Company D and The Old Man

When Company D awoke one morning last week, night rain had streaked the canvas tents, soaked the company street, filled the water buckets that hung on pine rails before each tent. The men were pleased: whatever winter, mud and the Army might inflict on them that day, they would not have to contend with choking Georgia dust when they paraded their tanks past The Old Man.

The Old Man was Major General George S. Patton Jr., 55, commander of the Second Armored Division at Fort Benning. His rank kept him remote from the men of Company D, 68th Armored Regiment (Light). Yet, to all of them, The Old Man was as near and real as the pine bark on the outer walls of their makeshift mess hall. Like God (they said) he had the damndest way of showing up when things went wrong. Unlike God, he had been known to dash leglong into a creek, get a stalled tank and its wretched crew out of the water and back into the line of march, practically by the power of his curses. Last week Company D prayed that none of its tanks, on this, of all days, should lay an egg before The Old Man.

It was a big day for the whole division. General Patton had ordered his 10,000 men and officers, his 1,200 vehicles (tanks, scout cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc.) to put on the division's first full review since the Second was created last July. Purpose: to see how men, officers, materiel showed up in a big maneuver. For Company D and its tall, popular commander, Major Leo F. Kengla Jr., the day was more than big: it seemed to mark the end of the old Company D.

No tyro collection, Company D's men originally were all Regular Army tankers. Many of its veterans had served two, three and even four enlistments. But, by last week, Company D had few veterans left. Some of the company's best men had been shifted to schools for rookies, or to new companies, or to the First Armored Division at Fort Knox, Ky. Still more had been ordered to report to the Third and Fourth Armored Divisions, now being organized. This dispersion was inevitable in the expanding new Army; but this knowledge did not comfort Company D's old men, to whom "the company'' was family, home, the Army itself. Major Kengla had just been promoted from captain, ordered to duty as a battalion executive. A mere lieutenant had been given command of Company D. The day of The Old Man's review was Major Kengla's last day in the company command.

Staff Sergeant Aeuhl E. Pullen stood erect in his long, speckled Army underwear. Over this formidable garment he pulled khaki trousers, skin-tight below the knee, a regulation khaki tunic. He wore no leggings, left an expanse of white sock showing between his trousers and Army shoes. Over all he yanked dun dungarees and a warm canvas jacket, spotted with grease. On his head he set a heavy, padded leather helmet--the tankers' standard headgear. Around his neck he reluctantly strung a new gadget much hated by the Armored Force: a recently designed dust-mask, undoubtedly useful for preventing silicosis, but in Company D parlance a goddam nuisance after hours of heavy nose-pinching.

Sergeant Pullen, who rated the title of "tank commander," bore himself with appropriate dignity. Five years in the tanks had taught him all there was to know about them. "A good man, one of the best," his company commander called him (behind his back).

Sergeant Pullen's tank looked just like the eight other light tanks in Company D: a squat, 27,000-lb monstrosity of one-inch armor, five guns, a single turret, a 250-h.p. radial engine, gasoline tankage for about 70 miles of combat operation at 10-35 m.p.h. It was painted a dirty brown. It was not beautiful in any sense. When Sergeant Pullen tried to put his feeling for his tank into words, he would say with passion that he would feel like beating in the face of anybody who tried to take his tank. He alone knew precisely the right touch for the starter button on that particular engine, the feel of those particular gears, the tension of the tracks and bogie wheels (which keep the tank treads in line). Since his post, as tank commander, was in the turret and not at the steering levers when the tank was running, he had to impart this intimate information to a succession of new drivers. But he could never quite believe that anybody else could ever get to know his tank.P: A cold, damp wind swept Fort Benning when Sergeant Pullen's tank rumbled into line with the rest of Company D and the 68th Armored Regiment. Company D was well back in the regimental column. The Old Man, with the visiting generals and civilians around him near the reviewing tower, was an indistinguishable blob to Sergeant Pullen and his men. An officer's indeterminate bellow floated down the wind. Sergeant Pullen and his three-man crew took their places in front of the tank. Their gloved hands rose to the salute, held it for three aching minutes. A band blared.

A tank, detached from the rest, belched away from the reviewing stand, and jounced importantly around the field. That was The Old Man's tank.

Splendidly ringed with red, white & blue stripes around the turret, The Old Man's tank roared past a regiment of truck-borne infantry; past 300 motorcyclists; past truck-towed, 37-mm. antitank guns (see cut); past the motor-drawn field artillery; finally veered toward the tank regiments. As he passed the 68th, The Old Man was a barely visible projection above the turret of his tank. His tank whirled, spat back to the reviewing stand. Company D relaxed.

An order rang down the 68th's columns: "Turn 'em over!" Sergeant Pullen and his crew leaped into their tank. He ordered the driver out of his seat on the left side, took the controls himself. When a tank is buttoned up (i.e., the turret top and ports are closed) the driver's only vision is through two tiny (one-inch by four-inch) slits in the inch-thick armor. Peering through the main gun port, the tank commander in the turret actually guides the tank by varying foot signals to the driver (to start, a light kick in the back; to stop, a steady pressure on the head). Today Sergeant Pullen scorned the foot signals, drove the tank solely with his microscopic vision through the armor slits.

At his touch on the starter, the motor roared, then settled into a gentle rumble. The odor of warm oil, warm metal filled the crowded tank; then the steady, rhythmic, lulling scrunch of the gears. Behind the motorized infantry, the motorcyclists, the trim anti-tank guns, the 68th moved into line, went past The Old Man at 20 m.p.h. Sergeant Pullen drove like a virtuoso, keeping his tank dressed with the four others on his left, watching the field for holes or stumps which would give him and his men a bashing blow against the steel walls.

Suddenly the column stopped; the 68th, safely past The Old Man, had turned into a wood. "Dismount!" Sergeant Pullen and his men took a quick snack of sandwiches and apples, remounted, ran peacefully back to Company D's tank park. In column-of-three, the tanks edged precisely into place, each centred over a white stake. Major Kengla repaired to the orderly tent, saw that his men had hot coffee and a delayed lunch. He fidgeted. Everybody in Company D fidgeted. Sergeants made up excuses to drift into the orderly room, drifted out unsatisfied. Then the word came, first t'6 Major Kengla, and then to the company:

"The Old Man liked the tanks!"

The grey day seemed to break. Major Kengla whistled softly to himself. The men of Company D talked loud and merrily in the mess hall. Suddenly even the new lieutenant--an earnest young man in gleaming -boots and protruding spectacles --did not look wholly helpless. There was still life in Company D.

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