History of the 305th Field Artillery/It Has Growing Pains
II
IT HAS GROWING PAINS
Going into the second week the colonel talked daily with his organizalion commanders. Such conferences revolved largely about the almost scented forms from the Adjutant General's Office. These, it developed, would, when the men arrived, have to be decorated with count- less, neat statistics. Soldiers, as far as we knew, might go hungry or without equipment, but, as far as figures went, they would unquestionably be cared for tenderly. No one would have the slightest doubt as to their most intimate family history, the number of years it had taken them to dribble through public or private institutions of learning, or their degree of proficiency on mandolin, harmonica, or jew's harp.
The officers at that period filled forms about themselves in odd moments. The most persistent and suggestive demanded the name of the relative one wished notified in case one should become a casualty. Whenever in America or France things got a little slack a request for that information would come around. It kept one, as it were, on one's toes. But we wondered why that bureau never got fed up with paper work.
Into these daily conferences, almost at once, crept a sense of imminence. Luge bulletins descended from Division Hill dealing now in dates. They described with an admirable detail how the first of the draft men would be received. To aid us in this task non-commissioned officers, it was promised, would be sent us from the Regu lar Army. They appeared one day-a score or so for our regiment.
We looked at them. We looked at their service records. Then we looked at each other. We swallowed our first lesson in how to send, on order, one's best men to some other organization. Certainly, in this case, few commanding officers had parted with their jewels. Some of these rough diamonds, we suspected from a comparison of dates, indeed, had been set in chevrons for our needs. There lay their records of battery punishments and courts martial. We pitied those distant, unknown commanders. If these were their best we shrank from picturing their days and nights with the worst. The audacity of the thing caught our imagination. There was, we felt, something to be had from it. They weren't all bad, by any means. Some bccame the most useful of soldiers.
Our medical department arrived about the same time, a worried-looking little group, that trudged through the dust, dodging piles of lumber. It was led by Lieutenant James B. Partamore, who later became captain, and for a time, regimental surgeon.
Lieutenant Dennis J. Cronin was assigned as 1st Battalion Surgeon, and Lieutenant Marshall A. Moore as 2nd Battalion Surgeon.
That very day Dr. Parramore constructed a table in Regimental Headquarters. He placed upon it with proud gestures a tin of alcohol, a demijohn of castor oil, a few assorted pills, and gallons, literally, of iodine. He announced himself open for business.
Business, fortunately, was dull, so the adjutant reached out for Parramore's enlisted personnel, sat them on a bench in the hall, and—Behold!—for the first time Regimental Headquarters had orderlies. There was no doubt about it. We were growing.
On September 27th the arrival of our chaplain, John J. Sheridan, was another reminder; and two days later the long dreamed of moment arrived. Five hundred and thirty-five recruits were assigned to the regiment.
These men, of course, did not come directly to us from their local boards. We received them after two weeks work of reception and assortment in which all the officers of the division shared. During that phase the once strange term "casual" became a by-word. For all the draft men arrived at Upton as casuals. Officers met the first train loads at Medford on September 15th.
There are, let it be granted, few days in the history of our country more impressive than that one which saw the triumph of universal service and the birth of our great national army. But it is rather so from a distance, for in the minds of the officers and men who assisted there lingers beyond question, woven with the sublime, a palpable tracery of amazement and mirth.
The draft came in ancient railroad coaches whose sides were trimmed with placards suggestive of an abnormally swift and terrible march to Berlin, via Upton; and a number of penalties for the Kaiser, very ingeniously thought out.
Then there was the provocative personal adornment. There had been word in the papers that all civilian clothing worn to Upton would have to be cast away. So these young men took no chances. Tattered straw hats were thrust from the windows; crushed derbies, through which wisps of hair straggled; top hats, in a few cases, so venerable that it was a pity to see them out of their sepulchres. And Palm Beach suits of previous summers were there, and the dinner jacket, an affair of generations, and the suit that had been worn on Sundays long before the owner's maturity. It was an assortment that would have taxed the sanity of a Hester Street dealer.
You tried to sound the meaning of such a trip to these young citizens. You could only sense definitive separa tions from home and comfort and allection; a shrinking from our uniforms, which mcant a disciplinc, terrifying and undesired; and, perhaps, a perplexed apprehension, somewhere just ahead, of violence and the close of experienced things.
No mind, however, could linyer on that side. There were too many races, clamorously asserting themselves. There had been too much made of a number of departures. There still lingered too many souvenirs of feasts. Out of the shadows slipped an eager voice.
"Hay, Tony! Finish off that bottle before these officer guys can grab it."
And another, less concerned:
"Grabba da hell. My gal, she givva mc a charm against da evil eye of officers."
And some had reached the point where speech ends. A man in uniform grew disgusted.
“So," he grumbled, “that's what we've got to teach to fire a three inch gun!"
But we knew he was wrong. He had judged by the high lights. In the really fundamental background we saw a sober and determined spirit. We felt even then the presence of some of the best soldier material in the world. After meeting a few of these erratic train loads the least confident of shavetails could forecast his ordered garrison tasks with case of mind. For such recruits weren't simple to control
When we gathered at night in J20 the gossip of every group revolved around the arriving casuals.
“How many souses did you have to-day, Bill?"
"Two. One wanted to weep on my shoulder, and the other wanted to give me an uppercut."
"What did you do about it?"
"Ordered the fighting one to take care of the weeper."
"Say! Did he?" "You bet. Closed both eyes so the tears couldn't get out, and satisfied himself at the same time. I remember he shouted as he swung: 'Hay, Boss! It's a grand war!'"
Those already in uniform, none the less, felt a quick sympathy for the newcomers. Their individualities slipped away from them so easily! At the station they
were labelled and assigned to barracks. They were herded and marched in long, uncouth lines, to the hospital for physical examination. We formed squads and tried to instruct them in the school of the soldier. Rich and poor, Hebrew and Gentile, short and long, straw-hatted, felt-hatted, or without any hats at all, they faced us, eager, one knew, to learn.
"One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Squad halt. Right face. Left face. About face."
Those that couldn't speak English very well got the commands confused. Others had a curious lack of balance. All had a disposition to laugh at mistakes and accidents, and to discuss and argue about them while in ranks at attention.
At morning and evening roll-call argument was warmest. No linguist existed, sufficiently facile to scan that list intelligibly. Sprinkled among remembered English names were pitfalls of Italian, Russian, Spanish, Lithuanian, German, even Chinese.
“Krag—a—co—poul—o—wicz, G."
The officer, calling the roll, would look up, expecting the response his triumph deserved. A protest would come, as likely as not in fluent lower New York accents:
"Do yuh mean me? That ain't the way tuh say my name. Me own mother wouldn't recernize it."
"Silence! Simply answer, 'here.’"
In a tone of deep disgust:
"Then I ain't here. That's all. I ain't here."
An appreciative laugh would ripple down the ranks. Men learned to be officers and non-commissioned officers in those days.
Afterwards the citizen soldiers would get their mess kits, and, sitting on burned stumps or Thompson-Starret rubbish, would eat a palatable meal. For the food was coming from somewheres, and the gear to dispose of it. We had noticed that Walters, Payne, and Savage were up to something. During long hours they sat in Regimental Headquarters studying documents. Then they filled out many forms, and sample clothing and equipment straggled into the barracks. This meant a new phase, and now, as we labelled, we equipped. We became tailors, hatters, booters. We would begin the night's work by choosing as comfortable a place as possible in the mess hall with a pile of pink qualification cards before us. The queue of awkward and pallid youths would form.
"Name?"
It would flow out in various accents. More frequently than not it would demand painstaking spelling. Education, occupation, average wages, capacity for lead ership, ability to entertain, previous military experience -it all went down. There was one question in which we took a special interest.
"For what branch of the service do you wish to express a preference?"
Some had weighed the matter carefully. They believed themselves born to the Quarterinaster's Corps, but the majority had not foreseen that interrogation, nor, if they had, it is likely that the meat of their answer would have had a different texture. Its sincerity was sometimes naïve. "Oh, hell! I don't care, just so I lick the Choimans."
We concentrated on the finest. Shamelessly we proselytized, out of this impromptu mission came some of the regiment's best.
Those hours of dreary, yawning statistics, moreover, had their relieving moments. Here comes a slender young man in the familiar suit of remote beginnings. The officer asks him formally the formal question.
"Wages in your last job?”
"$50,000 a year."
That officer, one recalls, rose to the occasion, for the young man was not boasting.
"And I understand you wish to express a preference for the Field Artillery?"
Wasn't it Hoadley who faced a youth just the reverse of this last—that is, flashily tailored?
"What can you furnish in the way of entertainment?"
“Me?" the flashy young man replied. "I could steer the village miser into a poker game, and, believe me, bo, I can make a deck of cards lay down and roll over. What's the idea? What d'ye mean? I got to split with you?"
When he declared for the Cooks and Bakers his choice went down without argument.
Afterwards we would line our charges up again and desert qualification cards for sample shoes and hats and clothing. Sizes were limited, and we hadn't suspected before nature's infinite variety in modeling the human form. We made an axiom at the start. The more peculiar the shape, the more particular the owner.
"For the lova Mike, mister, I can't wear that coat. Makes me look as if I'd broke me breast bone."
Or:
"You got to melt me to get me into this."
Everybody worked with patience and a desire to be fair, but, just the same, you had to make both ends meet and as the hours flew by you may have hurried a little.
It was during these sessions that a rotund and good-natured officer gave us a stirring example and prophesied his own future.
“You're in luck. That's a wonderful fil," you'd hear him say to a man with a 32 chest lost in a 36 blouse.
"You're a perfect 36. Might have been cut for you."
The man would gather a fistfull of the excess cloth, stretching it towards the officer.
“Cut for an elephant."
"The tailor will alter it so it won't look like the saille blouse."
"I'm not saying anything about its looks. All I'm saying is maybe it isn't quite big enough for a good-sized elephant."
The officer's buttons would stretch.
"If you want to get along in the army, young man, you'll do as you're told. I wouldn't mind wearing that blouse myself."
"But," an officer would whisper to him. "You're not quite as big as a good-sized elephant."
The officer would grin and continue to show us how to make the best of the material in hand.
“That hat isn't too big for you," he would call out in bis cheery voice. "Gives your hair a chance to grow." So we struggled on through the days and nights until the first quota was classified and at least partially equipped. And out of that quota came for us, as related, five hundred and thirty-five recruits-not far from half a regiment.
“The men we're to live and fight and die with,"someone said.
It wasn't to turn out quite like that. We didn't foresee the wholesale transfers, the all-night conferences when officers and non-coms tried to do the fair thing without destroying their organizations. Still those dark days of transfers fall more reasonably in another chapter. For the present we were a trifle hypnotized by our growth and our power. We looked along the lines, guessing at the good and the bad for, like all regiments, we had both.
The faces we saw were pretty white, and the frames not, as a rule, powerful. For we were a part of the Metropolitan Division. Most of our men came from the crowded places of New York. Out of city dwellings, offices, subways, and sweatshops they poured into the wind-swept reaches of Upton. They knew none of the tricks a boy picks up in the country that fits him, after a fashion, for such fighting as we were destined for in the Vosges, on the Vesle and Aisne, in the Argonne, and on the Meuse.
"Will soldiers grow from such material?" visitors asked.
From the start officers and men knew the answer as affirmative. Day by day beneath the bland autumn sun faces bronzed, chests seemed to expand and shoulders to broaden before the tonic of physical labor. For it wasn't all drill. The miracles continued, but there weren't enough civilian workmen available to construct the city, to clear vast spaces for drilling, and to arrange artillery and small-arms ranges. So orders came for the draft men to pitch in and help. Thus commenced the cheerful game of stump pulling.
Of our original quota there are very few that couldn't qualify as expert destroyers of wildernesses. The famous skinned diamond exists as a monument to our skill. The target range is a document written in the passionate sweat of our brows.
During this education the first effects of discipline were apparent. Faces might darken with rage or whiten from weariness, but in the realized presence of a superior work went on without too painful comment. Occasionally, if hidden through chance by a screen of bushes, you might hear burning opinions of army life in general and stump snatching in particular. At school we had been taught that the average man's vocabulary is scarcely more than five hundred words. The understatement is obvious. Any soldier of the 305th who couldn't apply as many adjectives as that to the common noun "stump" was frowned upon as mentally deficient or as one affecting an ultra religious pose.
Such tasks were, in a sense, a digging of a pitfall for one's own feet. As the skinned diamond expanded our drills waxed proportionately ambitious. But the entire process was performing another miracle. Where formerly had slouched slovenly ranks appeared now straight lines of soldierly figures, heads up and shoulders squared, exuding a joy in things military.
"What's all this guff about West Point?" you'd hear. “Watch my outfit drill any day."
And the veterans of a week or so exposed a most amusing tolerance for newer recruits. The difference between a uniform and civilian clothing created an extensive gulf. In a few days it would be bridged. The awkward squad of the day before would face the awkward squad of to-day with expressions of veteran contempt. For the recruits poured in during October. On the first we received one hundred and thirteen, on the ninth one hundred and eighty-three, on the tenth two hundred and fifty-four, on the twelth, two hundred and eight. So that by the end of 
that month we had forty-one officers assigned, eighteen attached, and one thousand three hundred and thirteen enlisted men. The 305th was a regiment. All we needed were horses and guns to realize that we were, indeed, artillery, designed to throw projectiles at the Huns.
To give variety to our stump-pulling sport Colonel Doyle called our attention to certain long, low and harmless-appearing buildings across Fifth Avenue. Still living in the J section, remote from these constructions, the men hadn't suspected in them any further spur to their vocabularies. Now, it seemed, they were to be our stables. The civilian workmen's responsibility had ceased when they had put up sides and roofs. The rest we must do. We had many fences to build around them, and more land to clear for riding rings and paddocks. We were encouraged to enormous efforts on October 18th when the government presented us with eight mules. They were led to the most comfortable stable. They were treated as honored guests.
Quite fittingly, our first veterinarian, Lieutenant North, arrived soon after.
The problem of our missing field officer was solved on October 14th when Major Thomas J. Johnson reported. No one had an opportunity just then to know him very well or to judge him competently. It wasn't until we had reached France that we were to realize our good fortune. For on October 26th he was detailed to the School of Fire at Fort Sill. Major Wanvig left for the same destination on November 7th.
Without formal battalion commanders the work of the regiment continued, in view of the lack of equipment, amazingly well. Reserve officers of only a few months' training displayed exceptional qualities of leadership. New soldiers wanted to learn. An artilleryman must be able to do more than use a sight, work a breach, or pull the lanyard. The chances of the draft had given the 305th a number of highly-educated specialists for the more complicated work of conduct of fire, and the delicate details of scouting and communication. To that important extent the regiment was already better off than some of the older organizations. By day the officers instructed and drilled the men, and by night the officers went to school them- selves to Colonel Doyle and Lieutenant Colonel Stimson, who did the best they could with the slight material at hand to keep us abreast of artillery developments in the war zone. When finally we got to France we were overwhelmed to realize all we had to learn.
When now we glanced from the slope of Division Hill at the bleak landscape which only a few weeks before had aroused our skepticism we saw barracks, quarters, and department buildings rising from the ashes of the forest.
Piecemeal, during October, the regiment moved from the J section to its own area. The change was complete on October 24th. As we had policed J and its vicinity so we made our surroundings in M neat and military. Officers and men received a fortunate impression of permanence. As long as we remained in Upton we would have our own home. Things, we felt in our ignorance, were going well. Even a band had been collected, and could play one or two pieces in public with comparative safety. During the latter part of October and the first part of November the officers were brought a little closer to their mission. They were conducted by twos and threes to Sandy Hook to watch the practical working of projectiles and fuses; and forty attended a six-day artillery course in New Haven under the experienced instruction of Captain Dupont, of the French Army, and Captains Bland and Massey, of the Canadian artillery.
It was on these trips that most of the officers saw for the first time the famous soixante-quinze. They admired it as a piece of artillery perfection without being able to guess that it would be their companion for many months, a thing nearly as animate as the men who served it.
What we actually got at Upton at this time was a single battery of venerable three-inch guns, relics of the 51st Field Artillery Brigade, New England National Guard. Lieutenant Colonel Stimson shared this for us, together with much other useful equipment which aroused the envy of less fortunate organizations who didn't have a former secretary of war. Certainly one battery among six was better than none.
When the guns arrived on November 10th the regiment gathered around them, patted them fondly, examined their mechanism, peered down their throats.
Pride leaped.
"God help Jerry when we show him these!"
But Jerry never saw them. Perhaps one day in the dust of some ordnance museum they may be observed by all the world—precious relics of the extended battle of the 305th at Camp Upton.