Jungle Combat Training Letters

September 1942 — June 1944

September 1942.  Am a sergeant with duties in battalion headquarters, Personnel Section, on the island of Maui in Hawaii.  The headquarters was located on what must have been the plantation of a wealthy owner.  A large home served as officers’ quarters, a small building for offices, and ten small wooden buildings for enlisted men.  The grounds were lush and green with many fruits, some of which this lad from Nebraska never tasted or even heard of—like mangos, papaya, and avocados.  Life was enjoyable here.  Once, on a three day pass I was able to fly in a navy plane to Honolulu and visit my brother Dick who was with the 27^th Infantry Division.  This was to be the only time in the war years that I was not on duty.

 

April 1944.  The battalion transferred to Honolulu for a period of intense, rigorous, lifelike jungle training which proved to be a demanding test of your ability to survive any enemy attack in a jungle environment.  One exercise put 80 men, 40 on a team, into a large rectangular pit and allowed almost any kind of fighting until one team threw the other out of the pit.  Making a raft out of your poncho and crossing a river without noise in the dark, while live shells sprouted huge geysers around you, was another tough hurdle.  Little did we know that this was preparing the men for an invasion of Saipan in the Pacific Ocean.

-Harold Moss