H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy (26 page)

Chapter 4

Waco, Texas

10 August 1917

The 32nd Infantry Division under Major General James Parker had been assembled from the National Guard units of Wisconsin and Michigan.  Some of its elements had deployed with General John “Black Jack” Pershing in his pursuit of the Mexican border raider, Poncho Villa.  Thus, the Division was experienced in large troop movements and the issues associated with supplying a large, mobile group of men and machines. 

Commanding General Parker was an experienced and intelligent soldier.  Unlike many military men of his generation he paid close attention to world politics and technological innovations in addition to the more traditional study of military history.  As early as 1915 he felt certain the United States would be drawn into the conflict just starting in France and spreading across the Western Hemisphere.  His estimations proved prophetic.  When a German diplomatic message, the ‘Zimmermann note,’ fell into United States hands exposing Germany’s attempted alliance with Mexico against the United States the country quickly abandoned its neutral policies.  The United States declared war in April 1917.   

Parker had been certain his division would be one of the first sent into action.  He had already set his mind to the issues of moving this huge organization from here to there and keeping it in action once assembled on foreign soil. 

In his youth, Parker had been taught that an Army was dependent on hay and the feed bag.  That was nearly true today, only hay and the feed bag had been replaced with gasoline and spare parts.  And, now one more item had been added to the list,  mechanics. 

Mechanics were few and far between, so General Parker decided to teach his own.  And, he knew that moving a Division was difficult and slow.  He wanted it fast and easy; so beginning in the summer of 1916 he had his men pack and unpack trucks, tear down and rebuild engines, change tires, overhaul weapons, move, shoot and do it all again.  They marched, they exercised, and they attended classes.  They could strip and reassemble their new 1903 Springfield rifles blindfolded.  They could disassemble their trucks and reassemble them. 

The training in the heat of west Texas was brutal.  The men from Wisconsin and Michigan suffered.  Most had been struck down with heat exhaustion at least once, several more than once.  One man had died of heat stress.  But the training never let up.

Corporal John Turner rolled over in his bunk and looked over the side.  “Oushel, I’m telling you, this is the hottest summer I ever been through.  I ain’t never been this hot; I swear Hades itself ain’t this hot, nooo, it ain’t.” 

Turner had joined the Army after a fight with his father.  “Pup” as his father had called him had accompanied his Uncle on a trip to Chicago when he was thirteen.  He had seen the big city and wanted no part of being a dairy farmer after that.  By the time he was sixteen he’d quit school and was planning his escape.  The next year he announced he was leaving and his father had erupted.  Six months later he was in Chicago, penniless and, when he could sneak past the owner, sleeping in a barn.  It only took a week of Chicago winter to convince him that he could crawl back to his father and admit he was beaten or join the Army.  The Army looked like the better option.

“I swear if I take apart another truck engine I’ll go crazy.  I’m telling you John, I’ve seen the insides of every motor in the division!”  Oushel Crenshaw replied.

Oushel and John had become good friends over the past several months.  Oushel admired John; he was older, had been in the Army six months longer and knew how everything worked.  John was where someone went to find out the latest news.  John was someone who knew about things, he was smart.  Oushel was an only child.  His mother had died of measles when he was four.  His father worked as a lumberjack and they followed the tree line around northern Michigan.  It couldn’t last, eventually the trees were all gone and his father went to Detroit hoping to land a job with Mr. Ford.  The day Oushel turned seventeen, he told his father that he didn’t want to work in the factory and he was joining the Army.  Six weeks later he was on a train for the first time in his life, headed to Waco, Texas.

In early November John announced that they were “on the list.”  Oushel wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but didn’t want his friend to think him stupid so he didn’t ask.  A day and two trips through the chow line later he had it figured out, they were going to France.  Everyone wanted one last leave. 

“Think the General will let us take leave before we go?  I’d like to see my Dad,” Oushel asked John that evening.  He was a little embarrassed about asking, but he did want to see his father.  They’d been close for his entire life.  Now he was afraid he’d never see him again.

“Ain’t no way.  He can’t have us trying to git home and back.  Suppose orders come down for us to move right now.  No, I seen this before, we ain’t gettin’ no leave.”  Turner rolled a cigarette, licked the paper and twisted the ends.

“Well, I’m asking the Captain anyway.”

“Ask all you want, he ain’t gonna let you go.”

Oushel thought about that.  John was probably right; at least what he said made sense. 

“I could take the train.  It would only be a week, maybe ten days.” 

“Oush, it ain’t possible.  The Captain got his orders and they say no leave for nobody.  You ain’t goin.”

A day later Oushel tried anyway.  John was right, no leave was granted.  The 32nd Infantry Division began to move to Europe in December.  In January they suffered their first casualties when a German U-boat sank a troop ship carrying elements of the transportation section.  By February the Division was scattered across the ports and bases of England and southern France.  It took three weeks for the Division to reform.  Several of the more junior officers complained the war would be over before they saw action. 

The Germans launched a major offensive, with a hundred thousand men in March.  In April the Division went into action.  The majority of the officers didn’t live to see the summer.   

BETRAYAL IN THE LOUVRE

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