lesson plans, the proper use of various techniques of teaching, the employment of visual aids, and a showing of the War Department film, “Military Training” (TF 7-295). Approximately half the course time was devoted to practice teaching, with each practice period followed by a critique of the student teacher’s methods. “A Manual for Ordnance Instructors,” prepared by the Training Methods Branch, was published in February 1942 and was used as the basic text until publication of TM 21-250 by the War Department a year later. The training methods course was later given to enlisted instructors of the Ordnance School, to bomb disposal officers, and in abbreviated form to students in the Officer Candidate School.
In accordance with War Department policy, Ordnance instructors were encouraged to use training aids of all types, ranging from books and blackboards to motion pictures and cut-away models. In the early days of the war period up-to-date publications were virtually nonexistent, and the only usable drawings were those made on the blackboard by the instructor.24 Most of the printed manuals on hand had been prepared by the Field Service School in earlier years for Army extension courses. To bring these manuals up to date and to produce others as rapidly as possible, a small publications section was formed, and during the winter of 1940–41 a growing staff of writers, editors, and illustrators prepared texts, charts, scenarios for training films, and other instructional material. An impressive list of Ordnance School texts soon appeared, including separate manuals on telescopes, range finders, ammunition, and other subjects.25 Thousands of charts, maps, and photographs were prepared and reproduced for classroom use,
and models of many types of equipment were used in all sections of the school. Carburetors, for example, were made of transparent plastic to give the students a chance to see exactly how a carburetor functioned, and models of small items of equipment were made ten or twenty times their actual size for demonstration to large classes.26
One of the most important training aids originated within the Ordnance School was a monthly magazine, The Ordnance Sergeant. In the fall of 1940, Sgt. Hugh E. Martin, a graduate of the first NCO course at Aberdeen and chief of the publications section of the school, observed that, however effective the Ordnance School courses might be, something would be lacking in the instruction program if nothing were done to keep the enlisted specialists abreast of developments in ordnance after their graduation.27 Sergeant Martin recommended that an “alumni magazine,” containing descriptions of revised procedures and new matériel and answers to questions received from troops in the field, be prepared and distributed by the Ordnance School. This recommendation was promptly approved, and the first issue of The Ordnance Sergeant appeared in mimeographed form in January 1941, with Sergeant Martin as editor.28 The first few issues had such a favorable reception that an improved reproduction process was adopted and the size of the magazine was increased to 100 pages. It was distributed free of charge to all Ordnance organizations, and its circulation eventually passed the 25,000 mark. Many officers reported that wherever copies of The Ordnance Sergeant were found in the dayrooms and libraries of Ordnance units, their smudged and dog-eared pages gave evidence of having been read and reread.
The Officer Candidate School
In the summer of 1940 Colonel Hatcher, foreseeing the need for hundreds of additional officers to carry out Ordnance Department responsibilities, urged that authority be granted to institute an officer candidate training program, erect school buildings, and organize a corps of instructors.29 The War Department, however, was reluctant to approve the training of additional officers at that time because so many Reservists had not yet been called to active duty, and it was not until the spring of 1941 that the War Department authorized the various arms and services to establish Officer Candidate Schools (OCS). On 26 April 1941 Ordnance was directed to open its OCS at Aberdeen Proving Ground in July, but with an initial quota of only fifty students.30
The first class at Aberdeen was made up of candidates selected chiefly from the Regular Army and National Guard by
OCS boards appointed by corps area or department commanders.31 The group was housed on the second floor of the auxiliary barracks of the 40th Ordnance Company, and, for lack of better accommodations, classes were held in the basement of the barracks. The officer candidates were instructed by the faculty of the Ordnance School, the OCS actually being a section within the school. The first course of study, adopted in July 1941, provided a quick survey of both military and technical subjects, and allotted thirty-two hours to each of four technical specialties small arms, artillery, ammunition, and automotive equipment.32 Experience soon showed that this program needed elaboration and refinement. It made no provision for instruction in such essential subjects as camouflage, defense against aerial attack, and the use of weapons. It offered little opportunity for the candidates to become familiar with field operations, and the time allotted for the study of each category of Ordnance items was sufficient only for a sketchy orientation.
Beginning with the third class, which entered in January 1942, the course was revised to include more specialized instruction in technical subjects.33 At the end of the eighth week of training each candidate chose one technical subject as his field of study for the remaining four weeks of the course. Toward the end of this period of specialization, the student went on an overnight bivouac and worked out a field problem that required him to apply his newly acquired knowledge. Throughout 1942, because of the necessity for crowding both military and technical training into such a short period, the Ordnance OCS was unable to train its officer candidates with the desired degree of thoroughness. A single overnight bivouac did little to pre pare them for the realities of combat operations, and four weeks of technical instruction was not adequate preparation for dealing with practical problems of field maintenance.
After the landings in North Africa in November 1942, reports from overseas commanders indicated that many service troops, in addition to their technical proficiency, needed more thorough training in adapting themselves to field conditions.34 Beginning in May 1943, therefore, a radical change was made in the Ordnance OCS course. The entire period was given over to basic military subjects including rifle marksmanship, first aid, convoy operations, sanitation, and field expedients. After completing this intensive course of military training and receiving their commissions, the students entered upon the second phase of their training—twelve weeks of technical instruction during which they spent four weeks on “basic ordnance” and eight weeks on the study of a specialty such as small arms, ammunition, or artillery.
In addition to basic military training and physical conditioning, the Ordnance OCS constantly emphasized the selection and training of men for leadership.35 The War Department directive authorizing officer candidate schools had stated that demonstrated leadership ability was to be “the basic and predominant consideration governing selection to officer candidate
schools,”36 but experience soon showed that the various OCS boards were sending many poorly qualified candidates to the Ordnance OCS.37 Thus, the school not only had to teach the principles of leadership but also to devise means of evaluating the leadership qualities of the students so that those who were not up to standard could be eliminated. The methods employed at Aberdeen to select and train students for military leadership were similar to those used throughout the Army. They included close-order drill, the “floor rating” system, and subjection of students to constant pressure. The day-by-day judgments of instructors—many of whom were themselves recent graduates of the course they were teaching—played an important part, as did the impressions made by the candidates on their classmates. Some candidates felt that in judging leadership ability, the emphasis placed on close-order drill was excessive and that too little weight was given to the individual’s technical knowledge and experience. Others felt that “lack of leadership qualities” was simply a convenient catch-all used by instructors in lieu of more specific criticism. Rightly or wrongly, more candidates were eliminated from the Ordnance OCS for leadership deficiencies than for any other reason.38
One of the most pressing problems facing the school throughout its first two years was the need for more barracks, more classrooms, more instructors,, and huge quantities of teaching materials. The first classes in 1941 were small and entered at intervals of several weeks, but soon the quotas were doubled and tripled, and a new class was formed every week. During the first six months of 1943 the peak enrollment was reached when over 1,000 students entered the school every month. Classes were then reduced to 200 each, beginning at intervals of two weeks, and late in the year the classes were limited to 50 candidates each, entering at intervals of eight weeks. This schedule continued in effect with only minor changes throughout 1944 and the first eight months of 1945. A total of 713 candidates received their commissions during 1945, bringing the number of graduates for the 1941–45 period to approximately 13,000.39
Replacement Training
The Ordnance Replacement Training Center (ORTC) was activated at Aberdeen Proving Ground on 1 January 1941 to train the Ordnance quota of men brought into the Army under the Selective Service Act. Its mission was to receive newly inducted men from reception centers, give them basic military and technical training, and then transfer them as individual replacements for existing units, as cadre for new units, or as specialist students for the Ordnance School.40 After the peacetime “defense” training turned into
actual war training in December 1941, the ORTC continued as the focal point for Ordnance replacement training throughout World War II.
Training Under MTP 9-1, 1941–42
The basic military and technical training given at the ORTC during the first half of 1941 was guided by Mobilization Training Program 9-1, dated 1 October 1940, which prescribed a course of instruction for all Ordnance enlisted replacements during their first four weeks in the Army.41 Two weeks were devoted exclusively to basic military subjects and two weeks to a combination of basic military and basic technical instruction. In contrast to the more elaborate training programs developed in later years, this early 1941 schedule was sketchy. It allotted a disproportionate amount of time to close-order drill and made no provision for teaching subjects such as map reading and night operations. Nevertheless, it was considered adequate because the four weeks of basic training were intended to serve only as the first phase of a recruit’s military education.
The original version of MTP 9-1 made no provision for keeping trainees in the ORTC itself for specialized technical training, but as the volume of recruits mounted in 1941 it became impractical to transfer all of them elsewhere for such training, and technical sections had to be hastily organized. The technical courses, ranging in length from six to eight weeks, were not designed to produce highly skilled specialists but to turn out men who could fit into Ordnance units as basic replacements and then gain greater proficiency through experience on the job. For this reason, the courses covered only the most essential data. Emphasis was placed on the nomenclature and function of each item, its assembly and disassembly, and the repairs normally made by an Ordnance maintenance company in the field. All the courses devoted as much time as possible to practical work, and all included at least one brief field exercise.
The technical sections faced a great many difficulties in getting started during the summer of 1941. There was a shortage of virtually everything except students. Barracks had to be used as classrooms until new shop buildings were completed, and many classes had to be held outdoors during the summer. There were practically no visual aids, and even items of equipment for observation and study were scarce. The automotive section, for example, opened in July with only one M3 tank, one scout car, and ten condemned trucks in its stock room.
Recognizing that instructors are the vitally important “machine tools” of a training center, the ORTC staff immediately took steps to train a corps of competent instructors for both technical and military subjects. Two hundred of the most promising men were withdrawn from the first contingents to arrive at Aberdeen, given an intensive course of instruction in basic military subjects, and then assigned to training battalions, where they filled all cadre positions from first sergeant to corporal. As time went on, more and more men were given “cadre training” and the instruction was broadened to cover technical as well as military subjects.42 A related program of instructor training was launched early in 1942 to improve the
technique of teaching. All enlisted instructors in the technical sections were required to attend an evening class each week for six weeks to study the principles set forth in FM 21-5, “Military Training,” to discuss examinations and visual aids, and to practice public speaking. This combined program of training in military subjects and teacher training eventually became a permanent feature of the ORTC curriculum and was made a requirement in all cadre training.43
Although Ordnance troops were given more military training during 1941 than had ever before been considered necessary, inspecting officers of G-3 found that the military training given at the ORTC in the summer of 1941 was not sufficiently thorough and was inferior to the technical training. The inspecting officers attributed this condition largely to the fact that most of the instructors were Reserve officers who had been schooled primarily in technical subjects rather than in the command of troops.44 The Chief of Ordnance acknowledged the soundness of this criticism and replied that it was an unavoidable consequence since sufficient funds for training Ordnance Reserve officers had not been available during the prewar years. General Wesson immediately directed the ORTC officers to give constant attention to raising the level of military training. Steady progress resulted during the following months, and by the summer of 1942 an inspecting officer reported that the ORTC military training program was “exceptionally well conducted.”45
A number of factors contributed to this improvement. One was the Congressional action in August 1941 extending the Selective Service Act for another year and lengthening the period of training from twelve to eighteen months. Another was the approval by the G-3 Division of a new Ordnance training program that more than doubled the number of hours allotted to basic military training-254 hours in contrast to 102 hours in the 1940 MTP. The new program also provided that some military training be given during the weeks of technical instruction so that the benefits of the initial training would not be lost. Most of the additional time for military training was devoted to close-order drill, physical training, marches and bivouacs, inspections, and running the obstacle course.46
The most important stimulus to improvement of training in 1941 was the outbreak of war in December. The attack on Pearl Harbor put a stop to all argument over the need for military training. Instructors and trainees were no longer preparing for a war that might or might not come, but were now definitely committed to fight to the finish against powerful enemies.
At the same time, the need for more rapid mobilization of troops made it necessary to shorten the time for replacement training. On 19 December 1941 the War Department ordered all Replacement Training Centers (except those of the
Infantry, Armored Force, and Signal Corps) to reduce the training cycle to eight weeks.47 The ORTC did not return to the longer training schedule until June 1942, but it adopted a forty-eight hour week as partial compensation for the time lost under the shortened program, and gave more instruction at night. During the early months of 1942 the average trainee was given four weeks of basic military training and four weeks of technical training, but the demand for replacements was so great that many individuals were transferred before completing even this shortened schedule.
ASF Influence on Replacement Training in 1942
When the War Department was reorganized in March 1942, the training division of Army Service Forces replaced the G-3 Division of the General Staff as supervisor of training in the technical services. The new office, headed by Brig. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, soon began to exercise much closer control over military training within the technical services than G-3 had ever attempted. The need for more intensive and realistic instruction was emphasized, and the chiefs of services were bluntly ordered to “give constant attention to the urgent problem of training” and not to shunt it aside as a matter of secondary importance.48
Within the Ordnance Department need for the increased emphasis on training was recognized by General Campbell in June 1942 when he formed a Military Training Division, headed by General Hatcher, and placed it on the same administrative level as the other divisions in the Department.49 At the same time, a Civilian Advisory Council, composed of noted educators and industrialists, was appointed to advise the Military Training Division.50 The members of the council conferred at intervals with Ordnance training officers and on several occasions visited Aberdeen and other training centers.
One of the first matters to which the ASF training staff turned its attention was standardization of the basic military training given at the replacement centers operated by the technical services. In August 1942 it issued a detailed four-week training schedule to be followed by all replacement centers and unit training centers under its jurisdiction.51 The new program required a complete revision of the Ordnance schedule of basic military training. By June 1942 the ORTC had returned to its longer training schedule and was devoting more than five weeks to basic military training under the 254-hour program adopted the year before. The new ASF schedule reduced this to less than 4 weeks, or 163 hours, and sharply reduced the time
allotted to each of the four main subjects-close-order drill, physical training, marches and bivouacs, and inspections. In two respects the new program was a major forward step: it marked the end of the period when close-order drill was allotted more time than any other training topic, and it more than doubled the number of hours for rifle marksmanship. Events were soon to prove that the decision to limit basic training to 163 hours was unsound and that the virtual elimination of marches and bivouacs from the program was a serious mistake.
Although Ordnance training centers had introduced rifle marksmanship training in the fall of 194152 and had given it more and more attention during the first six months of 1942, marksmanship training remained one of the chief weaknesses of Ordnance training until late in 1942. There was no rifle range at the ORTC on which trainees could fire for record, and the supply of both ammunition and rifles for training purposes was strictly rationed. In its survey of replacement training in the spring of 1942 the ASF training division had discovered that the same conditions prevailed at many other replacement training centers, and in July it therefore had directed all of them to intensify their instruction in rifle marksmanship.53
In November 1942, when a second Ordnance Training Center was opened at Camp Santa Anita in California, Brig. Gen, Bethel W. Simpson was transferred from Aberdeen, along with a large part of the ORTC staff, and placed in command of the new center.54 Colonel Outland, commandant of the Ordnance School, was then assigned to head the ORTC, with Col. Paul C. Kelly, a retired infantry officer back on active duty, as his director of training. To these two officers fell the responsibility for administering the new ASF training program after a large proportion of the experienced ORTC officers and enlisted men had been transferred to Santa Anita.
“One of the first things I did after reaching Aberdeen,” Colonel Kelly reported, “was to eliminate the parades held every Saturday morning. Parades have their place in military life, we all agree, but it shocked me to see so many thousands of man-hours desperately needed for training being wasted on formal parades—and Colonel Outland agreed with me.”55 The company officers were required to conduct training personally instead of delegating responsibility to NCO’s. Company officers were directed to turn over the administrative paper work to their first sergeants and then go out to the training areas and personally take over the task of training their men.
Under the leadership of Colonels Outland and Kelly, close attention was given to what may be called “human relations” in dealing with the new recruits who arrived at Aberdeen. A friendly, understanding attitude was found to be most effective in converting the civilian to a soldier capable of accepting the hardships and responsibilities of modern warfare. Trucks were kept on hand at the railway station to meet every train bringing men to the ORTC, and a mess hall stayed open all night to give new arrivals a hot meal. “We even had their bunks made up for
for them the first night,” Colonel Kelly reported, “Not that we coddled anybody or neglected discipline—we just treated them like human beings. And our system paid dividends in the form of better training.”56 The staff psychiatrist at the station hospital supplemented this policy by giving new recruits a series of informal talks on adjustment to Army life. When experiments in the fall of 1942 showed that these “mental hygiene talks” helped trainees to overcome homesickness and resentment toward military regimentation, the talks were made a regular feature of ORTC training.57 A cleverly illustrated booklet called “The Story of Mack and Mike” was given to all trainees, showing them how Mike adjusted normally to the Army routine while Mack made himself unhappy by resenting every regulation and feeling sorry for himself.
More Combat Realism in Training
In spite of the efforts made during 1942 to improve replacement training in all branches of the Army, results were not entirely satisfactory. The earliest reports received from overseas observers in late 1942 and early 1943 praised the technical skill of Ordnance and other service troops but complained that some were deficient in military training and physical conditioning. One observer, for example, spoke of the “backbreaking work” that had been required to get supplies ashore in North Africa and urged that service troops be physically hardened before being sent overseas, “They cannot be conditioned” he added, “by games, calisthenics, or marching; they must actually manhandle cargo for long hours, during darkness, inclement weather, and rough seas.”58 As a result of such reports, the keynote of Ordnance replacement training during 1943 became combat realism. Although Ordnance troops were not officially classified as fighting soldiers, strenuous efforts were made to toughen them, physically and mentally, to withstand the rigors of field operations and to teach them to work and fight alongside combat troops. Less time was spent in close-order drill and inspections, and more attention was given to living and working under simulated combat conditions.
The most important single step taken during 1943 to improve the training of replacements was the addition of four weeks to the training period.59 In addition to lengthening the training time, the new program overcame one of the major difficulties of the past by allowing an additional four weeks for processing men in and out of the training centers, travel, and furloughs at completion of training.
While the basic training program was extended and intensified during 1943, improved methods of teaching were also adopted. Instructors became more proficient as they gained experience, and an ever-increasing supply of training aids contributed to the effectiveness of their teaching. Because of the long hours of
Street-fighting training exercise under simulated combat conditions at Aberdeen ORTC
instruction and the vigorous outdoor activity to which most of them were not accustomed, the trainees tended to become drowsy in classes and drop off to sleep when the instruction was dull and uninteresting. Every effort was therefore made to present each subject in an interesting and forceful manner and to use the most effective teaching techniques. In teaching military courtesy, for example, the lecture method was almost entirely discarded in favor of dramatic presentations. With the aid of several assistants, the instructor arranged a series of brief skits, often sparked with humor, to demonstrate the various principles of military courtesy and thus enliven an otherwise dull subject.
Instruction in booby traps, for which eight hours was allotted in the summer of 1943, lent itself admirably to the use of various tricks and surprises to hold the interest of the trainees. The subject was introduced to each class by a training film, followed by a lecture during which large-scale working models were used as training aids. The instructor supplemented his presentation of the theory by actually wiring several booby traps in the classroom. When the men went outside for a ten-minute break they found that the grounds had been wired with countless booby traps containing small firecrackers. The opening of the latrine door, for example, set off a loud blast, and the unsuspecting students who picked up helmets or bottles of Coca-Cola lying on the ground were startled by other explosions. The rest periods were as instructive as the lectures.
Perhaps the best known and most effective training aid developed at the ORTC was a loose-leaf notebook on basic training called “The Ordnance Soldier’s Guide,” Every trainee was given a copy of this notebook to carry to his classes. First issued as a sheaf of mimeographed sheets clipped to a board, it was later revised and printed. The “Guide” covered all the subjects included in the basic training program, from “ammunition” and “map reading” to “World War II.” The brief text was clear and easily understood, and was supplemented by scores of illustrations, most of which were miniature reproductions of large charts used in the classrooms. A distinctive feature of the “Guide” was its provision of blank spaces under many topics for the trainees to write in the data supplied during classroom lectures and demonstrations. When properly filled out, the “Guide” became the soldier’s own notebook to take with him when he left the ORTC and keep for future reference.
It was, of course, necessary to adopt teaching methods suitable to the mental ability and previous experience of the trainees. There were wide variations among the men assigned to Ordnance but, generally speaking, they were well above the Army average in mental ability and mechanical aptitude. A comprehensive survey by the ORTC classification section during 1943 showed that the average Army General Classification Test (AGCT) score for the 25,000 white recruits assigned to the training center during the year was 107.8, and the average Mechanical Aptitude Test (MAT) score was 106.5. The corresponding scores for Negro trainees were much lower—79.8 for the AGCT and 77.9 for the MAT—but during 1943 only 8 percent of the arrivals at the ORTC were Negroes. Half the white trainees fell into Classes I and II on the basis of AGCT scores, as compared to 36 percent for the Army as a whole, and only 18 percent were in Classes IV and V as compared to 30 percent for the entire Army. More than half the white trainees and nearly one third of the Negro trainees were high school or college graduates.60
The 1944–45 Period
The 1943 pattern of replacement training carried over into 1944 with relatively few changes. The new program (MPT 21-3) issued by ASF in May 1944 reduced the number of hours of close-order drill from twenty to twelve and thus continued the trend started by the first ASF basic training program in 1942. Close-order drill was now allotted less than 5 percent of the total basic training time in contrast to more than 20 percent in the 1940 and 1941 Ordnance programs. Two basic subjects were given increased time—physical training 20 hours instead of 14, and rifle marksmanship 75 hours instead of 68. Marksmanship thus continued to get far more attention than any other subject in the basic training curriculum and was now supplemented by eight hours of familiarization with the carbine and six hours of bayonet drill. Because of the heavy toll taken by malaria among American troops overseas, the new program specifically provided that four hours be devoted to malaria control measures.61
There were occasional minor changes and shifts of emphasis in the program of technical instruction at the ORTC during 1944 and 1945, but the broad outline remained the same as in 1943. The trend toward offering more and more practical work continued in the shop and classroom phases and during the field exercises. All the technical sections changed their training programs at intervals as new equipment came into use by the Army and as reports from overseas recommended revised procedures. But the number of such reports from overseas observers was small. No Ordnance officers visited any of the active theatres to evaluate the training of Ordnance troops until July 1944 when Colonel Slaughter, commandant of the Ordnance School, toured the ETO for several weeks.
During 1944, as during 1943, more men were trained at the ORTC for automotive maintenance work than for any other technical specialty. During 1943, 26 percent of all white trainees had been assigned for training as tank or truck mechanics, and in 1944 the percentage rose for a time to 35. Clerk-typists, supply clerks, and truck drivers formed the next largest groups. Each of the traditional Ordnance specialties—artillery mechanic, small arms mechanic, and instrument repair-man—accounted on the average for only about 5 or 10 percent of the total training load.62
The number of men in training during 1944 gradually declined from the peak but rose again in the summer of 1945 as the Army-wide redeployment program got well under way. In August 1945, over 5,000 men were received for training at the Aberdeen ORTC—more than twice the average monthly arrival rate of 1943. The number of arrivals quickly declined during the months after the Japanese surrender.63
Unit Training
There were three more or less distinct phases of Ordnance unit training during World War II. The first opened in February 1941 and was virtually completed by the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The second began in March 1942 when the first “affiliated units” were organized. It overlapped the third phase which began in May 1942 with the opening of a large UTC at Camp Perry near Toledo, Ohio, and ended in the fall of 1943 when most of the UTC’s were closed. Some unit training continued during 1944 and 1945, chiefly at Red River in Texas, and Flora in Mississippi, but on a much reduced scale.
The 1941 Program
In the late summer of 1940, in response to a War Department directive, the Ordnance Department drew up three mobilization training programs for Ordnance units. By early October these programs were approved by the G-3 Division and published as MTP 9-2, for maintenance companies; MTP 9-3, for ammunition
companies; and MTP 9-4, for depot companies. All three programs had the same general objectives: (1) “to train a basic ordnance soldier,” (2) “to train the individual in the particular duties he will be required to perform in a company,” and (3) “to produce a thoroughly trained . . company which will function as a team,”64 While these MTP’s were being prepared, a schedule for training Ordnance units at three Unit Training Centers was drawn up in accordance with the existing War Department troop basis. This schedule called for training 26 maintenance companies at the Aberdeen UTC, 10 ammunition companies at the Savanna UTC, and 6 ammunition companies at the Raritan UTC.
The companies were scheduled to remain in training for thirteen weeks, but War Department mobilization plans provided that units should be ready for field duty, in case of emergency, at any time after one month. Col. Herman U. Wagner, commanding officer of the Aberdeen UTC, therefore decided to devote the first four weeks exclusively to military training in order to prepare the companies to operate under field conditions as soon as possible. Attention was then turned to technical subjects. Here a difficult problem arose because there were only a few members of the UTC staff who were technical experts, and equipment for technical training was scarce. The only tank available to the Aberdeen UTC, for example, was of World War I vintage. As none of the companies had enough competent instructors or enough matériel to provide technical training on all classes of equipment, Colonel Wagner centralized technical instruction along the lines followed at the Ordnance School. All equipment was pooled and placed at the disposal of a staff of instructors who taught regular classes in small arms, artillery, automotive vehicles, and fire control instruments.65
When the first thirteen companies departed on 25 June, taking with them most of the experienced cadre, they were replaced by men for thirteen other companies. In most respects, the conditions under which these units started their training were even less satisfactory than those for the first companies. The enlisted men came directly from reception centers, instead of from the ORTC, and arrived with no previous military training. With the exception of one officer and four enlisted men retained from each of the first companies, the cadre men for the second group came directly from the ORTC where they had been given only eight weeks of training. The Aberdeen UTC was thus faced with the task of starting from scratch to give thirteen companies basic military training, technical training, and unit training all within a period of thirteen weeks, and with only a skeleton staff of experienced personnel.66
Under the direction of Col. W. I. Wilson, who became chief of the Aberdeen UTC in June, and later under Maj. A. R. Del Campo, the procedures followed in training the first thirteen companies were used to train the second group. Basic military training was given within the companies by company officers and enlisted cadre, and technical training was centralized under the direction of competent instructors. An increased allotment of tools and matériel was available for these units, however, and mobile shops arrived during the summer. One of the highlights of the
training period was the arrival of thirty new tanks, just off the assembly line at the new Chrysler Tank Arsenal, for emergency modification before shipment to the British forces in North Africa. In September, at the end of their thirteen weeks of training, the companies were sent to their field assignments, and, by order of the War Department, the Aberdeen UTC was inactivated. It had completed the training of twenty-six maintenance companies and had met the requirements for Ordnance maintenance units under the existing troop basis.67
In the meantime, the other two Ordnance UTC’s, at Raritan Arsenal and Savanna Ordnance Depot, were training ammunition companies. The Raritan UTC, activated in January 1941, trained six ammunition companies during the year and was then placed on stand-by status.68 The UTC at Savanna Ordnance Depot was activated early in February by a cadre from Raritan Arsenal.69 Five ammunition companies were trained during the next three months, according to MTP 9-3, and in June the training of five more ammunition companies began. The large percentage of illiterates among the men in this second group posed a serious problem for the UTC staff since the men could not qualify as members of ammunition companies until they had learned to read the labels on boxes. At the conclusion of the training period, there were no assignments for these companies, and they remained at the depot until the end of the year, working part of the time as ammunition handlers during a period of labor shortage. The Savanna UTC was then inactivated in January 1942.70
During the winter of 1941–42, while the question of the responsibility for unit training was being threshed out at the General Staff level, the training of units by the Ordnance Department came virtually to a standstill. Three ammunition companies were trained at Raritan early in 1942 but, generally speaking, service units of all kinds were trained during this period by the combat arms rather than by the technical services. Ordnance units that were organic to infantry divisions, for example, were trained by the divisions rather than by the Ordnance Department. This policy continued in effect after the reorganization of the War Department in March 1942, largely because the Army Service Forces had practically no facilities for training units, while the Army Ground and Army Air Forces had extensive unit training programs in operation. The directive establishing the new Army organization provided that the using command would train the units, but the ASF, in addition to the responsibility for training all units required for its own installations, was also directed to train certain units for the AGF and AAF.71 This directive authorized the ASF to proceed with a large-scale program of unit training during 1942 as soon as training centers could be established.
Recruitment and Training of Affiliated Units, 1942
The resumption of unit training in the Ordnance Department began when the so-called affiliated units were formed in the spring of 1942. At the end of February,
a short time before the reorganization of the War Department was announced, Ordnance was assigned the responsibility for training two base regiments that were urgently required for overseas shipment within three months. Since the time was so short and Ordnance had no unit training center at which to train base regiments, Col. C. Wingate Reed, chief of the Military Personnel and Training Branch, proposed that the Department enlist the aid of commercial organizations in recruiting for these units mechanics who were already skilled in heavy maintenance work. He believed that these mechanics, with a minimum of military training and some familiarization with Ordnance procedures, would be able to function as maintenance troops in a very short time. He based his belief on the proposition that it is easier to train a mechanic to be a soldier than to train a soldier to be a mechanic.72
General Wesson approved Colonel Reed’s proposal, and on 14 March 1942 the War Department authorized Ordnance to recruit two affiliated base regiments, a maintenance battalion, and a maintenance company, with a combined strength of 300 officers and 5,000 enlisted men.73 Since no single commercial organization was capable of providing such a large number of skilled mechanics, the Ordnance Department turned for assistance to the NADA. With a total membership of over 40,000 automobile dealers, most of whom employed mechanics in their repair shops, the NADA was admirably suited to serve as a connecting link between the needs of the Ordnance Department and the skilled manpower in commercial garages across the country.74
Unlike other technical services, the Ordnance Department had had no previous experience in recruiting and training affiliated units.75 No plans had been prepared during the prewar years for the organization of such units, nor had commercial organizations been alerted to the possibility that they would be called upon to recruit personnel. As a result, plans had to be formulated and put into effect in great haste.
The two regiments were destined for shipment to North Africa where the German forces were then pushing eastward and threatening Alexandria. Strategic plans required that the regiments be ready for embarkation by the end of June, thus leaving only three months to recruit, equip, and train them. Within the six weeks from 15 March to the end of April, a whirlwind recruiting campaign was conducted and a total of 350 officers and 8,500 men were recruited—a number substantially greater than was required.
Early in May the two regiments reported for training at Camp Sutton on the
outskirts of the little town of Monroe, North Carolina. Camp Sutton was a new temporary divisional camp at which virtually no facilities or equipment had been provided before the arrival of the troops,76 The men had to pitch tents for shelter and, as no sewage system had been installed, were forced to spend much of their valuable time digging latrines. The training program consisted of basic military training and familiarization with Ordnance matériel. Because of the lack of adequate facilities for either kind of instruction, improvisation was the order of the day. The local high school, the State Guard armory, and various small shops and warehouses were converted to training purposes, and the officers and men who served as instructors studied the handbooks at night to keep a jump ahead of their students. The arrival of a cadre of veteran instructors from the Ordnance School helped, but the lack of heavy organizational equipment continued to handicap the training.77
At the end of the scheduled training period the regiments were not sent overseas as had been planned. Instead, the men were sent individually and in small groups to the Ordnance school at Aberdeen, and to other technical training installations, for intensive training in various specialties such as small arms, artillery, fire control instruments, and tanks. After twelve weeks of individual technical training, the men were then re-formed into units, most of which sailed for North Africa early in 1943.
In recruiting and training three more regiments (the 303rd, 304th, and 305th) different methods were used in order to avoid some of the difficulties experienced with the first two affiliated regiments. Officers were selected and trained in advance of the enlisted personnel instead of being placed in command of troops before they had themselves received any military training. Special recruiting teams were organized to choose properly qualified men for specific assignments. To remove all ground for complaint that favoritism entered into the recruiting process, the officers selected to command the units did not participate in the recruitment of enlisted personnel. As a rule, the enlisted men were given ratings somewhat lower than their qualifications warranted, to allow room for promotion later on.
When the resources of the NADA were eventually exhausted, several business concerns volunteered to recruit additional personnel for Ordnance affiliated units. Among these were the International Harvester Company, American Roadbuilders Association, John Deere Company, Associated Equipment Distributors, J. I. Case Company, and the Allis-Chalmers Company. By 15 December 1942, when recruiting for affiliated units was discontinued because of the executive order banning further voluntary enlistments, a total of approximately 1,100 officers and 30,000 enlisted men had been provided for 5 base regiments, 10 separate battalions, and 109 separate companies.78 Ordnance units were thereafter organized and trained at regularly established Unit Training Centers.
Unit Training 1942–45
During the first six months of 1942, the Ordnance Department’s responsibility for training—aside from the affiliated units was not clearly fixed. In addition to the uncertainty as to whether the Ground Forces or the Service Forces should train service-type units, there were also in early 1942 frequent revisions of the War Department troop basis. Ordnance officers responsible for training units were handicapped in making definite plans because they did not know precisely how many units they would be called upon to train during the months ahead. They estimated that a total UTC capacity of from 20,000 to 25,000 would probably be required before the end of the year, but in the spring of 1942 the small UTC at Raritan was the only existing Ordnance facility for conducting unit training, and it was on a stand-by basis. An immediate search was therefore made for suitable sites at which to establish several new and larger UTC’s.79
The first site to be approved was Camp Perry, adjacent to Erie Proving Ground in northern Ohio. It had a capacity of 4,500 trainees and was converted into an Ordnance UTC on 18 May 1942 to train units for service with the Army Ground Forces. The second new UTC was established at the Mississippi Ordnance Plant, near the town of Flora, Mississippi. This large bag-loading plant was nearing completion in the summer of 1942 under supervision of the Industrial Service, but was not at that time essential to the ammunition production needs of the Department. The Military Training Division therefore arranged in August to convert the plant into a unit training center with a capacity of 7,000. In late October a 3,000-man UTC was established at the Red River Ordnance Depot, and when the Ordnance Training Center at Santa Anita was opened in November, most of its capacity was devoted to the training of units,80 In addition to these regularly established training centers, Ordnance depots such as Augusta; Mt. Rainier; Fort Crook; Nansemond at Portsmouth, Virginia; Seneca at Romulus, New York; Letterkenny at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; and Normoyle were used for on-the-job continuation training.
Before the responsibility for motor transport vehicles was transferred from The Quartermaster General to the Chief of Ordnance in August 1942, the training of Quartermaster units for automotive maintenance had been conducted at various AGF installations such as Camp Butner, Camp Sutton, and Pine Camp. Ordnance training officers took immediate steps in September to centralize control of the training of automotive units by establishing three automotive UTC’s. The first, and largest, of these centers was opened in October 1942 at the Pomona Ordnance Depot, with a capacity of 3,000. In mid-February 1943 two more were established, one at Holabird Ordnance Depot (capacity 800) and the other at Atlanta Ordnance Depot (capacity 1,800).81 With eight centers in operation by February 1943, the combined capacity of all Ordnance UTC’s rose to more than 24,000. This program of
expansion placed Ordnance far in the lead among the technical services in establishing unit training centers.82
All of the Ordnance UTC’s established in 1942 encountered difficulties during the early months of their operation because of the limited facilities and lack of experienced personnel. Basic military training was hampered by the lack of rifle ranges, gas chambers, bivouac areas, visual aids such as films and charts, and areas for demonstrating hasty field fortifications, tank obstacles, and field sanitation.83 Technical training of maintenance companies was handicapped by the lack of shop equipment, sample items of Ordnance matériel, charts, and manuals. Because of the need for speed in activating and training new units, none of the UTC’s was fully equipped or manned when it received its first units for training, and, what was even worse, many units were ordered to overseas duty by higher headquarters before they had completed the prescribed thirteen weeks of training. At Camp Perry, for example, of twenty units shipped out during 1942, only three had completed the scheduled thirteen weeks of training. Nine of the units had only seven weeks of training, and others had less than seven weeks.84 All of these were units that the Ordnance Department was training for the Army Ground Forces, and they were moved at the request of AGF with full knowledge that their training was incomplete.85
This divided control over the training of Ordnance units was the source of a great deal of dissatisfaction during 1942. In October, for example, when the Under Secretary of War wrote to General Campbell that he was concerned over the efficiency of Ordnance units in the field, the Chief of Ordnance replied that he was “fully cognizant of the lack of trained personnel in Ordnance field units.”86 General Campbell went on to state that he did not concur in the existing War Department policy of training Ordnance units of the Army Ground Forces. This policy placed primary responsibility for the activation and training of such units with the AGF rather than with Ordnance. “All Ordnance units,” General Campbell wrote, “should be activated at least three months prior to the activation of the combat units they are to serve. Until released for assignment to combat units, the training of all Ordnance units should be under the complete control of the Chief of Ordnance.” He followed up these recommendations three weeks later with a memorandum for General Somervell requesting that responsibility for the initial three months of training of all Ordnance units be vested in the Chief of Ordnance, that no Ordnance units be released from Ordnance control until the three-month training period was completed, and that the necessary UTC capacity and equipment be made available to the Chief of Ordnance.
This request was not favorably considered, but during 1943 the ASF Training
Division took several important steps to strengthen the unit training programs of all the technical services. Requirements were prescribed in greater detail, inspections were more rigid and more frequent, and at the end of the summer the time allotted for unit training was lengthened from thirteen to seventeen weeks.87 In June all UTC’s were required to give military training continued emphasis during the technical training phase, to provide more thorough training in first aid, chain of command, and use of weapons for antiaircraft defense. As reports came in from overseas stressing the importance of night operations, the UTC’s were directed to give more attention to instructing units to carry out all their operations under blackout conditions. In August ASF headquarters established minimum requirements for the training of all nonmedical ASF units and directed that no unit be reported as ready to perform its mission until the minimum requirements had been met.88
The quality of Ordnance unit training steadily improved during 1943 and 1944 as rifle ranges, obstacle courses, infiltration courses, and other facilities for training were constructed at the training centers, and as equipment for shop and field maintenance work became more plentiful.89 Progress was most clearly reflected in the reports of The Inspector General on Ordnance units before their movement overseas. During 1944, fifty-four Ordnance units were inspected and only two were found to be below the minimum standard. No other technical service with a comparable number of units inspected had such a high rate of acceptance.90
After V-E Day there was a brief period of intense activity in the redeployment training of units. In accordance with War Department policy, entire units were transferred from the European theatre to training centers in the United States where they were given special training before moving on to the Pacific. Every effort was made at the Ordnance training centers—chiefly at Aberdeen, Red River, and Atlanta—to adjust the training to the needs of redeployed units, to avoid unnecessary repetition of earlier instructions, and to direct the whole program toward the conditions likely to be encountered in the Pacific area. Most of the technical training consisted of practical on-the-job instruction to bring the men up to date on new procedures. Military training focused special attention on Japanese tactics, identification of Japanese uniforms and weapons, throwing live hand grenades. bayonet practice, camouflage, and malaria control measures.
Because of the nature of unit training it is impossible to compile an accurate and meaningful statistical summary of units trained during World War II. Units varied in size from the bomb disposal squad to the base regiment, and the length of their training period varied from one to six months. Many units were ordered to active field duty before they completed more than half the scheduled program, while others engaged in advanced training for several weeks after completing the basic training requirements. The affiliated units, composed of skilled mechanics, needed
only basic military training and familiarization with Ordnance matériel. Most other Ordnance units were made up of selectees assigned to Ordnance by reception centers, and required the full cycle of basic military, technical, and unit training. But, without taking into consideration all of these variations in the length and scope of the training programs, estimates show that approximately 90,000 men received some degree of training at Ordnance UTC’s during the 1941–45 period.91
Bomb Disposal Training
Training personnel to dispose of unexploded bombs (UXB’s)—whether of the defective-fuze or delayed-action variety was one of the many new problems the Ordnance Department was called upon to face during World War II. During earlier wars, unexploded bombs or shells had usually been disposed of simply by blowing them up wherever they were found. During World War II, when large-scale bombing raids were launched against centers of population and industry as well as against military installations, use of the crude demolition methods of the past was no longer feasible. A large high-explosive bomb dropped in the middle of an urban business district and buried several feet under the pavement among vital water, gas, and electric lines could not be blown up without incurring tremendous property damage, nor could it be left for hours—or even for days or weeks—to explode at its own appointed time. Means had to be devised for gaining access to the bomb, removing the fuze, stopping the time mechanism, or otherwise rendering the bomb harmless and then digging it out and hauling it away for destruction or salvage. After the destructive bombing raids launched by the Germans in 1940, the need for trained bomb disposal squads became apparent to authorities planning the defense of the United States. No large-scale attacks on American cities were expected, but it was felt that preparations should be made to minimize the destructiveness of any attacks that might occur.92
Progress in getting the bomb disposal training program under way during 1941 was hindered by delay on the part of higher authority in deciding who should be responsible for such training. The earliest plans had envisaged an Office of Civilian Defense that would organize and direct civilians in every community to carry out fire-fighting and bomb-disposal operations during bombing raids. But it was not until five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor that the War Department specifically assigned to the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD) the task of disposing of UXB’s in the zone of interior, and to the Ordnance Department the same responsibility within all military reservations, overseas departments, and theatres of operations.93 The Ordnance Department was also assigned responsibility for training bomb disposal personnel, both military and civilian, and was authorized to send an instructor cadre to the bomb disposal school in England to study British methods.
In early December the Chief of Ordnance concurred in this decision to divide responsibility for bomb disposal between the OCD and the Ordnance Department, but further study of the matter convinced
him that the decision had been unsound. “Civilian volunteers cannot be properly trained or disciplined for this hazardous work,” he concluded. “Every detail of delayed-action bomb disposal is hazardous in the extreme and requires the utmost in skill, caution, and discipline. Only professionals can develop the skill and experience necessary for such work.94 Even more important in the eyes of the Ordnance experts who had studied the matter was the need for the strictest secrecy in bomb disposal work so that the enemy would not learn when effective measures for disarming his bombs had been developed. They pointed out that, if the enemy learned what methods were used by bomb disposal squads, he would immediately devise new bombs that would explode when these methods were used. This argument clinched the matter. The December directive was rescinded and the Ordnance Department was given sole responsibility for disposing of all explosive bombs. The OCD was limited to disposing of incendiaries and carrying on “bomb reconnaissance,” that is, locating, identifying, and reporting bombs.95
Immediately after issuance of the December directive, the Ordnance Department formed a tentative bomb disposal organization at Aberdeen Proving Ground to prepare for the opening of the Bomb Disposal School, Maj. Thomas J. Kane was chosen as commandant of the school and in January 1942 was sent to England, accompanied by eight officers and enlisted men, for instruction in bomb disposal methods. At the same time a small group of British bomb disposal experts—all seasoned veterans of the Battle of Britain—came to the United States with a complete set of British bomb disposal equipment.96
The most urgent problem facing the Bomb Disposal School during the spring of 1942 was the need for effective instructional materials. As the school was adjacent to the Proving Ground, it was possible to obtain samples of American fuzes, bombs, and other matériel for study and demonstration, and a bomb disposal museum was started. A large area was set aside as a bomb disposal range where the students could work on actual bombs dropped from airplanes, but there were no films, film strips, charts, and manuals. To meet this need, the official British training film “UXB” was duplicated by the Signal Corps during March, and several film strips, charts, and pamphlets on bomb reconnaissance were prepared by the school staff. By December 1942, well supplied with training aids and qualified instructors, the school was offering eight courses. Three of these were very brief orientation courses including only eight or ten hours of instruction, and one was a correspondence course. The other four, ranging from 45 hours to 180 hours of instruction, formed the backbone of the school curriculum. In addition, instructors from the school gave a sixteen-hour bomb reconnaissance course to top OCD personnel in all states east of the Mississippi and in the states bordering on the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.97
The value of this training was twofold.
On the domestic side, the Bomb Disposal School provided a nucleus of trained personnel for all the Service Commands and civilian defense regions and thus strengthened the nation’s civilian defense organization. The significance of this contribution is sometimes overlooked because no enemy bomber formations appeared over American cities during the war to bring the bomb disposal forces into action. In overseas theatres the value of bomb disposal training was clearly demonstrated. In those areas, Ordnance-trained bomb disposal units found plenty of work to do, often working around-the-clock for days at a time. They performed heroic service in neutralizing and removing UXB’s, artillery shells, and other explosives from territory occupied by Allied troops. Although their training had not covered all types of explosive items, bomb disposal personnel overseas found that the red bomb on their sleeves made them the target for questions on all kinds of objects suspected of being explosive. The disposal of explosive bombs and shells was not glamorous work, and was not rewarded with additional compensation for all its hazardous nature, but it proved immensely valuable to the fighting troops.
The accomplishment of the Ordnance Department in training more than 300,000 officers and enlisted men during World War II can be seen in proper perspective only when viewed against the background of the prewar years. Before 1940 training was not an important phase of Ordnance operations and accounted for only a small fraction of the annual Ordnance budget. All efforts during the 1930s to prepare for the future were hindered by lack of funds, lack of interest in training activities, and uncertainty as to Congressional action in authorizing a larger Army.
The Selective Service Act of 1940 and the assignment to Ordnance of large numbers of selectees early in 1941 gave the Department an opportunity to strengthen its training organization and try out its plans. Much was accomplished during the year, but Ordnance officers felt that much more could have been accomplished if the War Department had approved their plans for expansion. Because of the uncertainty as to the continuance of selective service beyond one year, no full-scale expansion of permanent Army training facilities was authorized. As a result, the Ordnance Department, along with all other branches of the Army, was forced to train the recruits it received during 1941 under conditions far from ideal.
The effect of this failure to expand training facilities more rapidly during 1940 and 1941 carried over into the first year of the war. The attack on Pearl Harbor injected a new spirit of realism into all Army training, but buildings, equipment, and instructors could not be provided overnight. Moreover, the increased need to train men quickly and in large numbers made it impossible to train them thoroughly. Throughout 1942, Ordnance basic military training was too brief to be very effective and continued to place too Much emphasis on traditional garrison subjects such as close-order drill and formal inspections, neglecting rifle marksmanship, field exercises, map reading, and night operations. Lack of essential equipment and facilities such as rifles, ammunition, rifle ranges, and bivouac areas hindered the
basic training program all during 1941 and 1942. Technical training, although superior to military training, was also greatly handicapped during the 1941–42 period, and to a lesser extent during the latter half of the war, by the lack of shop buildings and equipment.
No review of Ordnance training during World War II would be complete without reference to its almost infinite variety. The Ordnance School trained enlisted technicians in scores of specialized fields, ranging from cooking and baking to the major overhaul of tanks and heavy guns. It also trained thousands of officer specialists and graduated more than 13,000 officer candidates. Instruction at the Aberdeen Replacement Training Center and the various UTC’s covered a wide range of subjects, from elementary military courtesy and close-order drill to the recovery and repair of heavy field equipment at night under simulated combat conditions. The Bomb Disposal School at Aberdeen provided both individual and unit training in the identification and disposal of unexploded bombs. Never before in its history had the Ordnance Department been called upon to train such large numbers of men in so many different specialized fields.
Perhaps the most noteworthy development in Ordnance training during World War II was the streamlining of all school courses and training programs. The broad, general training of the prewar years was discarded in favor of highly specialized and intensive courses of instruction. In all branches of technical instruction, courses were stripped of nonessentials and only the “must-know” information was taught. At the same time, more effective teaching methods were adopted, and great ingenuity was displayed in developing a wide variety of training aids. The success with which this streamlining process was applied to Ordnance training was attested to by a well-known educator, Dr. Robert E. Doherty, president of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, when he said: “The characteristic which distinguishes Ordnance training from all other training with which I am familiar is its intensive nature. … In this program I think General Kutz and his associates not only have done a magnificent job for the Army but also have made a significant contribution to education in general.”98