MOUNTAIN TWILIGHT

A "Between Retreat and Supper" Visit at Camp Hale

WEST OF DENVER AND NINE THOUSAND five hundred feet up in the Rockies, nearly on the Continental Divide, is Camp Hale, home of the Mountain Troops. Two main avenues run the length of the Camp, which lies in a long, thin valley with steep slopes rising on either side.

On some days in the Spring after Retreat and before supper, it isn't possible to drive the length of "A" Street. That's not because of the mud, though there is plenty of it in the valley when the snow melts above, but because you can't help meeting anywhere from five to fifty old friends, whom you may not have seen since yesterday, or a week ago, or two months ago, or even since civilian days.

The other day, just after Retreat, Percy Rideout '40, Bob Krumm '43 and I had some errand to do at the other end of camp, and we started down "A" Street in the same old battered station-wagon that I used to have in Hanover several years ago. We got as far as 15th Street and stopped for a minute to speak to Larry Jump '36 and Jack O'Connor '41, who were standing by a jeep shooting azimuth for a compass problem their company was having that night. Jump has been with the Mountain Troops since Fall, after having been captured and released by the Germans in France while he was in the American Field Service in 1940; O'Connor has recently joined us after being commissioned at Fort Benning. They asked us how things were up our way.

"Our way" was the 86th Infantry. Our personnel has come chiefly through the office of the National Ski Patrol in New York, and in every company there are men just out of their freshman and sophomore years in college, some who have finished, a few who have practiced law, others who have lived in snow country from the state of Washington to the state of Maine.

Too bad, we said, they couldn't transfer up "our way."

There is more than a jest in a soldier's bragging about his outfit. His is a pride that is touchy and serious and must be respected. When we first came to the Army they told us if we could figure we were the best in the squad, and the squad the best in the platoon, and the platoon the best in the company, then everyone knew the company was the best in the battalion, and the battalion the best in the regiment; since the regiment was the finest in the division and the division first in the land, we could figure by deduction that we were the best in the Army, and although it sounded a little corny, that was what they wanted.

Johnny Litchfield '39 came out from M.T.C. where he works on the staff in G-4 and joined us. And from across the street, fresh from Retreat Inspection, came John Rand '§B, Jake Nunnemacher '42, Lenny Woods '42, and Phil Puckner '44. They saluted and joined the group that was swelling rapidly. Conversation became general. Was it their weekend in or out? Out? Then maybe we could all get together in Aspen for a final stand before the snow left. They said the skiing was still good last weekend.

Weekend passes are available at Camp Hale—two per month, as long as you behave. Wives live in Denver, Glenwood Springs, or Colorado Springs, all between a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles away, and there are smaller towns closer by. Sweethearts are rare in the Rockies, even in springtime, but there are enough for the ambitious.

If Denver's Brown Palace or Colorado Springs' Broadmoor get too crowded on a Saturday night, there are Mt. Albert and Massive, number three and four peaks in the country, waiting nearby several thousand feet above. If only you can find a ride. For cars are scarce at Camp Hale, and rationing is severe. Trains are so irregular that the philosophical master of our local depot has come to the conclusion that he doesn't care anymore what time the trains come through so long as they are going in the right direction. One of our ranking officers complimented him the other day when a five-thirty train came through at five-thirty.

"Thank you, Sir," he said, "but that's yesterday's train."

Back on "A" Street, in front of M.T.C., the sun was down behind Holy Cross to the west, and the mud was beginning to thicken in the twilight. Only the snowfield up the long canyon at the head of the valley still caught the pink rays of the sun. Dick Rocker '33 and Lennie Landry '44 stopped for a minute on their way to supper. A column of recruits with barracks bags over their shoulders marched by reporting in—and smiling cautiously from the third rank so as not to lose step we recognized Jim Anderson '39, just inducted. We made a sign that we would see him later.

Had anyone new come in lately that we knew? Krumm told us about meeting one the other day. He was inspecting the men in his company, and stopping before one private, he asked him his name.

"Begging the lieutenant's pardon, but you ought to know, Sir. You carried my desk from College Hall to Wheeler in '39, Sir." It was Bert Anger '42.

And where was Walter Prager? He was up at Homestake Peat the other side of the Divide, someone said, testing avalanche slopes for the Winter Warfare Board. He had been there all week, vacationing from his regular job as first sergeant of the Cooper Hill Ski Detachment.

Cooper Hill is the complement to Camp Hale. It lies nearly two thousand feet higher, still in the snow belt, and straddles the Continental Divide. It is where seventyfive per cent of the ski instruction was conducted during the winter, and where it all will be conducted until the end of our season in late May or early June. After that we will take to pitons and ice-axes, forget about skis and concentrate on the summer aspects of mountain trooping. Some of us will probably not ski on Cooper Hill another year; others will.

Finally, we stopped the motor, which had been idling, and got out of the car as it became evident that whatever errand we had started on was less important than standing in front of M.T.C. in the passing parade between Retreat and supper. Brigadier General Onslow S. Rolfe, a native New Hampshire man and commander of all Mountain Troops, passed by with the G-2 of his stall, Lt. Colonel Paul Lafferty, who was one of the first to urge skiing in the Army long before the original 87th Mountain Infantry was even dreamed of in Washington. We stood at attention, and, recognizing a few of us, they stopped for a moment for a few words. This is a custom observed by all veterans of the first winter the Mountain Troops spent on Mt. Rainier in 1943. They always have a word or two when they pass each other on the street.

The General moved on, and others came and went in the dusk. Arnold Alexander '39 and Jim Cooney '38 joined us, recently back from special duty in Wisconsin.

Then there have been many who have gone to Officers' School in Georgia and come back, and some like John de la Montagne '42, Jim Barr '42 and Harry Bond '42, who are still there and will be back soon.

It began to grow dark on "A" Street, but a nucleus of ten or fifteen lingered. Others stopped for a few moments and moved on. Not all Dartmouth men, but mostly so. Charles Bradley, older brother of Dave and Steve Bradley, himself a graduate of Wisconsin, was there; also Captain Paul Townsend, of Lebanon, who led the New Hampshire ski team against us in 1941; and there were some Harvard men and Yale men who knew Hanover through Carnivals and glukwein parties in the big room above John Piani's.

We talked of mountain trooping and of common friends. Will Brown '38 had passed through Camp Hale a week or so ago, but only a few had seen him. Larry Lougee '29 was away now at some school but might be coming back; Jim Carpenter "38 also was off at school somewhere. From Fort Benning, there were rumors that Page Smith '40 and Ted Gates '40, officers at the Infantry School, were restless and might be coming out our way.

Ike Weed '40 and Ed Schecter '40 drove by in a jeep, evidently on some errand more pressing than ours. In fact, Rideout, Krumm and I had long since forgotten what we had set out to do, which being unofficial didn't matter much anyway.

Probably if we were a little sentimental, we might have admitted that what kept most of us lingering there, knowing that supper was growing cold and mess sergeants wouldn't wait on our leisure, was that we had known Balch Hill together, and the bells from 9:55 to 10:15, and the Pompanoosuc in May. But we didn't speak of these things, nor even mention Dartmouth, in fact; yet she was there nevertheless. We had come to a different mood, and our words were in different channels. We were concerned with skis and mules and pitons. We were guessing about Africa and Norway and the Italian Alps. We were more restless and more reckless than we

had ever been on a House Party weekend in Hanover.

There is no Dartmouth Club here, nor do we get together every night or every other night and sing the "Song by the Fire" over a mug of beer. We often pass each other on the street, preoccupied, and do not recognize each other, though in Hanover we were only a few years apart. But when we do meet and recognize, we are glad to see each other.

We are part of a new movement in infantry warfare that is still in the transition stage between experiment and fact. In a year and a half we have come a long way from the muddy, dark days of December, 1941, at Fort Lewis—yet not quite far enough to please some of us. There have been disappointments deeper than Spring mud and thaws. Yet we are glad to be here, would not be any place else in fact. We feel we have more inherent intelligence than possibly any other single unit in the Army, and we look forward to the time when we can turn this into battle intelligence.

What we all want, almost without exception, is to go overseas, not simply because we are restless, but because we want to try ourselves out, and because that is the place for strong, well men. And if we do not go, some of us, we will be disappointed. Meanwhile we "screw our courage to the sticking-place," and know of nothing that would suit us more than to have another twilight session at Brenner Pass.

DARTMOUTH PERSONNEL in the Mountain Troops, according to latest informa- tion, include:

First Lieutenants: Willis L. Bennett '37, Walker T. Weed '40.

Second Lieutenants: Laurence W. Lougee '29, Robert W. St. Louis '31, Laurence Jump '36, James E. Cooney '38, Alexander T. Behr '38, Alexander Jones '38, Richard Johnson '39, John Litchfield '39, Arnold Alexander '39, Joseph Schwartzman '39, Joseph J. Duncan '40, Edward Schechter '40, Harry S. Raymond '40, Percy Rideout '40, William S. Spinney '41, John J. O'Connor '41, Charles B. McLane '41, John de la Montagne '42, Harold Bond '42, James Barr '42, Robert R. Krumm '43. Staff Sergeants: Robert Hooker '30, Robert C. Niss '4O, Walter Prager. Sergeant: John Vadney '22. Corporals: John Rand '38, Wetherbee Lamson '40.

Privates first class: Richard Rocker '33, James Carpenter '38, George Boswell '39, Karl Blume '41, John Dewey '46.

Privates: Richard White '39, James Anderson '39, John Turner '40, Robert Dickson '41, Everett Lord-Wood '41, Clifton Stratton '41, Leonard Landry '44, Jacob Nunnemacher '42, David Sills '42, Leonard Woods '42, Bert Anger '42, Charles J. Webb '43, Philip Puchner '44, Frederick Chamberlin '45, Elbridge G. Davis Jr. '45, Donald dej. Cutter '45, Andrew J. Marks '45, Robert L. Allen '45, John R. Watkins '45, George M. French Jr. '45, Arvis A. Johnson Jr. '45, Donald Wales '46, Rober D. Emerson '46, Richard L. Mores '46, Peter S. Mallett '46, Sanford M. Treat Jr. '46, Richard A. Howe '46, Henry Lumbard '46.

The Editors wish to thank the members of the Mountain Troops, the U. S. Army, and Max Julian for contributing the pictures which accompany Lt. McLane's article. For further information about the activities of the Mountain Troops, read Lt. Larry Lougee's letter in 1929 Class Notes this month.—ED.

MOUNTAIN TWILIGHT Many Dartmouth Men Serving In Famous Mountain Troops

THE AUTHOR Charles B. McLane, pictured above with awalkie-talkie, has won a place for himselfamong the country's top-notch skiers. Backin 1941, when he captained the Big Greenteam, he was USEASA combined winnerand Eastern slalom champion. Followingthis success, he went to the Pan-Americanski races in Chile and helped the Americanteam bring home a victory. Late in 1941 hejoined the ski troops as a private, attendedOCS at Ft. Benning, and is now a lieuten-ant of the 86th Mt. Infantry. Below, crackinstructor of the mountain regiments isS/Sgt. Walter Prager, varsity ski coach atDartmouth from 1936 to 1941. A nativeSwiss, Prager long ago learned just aboutall there is to know about skiing and moun-taineering. Left, he teaches climbing with afull pack, and, right, he executes a rappell.

THIS IS THE ARMY, MOUNTAIN STYLE. LEFT, INSTRUCTION AT HOMESTAKE PEAK; RIGHT, DRILL IN "RIGHT ABOUT," A NEW KIND OF DRILL IN RIGHT ABOUT

THIS IS THE ARMY, MOUNTAIN STYLE. LEFT, INSTRUCTION AT HOMESTAKE PEAK; RIGHT, DRILL IN "RIGHT ABOUT," A NEW KIND OF DRILL IN RIGHT ABOUT

THIS IS THE ARMY, MOUNTAIN STYLE. LEFT, INSTRUCTION AT HOMESTAKE PEAK; RIGHT, DRILL IN "RIGHT ABOUT," A NEW KIND OF DRILL IN RIGHT ABOUT

Mt. Inf. AUS