HOME FRONT – Pictorial
“You’re In the Army Now!”
NOW THAT THE PAPERS ARE SIGNED – IT’S TIME TO WHIP THE MEN INTO SHAPE – BOOT CAMP!
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THEN – THE FINE TUNING OF YOUR SPECIALTY – MORE TRAINING!
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Humor –
Courtesy of Chris
courtesy of Chris
courtesy of Chris, found Here!
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HUMOR – What the civilians were reading on Sunday mornings…….
The famous Toonerville Trolley!
Click on images to enlarge.
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Personal Request –
Many of these pictures were taken from a newly acquired book, “The Victory Era in Color,” by Jeff Ethell. This book was previously owned and inside the front cover was written — Harold L. Gregg 33294371 4 Oct 42 – 23 Dec 45 – 3 yrs – 3mos – 5 days
My request — Does ANY ONE have information on this person?
AND – a SHOUT OUT!! to you vets in Arkansas – does this post today bring back any memories????
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Farewell Salutes –
Pearl Agopsowicz – Calgary, CAN; CWAC, WWII
Thomas Birdsall – San Antonio, TX; US Navy, WWII & US Army MSgt. (Ret. 22yrs.)
Eugene Goldberg – NYC & Wellington, FL; Merchant Marine WWII, ETO
Paul Hicks – Boynton Beach, FL; US Navy, Cuban Missile Crisis
Owen “Osca” Hughes – Kingston, AUS; RA Navy, Rear Admiral (Ret.)
John Norton – Port Angeles, WA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, pilot/ US Air Force, Korea
James Perone – Westerly, RI; US Army, WWII, ETO
Cedric Sutherland – Tauranga, NZ; RNZ Air Force # 441837, WWII
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Posted on October 1, 2014, in Home Front, WWII and tagged 1940's, family history, History, Home Front, Military, nostalgia, USA, veterans, Vintage, WW2, WWII. Bookmark the permalink. 57 Comments.
Pacific Paratrooper 
Boot camp for me was in 1968, three months and wanting Death to relieve the pain and torment, the Sgts never seemed to like me, they were yelling at me all the time, and saying bad things about my parentage.
Ian
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All that yelling the sergeants do – I believe that’s standard protocol…… No one said boot camp was a honeymoon in the brochure…
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Great post, something to think about. Many young men survived the war because of the training they got.
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Thank you, Mia. This was a fun post to put together.
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Fun, yes:) Probably not too fun for some of the young soldiers though 🙂 Sure there was some bullying involved too, as it often happens, but on the bigger scale it helped many of them return home.
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When you’re whooping boys into men – I suppose anything is possible!! 😉
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Thanks for your comment on my website … had to move some things around. Please come back again soon. I will try to keep as many as I can. The older posts will be kept as I add to them. Merci my Friend
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Good to see you again!! Accueillir.
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Some really nice illustrations. Are the pictures from “Chris” originally postcards?
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I’m afraid you’ll have to click on the link I have for him there and ask him; I really don’t know, John.
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Great pictures… and Google makes an early appearance!
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A very good post, as usual, and it brought back some memories. some good and some not so good.
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I imagine so, Jim, but they did help make you the man you are today.
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Great post, GP! You provide so much info and variety. And you are far from computer illiterate — your blog is testimony to that! 😀
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Thanks so much, Linda. I wasn’t fishing for compliments – just complaining about how long it takes me to put one together. (I have to keep going back to re-edit because of my slip-shot memory.)
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So this is what my son went through. No wonder he was 40 pounds lighter at graduation!
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My father, Smitty, told me he was amazed how the Army would feed everyone the same, but the heavy ones became thinner and in shape – the skinny kids buffed up. Something went right with their plan. I’ll bet your son never felt better, did he? Thanks, Jacqui.
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Great post with a really terrific assortment of media ! 🙂
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Glad you liked it Chris. The more I edited it – the bigger it got – what can I say? Oops?
< my usual self.
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I think that’s how a post goes from good to great ! 🙂
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fab shots
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Thanks.
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Especially interesting as my niece’s son just finished his boot camp at West Point. I am so proud of him for receiving the nomination from our area, as it has been his dream since he was six years old.
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You must be bursting with pride – having a nephew at West Point!!?!!! OUTSTANDING! All the best to him, Bev.
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Great photo slides!
I did check on Harold L Gregg through Ancestry and although they did have two men from Pennsylvania that could be him, neither had a military record attached. I Googled the text you wrote and found a chap who is deceased but his obituary included a WWII participation with some info. Once you open the link, click on obituary to get the info.
http://www.curranfuneralhome.com/mobile-home/obituaries/details?id=41470
I am not sure if he’s the one but it could be a good possibility. He also is from Pennsylvania but is about ten years younger than the other two…none are related as far as I can tell.
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Along with the info found by Maryann, you two have come through not only with the same man, but additional info – I can’t believe I came up blank. I really appreciate you going to the trouble of doing this for me, Mrs. P.!!!!
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Delighted I could help. After spending so much time doing genealogy I found that I am quite good at finding information and when it’s a small investment of my time I don’t even think twice about sharing it with friends. Even if I don’t share…I will look. I can’t help it, I have this I wonder thing that goes on in my head…and off I go. 😀
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I try to do the same, but I’m not always all that good at it. So thanks again.
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Doing a search for Harold Gregg, with that service number, shows he enlisted at Greensburg, PA in 1942 for the duration of the war. He was born in 1921. Source is National Archives (AAD): http://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-description.jsp?s=3360&cat=WR26&bc=,sl,fd
Hope that helps a little. Great post!
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I tried searching and found nothing! I appreciate you taking the time to locate him, Maryann!! This is terrific!!
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Hello there, gpcox… In your footnote, I knew of a Jeff Ethell. We published books on WWII aircraft and was an avid flyer himself. About ten (?) years ago, he was killed. As most pilots and himself knew, bailing out of P-38 was deadly at best. To safely bail, you had to turn the bird on its back then literally fall out due to the twin tails. Unfortunately, Mr. Ethell was killed flying a vintage P-38 when it developed trouble. He was unable to bail.
Those pictorials were wonderful. Did you notice they were all practicing with the M-1 Garand and not a 1903 Springfield? Must’ve been after Pearl when many of these were shot for publicity. Loved the barbells with coffee cans filled with concrete!
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Thanks for sharing the info, Koji. Mr. Ethell had such a nice piece in the front of the book about his father and flying, such a sad end for him. Overlooked those rifles, being so rushed lately, I put the last 3 posts together rather quickly, simultaneously and re-edited so many times – I don’t know how they came out okay. I always appreciate your visits and comments, friend.
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My boot camp lasted extra time because Christmas-New Years landed in the middle of it. We trained from early December till the holidays, returned home or stayed on base doing not much of anything but KP, policing the grounds, or hanging out with lower ranked cadre (BSing!) till everyone returned from the holidays.
I couldn’t see the point of returning home after three weeks, even if it was for the holidays, so stayed at Ft. Lewis, WA, with the handful of people who stayed.
I don’t think this was wise use of our time since that couple weeks give most of the recruits a chance to pretty much return to the state they were in before they arrived for boot camp, only with shorter hair.
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I guess they wanted to to show their uniforms, new muscles and strut. Plus, the holidays are very special to some people. Everyone deals with it differently I suppose.
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I can feel the push-ups. 🙂
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Aah, memories…..
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Whenever I view pictures from previous wars, I wonder about the young men and women shown; I wonder if they survived the war. I wonder if they returned home and raised families. I wonder if they made something of the “second chance” God gave them. I think most of them did …
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It’s wonderful you think about them that way (beyond the picture moment) and – as far as coming home – we DID have a baby boom, didn’t we? 😉
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The difference between black & white and color is astonishing. I’m guessing most or all of the color images are from Kodachrome transparencies and not tinted b&w negatives.
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I actually prefer the B&W, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to have this book and at such a low cost!!
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Your picture of the barracks, reminded me of my grandfather. He ran a flooring company in the 30’s and after the war started he spent a couple of years building barracks for the Army at bases and transportation areas around Northern California – as far east as Reno. One family story is of my grandmother driving one of the flat bed trucks (a two ton, although some versions had it as 2.5 tons) back from Reno down what is now highway 50 – to save gas she turned off the engine and coasted from the summit to the central valley.
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Hey – thanks for sharing, Andrew! Awesome! Do you happen to know if he worked on Camp MacKall?
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No, they didn’t. They did most of their work at transportation depots in and around Oakland, CA and a few contracts around Reno for supply depots and troop transfer points.
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Just thought I’d ask. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, Andrew.
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My first husband seemed to think training never ended. Every bit of training was to ensure troops got back in one piece. I smiled seeing the barbell made out of cement and a pipe – or at least that’s what it looked like. Great post; your images are awesome.
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Thanks, Jackie. The book was so large, I needed to take photos of the photos and then crop, etc. For someone who is basically computer-illiterate – I’m really proud of putting this together in under a week!! 😉
What branch did your husband serve in and when – does he share in any stories?
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My former husband was a “Tankie” (Tank Commander) from Fort Knox, KY. We were also at Ft. Hood, TX and Erlangen, Germany near Nuremberg where our son was born. Before I met him, he was in Korea.
Training is something they were always doing but he enjoyed some fun times as well. When President Carter was planning a visit to Ft. Hood they practiced showing off the tank maneuvers. During one practice after an especially grueling few days, some of the guys got together to play a prank on my husband: They put a can of tuna in the barrel some way so that when he fired the tank it stunk up the area with fish smell. They called him “Tuna” after that and he never lived it down.
I try to remember the unit he was in at the time and all I can remember is “C, 3, 67” — C Company, 3rd Battalion 67th Armor… if that is right.
We parted friends in 1978 which was helpful since we had two children.
You have a great blog; the pictures are amazing. I showed my husband the other night and he enjoyed the images. He watches all those black and white historical war movies. My husband has Asperger’s and he can tell you about every country, leader and war that has ever been. He drives me batty with history, business, politics and more. Last night it was something from the Bible. 😀 ❤
If you are running a successful blog then you are not computer illiterate – far from it. Just keep cranking out these great posts. 😉
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Thank you so much for taking the time to not only give us the info on your former husband, but also your present one – who, should he find any errors in my data – have him chime in!! Thanks again for the compliments, but you should see me try to do these posts! You’d laugh, I guarantee!
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Did I mention that my husband came from Peru? He studied advanced English courses to enter the U.S. and go to school for engineering. He worked to pay his way through college then graduated from UT El Paso and came to New Jersey where we met. He has worked in technology from 1980 – this year is his 29th year at AT&T.
We did not know about the Asperger’s until the last three years, it explains much of his ability to remember details of the Roman Empire or the Bible up through current times. If my husband found any errors he would tell me but not you; he is gracious that way.
I think many of us bloggers create posts in a similar fashion. There is so much I don’t know… I am very lucky, though, to have in-house computer help. When I go to my husband for help, his first question is, “What have you already tried?” In other words, I must try to fix the issue first before I ask him. 🙂
PS: My former husband once drove a jeep in Fort Knox for the grandson of George Patton. 😉
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You husband has courage and brains – sounds like he would be an excellent teacher as well. Your pride in him shines through – thank you for sharing with the rest of us.
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I enlisted in 1970, we still had the two-story, white WWII-era buildings like, those pictured in the video. Great pics–they brought back memories(not all of them bad).
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Glad they weren’t ALL bad memories, Adam. Looking back – how good would you rate your D.I.?
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I had several (3), even though in the Air Force, one had been in the Marines. One was from Texas–along with the drawl. He’d come in the barracks at 5:00 AM and drawl his notorious, “Get up–Dumbaasss!” Anybody stupid enough to not get up got their bed turned over on top of them. I would rate them a solid “B.” It was the Vietnam era and they took their job seriously.
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Glad to hear that!
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The combination of equipment and trained crews / soldiers was do
Important to winning that war. Our enemies ultimatly ran out of both. Thanks got touching on the topic of training.
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Well, we mentioned how so many volunteered – it was the logical next step – whip them into shape! Thanks for peeking in this morning, Dan.
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