I reported to Camp Adair, Oregon in 1944. I had been assigned to the 70^th Infantry Division with 32 others from the 19^th Artillery and HQ, Fort Rosecrans, San Diego, California. We had volunteered for the infantry.

After a tour of duty in the 19^th Artillery, I was a member of HQ Co., SDHD (San Diego Harbor Defense) at Fort Rosecrans, California. It was from that company that I reported to Camp Adair.

A few of us arrived at the Albany, Oregon station before sun up and it was raining! We called Camp Adair, and after several transfers, finally convinced someone that we, the new heroes, had arrived. No band welcomed us, only the rain. Finally, about 8AM, a truck arrived and we were taken to the 70^th reception center. I was soon separated from my friends for some reason and was sent alone in a jeep to the 275^th where I was interviewed by Capt. Kirkpatrick whom I "got to know later at Fort L. Wood."

He said he was assigning me to Personnel Section, his unit. Not being bashful at all, I asked him to assign me to a rifle company for which I had volunteered. I was a lowly Cpl. but I explained to him that I had spent many years as a commander in the Arizona National Guard. (He was the only person in the 70^th that I ever told that fact to). It seemed to me that it was now time to return to the Infantry. Capt. Kirkpatrick told me that I was nuts but assigned me to Company C/275^th. (I traced him later to Louisiana; but he had died but I did correspond with his sister who sent me some pictures from his collection.)

I joined the second platoon of Company C/275^th as Sgt Heberling's assistant squad leader. Heb was a #1 soldier in every way. To meet him again at the Nashville, Tenn. reunion in 1988 was one of the great pleasures of my long time membership in the 70^th Association. He was made our Platoon Sgt. at Fort Leonard Wood and I took over his squad. Heb was lost on patrol north of Philippsbourg 3 January 1945 but survived as a POW.

Our most interesting form of exercise at Camp Adair were the night maneuvers and the results. Poison oak was the real enemy.

Not long ago before we were ready to depart for Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., I enjoyed my first red alert. A Red Alert was fun. The high brass preferred midnight as the time for the sirens to blow or scream and the alert to begin. The Japs are landing on the Oregon coast! We dressed rapidly, grabbed our rifle or a rifle. (there was some harsh words later when we had someone else's rifle, but it always happened in the pitch black night, so no lights were allowed) We formed in the company street and very soon began the 40 mile or more rush to the coast. It was during my first alert that I tangled with Poison Oak. On one of our hourly short rest periods, dead tired, we were moved off the road to let some vehicles pass. We flopped down in bushes near the road. It was still dark and we "landed" to rest in Poison Oak.

Various members of the company had poison oak problems all the time. I doubt if there ever was a time when at least some members of Co. C did not have that pleasure. Some went to the hospital because their eyes were swollen shut. It is very easy to get the stuff on your hands and then rub your eyes, and just as miserable make a nature call.

I managed to get it around my ankles, wrists and arms. That was all but enough. Because the good old cure all, calamine linament. dished out by the medics, did little good. I wrote my wife in San Francisco for help. She saw her favorite druggist and mailed me a small bottle of a clear fluid, unlabeled. Directions were included. It was Benadryl but I did not know it then. It worked. I kept a little mixed in my canteen when in the Oregon jungle. I confess to selfishness because I did not share my bottle with anyone.

Poison Oak Ridge holds many happy memories for me today, not then. There was one special one so named but there were many poison oak ridges.

We of Company C, 275^th Inf. Regt., Task Force Herren, moved by foot to our positions on the west bank of the Rhein River, then known as the Gambsheim bridgehead. Our movement was not easy since we were now wearing our new and very uncomfortable GI Shoe Pacs which were never made for "hiking." We progressed very slowly som 20 plus kilometers from Brumath, France, to our positions. It was the middle of the afternoon when we finally arrived at our designated location. It was snowing, and the temperature was below zero. We arrived in Alsace-Lorraine in the worst blizzard in 75 years.

We had oversize foxholes which were really two-man bunkers with a great stack of heavy logs on top covered with snow. Then one of our rear echelon (anything a few feet behind an infantry rifleman's hole is rear echelon) organizations, (we thought at the time, our Cannon Co.) decided to play games with the Germans across the not-to-wide Rhein River. The salvos went over us, landing across the river and we cheered. What a mistake! The area was supposed to be quiet. The German return was almost instantaneous. I have never seen GIs move so quickly into their holes. I must add that this unfriendly act initiated a daily German welcome for us at exactly 4PM each day we were on the Rhein River. Some historians describe the area as a quiet one. The authors should have written differently. Our positions must have been the German's favorite location for dropping artillery and mortars. We were, of course, saved by the heavy logs, but the crack of a shell and the explosion on top of a foxhole was very nerve wracking to put it mildly.

During that same night, our weapons platoon, which was on our flank, opened up with some of their MGs. They made a lot of noise in the very quiet of the night. We heard a lot of screaming and we prepared for battle. The Germans had crossed the river and were attacking! All went quiet again after a few minutes. The rest of the night was uneventful. In the morning with the first light (very little) I took my first patrol out as ordered. In front of our positions and the weapons platoon were quite a large number of very dead pigs almost entirely covered snow which never quit. We had won the battle. I hope that Uncle Sam paid some Alsatian farmer for his pigs. I suspect that other similar incidents occurred at this time. On the Rhein we suffered no casualties other than "thinking" we were freezing to death in the below zero weather.