- Joined
- Jul 11, 2004
- Messages
- 1,830
I enlisted 55 years ago & am aware of the almost total restructuring of our units. Then,each division had 3 regiments,each regiment was broken down into 3 battalions. Each battalion had an H&S company ,3 infantry companies & 1 heavy weapons company. There was an artillery & tank unit attached to each regiment. A chemical unit was included .
Our alphabet ran,able ,baker,charlie,dog,easy,fox,george how,item [no j ] king love & mike. [ & on to zebra ] Companies were named using that sequence. Dog ,how & mike were heavy weapons.
I wound up commo chief in mike. we had an 81MM mortar platoon , a recolliess rife [ 75 & 105 ] platoon & a machine gun platoon ranging from the .30 A-4 's, A-6 's to the .50's.
We were pretty much mounted because of our very heavy,awkward weapons, The recoilless rifles were jeep mounted as were the .50's. these weapons could be quickly converted to ground emplacements.
When we returned to Japan to refurbish & train the draftees, we were issued better equipment. Initally ,we had AM radios & a few FM sets. both were great but both had weak points. We had about a dozen hand & 6 or 8 backpacks . the large ones were for platoon leaders & headquarters. We had about a dozen EE-8's [ Crank ] & about the same # of sound powered phones. A crank powered [ring ] & a manual back upswitchboard & about 20 miles of wire was our commo equipment.
We had M-1's for some squad members, carbines & .45's for gun servers. I believe our drivers had grease guns .
Would anyone care to bring me up to date ? I am sure of a few mistakes & omissions in this but I never said I was smart, just determined .
Uncle Alan :thumbup:
Our alphabet ran,able ,baker,charlie,dog,easy,fox,george how,item [no j ] king love & mike. [ & on to zebra ] Companies were named using that sequence. Dog ,how & mike were heavy weapons.
I wound up commo chief in mike. we had an 81MM mortar platoon , a recolliess rife [ 75 & 105 ] platoon & a machine gun platoon ranging from the .30 A-4 's, A-6 's to the .50's.
We were pretty much mounted because of our very heavy,awkward weapons, The recoilless rifles were jeep mounted as were the .50's. these weapons could be quickly converted to ground emplacements.
When we returned to Japan to refurbish & train the draftees, we were issued better equipment. Initally ,we had AM radios & a few FM sets. both were great but both had weak points. We had about a dozen hand & 6 or 8 backpacks . the large ones were for platoon leaders & headquarters. We had about a dozen EE-8's [ Crank ] & about the same # of sound powered phones. A crank powered [ring ] & a manual back upswitchboard & about 20 miles of wire was our commo equipment.
We had M-1's for some squad members, carbines & .45's for gun servers. I believe our drivers had grease guns .
Would anyone care to bring me up to date ? I am sure of a few mistakes & omissions in this but I never said I was smart, just determined .
Uncle Alan :thumbup: