Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. Chapter 2 blonde girl that sat in the front row, and I sat in Narrator: Gen John W Vessey, Jr the back row. (chuckles) Interviewer: Thomas Saylor, Ph.D. TS: How did you get her to know who you Date of interview: 4 April 2012 were, General Vessey? Location: Vessey residence, North Oaks, MN JV: I don’t know the answer to that. I always Transcribed by: Linda Gerber, April 2012 thought she was out of my league (chuckles) and Edited for clarity by: Thomas Saylor, Ph.D., lo and behold, she passed me a note one day and May 2012 and January 2014 invited me to a Sadie Hawkins Day party, which (00:00) = elapsed time on digital recording was the 29 February 1940. TS: Today is Wednesday, 4 April 2012, and TS: Do you remember that particular date? this is the second interview with General John W. JV: I do indeed. Vessey, Jr. My name is Thomas Saylor. TS: Tell us some details. General Vessey, when we left off last time we JV: It was at the house of another classmate were talking about your high school experience who lived not too far from where I lived. Avis it Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis and lived on the west side of Lake Hiawatha and the I want to ask you about something that you Hiawatha Golf Course Park. We lived on the mentioned after finishing last time, which was east side of that about what you park area, on the called the most east side of Lake important thing Nokomis. So it about your high was a couple of school years. I’ll miles. It was a let you develop good walk. Her that story from father drove us there. to the party; I JV: As I said remember that to you last very well. Her time, the most father was a important thing stern looking that happened to man of German me in high school extraction. was meeting my Spoke in short, wife to be. what seemed like Dear Jack gruff terms to TS: Do you me. (chuckles) I remember the first We are still looking for a card from you. It is pay day & remember her class that you and Fri nite supposed to be my nite off but I am still working father driving us to Mrs. Vessey had 3:00pm to 11:00pm for Mills. Guess I will be on the same the party and the air together? job while Ray is off. Jim Knott was asking if I heard from you yet. He is anxious to know how the new top sergeant in the car.. .although JV: I do indeed. is getting along and all of the boys. We have quite a house these words weren’t TS: Talk about full now Betty Möllers & Shirley are still here. You are lucky spoken, but it was that. you are not home. We have to stand in line to get to bath clearly young man, you’d better behave. JV: It was a chem- room. Write soon. Dad (chuckles) istry class. We were both seniors in high school. It was in chemistry TS: Suffice it to say you still remember the air class in the second semester as a matter of fact. I in the car all these years later. remember that she was that absolutely smashing 13 JV: Ido. ever took a faculty census, but I could just think TS: Did you and Mrs. Vessey then date regu- through the teachers that I knew and had and I larly after that particular event? can point to some that I knew had the view that we would be involved, and others who had the JV: We did. view that we should not under any circumstances TS: At the same time.. .this is the spring of be involved. 1940 and the war in Europe had begun the TS: So in a sense reflecting the difference in previous fall, in September of 1939. The Japanese opinion there in American society as a whole. were at war in China, and had been since 1937. As a high school student, how aware would you JV: Right. say you were of those world events? TS: How about among your friends, your age cohort group, young men sixteen, seventeen, JV: I’d say that we were intensely aware of it. eighteen years old? What kind of conversations Just we as a community. There were a number of Minnesotans who went to Canada and volun- did you have among yourselves about this whole teered for the Canadian armed forces. I knew event, series of events? several friends who did that. Considered it JV: I think seventeen year olds, our conver- myself. But I had already sations weren’t very joined the Minnesota profound. The questions National Guard, so it were, should you go to was out of the question Winnipeg and enlist forme. My father, being in the Princess Pats or a World War I vet, was should you not do that. intensely aware of it, and We didn’t.. .when you’re was convinced that the seventeen years old and a United States would even- high school student, you tually be involved. There don’t have any idea what was an air of inevitability war is like. You read about I think, but at the same wars and battles and the time a great hope that we losses of lives and so forth, would not be involved. but the absolute cruelty and nastiness of war, you TS: Was it talked don’t know about it, and about.. .how was it talked it’s sort of an adventure at about in school, in your least as I remember it at classes? that time. 6 00 ( : ) TS: Right and that’s JV: I think those two what we want to know, sort of conflicting views, yes. Abstract almost? that is the one the view JV: Yes. This followed that the United States the Spanish Civil War, would be involved, and and there had been quite then the view that we a lot of publicity about really didn’t want to be the Spanish Civil War in involved in another Euro- Corporal John Vessey (right) and Staff Sgt. Ed Smith on train en route to Camp Claiborne, this country during the pean war, and certainly in ‘30s. There were good guys a war in east Asia, that we Louisiana, circa 1941. and bad guys. Curiously didn’t want to be involved enough, the Communists primarily were the in a war in east Asia. I don’t know that anyone good guys in the Spanish Civil War, and I think 14 Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. most of the Americans that fought there fought to have fifty cents in a bank account, and that was on the side of the Communists and not on the hard to come by. You remember the Depression. side of the Fascists. On the other hand, the I remember the Depression. I remember the Fascists were the winners. circumstances today and the contrast between TS: Correct. those years and any of the following years, good times and bad times. And they were by far worse JV: Then we’d had the Czechoslovakian times than any of the following years. But at the takeover. same time, they didn’t seem all that bad at the TS: That’s right, 1938-39. Were these events, time. It was just the way it was. General Vessey, would you say part of the process TS: It’s the contrast possibly between.. .if we that led you to join the Minnesota Army National could contrast then and now, the contrast would Guard in May of 1939, or was that a separate seem stronger, in other words. decision making process? JV: Yes. It’s huge. Think of the education of JV: Looking back on it now you’d like to say the population at that time. Just amenities like that yes, they were probably part of it so you can plumbing. How many of us had indoor toilets? make the process... Frankly, there was another Once we moved to Minneapolis, we had indoor aspect of life at that time, ar>^ that i<= that it wac plumbing. the latter years of the Depression and we had (13:00) lived through the Depres- TS: You mentioned in sion. Everybody was Lakeville you didn’t all broke. That is, everybody the time. that I knew was broke. It JV: We did not, no. was a way to add a few At lunch today we were dollars of income to a talking about gardening broke teenager. and talking about how TS: When you say that, pervasive the idea of talk about the Depression vegetable gardening was and money, when you in those days. Everyone think about Minneapolis had a vegetable garden. I is the mid-to-late 1930s didn’t know any families when you lived there, that didn’t can a lot of would you say that you vegetables to eat during perceived or saw the the winter. Who does Depression around you or that today? Not very the effects of it? many people. JV: Yes, clearly. But for TS: Perhaps as a someone who had grown hobby, but that’s about up during that period, all. the contrast between the JV: Yes. times we lived in and TS: So you noticed better times was probably this. Your parents of far greater for someone of Corporal John Vessey (right) at Camp course might have made the age of my parents than Claiborne, Louisiana, circa 1941. the contrast more strongly for me. This is the way it was than you as a young person. for a person of my age. It How did your parents react when you brought was just.. .a dollar was an awful lot of money. I up the subject of enlisting in the National Guard, remember to become a First Class Scout you had 15 because you were just seventeen? actually added to it, so it turned out to be almost JV: My mother thought it was a very bad idea, a dollar for a National Guard drill period. Then and my father thought it was okay. when you went to Camp Ripley in the summer- time, two weeks at camp would wind up $15-18, TS: Can you imagine the discussion between maybe $20 or something like that. your parents as far as whether you should be allowed to or not be allowed to? TS: The way you talked about money, a dollar being a lot of money... JV: (pauses five seconds) No. JV: That was a lot of money. TS: Your father’s arguments apparently won TS: Now correct me if I’m wrong here. You out. were a motorcycle rider in Headquarters, 59th JV: Yes. There was no real opposition to it. Field Artillery Brigade, of the 34th Infantry TS: How did you come upon the idea in the Division. first place? JV: Right. JV: From a friend who had earlier done the TS: Talk about that unit, if you can. The 34th same thing. Infantry Division and then the Field Artillery Brigade and what its TS: He had joined. / \ And what was appealing responsibilities were as to you about joining the you understood them. National Guard? JV: The Brigade JV: Well (A), I was told Headquarters was the I could be the motorcycle artillery headquarters rider. for the division. At that time the division was a TS: So at a pure base square division, which level, that’s what we’re had four infantry regi- talking about here. ments and consequently JV: (chuckles) That’s four light artillery right. battalions plus a medium TS: Did you already artillery battalion. The know how to drive a division artillery was motorcycle? commanded by a brig- adier general, who was JV: Yes. brigade commander. TS: So this was The duties of the brigade appealing. I take it there commander was to was some money involved coordinate the artillery too? fires for the division. The JV: Oh, yes. wonderful thing that TS: Do you remember Americans had developed how much, Sir? before World War II, which was probably the JV: When we drilled we Corporal John Vessey (right) and Joe greatest American contribu- got Federal pay for the day, Stewart at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, tion to the ground battle in which would have been like circa 1941. World War II, was the use of $21 a month for a soldier artillery. in the Regular Army got at that time, so that wasn’t much. Then you got a state stipend which TS: What was so special about that, about the

16 Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. Americans’ use of that? Relatively short range, 12,500 yards was the JV: The Americans recognized that you could maximum range. move artillery fire simply by changing the direc- TS: Just to leap forward for a moment, were tion and elevation of the gun tubes. You could those weapons pretty quickly upgraded when the mass artillery fire from.. .the division artillery, United States became involved in the war? you could mass artillery from all five of these (20:35) battalions on one spot as long as they were tied JV: Yes. The Americans had developed a together accurately geographically, and you’d new light artillery piece, the 105 millimeter do that by surveying the locations of each of howitzer, but it was not manufactured in suffi- the batteries. It was a technique that we had cient numbers to equip the armed forces in the mastered long before the Germans or others. The ‘40s, ’41-42, right after Pearl Harbor. So the 34th others would shoot more than one battalion at a was reorganized at Camp Claiborne [Louisiana] target but... During the war in Italy, as a forward into a triangular division, with three infantry observer with an infantry company, there were regiments and then three light artillery battalions times in some battles where I had as much as and one medium battalion. We still had the the fire from five or six battalions under my French 75, and then when we went to North control. I was a second lieutenant supporting Ireland in early 1942 we were equipped with the the company that I was the forward observer for. British 25 pounder3 for the light battalions. The That was something that we did with regularity medium battalion kept the Schneider throughout and great skill that was not commonly employed the North African campaign. by our enemies. TS: So into TS: When 1943 then. you speak JV: Yes. of light or medium TS: Was artillery, what that a ques- kind of guns tion of - you are those alluded to it specifically? a moment ago - of JV: When just literally I joined the being able to National manufacture Guard and equip we were these units? equipped with what was JV: leftovers from Yes. The World War American I. The light Army went battalions had Corporal John Vessey (4th from left) with a group of soldiers at from about the French 75,1 Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, circa 1941. 200,000 in the and the medium Regular Army battalion had in 1939 to around 10 million in 1944. So that’s the 155 millimeter Schneider,2 as it was called. a huge change. There were probably three divi- sions in the Regular Army that were loosely orga- 1. A 75 mm, quick-firing field artillery piece; used heavily nized as divisions. By the time that the end of in World War One. 3. Standard field gun/howitzer, introduced into service 2. A French 155 mm heavy field howitzer, first used just before World War II. yj during World War One. 1944 came around, there must have been seventy go to another school for advanced individual divisions in the Army of the United States. training, training in the specialty in which they TS: From three to seventy. will serve. In those days it was all done in the units. You were trained by the people who JV: An exponential increase in size. would lead you. So the training was much more TS: So logistics must have been an ongoing informal. Completely different concept. In some challenge. ways it was better than the way we do it today, JV: It is an accomplishment that astounds because you were immediately a part of a team those of us who think about it even today, what that you were going to play a role in, yet it wasn’t the United States was able to do. the standardized training and perhaps far from as complete as the training that the soldier gets TS: In a relatively, a very short period of time. today. JV: You figure that we had factories that TS: It may have been really dependent on the produced cannons and tanks and trucks, ship- quality of the person doing the training. yards that were launching a major cargo ship every week. I think in JV: Yes. 1944, the United States TS: Did your time produced 100,000 at Camp Ripley in airplanes. 100,000 the summer, that airplanes. you mentioned a few TS: Almost seems like moments ago, did that that must be a misprint help to sort of even out when you read those the training or deepen numbers. what you’d learned? JV: Yes. JV: For me it helped put the whole thing into TS: You, from joining perspective, because we the Guard.. .it was a year operated as the division and a half really until the artillery. In those days, as 34th Infantry Division I said, we had four light was inducted into federal battalions. Actually we service, in early 1941. had two regiments, two During that period of field artillery regiments, time you were a year and each with two battalions. a half older. What were But it put the whole examples of the lessons concept of the role of the that you learned from artillery in supporting the your time in the National infantry into the larger Guard during that time? picture for me, and I fast JV: At that time, all the moved on to other things training was local. That other than simply riding is, you were trained by Corporal John Vessey at Camp motorcycles. the unit that you joined for Claiborne, Louisiana, circa 1941. (26:40) the duties that you were to perform. In contrast TS: What did you move to today where a young man or woman joins on to, Sir? the National Guard and they’re sent off to basic JV: The first thing I became was a commu- training at a Regular Army installation and then nicator. I became a wireman, connecting the come back from that training. Then probably Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. various artillery outfits by telephone, and learned JV: Headquarters Battery of the 59th Brigade that business. Then I learned that I could have was a good outfit. We had a lot of bright, dedi- a better chance of promotion by becoming a cated young people, and some not so young, surveyor. So I had the good fortune of having that were in that outfit. When I think back.. .we had ä wonderful math teacher in high school, saw the picture in the other room of Joe Stewart and my trigonometry was pretty good, and I and I and that horse that we bought in Northern adapted to being a surveyor very quickly. I Ireland. Joe Stewart was our supply sergeant, could do the.. .basically in those days it was all which doesn’t seem like a big deal, being a supply manual surveying with a transit and stadia rods sergeant for an artillery battery. But Joe Stewart and measuring tape and so forth. Then a lot of always had things according to regulation and computation with log tables and trigonometric always had track of our equipment. He was one tables. of those noncommissioned officers who knew his business and helped create an atmosphere of, you TS: But you took to that work, you say. had to know what you were supposed to do. You JV: Yes. That1 Was easy for me. I was able to had to be, today the word is professional - 1 don’t do it and got promoted fairly quickly for doing think we ever used that word, but you had to be It. Later on I learned that I could get another competent at what you were supposed to do. It promotion by being a CW radio4 operator. The was sort of an atmosphere where.. .1 remember radios in those days that we had, most all of them many a night both at Camp Ripley and later on were unmodulated continuous wave Morse code when we were mobilized that you’d look around radios. You had to learn Morse code. the squad tent that you were sleeping in and the TS: Had you learned that in Boy Scouts? soldiers were reading a field manual about their duties and the skills that they were supposed to JV: I had learned it. I knew Morse code from possess and trying hard to perfect those skills. So Boy Scouts, and I was just about to add that in it was an atmosphere that seemed to permeate both surveying and in communications my Boy that particular outfit. Scout experience was valuable to me. I could read a map. I could do it very well and I knew Many years later I gave a talk. It was the first in the Morse code. And the artillery still commu- a series of lectures that was endowed by a friend nicated by flags as well as by radio. So it all fit in of mine at the World War II Museum in New very well for me. Orleans. I didn’t know what to talk about. But I decided to talk about the people that I had served TS: Did you start to think that military service with in World War II, and it took me back to the was something that you rather liked and were early days of that outfit. Here was this outfit of good at? 130 soldiers. The first batch was the batch that JV: I was at least good at those sort of funda- had been inducted into the regular army from mental things that got me a little more money the National Guard, and then the next batch was immediately. The Boy Scout experience, having a batch of draftees who came into that outfit and been the patrol leader and the senior patrol they were primarily from the upper Midwest, leader, the junior assistant Scoutmaster and so many from Minnesota. Then the subsequent forth, my positions of leadership all sort of fit replacements through the war came from all into what happened to me in the first couple of over the United States. But we went through years in the Army. That helped a great deal, I the war from late 1942 through 1945. We had would say. one court-martial that I remember. I remember TS: What’s an example of a positive rela- only one absence without leave. The discipline tionship perhaps that you developed here with was superb. We didn’t have any troublemakers. somebody that you met in the National Guard, Those guys, after the war I don’t remember any that made an impact on you? of them stopping at jail at any time. They went on to become doctors and lawyers, a federal 4. Continuous wave radio. 19 judge, school teachers. You sort of tick them off United States and the United States Army. I don’t by name and you remember competent young mean to imply that every outfit in the United Americans that worked very hard to do what States Army is a good outfit, because that’s not needed to be done serving the nation. true. We’ve had some real turkeys in leadership (35:45) positions, and we’ve had some terrible outfits that have done some terrible things. But by and • TS: What was that like, that experience of large the Army is pretty good and does its duty going back and bringing these people up in your reasonably well. But it is that leadership that’s active memory? able to create this common bond among the JV: In a way it was fun. and nostalgic, and sort soldiers, that is this, I’ve got your back and you’ve of sad when you thought of those that were casu- got mine. It is a bond that’s not broken. alties and didn’t make it through the war. But TS: Does that suggest that you feel or have felt that outfit continued to have reunions up until an affinity with that particular unit that wasn’t just a few years ago when we decided that there the same as some other units you’ve served with were too few of us to come anymore. There were over the years? Because you’ve served with a lot. more widows coming to the reunions than there were former soldiers. I don’t know how many JV: Realizing that as you move on you have company, battery or troop outfits there were in positions of different responsibility, but what you the 10 million man United States Army, but there try to do is create that same atmosphere in what- had to be hundreds of thousands of them. They ever outfit you’re in, that is, that you’ve got a team were the outfits that made the war go. And I’m and you want the other people in the team to be sure that there a part of that were many team and be of them that contributing were even members more close- of the team knit than ours and to help was. You each other do see movies what has to like Band of be done. It’s Brothers5 and the primary so forth. responsibility of leadership, TS: What creating the contributes to team and that, General the team Vessey, to spirit, and the building willingness the tightly to go to knit groups extraordinary that you just 1st Sgt. John Vessey (2nd from left) with soldiers identified as measures to mentioned? (left to right) Stewart, Clark, Norman, Clark and Evans, unknown carry out the JV: Part of it location, circa 1942. He was promoted on 1 Sept. 1942. mission that is the common you’ve been mission, but also given. part of it is, very much part of it, is the leadership TS: Did you see that? Because it sounds and the general esprit de corps, the history of the deceptively simple and yet we know it’s not. 5 An 11-hour American TV World War II miniseries JV: No, it’s not. But not only can it be done, it from 2001, based on the book of the same title. 20 Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. is done sort of uniformly every day. I’m sure it’s JV: Yes. In the outfit in the National Guard happening in the armed forces today in Afghan- it was, let’s get our trucks in shape and so forth. istan, Korea, the Horn of Africa, or wherever we Get our equipment in shape and make sure we have armed forces. We’ve got marvelous teams have all of what we’re supposed to have and that being established. Every once in a while you pick the soldiers understood their duties. And there up the newspaper and someone has been coura- was a little extra push on the training and so geous enough to report the results of some of the forth. It seemed a lot more serious, and there work of those teams. But by and large you have was less dismounted drill which seemed like to recognize that there have been battles in places make work to most of us, and more emphasis on that we can’t find on the map, or never heard making sure that the communications equipment of, where that same sort of teamwork has gone worked, that our surveying equipment was up to by and has gone on and has not been reported. date, and that anyone who needed extra training Only the people who were in the fight knew that was given the extra training, and so forth. So that it took place. But they come away with great sort of pervaded the atmosphere in the outfit for pride in knowing that it has indeed happened. the months at the time. I think it was the Ohio Division was one of the first divisions mobilized. (42:00) TS: As a point of reference here, the 34th TS: How did that make you feel? I mean, in a Infantry Division was inducted into federal sense, joining the National Guard during peace- service on 10 February 1941. You graduated time, training, Camp Ripley, et cetera... Being in the National Guard when the unit was facing from high school in 1940. What were you doing federal induction and the war clouds were getting with yourself between graduating from high darker, how did that make you feel? school and what became a change period? JV: It was the world in which we lived. You JV: In the summer of 1940 the moves in the couldn’t change it. You’d already enlisted, and Congress to expand the armed forces, the debates you were part of it. It put a little urgency in what were already taking place. The authority to you were doing. mobilize the National Guard beginning in the fall of 1940 was already apparent. Our immediate TS: It sounds like you just accepted this as commander told us that we would be mobilized. a matter of fact, that it wasn’t something you So we knew. couldn’t change and so... TS: You knew it was coming. (46:00) JV: We knew we would be mobilized. The JV: Right. Right. There was no question about, date wasn’t certain. So I debated with the idea how do we get out of this or something like that. of enrolling in the University [of Minnesota], I do not remember anyone ever raising that point. but it didn’t seem to make any sense. I wanted I think that the commanders looked around at to do it but it didn’t seem to make sense, so who they had and decided that there were some what I did is, I took a job at Sears and Roebuck.6 of these people that were too old. For example, Sears and Roebuck had a big mail order house the first sergeant that we had at the time, who was down on Lake Street [in Minneapolis]. I think a contemporary of my father’s and worked for the the building is still there, but I don’t think it same railroad as my father and was a World War I belongs to Sears and Roebuck anymore. Anyway, veteran himself. I wrapped packages for mailing, at Sears and TS: So around forty, give or take a year or so. Roebuck. JV: Yes, right. He did not come with us at TS: Was it just a matter of hurry up, let’s get mobilization. And there were several others in this mobilization going? One of those kind of the outfit that didn’t come. I’m not sure what situations? the administrative procedures were, that didn’t concern me at the time. 6. A nationwide department store chain and mail order company. 21 TS: But they weren’t going along. immediately a matter of a lot of work. JV: Yes. TS: That was a new part of the country for TS: Once the unit was you as you mentioned a federalized there was moment ago. basic training at Camp » CLfliBOone JV: Yes. Claiborne, Louisiana. The Louisiana TS: Visually, what journey south to Loui- ßydt. 9, I 9 V / pNgi.: impressions did Louisiana siana, that was a long way make for a young man in the 1930s and ‘40s from who had grown up in Minnesota. Had you been - /rtJUv s&SlZlfint*) 7:00 central Minnesota? to the Deep South before? JV: We arrived at JV: No. -«At )i^ 7 WuwßM. Camp Claiborne in the TS: What do you wintertime. Camp Clai- remember about, was it a Q-vJSl chajz. borne is in the middle of train journey down? Louisiana near the city

John Vessey letter to his father from Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, dated July 26,1941. Dear Pop, One of the main difficulties with this country is that the doggone “greaser” radio stations come on at 7:00 o’clock every night and block out all of the American stations. Has Ma told you the news? Maybe I haven’t told her yet. They’ve taken our outfit, and one platoon of the 6th Cavalry along with a few men from the 37th Inf. Division, and some from the 91st Rc. Sq. to form the Hq. Co. of the IstProv. Anti-tank Group. In the Group there are 3 anti-tank battalions, 1 company of infantry, and one company of engi- neers. We’re leaving the 20th for Fort Benning, Ga., but we’ll only stay there a few days before we go on maneuvers in the Carolinas. We’re supposed to come back here the first week in December. Whether or not we’ll be the 59th Brigade Hq or 1st Anti-tank Hq. depends on the success of the maneuvers in North Carolina. If we came back here as 59th Hq. I’ve half a mind to transfer to the regular army, this outfit is too dead. I’d like to be in the armored force, or mechanized cavalry or someplace where they don’t have a bunch of draftees and cry-baby national guardsmen. If they make this into a triangular division it won’t be so bad. What did you think of the World Series? I was so doggone mad that I couldn’t eat any supper after the next to the last game. Have I told you that the first sergeant is in the hospital and that I’m taking his place again? He’s been there since the 20th of last month. The maneuvers were fine, but as I said before I’d rather be in an outfit that sees a little more action. The first night we were back here I tossed around in the bed so much that I finally had to get out and sleep on the floor. Well, it’s time to go to bed. Write soon. Jack 22 Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. people of Louisiana. We had a lot of work to do. to park the trucks. We had to set up the camp. When we got there TS: A big expanse then, it sounds like, the way the carpenters were just finishing the frames for you describe it. tents. We lived in what the Army then called a JV: Yes. ‘tent, general purpose, medium’. TS: Was this your first time being away from TS: I love those descriptions. home this distance, this length of time? JV: Which was a tent that housed eight JV: I’d been at Camp Ripley for two weeks at soldiers, and it was built for a squad. We had to a time, two summers. I had spent two summers set up the tent camp itself, which meant getting at Camp Ripley. I think we discussed last time, the tents and putting them on the frames and so between my junior and senior years in high on and so forth. school my dad took me on a train trip to the West TS: This was not move-in ready, as we say. Coast and through Canada and so forth. JV; Oh, no. TS: Just the two of you? TS: It’s do it yourself, almost. JV: Yes. JV: Yes. Fortunately TS: You didn’t talk a lot the frames had already m ” 179/ about that. Let’s digress been erected by contrac- for a moment - what was tors, so all we had to do that like for you, traveling was get the tents and put G 0 * y with your dad? them over the frames and JV: It was great fun. get the cots and put them a/ je~J- JZ& & L44 Looking back on it now, up in the tents. Then it’s more important now each company battery than it seemed at the time and troop.. .we had a to me. At the time I was couple of cinder block J&Adßo (T-yi a little bit torn, because I buildings. We had one came back from working that was the mess hall, that summer and it was one that was an admin- time to go to school, but istrative building, had cW-. he said, You’re not starting the office for the battery school on time. I was a commander and the \/lAjt£Q . — little bit torn by the idea supply room and so forth, of taking two weeks, the and we had a mainte- first two weeks of my nance area, with a place senior year in high school, Pvt. John Vessey letter to his father from Camp Claiborne, Louisiana

Dear Dad, Your letter came the first part of the week, but we've been out on maneuvers all week so this is the first chance I've had to write. Glad to hear that you're feeling better. We're busier than the devil now, Idont get any time to study for that examination. Right now I should be repairing a switchboard and soldering test leads on new [franco?] clips that have to be ready by tomorrow morning. It’s been pretty hot here lately in spite of the fact that we’ve had a lot of rain. A week from tomorrow we go on maneuvers down near De Quincy, La.. It’s noon now so I have to scram. This afternoon we play the 34th Sig. Co in a diamond ball game. Is Mpls. Still in 1st place? Write soon,

Jack 23 and goofing off someplace else. But my dad had JV: Right. Then we moved to the Carolinas. gotten trip passes on the Great Northern Railroad We were converted to the First Provisional Tank and we went out to Spokane, where we changed Destroyer Group. What had been the 34th trains; went to Portland, where he had enlisted Division Artillery became the Headquarters, in the Army at Vancouver Barracks at the time First Provisional Destroyer Group. So we went of the First World War. Visited some family, a to the Carolinas as part of a test of this concept of cousin of his and their kids that lived in Portland. tank destroyers, and maneuvered against General Then we went to Seattle by train. He wanted me Patton7 and his Second Armored Division. to see the Seattle Navy Yard. We went by boat TS: This is after Pearl Harbor now, right? from Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, and took the train, the Canadian Pacific, to Banff and JV: No, before Pearl Harbor. Through the fall went by car to Lake Louise and spent a couple of 1941. days around Banff and Lake Louise. Then back TS: So it’s a continuous series of maneuvers or through Winnipeg and went on to Toronto, and training, preparing for something larger. turned around and came back to Winnipeg and JV: We understood well the concept of how to came back down to Minneapolis-St. Paul. sleep on the ground, (chuckles) (54:00) TS: How did your folks take you going away TS: That’s a long trip. when you did leave then? That it would be an JV: Two weeks. It was a great trip, and I got undetermined amount of time before they saw to spend a lot of time with my dad talking to you again? him. Got to know him a lot better. I’m sure he JV: The idea was, we were mobilized for a year got to know me a lot better. A few months later - that was the original plan. We were mobilized we were mobilized, and then he died while I was for a year. But by that fall the vote went through on the boat on the way to North Africa from the the Congress to extend the draft and the mobili- British Isles. zation of the National Guard. I think it passed by one vote.8 TS: What month did your dad die, Sir? TS: It did pass by one vote only. That is JV: He died in September of’42. He had been correct. wounded in World War I, and also was diabetic. I’m not sure what he died of. He was in his JV: By that time President Roosevelt had forties. worked out some of his Lend-Lease agreements with the British, and we were providing them TS: So going away from home, you’d been at with war materials so that the inevitability of the Camp Ripley and been on this trip. It wasn’t clear United States becoming involved became more when you left to go to Camp Claiborne when and more apparent through the summer and fall you’d be back again or when you’d see your folks of 1941. Then, as I said, we got back to Camp again. Claiborne on the day before Pearl Harbor.. .the JV: No. I did see them at the end of night before Pearl Harbor. [December 1941], right after Pearl Harbor. We TS: Just before it happened. spent the summer of 1941 on maneuvers. We left Camp Claiborne in May of 1941, and we JV: Yes. It happened on that Sunday [7 did not return to Camp Claiborne until the day December 1941], and then we were immediately before Pearl Harbor, in December of’41. We sent down to the Gulf of Mexico on guard duty. went on maneuvers, first in Louisiana and then (58:30) in east Texas. The big Louisiana Maneuver 7. George S. Patton, Jr. (1885 -1945); general in the U.S. was conducted that summer, which was a huge Army. Commanded the Third Army in the European operation. Theater during World War II. TS: Hundreds of thousands of people involved. 8. On 12 August 1941, the Selective Service Act of 1940 was extended by the U.S. House, by a vote of 203-202. 24 Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. TS: I was going to ask you about that. Let Germany at that time. We had, I think, one all me back up, if I may, just for a moment. You black infantry battalion in the 22nd Infantry, mentioned being in east Texas, in Louisiana, very and the anti-aircraft battalion was all black. The different parts of the country. You mentioned day we got integrated we got about ten percent being in the Carolinas in 1941. These are all parts black soldiers in the outfits that we were in. By of what we can loosely call the Deep South, a that time I was battery commander. My ten part of the United States that had very different percent, five soldiers and one black officer... traditions and customs, including Jim Crow laws and it worked. From my point of view it went and segregation. How did you personally witness very smoothly. I got Gus Henning, who was an segregation, and how did you internalize that? all-American basketball player at Indiana; he JV: It was a concept completely different for was the black officer that I got, so we had a pretty Minnesotans. It was in many ways disgusting good basketball team, (chuckles) and appalling but again, that’s the way it was. I TS: Things worked out for you, right, in that remember in the town of Alexandria there were respect? clearly places that were whites only and so forth. JV: Gus was a fine soldier and a fine man, and You’d see signs in the windows. The signs were a great addition to the outfit. pretty primitive. Some of them said “Soldiers, TS: Excellent. These Louisiana Maneuvers you Niggers and Dogs not allowed.” It was not an mentioned.. .in fact I read a little bit about them. uncommon sign. Black people lived in pretty They were a series of military exercises held all deplorable conditions in the rural towns in over north and west central Louisiana, Fort Polk, Louisiana. Camp Claiborne, Camp Livingstone. The ideal, We had one black girl in our class in high as I was reading about this, was to test U.S. troop school who was a bright, attractive, intelligent training, logistics, doctrine, commanders. As young woman, she was part of the high school you look back on this from your military career and seemed no different from the rest of us other perspective, did it work? than her skin was a different color. Then going to JV: From my perspective, from the perspective Louisiana and seeing the water fountains labeled of a relatively low ranking soldier, those sorts of white, colored and so on and so forth was a maneuvers, the way they were conducted in those strange world. days, the soldiers themselves didn’t get much TS: Would you say it’s something that stuck out of it because the training was still a bang, with you, that you took lessons from and that bang, you’re dead training. There were umpires helped you later in your military career? with the maneuver outfits that decided who won JV: The Army itself was segregated in those the particular engagement based on how well days. White units. I never saw a black unit they maneuvered and how much theoretical until we got to North Africa, and there were fire power they had, because the fire power was some black units on stevedore duty in the ports never used except to shoot some blanks. So it H North Africa at the time we were leaving for was a lot of moving around, but I’m sure that the the Italian Campaign. Then during the Italian larger command or the higher commanders got Campaign the 92nd Division, which was an a lot out of it in terms of learning to move large all-black infantry division, with a liberal sprin- formations, because where the road network kling of white officers fought in Italy, with sort of was inadequate and you had many thousands of mixed reviews of its competency. I guess my next soldiers to move, they had to do their staff work real interaction with African American soldiers properly in order to get their forces to the right was when Harry Truman integrated the Army [in part of the battlefield at the right time. Clearly a lot of them didn’t do that. When you look at July 1948]. the history of the senior commanders that were TS: Right. Not until after the war was over. relieved and so on and so forth, it was clear JV: Yes. I was with the 4th Division in 25 that very senior commanders got a good look at because they had to survey and so forth. And the people that were division commanders or corps communicators had to communicate, so there commanders and so on and so forth, and the was a question of whether or not you communi- staffs. And I’m sure much was learned. But for cated. I’m sure we did all of those things better cannon artillery, you didn’t shoot anything. the longer we did them every day. But in terms (1:07:30) of war fighting, for the lower ranking people it wasn’t a particularly good use of the time. We TS: That’s right. You couldn’t really practice. learned that later. We developed things like, the JV: Yes. You didn’t shoot a round. So it wasn’t years after World War II we developed things particularly good training, other than training like the National Training Center where it was to move. And the surveyors got a lot of training instrumented and you knew that if soldier A fired / \

September 8, 1942

D ear Mom, Your lette r of August twenty-seventh and the box of Fanny Farmer's both arrived today, the letter was great, but I'm afraid that the candy had a drink or two of salt water before it got here. Donald's letter got here about th ree days agq, he gfets better service by about forty- eight hojjrs than you do, perhaps he has a pull with tjae post Office Department. There doesn't seem to be any more to write about than there was last time. I got a letter fronr~Avis today, she said that you and Marian had been down shopping and that she w*s going to eat at your house, but she didn't say when.m I received a letter from somebody in Minneapolis hhat is apparently connected with the USO or something, anyway they or she(I couldn't figure out whether it was a he or a she, "its" name is Glee Houston) wrote a fairly good letter, dent some sport sections,etc. I suppose that the "kida" are just about starting back to school now, Donald w ill have quite a daily trot for himself thus winter, won't he? What school does Barbara go to this year? You keep talking about your garden in your letters where in the dickens did you put in a garden in that place, as I remember it, there wasn’t any room for such activities. Well itfcS getting close to mess time, so I 'll suspend action on this until later. Next day------There doesn't seem to be any more news today than there was yesterday. There is one bit of news that I haven't told you, I've been promoted it's now 1st Sgt Vessey. Say, you've been asking for a picture, well, as soon as we get some prints made I 'll kill two birds with one stone. I'll'send you a picture that includes what you want to see and something that I want you to see. It's a picture of a horse that we had, of course I'm sitting in the cart, Very fine horse, you can easily see that every bone in i t 's body is in good shape.^ This is a miserable looking^letter, but there really isn't a thing to: write about, 1811 try to make the next one longer, or at least write on smaller paper so taht it doesn't look so short• Love,

______Pvt. John Vessey letter to his n Northern Ireland, dated Sept.

26 Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. his rifle he hit or missed the target that he shot under which we found ourselves. That is, you at, and you had some authoritative look at the had the huge post-World War II reduction, outcomes of the military engagements. and many people have forgotten how deep that TS: Did World War II lead to changes in reduction was. We went from, I don’t know how the way the Army conducted training, pretty many artillery battalions we had in the Army, but quickly? when the Korean War started, we had only two heavy artillery battalions left in the Army. JV: Not as quickly as it could have been. I think that you had different sets of leaders that TS: Two? came out of World War II. You had the people JV: Two. Some were in the reserves, but in the who moved quickly into battalion command Regular Army there were only two heavy artillery - take the class o f’39 out of West Point, for battalions - and that’s a huge change. example. It was a very famous class because it TS: Right. produced many generals. Very good generals JV: Louis Johnson9 was the Secretary of under whom I served and had great respect for. Defense. He had been the chairman of General They almost went up too fast to understand what Motors, he had the famous saying, “What’s good was needed for training. Now some of them did for General Motors is good for the country’’ - guys like Dutch Kerwin who later became Vice Chief of the Army under Abrams, and people TS: Yes, that’s it. like that, who had a better understand of the JV: That same thought permeated the Army training needs than many of his contemporaries and the armed forces. We were rendering lard who continued to believe that the way we trained from beef that we slaughtered in the company u nits for World War II just needed refinement kitchen. We were spot painting trucks a hundred and so forth. We didn’t need a revolution in times over. The level of logistic support was training. pushed down to the lowest possible level. I was I think it wasn’t until during and after Vietnam in a school troop battalion at Fort Sill. We didn’t that we really had the people that came to have a service battery or an ammunition train leadership, senior leadership positions, who in-the firing batteries, because the manning had had been under different circumstances, who been cut so low. We had two and a half sets of spent more time at the company level. You had weapons. people like the class of ’39 who were battalion TS: Two and a half? commanders before the war was over, six years JV: Two and a half. We were supposed to be out of West Point and there were battalion a general reserve heavy artillery battalion, so commanders and some even higher, and then we were basically a self-propelled Long Tom you had the people of my generation who came battalion, but every battery had a complete set out of the war as lieutenants or captains and so of 105s to shoot for the school. We also had two forth and were stuck in the post-war grades. We 4.5 guns per battery, because there was a lot of spent fifteen years as company grade officers. So 4.5 gun ammunition left after the war because it we learned what the companies, batteries and was a lousy gun and we didn’t shoot up much of troops were supposed to do, had a much better the ammunition during the war because the gun understanding of the training needs to train the wasn’t very accurate. So the school had plenty individual soldier than these people who were in of 4.5 gun ammunition to shoot. So we had two that group ahead of us. 4.5 guns. Then every battery had a dog of some (1:12:15) kind. C Battery had a 240 millimeter cannon. A TS: That really goes far in explaining why it Battery had a couple of Pack 75s. took twenty-five years, like you said, until the end 9. Louis A. Johnson (1891-1966); second US Secretary of of Vietnam, to really get to real effective change. Defense, serving in the cabinet of President Harry S. JV: And some of it was the circumstances Truman from 28 March 1949 to 19 September 1950. TS: A potpourri, it sounds like. (1:16:10) JV: Yes. We were authorized only eighty-seven men per battery, which meant that we shot every day and the cannoneers had to get up early in the morning and go and draw the ammunition for the day’s shoot. We’d go out and shoot for the school, and then on Saturdays we’d shoot our basic weapon, which was the self-propelled 155. That was the Army between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Korean War. TS: Wow! So this being best prepared for war in Korea, sounds like we were back to before World War II in thinking about, were we prepared for war when it came in December 1941. JV: We were better prepared for World War II in terms of the size of the units, the manning of the units, when Pearl Harbor came than we were for the Korean War when the Korean War came. Now when the Korean War came we were also, we were better prepared because we had an Army that was peopled with people who had fought in World War II, so they knew that. TS: The Army almost had to learn the same lessons all over again about what it needed to have as far as to be trained on to be ready to mobilize and move quickly. JV: Yes. I think there was the general feeling of “Hey, this really was the war to end all wars, and there’s no need to be prepared for another one.” TS: By June of 1950 we learned that wasn’t the case. JV: Yes. TS: At this point we’re about at our stopping point, which is one hour and eighteen minutes, and the next subject I wanted to move to is Pearl Harbor and what happens after that. So, with your permission, I’ll stop for today.

END OF INTERVIEW

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