"We didn't know how soon war would come, but we knew it was coming. We didn't know when we'd have to fight, but we knew it might come at any time, and we had to get together something of an Army pretty darn fast. We didn't dare stop for the progressive and logical building of a war machine. As a result, the machine was a little wobbly when it first got going. The officers knew it. Everyone knew it.
Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair
In September 1939, the German Army rolled into Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. The United States Army -- with less than 200,000 Regulars on active duty and only three functioning infantry divisions -- was ranked about 17th in overall effectiveness among the world's major powers, just behind Rumania. As the war clouds drifted across the Atlantic, much needed to be done to prepare this nation for war in the months ahead.
Congress approved the call-up of nearly 300,000 Guardsmen and Reservists in late August 1940. In September, Congress passed a Selective Service Act that allowed the drafting of up to 900,000 more men for one full year. Throughout the emergency period, mobilization planners in Washington were abuzz with activity.
Among the first things the War Department had to decide was where to put the many thousands of new recruits coming into service, and how to house and train them. Fortunately, a Quartermaster officer, Brigadier General Charles D. Hartman, and a group of some 80 architects and draftsmen had been meeting regularly in an empty warehouse at Fort Myers, Virginia, for nearly a year. They were busy drawing up blueprints for barracks, BOQs (bachelor officers quarters), mess halls, supply rooms, military theaters, chapels, warehouses, garages, headquarters, hospitals -- all the buildings needed to house, train, care for and equip an army about to engage in full-scale, modern warfare.
General Hartman's plans included the standard 63-man barracks now familiar to every veteran of World War II. With bare walls and uncovered rafters, two rows of neatly aligned bunks and footlockers, forced air ducts overhead, an open latrine and outdoor coal furnace, they were the essence of functionality. They were also easily built. In the 10 months ending in June 1941, enough of these barracks were constructed to house a million new recruits. On some posts, new buildings were completed at the rate of one every 54 minutes.
In October 1940, the War Department issued orders for the construction of Camp Lee, Virginia. It was to be one of two major facilities for training Quartermaster soldiers. (The other was Fort Francis E. Warren, Wyoming.) Initially, only about $12.5 million was set aside for the construction of Camp Lee. A virtual army of civilian laborers swarmed into the Petersburg-Hopewell area in November and December and began building at a furious pace. They were still digging, hammering and painting when the first troops arrived after the beginning of the year.
The future "Home of the Quartermaster Corps" was not much to look at that winter. When a Captain Roy A. Smith first came to Petersburg in early January 1941, he saw no signs pointing to the new post, so he asked one of the locals how to get to Camp Lee. "Well," said the native, slowly clearing his throat. "Go out the Hopewell road until you come to a lot of dirt and shovels and there you are."
Like its World War I predecessor built on the same spot, the new Camp Lee was U-shaped. A Avenue formed a big "U" that ran nearly five miles from tip to tip. The main entrance opened onto Lee Avenue. If you had been among the thousands of raw recruits arriving on post 50 years ago, you would likely have come through the main gate past the MP (military police) checkpoint, and seen immediately before you a bewildering patchwork of signs pointing in all different directions, where various activities were located.
Turning left on A Avenue, past the big water tower, would bring you into the Quartermaster Replacement Training Center, the heart and soul of Camp Lee. That was where the QM training regiments were housed and most of the enlisted training took place. Laid out in grid fashion, one street after another was lined with company barracks, PT (physical training) areas, supply rooms, motor pools, small PXs (post exchanges), and administrative buildings.
A short distance from the barracks (along Shop Road) were dozens of warehouses, classrooms, equipment stands and empty railroad cars, where budding forklift operators, inventory clerks, storage and distribution specialists of all kinds honed their wartime skills. Down A Avenue a few blocks, past the Field House, was another exit, with a road that crossed over Route 36 and led to the rifle range and some additional bivouac sites.
If you came through the main gate, and instead of turning left, went straight ahead on Lee Avenue, you would eventually wind up at the center of post. En route you would have passed a service club and library, the post office, a theater and one of several chapels, plus two large athletic fields. Lee Avenue dead-ended at a circular drive on which sat the Officers Club. Major General James E. Edmonds, the Post Commander, had his head-quarters at the intersection of Lee and Mahone Avenues. General Edmonds was a National Guardsman recalled to active duty as part of the emergency buildup. He was a World War I veteran and an old-time Cavalry officer who had spent the last 15 years in the 23rd Cavalry. It was not uncommon to see him out inspecting the post on horseback.
As a final alternative, you could come through the main gate and turn right on A Avenue, heading southwest. While going past scores of wooden buildings on the left, you might catch a glimpse of Finley Field on the right. This athletic field, one of several on post, was named after Lieutenant "Pecos" Finley, an outstanding college basketball player from the University of New Mexico. Following graduation from the Quartermaster Officer Candidate School (OCS), Finley went off to serve in the Philippines, was captured by the Japanese and died on the Bataan "Death March."
On A Avenue, at the busy Mahone intersection, you could not help but notice the looming presence of the Camp Lee Station Hospital. The hospital's first three wards were completed by mid-February 1941. By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were 29 wards completed with beds for over 1,000 patients, 5 clinics, several mess halls, staff officer and enlisted quarters, 4 large storage rooms and a central heating plant -- and literally miles of corridors connecting the whole hospital complex. The bed capacity was increased to 2,000 in 1942. By the end of 1943, the Camp Lee Station Hospital had furnished medical care and hospitalization for over 30,000 military personnel. In June 1944, it was designated a Regional Hospital by the War Department.
In the beginning, Camp Lee was also the home of the Medical Replacement Training Center (MRTC). As Quartermaster training increased, the Army decided to relocate the MRTC at nearby Camp Pickett. This was done in May 1942, with the entire group making the 25-mile march on foot. About the time they were leaving, growing numbers in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, which became theWomen's Army Corps or WAC from 1943 to 1978) were arriving at Camp Lee. Serving both as trainees and permanent party, the WAACs had their billets along A Avenue just past the hospital.
Much later in the war in 1944, nearly 1,000 German prisoners of war (POWs) were also confined at Camp Lee. They had been captured in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and at St. Lo, and were sent here to wait out the war. Some, thoroughly propagandized, were reportedly shocked to discover that cities such as Richmond had not been totally destroyed by Wermacht bombers.
At the very end of A Avenue southwest, on several streets off to the right, was the Quartermaster School. Next to the QM Replacement Training Center, this was the busiest spot on post. For over three decades (1910 to 1941) the QM School had been located at Schuylkill Arsenal in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With the outbreak of war, severe overcrowding prompted the move to Camp Lee in the fall of 1941. The whole program was up and running by the end of October.
Eventually there were enough classrooms in the school to accommodate 6,000 students at a time, plus the barracks to house them, medical and dental clinics, giant consolidated mess halls, parade grounds, and an assortment of recreational facilities.
Fixed training sites included a model warehouse, mock-up flat and box cars, a mock C-47 airplane, an obstacle course, physical fitness testing areas, a miniature theater of operations, firing ranges, bivouac areas with temporary kitchens and latrines, hasty field fortifications, a malaria control point, and a 1,500-seat amphitheater.
The School's Publications Division produced scores of high-quality field manuals, handbooks, bulletins, circulars and technical works on every facet of QM activity. It also oversaw publication of the Quartermaster Training Service Journal, an official organ of the Corps, with a circulation of nearly 30,000 copies weekly.
A "Demonstration Battalion" was put together early on. The battalion organized into sections and platoons of every type of Quartermaster unit to show how QM functions such as cooking and baking, laundry, bath and shoe repair were performed in the field. The school also set up a public address system with speakers located in all barracks, mess halls, in most classrooms, and at strategic outdoor points throughout the training area to keep everyone informed with important announcements.
School planners knew too that all Quartermaster students must be soldiers first -- and then skilled technicians. So they instituted a rigorous military training program. For example, 327 of the 793 scheduled hours in the QM Officer Candidate Course were devoted to tactical instruction, leadership, map reading, and so on.
PT likewise played a key role in shaping Quartermaster soldiers. Taking long hikes through the Virginia countryside over difficult terrain, and creeping and crawling under fire; jumping, running, climbing, rolling and crawling through the School's obstacle course; climbing down landing nets, then thrusting and parrying with fixed bayonets -- all were used to physically condition the men for combat.
On the eve of Pearl Harbor, a correspondent for the New York Times, with the blessing of the Chief of Staff of the Army, toured military camps throughout the country to get a sense of what conditions were like, see how morale fared during the mobilization, and try to discover how well this nation's newest citizen-soldiers were being trained for the awesome task at hand. "It occurs to me," the reporter wrote to General Edmonds, "that you may find satisfaction in the fact that on my 8,000-mile tour of Army posts and stations, Camp Lee, from every angle, held the brightest and most reassuring circumstances."
In the years to follow, the camp's record would become even brighter and more reassuring. That record was one of continued growth and improvement. When the emergency period began in July 1940, The Quartermaster School in Philadelphia had a staff and faculty of only 18 officers and 3 NCOs. That number increased steadily after the move to Camp Lee. At its peak in December 1942, the number of school instructors and cadre had risen to nearly 2,000.
During the two decades leading up to World War II, the Philadelphia school had trained just over 1,600 students. By comparison, in the 4 1/2 years from the summer of 1940 until the end of 1945, The Quartermaster School trained more than 52,000 officers, officer candidates, and key enlisted personnel. It was an amazing accomplishment.
Back in the mid-1920s, the small band of instructors in Philadelphia adopted the Quartermaster School motto, "Famam Extendimus Factis -- We Spread Our Fame By Our Deeds." Little did they know back then how prophetic, how appropriate indeed, was their choice for a new school motto.