6. Going Overseas

About the time I was getting ready to go overseas, a certain cigarette was using as an advertising slogan the initials “L.S. . . . M.F.T.” For those of us who sat waiting in the port of embarkation (“P.O.E.”) this slogan, with a little change in the initials, expressed our feelings. We went around cheering each other with the singsong phrase “T.S. . . . P.O.E.”

Regardless of how much I had wanted to go overseas, when I came to the point where I was actually to board a ship, my knees felt weak and I wasn’t at all sure just where my stomach was. There had been times when I had laughed at soldiers for having “gangplank fever,” but when I started up that gangplank myself it wasn’t a laughing matter.

Perhaps what I had just been through had something to do with my woozy feeling. Our shipment had to march about three miles from the camp to the railway station. To make the marching more pleasant, the authorities required that we wear winter uniforms and carry those forty-pound horseshoe packs. This was especially appreciated by all concerned since the day on which we set forth was the Fourth of July. (Just for your information, New York is no place to wear an Army winter uniform in July.) When we got to the railway station, we found that the train we were about to board was on a siding. We boarded the train and found our places, four of us to a section . . . and the train remained on the siding. For nearly two hours we sat, crowded in with all our equipment on the day coaches of this train, while all the day’s freight of New York Harbor was hauled away. I had never known there were so many freight cars in the world. If all the freight cars in the world had been laid end to end . . . What do I mean by “if”? There they all were, passing slowly by me while I sat in a hot day coach, sweating, sweltering, and swearing.

At last we were taken to the ferry, which we boarded like so many sheep, and were carried over to the pier where our transport was docked. It had taken us four hours to get this far. All this time we had been required to wear those horseshoe packs. It was now two hours past my usual lunch time and all I had been able to put inside my growling belly was a little water from my canteen. Naturally, I was a little out of humor. Some of the bolder members of our shipment had even dared to express disapproval of the manner in which we were being handled. Little did any of us dream what lay ahead.

When the ferry docked at our pier, we unloaded and were met by a Transportation Corps corporal, who told us to go through a certain door, where we would pick up our baggage, and follow the white line up the stairs to board our ship. “Pick up your baggage” may sound like an innocent instruction. But the baggage I had to pick up weighed nearly a hundred pounds. You can imagine what a guy as short as I am must have looked like, limping and bumping along with a forty- pound pack on my back, a canteen and a cartridge belt around my waist, a three-pound brief case in one hand, and a ninety- pound Valpak dangling from the other arm. On level ground it was tough enough sledding, but when I hit those stairs my number almost came up. One or two flights of the stairs wouldn’t have been so bad, but we had to climb all the way from the bottom of the river to the top of the Empire State Building. When I hit the fourth floor and saw those devilish white lines still going up, I knew the fifth floor would be the last … for me, anyway. But when I made the fifth floor and saw that there was another still to go, I managed to keep struggling. Maybe the three or four hundred soldiers just back of me helped to keep me moving. I’ll never get over those stairs. Hauling all that luggage up six flights of stairs put a crimp in my gait that will always be there.

When I finally made “topside,” I found the good old Red Cross there with milk and sandwiches and candy bars. Food and drink had never looked so good before. If the “girls” passing out the refreshments hadn’t all been past sixty I think I would have kissed every one of them right then and there.

My struggle to get aboard ship was not ended. For two more hours we had to stand on the pier, waiting for our turn to board the transport Queen Elizabeth. We had to wait until some civilian dignitaries got aboard and all their luggage had been carried to their staterooms. But we didn’t mind the wait. It gave us a chance to get over that hike up those stairs. When at last we were allowed to go aboard ship, I hoisted my luggage and moved up the gangplank. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as I had imagined it would be. I had read stories and seen pictures of troops boarding their transports in the misty quiet of the early dawn, the whole atmosphere filled with melodrama and the mystery of the unknown adventure which lay ahead. And I had seen some pictures of troops embarking while the bands played and the flags waved and the crowds cheered. There was none of this when I crawled up the gangplank with a king-sized load of freight on my back. There were no crowds. The flags were furled and the bands were muted. And, as if to wring out the last drop of suspense and drama, I went aboard in the middle of a blistering hot July afternoon. Some send-off for a man who “went out not knowing whither he went”!

At the top of the gangplank was standing a uniformed British officer, giving the G.I.’s directions to their quarters. He was really flounced up in a snappy uniform- At first I thought he was the Chief of the Admiralty. Later I learned that he was more like the character in Gilbert and Sullivan: “A junior partnership is the only ship I ever did see, and now I’m the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee.” He told me to go up a flight of stairs, turn right, and go down the hallway to Room 619… “old chap.” I got to the top of the stairs and noticed that the first room on my left was 618. “Well,” I said to myself, “This is luck. My room is close by.” Innocent, ignorant me—I started down the hallway: 618, 616, 614, 612, 610… and so on. I walked about a mile, bumping and bouncing my luggage every step of the way. Room 619 had to be there somewhere. At last I met a steward and asked directions.

“619?” he said in his best Cockney. “Sure, it’s on the other side of the ship. Go back to that passageway down there and cross over to the other side. You’ll find it there.”

Back I went, dragging my luggage behind me by this time. I got to the other side of the ship and discoverd that all the odd-numbered rooms were on that side. Another half-mile hike and I found my room, 619.

I pushed open the door and started to go in, but I stopped dead in my tracks. There were so many people crowded into that room that I was sure I had gotten into Pennsylvania Station by mistake. It looked like a nylon sale. Finally one of the men on the inside saw me standing there and invited me in. It was very gracious of him. I discovered that the “stateroom” to which I had been assigned had also been assigned to eleven other guys. Twelve of us were in one room about eight feet wide and fourteen feet long. Twelve beds . . . “beds,” they’d said. They were nothing more than iron frames with pieces of canvas tied on. And they were piled one on top of the other, four deep. You needed a slipper spoon to pry yourself in and out of bed. One fat guy had to sleep on the top bunk because he couldn’t squeeze between the lower ones. But to make up for all these discomforts, we had a private bathroom—if you could call it private when it had to serve the needs of twelve men. But it did have a tub. Of course, we couldn’t use the tub because there was a shortage of fresh water on board ship. The water had been turned off just to make sure that we didn’t break any rules and take a bath.

There was also one lavatory and mirror to serve twelve men while they shaved. Our stateroom also had a porthole, about the size of an overgrown basketball. The only difficulty was that you had to crawl over two beds in order to look outside.

Oh, well, I should worry, I thought. I could at last put my luggage down and rest. And I think I could have adapted myself to the crowded conditions, if I had not learned that half of the rooms on that deck were empty. The ship’s officers graciously explained that we were not sailing with a full load of passengers, so there was no need to use the other rooms. After all, it would just have meant more work for the stewards.

We were very fortunate in being assigned to the Queen Elizabeth for our transport. Our trip across to Scotland was made in first-class style. The ship was fast, so we made the trip in four and one-half days. During that time we were more or less free from Army control and things ran very smoothly. We had almost five days without much SNAFU (Situation Normal: All Fouled Up). It was a gay, carefree time. But I couldn’t really enjoy it, because I knew that once we left the ship, life would again become a confusing muddle.

On the fifth day we dropped anchor at Greenock, Scotland. The Army took over again. Through the public address system we received orders as to when and how we were to debark. Boats pulled alongside our ship and we were told what boat we were to board and by what door we were to leave the ship. When the hour came for my shipment to debark, we made our way down the stairs to a doorway opening onto a landing boat that had pulled alongside the ship. As we walked across the gangplank, an officer stood there to check our names and make sure we were boarding the right landing boat! [As you might guess, we had been told to board the wrong boat.] The checking officer had no record of our names or our shipment number. He looked at us—all three hundred of us—as if we were stowaways trying to sneak off the ship. I thought for a moment that he was going to call the M.P.’s and have us all thrown into the brig. We looked at him like dumb sheep. We didn’t know what to do but follow the orders that had been given us. It didn’t matter one whit to us which landing boat we got in. Anyway, we would just as soon have stayed on the old ship and sailed back to New York; we had already had all the overseas duty we wanted. The checking officer must have guessed what we were thinking, because he removed his angry and annoyed look and hastily invited us to go ashore with him. After all, he seemed to be trying to assure us, he hadn’t meant to be so particular. Reluctantly we left the old Queen and got into his shabby little landing boat.

When we were taken to the dock, trouble started all over again for us. The Army Transportation Corps had taken over. All the debarking troops were told to line up by shipment numbers on the dock. Then the numbers of the various shipments were called out over the public address system and they were told what trains they were to catch to be taken to their respective destinations. As their shipment numbers were called out and their trains given, the troops moved off. At last the shipment numbers ceased and the P.A. announcer shut off his machine. All the shipments were gone… except mine. There we stood, about three hundred of us, patiently waiting to be told where to go. After we had waited for about ten minutes, that fellow on the P.A. bellowed out, “Will the troops standing on the dock move on? Your train is waiting.” We looked at each other and asked, “What train?”

Since I was supposed to be in command of this shipment, I decided I had better go see somebody and find out where we were to go. I found one of the transportation officers and asked him what they intended doing with our shipment.

He looked at me angrily and snapped, “Why didn’t you listen to the directions? You were told plainly enough what to do.”

“Our number was never called,” I replied.

The officer looked at me as if he thought I were lying. Then he saw my insignia and realized that I was a chaplain. That made him relax a little. He turned and called a corporal to him. “What happened to Shipment AIB-411 AB?”

The corporal looked bewildered. “I never heard of that number, sir,” he answered.

“Well, I have,” I retorted as I shoved our shipment orders into his hand.

The officer and the corporal went into a huddle over our orders. Finally they turned to me.

The officer said, “We don’t have your shipment on this list. According to our records you aren’t supposed to be here.” “Fine!” I ejaculated. “I’m sure all the boys will be happy enough to go back home and wait for a more convenient time to come over. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“No, wait a minute,” the officer replied hastily, “you can’t do that. You are here and I suppose we will have to do something with you. But how you ever got here is a mystery to me.

“Me, too,” I agreed.

The officer continued, “Of course, since we weren’t expecting you, we didn’t make any arrangements for your rail transportation. But I think we can get you something.”

The way he emphasized that “something” made chills run down my spine. I had heard that the best English trains were none too good. The prospects of riding on just any old thing they could scrape up at the last minute was not cheering. And I didn’t feel any too good, anyway. Here we had left home and country and come three thousand miles across the ocean to fight for our native land, and we weren’t even expected. The Army was surprised to see us. Those were indeed times to try men’s souls.