AWOL from North Carolina

Jack clowns around at Camp Davis, NC, with his newly issued rifle.

With maneuvers completed, the 474^th left its half-tracks behind and moved to Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, NC. At that time, this fort was one of the oldest posts in the Army and, according to The Maverick Outfit, one of the prettiest:

Green-painted 15-men barracks are scattered at right angles among the pine trees, with the battery kitchen and latrine in the midst of the battery area. Highway 241 went through the camp in back of the beach, and sandy roads branch off and meander through the area. It’s like a vast picnic grove…The fort dated back to the Civil War; in fact, a sign down the road said, “Fort Fisher—Built by the Confederacy.” It fell in 1865 to the Union Army. At one time, it cut off Wilmington and was the last port for blockade running.⁴

Jack doesn’t remember much about Fort Fisher other than it was near the ocean, so there was a lot of sand. His general impressions of the camp, though, were quite different from those already related. “The barracks were older than the Porter farm. Too bad they weren’t destroyed during the Civil War.”

The Porter farm, of course, was where his wife, Wilma, was raised near Dayton, PA. Those who visited the farm in the 1950s and 60s will have a clear picture of how Fort Fisher must have appeared to Jack. And Jack, when he first saw the Porter farm in the late 1940s, must have been taken back to the old Confederate fort for a few scary moments.

Thankfully, the stay at Fort Fisher was brief, and on Dec. 5, 1943, the 474^th was moved to Camp Davis, NC, where the men were finally issued rifles. Jack doesn’t remember being too busy at Camp Davis. A lot of the guys went on furlough then, including Jack and his buddy, Ray Bilicki.

Both had three-day passes at Christmastime, nowhere near enough time to get them from North Carolina to Pennsylvania and back. But, Jack says, Ray wanted to go home for Christmas and talked him into going along. Ray turned his three-day leave into nine days, and Jack stretched his to 10. They kept making up three-day passes in the event they got stopped as they hitchhiked home and then back to camp.

Not only did Jack not get stopped, but “when I was nearing Camp Davis on my return I was given a ride by a 2^nd lieutenant driving an Army recon car. Just before we got to the gate he asked me if I had a pass, and I told him I did. He said, ‘OK, you won’t have to show it when we pass the gate. I’ll just show my trip papers.’ I gave him a big salute when he dropped me off in front of my battery headquarters.”

Under the circumstances, punishment for being AWOL—absent without official leave—was the offender’s choice of courts martial or battery punishment. Ray, who returned the day before Jack, was already serving battery punishment, which had to be administered within 24 hours. Jack appeared before the battery commander the morning after returning and also chose battery punishment. He then went on sick call with an acute sore throat (tonsillitis) and ended up in the camp hospital. He never did have to serve the battery punishment.