How did they keep up with things?

[Critch]

I just got out of the hospital after a week and a half and all I can do is watch TV. Today the boys loaded Band of Brothers for me and I enjoyed watching the whole thing. I have a question though, how did they keep up with pay, rank advancements, supplies, medicine etc. It must have been terrible relying a daily log by the CO to keep everything updated. Did all the officers and SNCOs also keep logs?

I remember a man who lived near us in Memphis when I was a kid who had fought in the Pacific. He told us that he got close to 2 and 1/2 years back pay when the war ended becasue they didn't know where he was. He was fighting in the Aleutians. Was this a common occurence?

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[John Kepler]

How'd they "keep up"?.....why via the infamous "Daily Report", not to mention "After-Action Reports", Supply Reports, Personnel Reports.....why do you think it took 10 "paper-shufflers" for every man in combat? An Army travels on a road of paper....at least now, most of it's done on lap-tops!

Don't know how many WW II vets we have here, but growing up....my Dad and all his buds had a variety of "Repple Depple" stories. I worked with a guy that got a rather huge settlement over a fairly significant "Charlie-Foxtrot" from the "Big Green". He was given a "Go Home and Await Orders" travel voucher after he rotated out of Vietnam that never came. Screwed his life up royally as he couldn't get a decent job (he was working "off-the-books" at the same auto repair shop I was....he was still in the Army, and they weren't paying him!

[Bob Womack]

A friend of mine, his communications company, and a supply company were "lost" on an island in the Pacific for over a year during the island hopping campaign in WWII. They assaulted the island and prepared it to be a supply station but the progress of the war made it unnecessary. Rather than waste the time to pick up the group, the powers-that-be left them there with a pile of supplies to wait for the end of the war. They enjoyed the surf and sun and kept guard to avoid the few Japanese who lived in the jungle until the big green machine came back for them. Needless to say, there was back pay to be collected.

By the way, this guy went in on the second wave at Betio island before getting this "cushy assignment."

Bob

[Ken C.]

Many things did not go smoothly. This thread brought back a memory of a conversation I had with a man, sitting in the middle of Lake Lenape in Mays Landing NJ shortly after I (a 13 year old kid) had nearly rammed his boat because I hadnt see it, and stopped to apologise. He had been on the USS Franklin (Those not familiar can google that) and among the things I remember him telling me is that his parents had not heard from him for 2 years while he was in the Pacific, and they thought he was dead. This conversation took place around 1946.

[RED]

.... on Guadacanal, He and his crew were sent to the beach to help recover 55 gallon drums of gasoline from the surf. They would go out and roll the drums up above the high tide. They were there for days with no relief and little or no supplies of food and water. Essentially they were just forgotten about and when they did finally contact an officer, the Navy had essentially abandoned them. The only rations they could find was a few cases of fruit cocktail and they survived on that for a long time.

[Jim K]

Local record keeping was done by the company clerk. Most of the other stuff was bucked to higher echelon, battalion or regiment. Paper work got passed by jeep messenger or by phone. Other communications (teletype) did not usually go below regimental level. In hot combat, commo was reserved for combat messages, but it was normally also used for admin stuff.

As to pay, what pay? Troops in combat didn't get paid; what would they have spent it on? Pay caught up in lull periods and was in scrip, not US money.

Sometimes units did get out of touch, but only for a short time, since they knew where they were and where they were supposed to be. In spite of a few "lost" units (as described above), the military generally knew who was where and could reach them by commo. That is the reason "Saving Private Ryan" is so silly; sending a platoon under a captain (normally a company commander) to wander around in enemy territory looking for one guy is such a dumb idea I am surprised anyone took the premise seriously.

Jim

[Timmer]

heck, my dad was with George Kenney and the Fifth Air Force Command yet he spent over 6 months in Japan after the war because his paperwork was lost - read sank instead of lost at the end of the war - before he was sent back states side.

[Former Cav]

There are a lot of things they didn't keep up on also! I was in Vietnam from Late Nov 67 to Late Aug 68. Many years later at a cavalry reunion I met the company clerk and he told me about sitting in front of a manual typewriter for 14 hours a day typing letters to parents of those who had gotten killed besides the "after action reports", Morning reports, etc etc. Personally, I was supposed to have been put in for a few medals but I never got squat other then my 3 purple hearts.
I gave this guy a bunch of crap about being a "non combat SOB" back then. I also found out that he was really a decorated combat infantry man and was only doing paper work at our cavalry unit because he was recuperating from wounds ("profiling" as we called it back then). Turns out he did two tours of duty over there. He was with the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 25th Inf Div (as was I), and he also did a tour with the infamous 2/27 Inf, 25th Inf Div better known as the "wolfhounds".
The wolfhounds were darned good - if not the best- straight leg grunts.
I apologized to him profusely!! (for giving him crap back then)
Bob

[Jim K]

The company clerk is one of the "unsung heroes" of warfare. In WWII, not only did he have to keep the records, do the typing, and act as a "gofer" for the "old man" (who was often in his mid 20's), but he was also a fighting soldier and if necessary would pick up his M1 and help repulse an enemy attack. "Company headquarters" sounds impressive to those who have never served in the Army or Marines, but it is not some remote high echelon - it is sometimes only few yards from the shooting.

Jim