4TH ARMORED, SPEARHEAD IN WAR, SWEATS OUT THE PEACE IN GARRISON
Reading edition
By James Cannon, Stars and Stripes
WITH 4TH ARMD. DIV., Landshut, June 8, 1945—The 4th Armd. Div., which usually moved ahead of the 3d Army like a pilot train laying its own track, waits for orders in the sun.
The orders may never come and the men may be here in these hills until they’re discharged. That’s all right with most of them. If you came all the way from St. Lo, you know every shell sounds like the first one, and the percentage runs against you every time one comes in.
The division was used as a vast patrol in constant journeys of military exploration through hostile country. They were always in a hurry, and the secret of their achievements was mobility. Now these tankers, who recognized no frontiers in combat, are garrison troops.
They do close-order drill and pull a lot of guard. They stand reveille and all the usual inspections and formations that plague troops in permanent installations. Seeing them out of their dirty combat clothes and tank helmets, you don’t recognize them in their clean ODs and helmet liners.
Although they don’t know how long they will be here, the tankers were getting barracks ready for winter occupation. They were still installing wash bowls, hot-water boilers, lockers and showers. They were carving baseball diamonds out of the flower-brightened meadows.
The I. and E. program is set to go, and a lot of guys want to go to school. But it will have to wait until text books are located.
Thirty per cent of them have enough points to go home, and reinforcements are coming in to take their places. They expect a training program as soon as the recruits arrive to fill in for the old-timers.
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