Troop Train Trip

A special correspondent of the New York Times described our trip in a special dispatch to his paper in highly dramatic language which looked thrilling in print and made heroes of us, but the real story does not make such good copy.

January 14th found us in Tlemcen station waiting for our "Pullman" to arrive. While awaiting our transportation, we had an opportunity to observe the famous "40 and 8" railway cars which the French made popular during the last war. However, this time, the cars were filled only with soldiers, mostly Arabs -- filthy, poorly clothed, unfed. Our train arrived and we climbed aboard. We had first class accommodations for our eventful trip. The passenger cars were similar to those we used in England, with small compartments seating eight persons. This time, six of us were assigned to each compartment. And in addition, into each compartment were pushed barracks bags, field packs, gas masks, hand bags and other military and civilian paraphernalia. Needless to say, our sleeping quarters weren't the most comfortable in the world. A general description of our bedroom compartment follows: Soldier A slept with his head on one seat, his body slung across a barracks bag on the floor and his feet on the opposite seat; Soldier B slept doubled up on the remainder of the first seat; Soldier C did the same on the opposite seat; Soldiers D and E slept high on the baggage side of the racks close to the ceiling with their feet dangling over the side of the rack or out the window; Soldier F was the most comfortable of all, he sleeping on the floor, or that part of the floor which wasn't occupied by baggage. If, during the night, any one of those wished to answer the call of nature, five other soldiers had to be awakened and forced to accompany him out of the compartment. Needless to say, after the first night, all calls of nature were answered by the $64 question before we went to sleep.

Our trip really was thrilling. The train averages about five miles per hour downhill, and often we would travel a few miles and then wait on a side-track for some cattle car to pass. Five hundred miles in five days might have been enjoyable to those ancient Arabs of Algeria but it seemed just a bit too slow to boys anxiously going to the front. This one-track railway was the main artery of supply during the entire North African campaign.

Leaving Tlemcen, the train climbed up into the Atlas Mountains overlooking the steep canyons, magnificent waterfalls and beautiful landscape of the only picturesque spot in North Africa. These scenes reminded us of the Rocky Mountains in the states. We bypassed Oran, traveled across the plains of Algeria through Sidi bel Abbes, Setif, Algiers and finally Constantine. Every time the train stopped, which was more often than Mrs. Roosevelt's stopovers, we were besieged by men, women and children with their usual cry, "bon bon, shokolot, souvenir". The tangerine and date stands did a land office business at these stopovers. At first, our kitchen prepared the meals, but because of a lack of a definite schedule and a temperamental motorman, we were forced to eat most of our meals out of G.I. cans. Breakfast, dinner and supper consisted of corned beef, salmon, hard tack, spam and water, all cold. The main sport of the boys on board were card games, letter-writing and whistling at the gals whom we passed. (We knew that General Lear wasn't in the vicinity).

At 1 A.M. on January 18th, we arrived on Constantine, and after receiving directions to our bivouac area, we hiked under a romantically full moon, through the streets of Constantine and three miles up into the hills, were we set up the nurses' tents and put them to bed before we fell on our own blankets at 4 A.M.

When we awoke early the next morning, we were pleasantly surprised to see that we were bivouacked high in the hills above the city. The town itself is situated on two very steep hills separated by a deep ravine, 700 feet above the swirling river below. Built in honor of the great Roman emperor, Constantine was a dirty town although it must have been quite beautiful before the war. Although a prosperous town during peacetime, it was devoid of anything to purchase, another grim reminded that our German "komerads" had been there before.

A great privilege was bestowed upon the members of the 9th Evac by the commanding officer of the French garrison stationed there. We were permitted to take a shower in their barracks. This consisted of "soaping" for two minutes and "washing down" for another two.

Our stay in Constantine was short and soon we were on our way by truck convoy to our sector for front line duty, after being warned to be on the alert for enemy planes which were scheduled to attack us. As usual, the trip was uneventful and we arrived at our assigned location, Tebessa, an old Arab town, the site of an ancient Roman civilization, about twenty miles from the Tunisian border. We pitched our tents high in the hills and camouflaged everything but the trees themselves while waiting for the "go ahead" signal to pick a site and go to work. It didn't take long because two days later, we were putting up our first hospital, the first evacuation unit to set up for the Tunisian campaign. The Ninth Evac finally was at work.