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PAGE TWO
THREE COMPANY A INSTRUCTORS OF COMMUNICATIONS
SECTION. THE INFANTRY SCHOOL. PHOTOGRAPHED WHILE GIV
ING LECTURES ON RADIO SETS. (Left) T. SGT. HERBERT SOMER
SON DEMONSTRATES TUNING BY MEANS OF A MODEL OF A FRE-
At Work With The Academic Regiment (10): —
Communications In Combat
Taught By A Co. Non-Coms
The Company A non-commissioned officers who staff
( osmoi imitations Section of The Infantry School are respon
sible for training communications experts and officers for
combat Infantry regiments. Their work is divided among
three large groups of instructors and technicians—the Wire
and Message Center. Radio, and
Tactical Committees Their main । equipment is needed for almost
job * to teach the Enlisted Coni
muMieations, Officers Communi
cations and Enlisted Radio Re
pair Courses In addition the
Section gives brief periods of
instruction to officer candidates,
basic and advanced officers clas
ses
Housed in a large group of
buildings on the Main Post, the
Section holds its classes in mod
ern lecture halls and laborato
ries, using the latest technical
equipment and educational de
vices. including hundreds of
large cutaway models, charts and
other visual aids In one build
ing alone, it is estimated that
half a million dollars worth of
SGT. ROBERT POWERS (left) AND M. SGT. WAL
lace Thornell in the wire shop of the Wire Committee, Com
munications Section. (Official U. S. Army Photo—The In
fantry School.)
daily use
The enlisted students, who are
sent from line outfits on detach
ed service, are picked for their
high code aptitude or because
of civilian communications ex
perience. Since the Section is
an “advanced service school,"
all enlisted students sent there
are automatically made at least
privates first class, and may lose
their ratings if they fail to pass
the course.
Most of the commissioned stu
dents have been chosen as com
munications officers for their
permanent outfits, and they also
return to their regiments at the
close of the three months' course
REGIMENTAL MIRROR
QUENCY METER. (Center) S. SGT. SHERWOOD RICHARDSON LEC
TURING AT THE BLACKBOARD. (Right) S SGT. PAUL VANIMAN
INSTRUCTING ON A MODEL OF THE "BIG” INFANTRY RADIO SET.
'Official U. S Armv Photos—The Infantry School.i
A few OCC students, especially
those with previous communica
tions experience, come straight
from OCS.
The course which the enlisted
students take varies greatly with
the Officers Communications
Course. Since the enlisted men
are being trained as field opera
tors or radio chiefs, their studies
emphasize code speed, with 13
words per minute as the min
imum requirement for gradua
tion after 216 hours of practice.
Officers, however, will be re
sponsible in the field for the
tactical angle of communications,
and so they need attain a code
speed of only eight words per
minute after JO hours of prac
tice, while spending most of their
time in wire communication and
tactics, of which the enlisted
men need little.
TEACH WIRE LAYING
Approximately thirty men of
A Company work in the Wire
and Message Center Committee.
Covering such physics theory as
magnetism and electricity, they
teach the proper laying and spli
cing of wire, the functioning of
telephones and telegraphs, the
operation of switchboards, and
the best way of climbing com
munications poles. During the
course of instruction the Aca
demics and their students grad
ually build up to combat dis
tances, teaching the proper way
to move forward without losing
contact with the outposts and
rear command posts.
Nearly all of the instructors
in wire (except the key men)
are selectees, who have learn
ed in the Army most of what
they know about communica
tions. Almost all of them, how
ever, have been picked for
their jobs because of their ex
perience in c«lian Jife with
power companiS, public utilities
or allied industries.
The ranking non-com of the
committee is M. Sgt. Wallace
Thornell, who is in charge of
wire equipment and heads all the
enlisted personnel. The chief
enlisted instructor is M. Sgt.
Luther Sharpe, who has as assis
tant chiefs T. Sgt Stanley Dut-
'4'* *
SGT RYAN HALLORAN, RADIO SETS COMMIT
tee, Communications Section, operating the newest (fre
quency modulation) Infantry radio set. (Official U. S. Army
Signal Corps Photo • )
terer and S. Sgt. Gray Ruther
ford.
DESIGN VISUAL AIDS
All of the instructors coop
erate in designing visual aids
Finished charts are painted by
the Reproduction Plant, but the
working models used to illus
trate lectures are made in the
wire shop by Sgt. Robert P. Pow
ers, who is called by his fellow
workers "one of the finest me
chanics on the post ” One of his
Thursday, March 23. 1944
best devices is a large model tel
egraph instrument showing by
means of lights the circuits that
are actually in use. Another
small piece of standard equip
merit, the generator, which act
ually is only inches high, has
been enlarged 80 times in one of
Sgt. Powers’ models.
The wire shop not only makes
most of the visual aid material
used for teaching,'but it main-
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