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Upstarts
It took some time, but eventually the wire crews who converged on the scene got
everything connected again and Browne" was relieved by T/4 Amos Davis (no relation to
Joe B. Davis) so that he could go to the aid station to get checked out. He was all right
and back for duty the same day.
Our switchboard answered to the name of Upstart. It had lines to Universe (Div
Arty), Unique (359th Infantry), and Undo Dog or Mayfair First Dog. Also to Upstart
Able, Upstart Baker, and Upstart Charley, the three firing battery switchboards. Service
Battery rarely rated a telephone line; they located farther back, so they could be between
us and the supply points, and communicated by radio or personal contact.
[On one of the few occasion when we did run them a line, Lt Greak, the battalion
motor officer, radioed for help because his phone wouldn't work. A wire crew checked
the whole length of the line before they found the problem - the wire was not connected
to the terminals of the telephone. "Shit, lad, " said Lt Greak, using his favorite expletive,
"I'm in Service Battery. How do you expect me to know all this technical stuff?"
He did know all about maintaining vehicles, though, and he had courage. Later,
when we were attacking the Siegfried Line, someone spotted a GI truck knocked out by
enemy fire in from of our own front lines.
After dark, Greak took the battalion wrecker and crew out to the truck, hooked
onto it, hauled it back in and fixed it so it worked again.]
But back to the switchboard. There were a lot of "local" lines: to the fire direction
center (FDC), the S-2 (Upstart 2), the executive (Upstart 5), and the Communications
Officer (Upstart 10, pronounced one zero) and a few others.
And then there were the lines that went forward to our representatives with the
infantry. The Upstart switchboard had a line to each of the three liaison officers. The
firing batteries maintained the lines to their forward observers, three per battery. That
added up to a dozen long lines, each expensive in wire and manpower, all going up in the
same general direction.
Then, during the first month in combat, some genius had a brainstorm. I'm not
sure who it was, but Capt "Jake" Jacobs, the communications officer (ComO), recognized
a good idea when he saw one, and he instituted the forward switchboard, designated
Upstart Forward. He would pick a spot somewhere in the middle of our zone and as far
forward as safety permitted, and established a switchboard with several lines, three or
four, I believe, between it and the main one. Then all the liaison officer (LnO) and
forward observer (FO) crews had only to lay wire from it to their own locations, saving a
lot of time and effort for everyone.
So, for the rest of the war, if I wanted to talk to Lt Wagner, a C Battery FO, the
call would be routed through Upstart Forward instead of Upstart Charley. And nothing
had better happen to the Upstart Forward switchboard.
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