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Isadore Levine
Isadore Levine, the journal clerk of the 915th Field Artillery Battalion (915th FA
Bn) spent most of his time sitting on the ground near the situation map in the S-2 Section
of the battalion command post (CP).
The core of the CP was the Fire Direction Center (FDC), which processed all fire
missions (shooting the howitzers), converting requests for fire and corrections after firing
had begun into commands to the firing batteries. Supervised by the S-3, a major, the FDC
comprised two officers and six to eight enlisted men, plus equipment, whose functions
and operation are described in Essay One. Generally they operated in a cramped CP tent
or a small room in a requisitioned house that left barely enough space to move around.
Adjacent to it was the S-2 Section, allotted at least as much area, but with only
three people: the S-2 (me), the operations sergeant, Technical Sergeant Johnson, and our
perennial guest, Pvt Levine. The disparity in space per person was deliberate. The FDC in
action was a tense group, operating under pressures of both time and accuracy, and they
did not need any outsiders wandering in among them, bumping into the firing chart tables
and distracting the (human) computors. The S-2 Section was more relaxed and
hospitable, open to anyone who wanted to come in and look over the situation map, get
briefed on what was going on, or merely hang out. Our chronically underemployed
battalion surgeon, Lt. Davis, MD, spent considerable time in the S-2 Section.
Pvt Levine was a sort of afterthought. At the time we hit the beach, no one had
thought of our needing a journal clerk. I knew that there was such a thing: on visits to the
359th Infantry CP I had seen Lt Col Darlington, the old-maidish regimental executive,
point to the clerk and cry out, "Get that in the journal!" whenever anything of the
remotest interest happened, but I had only found it mildly amusing. I had trouble
believing in the importance of things like the exact times the regimental commander or
even some insignificant visitor like me arrived and left. Let alone the precise moment the
telephone line to the Third Battalion stopped operating.
But that was before our battalion commander, Colonel Costain, was killed. His
unexpected death left our CP in a state of high crisis for a couple of days: the S-3, Major
Swatosh, was the senior officer, but he was green and indecisive; the exec, Captain
Myers, had only been on the job two days himself. Everything kind of ran on automatic
pilot with no one in clear charge and no record of who had done what and when, as we
discovered later when trying to piece together a report on Costain's death. Then Major
Peach arrived, took over with a firm hand, and immediately realized that we needed a
journal clerk.
About the same time, Pvt. Isadore Levine appeared. He was eighteen or nineteen,
tall, thin, and bookish, with dark eyes and a pale face. He carried his M-l rifle awkwardly,
and he was scared and confused even more than the rest of us. He had been drafted after
graduation from high school, put through basic infantry training, and shipped to the
combat zone as a replacement. He was one of several we received to replace men who
had been wounded.
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