21 Feb 1941 - Friday evening - Posted Saturday evening 22 Feb 1941 - Camp Shelby

SCR-536
Photo from Wikipedia

"Lean went to school on radio for three days and passed the test. But from what I hear these test they dish out around here are chicken feed for any one with a little common sense. Well anyway he is now supposed to be qualified to operate a walkie-talkie radio. One that you carry on your back and report operations of the enemy before an offensive movement is made."

The "walkie-talkie" that Max refers to was the SCR-536. The SCR-536 was not carried on the back as described by Max which makes me wonder if he had actually seen the radio Lean trained on. "The SCR-536 was developed for the U. S. Army in 1940 by Galvin Manufacturing (now Motorola) and in mass production in 1941. The SCR-536, which incorporated five vacuum tubes in a waterproof case, had no separate power switch. Instead the radio turned on when the antenna was pulled out, and off when it was retracted. The range of the unit varied with terrain; from a few hundred feet, to approximately one mile over land, and 3 miles over water."
- From Wikipedia

17 February 1941 - Camp Shelby - Max's Birthday

No letter from Max today so we don't know if and how he celebrated the occasion.

Any Mess Sergeant worth his salt would have a list of all the soldiers he fed and their birthdays. The troops could count on their big day always being noted with a big cake prepared for all the guys. Always a good morale booster. I wonder if the boys in Battery D of the 134th were so lucky. I hope so.

If Max and Lean tuned into the Burns and Allen Radio Show the evening of 17 February 1941 they would have heard Artie Shaw and his Orchestra playing "Deep River". Click the play button below to hear the broadcast.

12 Feb 1941 - Posted Wednesday evening 13 Feb 1941 - Camp Shelby - Letter to "Duke"

Until I read this postcard I had never before heard of my father, Neil Case, referred to as "Duke". Interesting. The business referred to is Case Lumber Co., a business the Case brothers started in 1939. Lean's interest in the "position of the planer & rip-saw" reveals his belief that his military service will be short. The nation is not at war and the attack on Pearl Harbor is still months away.

The warning about "that flying stuff" is a mystery, although my father did tell me once that he had taken a flight or two in a Curtis Jenny. The reference to "Big Boy" is also a mystery, although it is probably the name of an animal such as a dog or a horse.

09 Feb 1941 - Posted Monday afternoon 10 Feb 1941 - Camp Shelby - Gas training

CS Gas training, as I remember it, was a most unpleasant experience. For me it took place during basic training on a hot July day in 1970 at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. The purpose of the training was to give us basic trainees confidence in our protective masks...a stunning eye opening "before and after" experience to say the least. We were run (nobody merely "walks" anywhere during basic training) by our drill instructors to a parking lot in front of a nondescript 1940's era wooden building. We were formed up outside the building and instructed to don our protective masks which were carried in bags attached to our waist and right leg. We were also told to roll down our sleeves, which were normally rolled above the elbows on hot days, and to button them up. We had to button up the top button of our shirts and roll the collars up to cover the backs of our necks as well.  As we did so we were told that we would enter the building in small groups and once inside, form up in two columns, facing a table and our CS Gas training instructors. Under no circumstances were we to remove the masks until instructed to do so.

The first thing we noticed once inside the building was an extremely thick cloud gas that hung in the air. The source of the cloud was a can on a wooden table between the instructors. Whatever was in the can was burning and producing volumes of gas. The instructors explained that the gas in the room was the same gas commonly called "tear gas" which is used to disperse unruly crowds, or in our case, we would throw into tunnels or bunkers in Vietnam to drive enemy soldiers out into the open were we could more easily kill them. As they explained all of this we could feel a burning sensation on the exposed areas of our bodies, particularly on the back of the neck. When the brief lecture was over we were told to approach the instructors one at a time, stand at attention, remove the mask, look the instructor in the eyes, and ask permission to leave the building.

The instructions were simple enough and so far things had gone well. I was somewhere in about the middle of my column and could observe the reactions of my buddies ahead of me as they took their masks off one by one. It was amazing. Each one, including Balthrop, the big football player, looked as if they had just been hit by a very large "panic hammer" the second the mask came off. As they fought to choke out the words "Permission to leave the building Sergeant!" their faces now contorted in desperation, the sergeants literally shoved them out the door. It was the same for all of them. No one walked out. They all fled through the door choking and gagging. I could hardly wait for my turn. Dread, dread, dread, until I stood in front of the sergeant, then "Permission to..." (holy shit!!!) "leave the...." (Jesus H. Christ!!!)  "building Sergeant!" Panic, panic, panic...run, run, run!

When everybody was outside our drill instructors formed us up and told us we had two choices. It had been a long hot day. We could either march back to our barracks our we could double-time back even though the barracks was kind of far away. "Double-time! Double-time for god's sake!" we all shouted. Amused, the drill instructors bellowed out "Right face. At the double. Move!" and off we went, necks burning, tears streaming down our faces, chanting jodies all the way. As we did so the instructors told us to take hot showers, not cold ones, to open the pores of our skin and better flush out the chemicals. Roger that!

I have heard a number of people who have been exposed to CS gas on the streets by police bragging that "It's not so bad." I'm sure they were right. But that experience is not even close to the experience the average soldier gets in "the Gas Chamber" during basic training. It is a matter of intensity. The video below will give the viewer some idea of the experience. I must say though, back in 1970, our little wooden "gas chamber" was much smaller, and the gas cloud seemed much thicker. Ugh.

07 Feb 1941 - Friday - Posted Saturday afternoon 08 Feb 1941 - Camp Shelby

06 Feb 1941 - Thursday - Posted Friday morning 07 Feb 1941 - Camp Shelby

02 Feb 1941 - Sunday night - Posted Monday afternoon 03 Feb 1941 - Camp Shelby

Indiana Army Ammunition Plant

What Max saw from the window of his Pullman Car was the massive Indiana Army Ammunition Plant (INAAP) under construction between Charlestown and Jeffersonville, Indiana. It consisted of three areas within two separate but attached manufacturing plants:

1. Indiana Ordnance Works Plant 1 (IOW#1): (3,564.71 acres) made smokeless powder
2. Indiana Ordnance Works Plant 2 (IOW#2): (2,757.49 acres) made rocket propellant
3. Hoosier Ordnance Plant (HOP): (4,326.8 acres) manufactured (and loaded) propellant charge bags

Kentucky Dam
By Unknown photographer - Private collection, Public Domain

The dam that Max saw is the "Kentucky Dam, a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River on the county line between Livingston and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The dam is the lowermost of nine dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the late 1930's and early 1940's to improve navigation on the lower part of the river and reduce flooding on the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It was a major project initiated during the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, to invest in infrastructure to benefit the country. The dam impounds the Kentucky Lake of 160,000 acres, which is the largest of TVA's reservoirs and the largest artificial lake by area in the Eastern United States." - from Wikipedia