© Steven E. Schanes 2001
April 6, 2000

Chapter 10
The Army Air Corps: Basic Training
Atlantic City
March-April, 1943

On February 28, 1943, we recruits went to the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Newark, New Jersey. I was extremely pleased to see my college roommate Al Hunter, and a close fraternity brother, Don Kidd. We were put on a train, headed to who knew where. (Since it was wartime, all troop movements were very secret.) After several hours of watching the countryside go by, we suddenly became aware that we were pulling into Atlantic City, New Jersey. Since this was a noted resort, it certainly seemed like a better alternative than places with names like "Fort Dix" of "Camp Benning". It made for a far less traumatic shift from civilian life.

From the train station, we were bussed to the Chalfonte Hotel, right on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. We had all played Monopoly and it was fun seeing the various streets named in that game as we passed them. The Chalfonte had been a top-rated luxurious hotel, but now the decorations had been stripped away, so that it was just an ordinary large building with many rooms. Somehow, Al Hunter, Don Kidd and I found a large room, which we shared for the next month. Again, this eased the shift into the military world for me.

We were called out to go for our army clothes, a very efficient process. I was fitted with a Size 36-Small uniform. We then returned to our rooms, but were then called out for our first orientation session. I left my new uniform jacket on my bed. When I returned, it was still there, but when I put it on, somehow the sleeves now extended over my hands and the jacket was now more like an overcoat in length. I took it off and looked at the inside label, which now read, "Size 44-Long". Someone had made a dramatic switch. I thought to begin looking for any recruit wearing a fairly short jacket, but this was not possible. Nor, for some reason, was there any way to make an immediate change through the system. I could not bring myself to do that which had been done to me. So, for about one week, I looked like the model for "Sad Sack"- a comic strip character who walked around in a jacket four sizes too big for him. Finally, I was able to make a clothing change, but the memory of that pitiful sequence remains.

For our Basic Training, we were under the tutelage of a very large sergeant named "Tiny". He lectured us, drilled us, and was in total charge. Since it was still wintertime, we marched in heavy overcoats, wearing helmet liners and carrying our gas masks. Tiny would shout, "March troo de walls!" I remember one moment, as we were lined up outside the Chalfonte Hotel with the rain coming down, looking across the street at a small patch of ground covered with grass and thinking, "If I ever get out of this alive, all that I will ever want to do is to lie down on that piece of dirt and never move."

One day, we were taken out for Gas Mask Drill. We marched to an open field on the outskirts of Atlantic City. We were then lined up in a single 40-man row. Tiny stood in front of us, hands on his hips. "Phosgene gas can kill you or paralyze you for life! It smells like gardenias! I repeat, it smells like gardenias! When you are in battle and you smell gardenias, you will put on your gas mask!" He raised his arm and about 50 yards in front of us, clouds of smoke erupted from canisters on the ground. "OK, men," Tiny shouted, "You will walk into that smoke and when you smell gardenias, you will put on your gas mask and you will walk back to this line! Go!" We began to move forward very slowly. "Move, it, move it!" Tiny bellowed. And we walked into the smoke, each of us sniffing constantly. Phosgene gas, death, paralysis equaled total fear.

I had no idea of what gardenias smelled like. In fact, I had little idea of what anything smelled like, as I had lost my sense of smell in high school chemistry class. (Since I had the largest nose in the class, the teacher had named me the "Official Smeller" and for a full year, I had the honor of smelling every experiment on behalf of the class. By the end of the year, I could not smell a thing and that one of my five senses never did return.) As we were enveloped in the smoke, it became difficult for me to see the other guys, but I did become aware that some of them were immediately stopping, reaching for their gas masks, and turning around.

On I went into the field of gas, sniffing, sniffing. At length, I began to feel dizzy. It occurred to me that maybe I would never smell the gardenias and that this could be very dangerous. I turned around and began running back, trying to get my gas mask on as I ran. As I burst out of the smoke cloud, I could see that every one of the other guys was back in the line, wearing his gas mask. I staggered back, going right by Tiny. He just shook his head with a curious smile on his face. Only later that night did I learn that nobody was stupid enough to wait for the smell of gardenias before turning around. Nobody but me. Thus, I learned that I lacked "street smarts".

Only a few other memories of Atlantic City remain with me. My mother came there for a one-day visit, while, unfortunately, I was still encased in the 44-Long jacket. I took her to see a horrible war movie, not thinking about the effect this might have on her. The other memory is that of going down the chow line for dinner one evening. My two buddies, Al and Don, were serving food. As I moved my tray along, Al placed a scoop of mashed potatoes in the middle of my plate and then Don placed a scoop of ice cream right on top of the mashed potatoes. It was now clear to me that civilian friendships carried no weight in the Army.

After four weeks of marching, rifle practice, and indoctrination (We watched movies on "Why We Fight" and venereal disease.), we were ready to be shipped out. We understood that we would be going to a pre-flight school, but we knew nothing more than that. Tiny lined us up and told us that as he called our names, we were to go to waiting busses. He then said that since all roll calls began with the letter "A", he would do something different. He closed his eyes, pointed to his list, opened his eyes and shouted, "Schanes!" I was amazed and pleased. In my entire life, this was the only time my name was ever called first. I ran to the first bus. When the bus was filled, we drove off to the train station and boarded a train. Only then did I realize that neither Al nor Don was with me. While Al Hunter and I continued our friendship after the war, I never saw Don Kidd again.

Chapter 11
The Army Air Corps
Pennsylvania State College
April-May, 1943

The train ride from Atlantic City was a long one. We had no idea where we were heading, but it was clear that the Army was trying to mislead any spies as to our destination. We tried to track our course. For a long time, it appeared that were going south, but then we turned and came north. After some ten hours, we stopped. We could hear shouting from a distance- high-pitched voices cheering. It sounded as though we were victorious troops being greeted after a battle.

As we left the train and marched, we realized that we were in a city filled with women! They were Penn State College coeds, cheering us as we arrived on their campus. It was a most heady moment. As they yelled and screamed, we were marched to a gymnasium, where we stripped and were subjected to a thorough and intimate physical examination. Then out we came, to the yelling and screaming. We marched like victors, through crowd of cheering girls and across the campus, where we were assigned to empty fraternity houses! The girls had followed us and now they stood outside in the street, still shouting. There could not have been a more exhilarating experience other than the war itself ending.

We were back at college, taking those courses that the Army Air Corps felt that each of us needed. And while we were in uniform and there was a certain amount of continued drilling, for the most part, we were free to socialize and to enjoy Penn State's various offerings. There were dances, plays, movies, clubs, and girls. Some of us would be there only four weeks, others for six weeks, others, longer. I was in the six-week class.

Our class work was fairly easy. I had a course in English Communications and another in Math. Finally, I had a three-week course in Physics. I remember that I got A's the first two weeks, and an "F" in the last week, when we got into how electricity worked. Since marks were averaged, I somehow received a passing grade.

Unfortunately, our stay at Penn State was much too short. We had been badly spoiled by the wonderful living conditions, the good food, and the great social life. We knew that it would be hard coming back to reality. Reality meant the Classification Center at Nashville, Tennessee.

The purpose of the Nashville Classification Center was to sort us into specific training for one of the three flight officer positions: pilot, navigator or bombardier. This involved a series of tests, all of which could have been completed in three days or less. However, we were there for about six weeks.

Bakery Detail

We lived in barracks, a severe comedown from the Penn State fraternity houses. There were about twenty men to a barracks. It rained a lot and we drilled in the mud. We also had various daily details, the main one being KP (kitchen police). I learned how to peel potatoes most efficiently. One day, however, things changed. As we lined up for daily duty assignments, the sergeant called out: "I'm looking for two volunteers for bakery detail!" Anything would be better than KP. I raised my hand immediately, as did the fellow next to me. Being the shortest in the squadron, we were in the front row so we caught the sergeant's eye first. "OK. You two report to the bakery right now. Double time!" We ran to the building housing the bakery.

Another sergeant was waiting for us. He told my companion to wait outside, while he took me inside the building. All that I could see was a wide aisle of low boxes, walled in by stacks of containers. There were bright floodlights above the line of boxes. "Sit down here." he said, pointing to a stool at the front end of the first box. "Put on these gloves." He handed me a pair of white gloves. I put them on. "Now," he said, "with your great Air Corps officer-eyes-to-be, you should be able to see that this box is filled with oil. Notice, that the box right before this one is slightly higher. It is also filled with oil. And so is the box before that one and the each one before that. If you will continue to look up the line of boxes to the far wall, you will see that the first box is fairly high up and that there is a thing that looks like a faucet above it. Do you see the boxes? Do you understand that there is oil in the boxes?" Do you see the thing that looks like a faucet?"

"Yes sir," I answered. "Yes sir, what?" he asked. "Yes sir, I do see the boxes and I do understand that there is oil in the boxes. I can see the faucet." "Good," he continued, "It is very important that you are clear on these basic concepts" "Now, listen very carefully. From the faucet will come a limited amount of raw dough in the shape of a doughnut, which will fall into the first box of oil. Two of such globs will come out at a time. These raw doughnuts will then float on the oil, moving from box to box, until they reach you. By the time they get to you, they will be warm, fresh doughnuts. You will then lift the two doughnuts from the box and you will place them in a cardboard carton." (Motioning to my right) "That case contains cardboard cartons. Each cardboard carton holds twelve doughnuts. When you have filled a carton, fold the cover over it and place it in this empty case. (Motioning to a box on my left) Is this clear?"

I repeated his instructions to his satisfaction. "Good," he said, "I'll be back in time to give you a break." Then he left. I was alone.

For about ten minutes or more, I sat in total silence. Then, I heard "Putt-putt"- and from the faucet at the other end of the building came two white blobs of dough. They bounced on the oil, slowly floated to the edge of the box, and then they tumbled over into the next box. Again, they floated slowly, tumbled, and dropped into the third box. It was an interesting process. As they moved toward me, I could see that their color was changing. They were becoming doughnuts. I was fascinated and I awaited their arrival with some anticipation. When they reached my box, I let them float to my edge. Then I reached down, lifted them up and placed them carefully in the carton. I had made two doughnuts. This was a significant improvement over KP. I had been told never to volunteer, but this proved that advice was worth as much as you paid for it.

"Putt-putt"- and two more globs began their voyage. As this pair reached the mid-point of the boxes, the faucet said "putt-putt" and two more globs were on their way. Then, before the first pair reached the next box, the faucet went "putt-putt" again. And "putt-putt", "putt-putt", "putt-putt"…… Coming toward me was a river of doughnuts.

I could see that one carton was not going to hold the doughnuts, so I reached into the case at my right and pulled out two more cartons. As the first doughnuts arrived, I placed them alongside the initial pair. It seemed to me that while I would have to move fairly fast, I could handle the job. And when the "river" began to reach my box, I found that I could slide them into the cartons fairly easily. Of course, I had to get the filled carton into the empty box on my left and I had to get more fresh cartons, but this was merely a question of smooth coordination of movements. I adjusted my movements to the beat of the faucet; we were in sync. Man and machine working together in smooth efficiency.

Then the faucet changed its beat, going from "putt-putt" to "puttiputt-puttiputt, puttiputt-puttiputt…." The globs of dough began to overlap each other as they pushed their way toward me. The river of doughnuts had become more like the mad rush of lemmings, racing toward the sea. I began to work hard, pulling cartons, filling them and placing them in the empty box. The doughnuts were not sitting as prettily as before, but they were in cartons. And then the faucet again doubled its rate of output and I knew that I was in trouble.

Gone was any idea of neatness. I was grabbing cartons, shoving in doughnuts and throwing the filled cartons into the box. Meanwhile, the oil had soaked my gloves and my hands, and was now permeating the hair on my arms. I could feel the slippery stuff entering my pores. I reached for a carton and it slipped from my grasp. As I bent to pick it up, two doughnuts hit the floor. I scooped them up and caught the next two as they fell. I shoved the four into a carton. However, that did not save the next two- they hit the floor and rolled away. No time to retrieve them. No time to even think about them. New doughnuts were pouring over the box edge. I thrust a carton under them, caught four and lost the two that bounced out. I shoved the four to one side of the carton and caught another four, again losing two. Not too bad a ratio, I reasoned, so I did this maneuver one more time, with the same results. Reality hit me when I had to reach for an empty carton, and four doughnuts went over the side.

"Hey!" I yelled, "Hey! Help! Hey!" No one answered. It was just "me versus the machine" and I was losing badly. Realizing that no help was coming, I did my best, shoving some of the doughnuts into cartons, while almost an equal number landed on the floor. The oil smell filled my nostrils. I made the mistake of wiping my face, and now oil coated my cheeks and entered my mouth. I peeled off the more than useless slippery gloves; my fingers worked better without them. I looked up at the flood of approaching doughnuts: it was an avalanche. I was drowning in doughnuts. Perspiration flowed down my arms and my body and somehow, perhaps by osmosis, the oil seemed to come up my arms inside my shirt and then down my body.

In short order, I lost all sensation of meaning and purpose. I was just grabbing, shoving, and throwing with no thought of accomplishment or care. Doughnuts were everywhere on the floor. In fact, they were beginning to pile up around me- little piles, little menacing piles. I did not look up at the doughnut stream; that would have been too much. I just kept grabbing, shoving and throwing. Every now and then, I yelled "Hey!".

Suddenly silence. The faucet had stopped. I looked up. The doughnut stream stopped moving. Four more doughnuts hit the floor, but the rest just sat there in the oil box. This was my golden opportunity. I began scooping up the doughnuts that were on the floor and placing them in cartons. After a while, I got up and began looking for doughnuts that had rolled away. Finally, I could find no more. I reached into the oil box and stored the doughnuts closest to me. Then I just sat there, my mind a total blank.

The door opened and the sergeant walked in. "We're a little late," he said. "You've missed mess, so just go on back to your barracks."

I wasn't hungry, so missing mess did not bother me. I found my barracks, walked in, lay down on my bunk, fell asleep and dreamed of doughnuts: Mountains of doughnuts, smelling their oil smell. The next thing I knew, it was night, I was outside the barracks and two guys were holding me. I had walked out of the barracks in my sleep. The same thing happened the next two nights.

I later learned that 25,000 doughnuts were made in that camp daily. I do not know whether I had actually processed 25,000. I do know that I have not eaten a doughnut since May 1943. The mere sight makes my skin crawl as I sense that oil enveloping me. Of course, I have always hoped that no one became sick because of the ones that rolled on the floor that day.

Cultural Differences

For the first time, I shared quarters with boys from other parts of the country. Our barracks had representation from three distinct areas: New England, New Jersey-New York, and Southern states. While I had some difficulty in understanding either the New England and Southern boys, they found it almost impossible to communicate with each other. So, we with the New York accents became the interpreters for the others. This produced a great deal of laughter as we learned each other's English.

Since we were all college boys, we were used to "bull-sessions". Every evening there was a heated discussion about politics, morals, religion and, of course, sex. I still remember one argument: Should you marry before you had a job that could support a family? The New Englanders, evidently coming from wealthier backgrounds, said that the answer should be "No". It was clear that they had no doubt about their ability to obtain such jobs. The rest of us, coming from lower economic backgrounds, said, "Yes", fearing that if we were to have to wait for such a job to develop, we'd never get married. The diversity and strength of opinions and attitudes on every subject discussed opened my eyes.

Classification

Finally, we were advised of our classifications. I had qualified for the position I wanted the least: Pilot. First of all, we cadet pilot trainees were to go to the pre-flight school at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama. I had heard about Maxwell Field. None of it was good news.

Chapter 13
The Army Air Corps Pre-flight School
Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama
July-August, 1943

Maxwell Field was hot, muggy and miserable. We were told that it was supposed to be that way. The idea, they said, was that no matter how tough things got later on, we could always say that Maxwell Field was worse. I am certain that we attended classes on airplanes, but these are long forgotten. The other stuff remains in my mind.

We new arrivals were "lower-classmen", which meant that we were in for hazing by the "upper-classmen". They were three weeks ahead of us in the training, but there was a world of difference. Their purpose was to make our life a living Hell, and they did a good job. Whenever we were not in class, they were on us, like a pack of wolves. We ran all kinds of crazy errands, never stopped doing push-ups, cleaned their shoes, and stood at attention ("Brace yourself!") endlessly. (Of course, when they were graduated, we became the upper-class, and passed on to the new boys that which we had learned- in spades.)

Physical training was a major activity. Our "instructor" was Bulldog Turner- a former Chicago Bears football team tackle. In fact, I had seen him play about five years earlier. From our seats, he had looked enormous. However, now we were not football fans in the stands, he looked even larger and he was completely in charge. In the hot Sun, we ran for miles and miles and then we did calisthenics for hours at a time. Bulldog was a huge, muscular man. He would continue to do every exercise until we were totally exhausted. To my surprise, I found that while I was not good in doing push-ups, I could run with the best of the guys, in fact beating most of them, and most amazingly, I could really do sit-ups. The goal was to do 120 sit-ups within a certain amount of time. After several weeks of Bulldog's training, I could do this and more.

When we ran in formation, Bulldog wanted to hear us sing the songs he liked- which were the "fight" songs of the mid-western colleges and universities. We learned the songs of Michigan, Ohio State, Illinois, and other schools, and sang them endlessly.

At Maxwell Field, I encountered active racial prejudice for the first time. All of our officers were from the South, and they let us know exactly how they felt about African-Americans. One of the cadets had pasted a photograph of Lena Horne, a beautiful black movie star, on the inside of his locker door. They made him take it down. It was one thing for me to have heard about racial prejudice in school; it was quite another to feel and hear the outright hatred and disdain that these white officers had for the "coloreds" (They used another word.).

Also for the first time, I encountered Southern African-Americans. All of the people who served us at the mess hall were black. They seemed to be much darker in appearance than the black people I had met daily at the South Orange, New Jersey railroad station when I picked up the newspapers to bring to our candy store. What was more surprising to me was that although I listened as carefully as possible, I could not understand what they were saying. This was a completely different English dialect from that of the Southern cadets. It emphasized the difference in cultures, not only between the two Southern groups, but also with Northern white people.

In my entire almost three years in the Army, with one minor exception, the only black soldiers I saw were enlisted men. There were none in the Air Corps cadet program. This did not surprise me, since the cadets came from college and there were very few black students in college in those days. That exception: as a group of us cadets were walking the streets of some city, two black Army officers came toward us. I was so surprised at the sight that I almost forgot to salute. Later on, my reaction was one of pleasure- that the Army had made some strides, however small, toward racial equality.

Every day at Maxwell Field was stressful. Outside of classes and physical training, there were long marches and parade drills. I do remember a major parade on a very hot day. We stood at attention for several hours; every now and then, a cadet would collapse. The order was whispered through our ranks: "Let them lie there! Nobody moves!"

One morning, I awoke in the barracks to the sound of church bells. I had heard that when the First World War ended, church bells rang across the country. I prayed that this war was over. No such luck.

While at Maxwell Field, I received a memorable letter from a girl I had fallen in love with during that last semester at Montclair State. We had exchanged letters after I went into service. My letters were tender, hers were cool. However, this letter began with her saying that she loved me and missed me greatly. The first page was filled with loving thoughts. On the second page, she wrote that she knew that I had hoped to receive a letter from her with the words of the first page, but that she just did not have these feelings. She was sorry to disappoint me. I was totally crushed and walked about in a stupor. Mail call had been the one ray of hope in the daily grind, and now that was gone.

Somehow, we survived Maxwell Field. Our shipping orders were secret, but we were going to primary flight school somewhere. As they had said before we got to Maxwell Field, nothing thereafter could be worse. We boarded the train happily!

Chapter 14-15