Ernest Graves
Q:
That's very short.
A:
Very short. Then we were assigned as platoon leaders in the replacement training center
for six weeks.
Q:
Where was that?
A:
One center was at Belvoir. The north post at Belvoir was the ERTC, the Engineer
Replacement Training Center. There were a number of training companies carrying the
draftees through the 12-week cycle of individual training.
The other big center of engineer training was Fort Leonard Wood [Missouri]. There
were 474 in my West Point class, of whom 54 were commissioned in the engineers.
About half of them were kept in training units at Belvoir, and half went to Leonard
Wood. That was for six weeks.
During my stay, the company to which I was assigned was in the last six weeks of the
training cycle. We did some training with mines and booby traps, then floating bridges,
then a testing period.
After that then we went down to [Camp] A. P. Hill [Virginia] for three weeks. Part of
the time we bivouacked in pup tents, and part of the time we tried to build a timber
bridge with pile bents. We didn't finish it, partly because the pile driver broke down.
The whole period at Belvoir was three months--six weeks in the officer basic course
and six weeks as a platoon leader in a training company.
Q:
So you graduated in the same month as the Normandy invasion, but it was essentially
the fall by the time you got through at Fort Belvoir.
A:
That's correct. We graduated June 6, which was Dday, and we were given 30 days of
graduation leave. I visited some old family friends on Martha's Vineyard for much of
that period.
The time at Fort Belvoir carried us through September. Lieutenant General John C. H.
Lee was the commanding general of the Communications Zone [COMZ] in Europe. He
and my father were great friends. He wrote my father that he wanted to get me over to
France as soon as possible.
I went to see General Somervell, who was the commanding general of the Army
Service Forces--another great friend of my father--and asked if I could be assigned in
Europe.
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