George] Luz, and I to Columbus. Called up the girls and had a party, fun and more fun. Sometime during the party I ran into Betty the Key to Columbus. We finally had to get home, and got here 4:45 A.M.” February 12: “Back to Chickasaw Gardens in Columbus and another lovely evening. Betty and I hit it off swell. Really had fun. Got home at 4:45 A.M. and went on duty at 5:30 with one eye open.”|
In March, it was “pack ’em up, we’re moving out.” Camp Mack-all, North Carolina, was a marvel of wartime construction. On November 7, 1942, it consisted of 62,000 acres of wilderness. Four months later it had 65 miles of paved roads, a 1,200-bed hospital, five movie theaters, six huge beer gardens, a complete all-weather airfield with three 5,000-foot runways, and 1,750 buildings. The barracks were heated; the cots had mattresses. It was named for Pvt. John T.
Mackall of the 82nd Airborne Division, the first American paratrooper to be killed in combat in World War II. He died on November 8, the day construction began, in North Africa. Camp Mackall was home to the Airborne Command.
Training intensified and became more sophisticated. The jumps now included not only rifles, but other small arms. The bazooka had to be jumped in one piece, the light machine-guns also (although the tripod could be separated and carried by a second man). Two men split the 60 mm mortar and its base plate. Food, ammunition, maps, hand grenades, high explosives, and more were attached to the paratroopers. Some men were jumping with 100 extra pounds.
After the jumps, there were two- and three-day exercises in the woods, with the main focus on quick troop movements and operating behind enemy lines as large forces. At dusk, platoon leaders were shown their location on maps, then told to be at such-and-so by morning.
Captain Sobel made Pvt. Robert “Popeye” Wynn his runner. He sent Wynn out to locate his platoons. Wynn managed to get “lost,” and spent the night catching up on his sleep. In the morning, Sobel demanded to know why Wynn got lost.
“Because I can’t see in the dark,” Wynn replied.
“You had better learn to see in the dark,” Sobel rejoined, and sent Wynn back to his squad, replacing him with Ed Tipper as runner. “With my help,” Tipper recounted, “Sobel was able to mislay his maps, compass, and other items when he most needed them. He was getting similar ‘assistance’ from others and was disoriented and lost even more than usual.
We were all hoping that he’d screw up so badly that he’d be replaced and we wouldn’t have to go into combat under his command.”
“Your rifle is your right arm!” Sobel would tell his men. “It should be in your possession every moment.” On one night exercise he decided to teach his men a lesson. He and Sergeant Evans went sneaking through the company position to steal rifles from sleeping men. The mission was successful; by daylight Sobel and Evans had nearly fifty rifles. With great fanfare, Evans called the company together and Sobel began to tell the men what miserable soldiers they were.
As he was yelling, the C.O. of Fox Company, accompanied by some forty-five of his men, came up. To Sobel’s great embarrassment, it turned out that he and Evans had been lost, strayed into Fox Company’s bivouac area, and stolen their rifles.
A couple of weeks later, Sobel hurt his feet on a jump. He and Sergeant Evans returned to barracks while the company stayed in the field. The captain and the first sergeant conducted a private inspection. They searched through all the footlockers, clothing, and personal possessions of the men of E Company. They went through pockets, broke open boxes, rifled letters from girlfriends and family, and confiscated all items they considered contraband. “I don’t know what the hell they were looking for,” Gordon Carson commented. “Those were the days before drugs.”
Sobel posted a list identifying the contraband, the offender, and the punishment. The men returned from the field exercise, exhausted and filthy, to find that everything they thought of as personal property was in disarray, underwear, socks, toothpaste and toothbrushes, all piled up on top of the bunks. Many items were missing.