Camp Adair Officers 1999.012

Thanks so much for that photo. I am writing a book about my late father’s extensive service in WWII, which includes time at Camp Adair in the earliest formation period of the 104th Div. Dad was a recent OCS grad at the time (December 1942) and he wanted very much to get into action. He couldn’t wait for the long process ahead for the 104th and made repeated requests for a transfer to a unit already overseas. In June of 1943, he got his wish and was transferred to the 17th Infantry Regt., 7th Infantry Division, which at that time was serving in the Aleutians. The regiment had suffered many casualties at the battle of Attu, in May of 1943, including the loss of several junior officers. Dad stayed with the 17th Infantry through the end of the war and saw action in the Marshall Islands, Leyte in the Philippines, and Okinawa. He had been a bewildered draftee in the spring of 1941, and saw the Army from the days of horse cavalry and horse artillery, through to the atomic bombs. I love to use Colonel Waltz’s photo, with attribution of course. Dad had at least one face-to-face meeting with Waltz when Dad was drawn into a brief fist-fight with another especially belligerent lieutenant. Waltz reprimanded Dad quite sternly, fined him a hefty 100 dollars for the officers’ club fund, (a month’s pay for a second lieutenant) and then Waltz quietly admitted he wished he could have seen the fight, as the other officer was not well-liked. Waltz was a veteran of the battle at Cantigny in the first World War, one of the first actions for US troops, and his paper on the experience can be found on-line in several places.