Special Troops - Page 2
A Ranger Platoon in the 63rd Infantry Division??? Yes that's
right and in Headquarters Company, 63rd Infantry Division
Well the "Ole Webmaster" will have to fill in a little something for the
Special Troops Page. Way back when I was young and not the smartest
kid on the block, I was assigned to B Company 363rd Medical Battalion
until along came a young lieutenant by name of Malcolm Toney. He told
my company about his unit, The 63rd Infantry Division Ranger Platoon
and asked for volunteers. The time was just around Christmas of 1944
and I had been in the Army all of about three (3) months and was ready
for "Action". Heck I couldn't even carry a rifle when walking guard in the
Medical Battalion and I wanted to get into the middle of this combat
thing. See I told you I wasn't the smartest kid on the block. So up goes
my hand to volunteer and much to my surprise I found myself in the 63rd
Infantry Division Ranger Platoon on 12 January 1944. It was all that I
had expected and more, but an article which appeared in The Blood and
Fire Newspaper on 18 March 1944 explains the Ranger Platoon much
better than I can. So here it is:
KNOW YOUR DIVISION: The Ranger Platoon, Lives in Tents- Acts
as Night Raiders in Training.
Stealthy, noiseless, hard-hitting night marauders- those are the young
volunteers who make up the 63rd Division Ranger Platoon. Started by
MG Louis E. Hibbs shortly after the activation of the 63rd, this platoon is
unique in the Army. It is the first self-contained Ranger outfit in an infantry
division. In action the Rangers will be called upon to do special tasks
involving considerable danger and calling for exceptional agility and
toughness.
Throughout the winter at Camp Van Dorn the Rangers have shunned
barracks. They live in pyramidal tents in a little encampment along side
Beaver Creek, some nine miles from the barracks area. Their training is
of a specialized nature- they must of necessity be able to handle all the
infantryman's weapons, from a cal.45 pistol to an 81mm mortar, and
through training they have attained expert's ratings with each weapon.
Lt Malcolm B. Toney, commander of the Ranger Platoon, has harkened
back to pre-Revolutionary days in the training of his men, patterning them
after those rugged Americans who composed Rogers' Rangers. The men,
all hand-picked volunteers, are given all the available knowledge of
woodcraft, hunting and tracking as a basis for their training. Should they
ever be stranded in woods or jungle, the Rangers would be self-sufficient
under even the most trying conditions.
In order to get his men where they will be needed in as short a time as
possible, Lt Toney's program has called for frequent speed marches.
Four miles in 30 minutes and eight miles in 75 minutes are common
practice to these fighting men, and before the completion of their basic
training the entire platoon made a 25 mile march in 5 hours and 20
minutes without a single man falling out.
Most of the Rangers had already put in a year's service before coming to
the 63rd. Some came from IRTCs, others from ASTP units. There are
others who came via the paratroopers, artillery or engineers. One
bridge-building problem was recently solved by a Ranger who had
previously gone to Engineer OCS for 10 weeks at Ft Belvoir, VA.
Nan Sun Chung, affable Chinese platoon sergeant of the Rangers was a
veteran heavy machine gunner with a Hawaiian defense unit at the time of
Pearl Harbor. he has many things to settle with the Japs.
In addition to the regular infantry hand-to-hand fighting methods, the
Rangers have developed and improvised improvements from their own
experience, bolstered by training the men have received in other units.
Pfcs Edward Capretto and James Eddy, both former paratroopers,
brought with them some new tricks taught the flying infantry.
Since the Rangers live apart from the other troops, little is known of their
daily life. It is rugged. They arise before dawn and there are no hot water
facilites at Beaver Creek Camp. Following morning chow they staff the
Div. Ranger School throughout the morning. In the afternoon they have
four hours of rigorous field training themselves. After these afternoon
classes they have two hours in which to clean their equipment, wash, eat
and prepare for the evening's attacks on bivouacked troops of other Div.
units. These attacks sometimes last throughout the night.
On one recent infiltration problem, Pvt Robert Barta lay just 10 yards
away from a CP while bright flares burst overhead. He was one of a
group of 12 rangers attacking that night with special instructions to
infiltrate and gather information, but to avoid physical contact or capture.
While his buddies spread out around the area and drew the attention of
the bivouacked group with firecrackers, Barta approached as near the
CP as was possible, then lay still. When the bivouacked company was
sure the the "attackers" had withdrawn, the CO gave his men a critique-
which Barta overheard and reported back to him the next day! The CO
had estimated the attacking force as an entire platoon, they had created
so much distrubance in covering up Barta's infiltration.
Pfc Harry Helm, taking a similar Ranger patrol to a bivouac area, took
two hours to locate an outguard post without giving their own presence
away. When "friendly" troops passed through the outguard line he heard
the exchange of challenge and countersign, and then he and his men
boldly approached the sentinel with the proper countersign and passed
through the lines and into the area.
While the rest of his patrol chalked "Ranger" on just about everything in
the area, Helm looked for the Battalion CP. Unable to find it in the
darkness, he awakened two men in a pup tent and asked them where it
was. Sleepily they got up and told him the exact whereabouts of the
headquarters, then turned over to go back to sleep. Unwilling to let a
single tent go unmarked, Helm proceeded to chalk the Ranger trademark
on the tent flap. "Just fixing your tent" he told the bewildered occupants.
One of the soldiers came out, and when he saw the big white letters he
was so stunned he didn't know what to do. Helm escaped before the
doughboy could sound an alarm.
The noise made by cooks is one of the foremost guiding beacons for the
Ranger night forays, as the sounds of clanging pots and pans can be
heard for a considerable distance in the field. Says one of the men: "They
might just as well send out a brass band to welcome us, as we can listen
to the cooks and head straight into the center of the bivouac areas"
Webmaster's comment: Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how
you look at it, the Ranger Platoon was disbanded after one of the large
shipment of replacements out of the division in April 44. I suppose I
would have gone also, except at the time I was on leave and when I
returned I was placed in Division Headquarters Company along with one
or two other Ranger leftovers and did important stuff like cut grass
around the officer's mess until I volunteered again. See I told you I wasn't
the smartest kid on the block. This time it was to go to the 254th Infantry
regiment. I was reassigned to the 254th on my 17th birthday, 27 July.
But that's another story.
Your Webmaster as a rough, tough, killer Ranger- March
1944
right and in Headquarters Company, 63rd Infantry Division
Well the "Ole Webmaster" will have to fill in a little something for the
Special Troops Page. Way back when I was young and not the smartest
kid on the block, I was assigned to B Company 363rd Medical Battalion
until along came a young lieutenant by name of Malcolm Toney. He told
my company about his unit, The 63rd Infantry Division Ranger Platoon
and asked for volunteers. The time was just around Christmas of 1944
and I had been in the Army all of about three (3) months and was ready
for "Action". Heck I couldn't even carry a rifle when walking guard in the
Medical Battalion and I wanted to get into the middle of this combat
thing. See I told you I wasn't the smartest kid on the block. So up goes
my hand to volunteer and much to my surprise I found myself in the 63rd
Infantry Division Ranger Platoon on 12 January 1944. It was all that I
had expected and more, but an article which appeared in The Blood and
Fire Newspaper on 18 March 1944 explains the Ranger Platoon much
better than I can. So here it is:
KNOW YOUR DIVISION: The Ranger Platoon, Lives in Tents- Acts
as Night Raiders in Training.
Stealthy, noiseless, hard-hitting night marauders- those are the young
volunteers who make up the 63rd Division Ranger Platoon. Started by
MG Louis E. Hibbs shortly after the activation of the 63rd, this platoon is
unique in the Army. It is the first self-contained Ranger outfit in an infantry
division. In action the Rangers will be called upon to do special tasks
involving considerable danger and calling for exceptional agility and
toughness.
Throughout the winter at Camp Van Dorn the Rangers have shunned
barracks. They live in pyramidal tents in a little encampment along side
Beaver Creek, some nine miles from the barracks area. Their training is
of a specialized nature- they must of necessity be able to handle all the
infantryman's weapons, from a cal.45 pistol to an 81mm mortar, and
through training they have attained expert's ratings with each weapon.
Lt Malcolm B. Toney, commander of the Ranger Platoon, has harkened
back to pre-Revolutionary days in the training of his men, patterning them
after those rugged Americans who composed Rogers' Rangers. The men,
all hand-picked volunteers, are given all the available knowledge of
woodcraft, hunting and tracking as a basis for their training. Should they
ever be stranded in woods or jungle, the Rangers would be self-sufficient
under even the most trying conditions.
In order to get his men where they will be needed in as short a time as
possible, Lt Toney's program has called for frequent speed marches.
Four miles in 30 minutes and eight miles in 75 minutes are common
practice to these fighting men, and before the completion of their basic
training the entire platoon made a 25 mile march in 5 hours and 20
minutes without a single man falling out.
Most of the Rangers had already put in a year's service before coming to
the 63rd. Some came from IRTCs, others from ASTP units. There are
others who came via the paratroopers, artillery or engineers. One
bridge-building problem was recently solved by a Ranger who had
previously gone to Engineer OCS for 10 weeks at Ft Belvoir, VA.
Nan Sun Chung, affable Chinese platoon sergeant of the Rangers was a
veteran heavy machine gunner with a Hawaiian defense unit at the time of
Pearl Harbor. he has many things to settle with the Japs.
In addition to the regular infantry hand-to-hand fighting methods, the
Rangers have developed and improvised improvements from their own
experience, bolstered by training the men have received in other units.
Pfcs Edward Capretto and James Eddy, both former paratroopers,
brought with them some new tricks taught the flying infantry.
Since the Rangers live apart from the other troops, little is known of their
daily life. It is rugged. They arise before dawn and there are no hot water
facilites at Beaver Creek Camp. Following morning chow they staff the
Div. Ranger School throughout the morning. In the afternoon they have
four hours of rigorous field training themselves. After these afternoon
classes they have two hours in which to clean their equipment, wash, eat
and prepare for the evening's attacks on bivouacked troops of other Div.
units. These attacks sometimes last throughout the night.
On one recent infiltration problem, Pvt Robert Barta lay just 10 yards
away from a CP while bright flares burst overhead. He was one of a
group of 12 rangers attacking that night with special instructions to
infiltrate and gather information, but to avoid physical contact or capture.
While his buddies spread out around the area and drew the attention of
the bivouacked group with firecrackers, Barta approached as near the
CP as was possible, then lay still. When the bivouacked company was
sure the the "attackers" had withdrawn, the CO gave his men a critique-
which Barta overheard and reported back to him the next day! The CO
had estimated the attacking force as an entire platoon, they had created
so much distrubance in covering up Barta's infiltration.
Pfc Harry Helm, taking a similar Ranger patrol to a bivouac area, took
two hours to locate an outguard post without giving their own presence
away. When "friendly" troops passed through the outguard line he heard
the exchange of challenge and countersign, and then he and his men
boldly approached the sentinel with the proper countersign and passed
through the lines and into the area.
While the rest of his patrol chalked "Ranger" on just about everything in
the area, Helm looked for the Battalion CP. Unable to find it in the
darkness, he awakened two men in a pup tent and asked them where it
was. Sleepily they got up and told him the exact whereabouts of the
headquarters, then turned over to go back to sleep. Unwilling to let a
single tent go unmarked, Helm proceeded to chalk the Ranger trademark
on the tent flap. "Just fixing your tent" he told the bewildered occupants.
One of the soldiers came out, and when he saw the big white letters he
was so stunned he didn't know what to do. Helm escaped before the
doughboy could sound an alarm.
The noise made by cooks is one of the foremost guiding beacons for the
Ranger night forays, as the sounds of clanging pots and pans can be
heard for a considerable distance in the field. Says one of the men: "They
might just as well send out a brass band to welcome us, as we can listen
to the cooks and head straight into the center of the bivouac areas"
Webmaster's comment: Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how
you look at it, the Ranger Platoon was disbanded after one of the large
shipment of replacements out of the division in April 44. I suppose I
would have gone also, except at the time I was on leave and when I
returned I was placed in Division Headquarters Company along with one
or two other Ranger leftovers and did important stuff like cut grass
around the officer's mess until I volunteered again. See I told you I wasn't
the smartest kid on the block. This time it was to go to the 254th Infantry
regiment. I was reassigned to the 254th on my 17th birthday, 27 July.
But that's another story.
Your Webmaster as a rough, tough, killer Ranger- March
1944
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