We arrived at Eustis September 16, 1922.
I was assigned as Executive Officer in the 52nd Coast Artillery (Railway) Regiment, equipped with 8" Railway guns.
The system of Fire Control used by the Railway Artillery during the War and then still in use, was very slow, it being necessary to rest the Plotting Board for data for each separate gun in the Battery. There were some bright young officers in the Regiment, and I got them interested in the development of a new system of Fire Control, quite similar to that I had used while in the Field Artillery, in which only one deflection was set up on the Plotting Board, it being corrected by a convergence correction applied to the individual guns of the Battery, the issue sights being modified by us to enable this to be done. The modified sight was later adopted by the Ordnance Department as standard.
We were assigned quarters in one end of a war time hospital (of temporary construction), which had been converted into two officer's quarters, Beaver board partitions having been installed to divide the area into rooms. None of the walls were painted. I hired several soldiers to help me paint them (after hours), and in about two months we were quite comfortably settled. I recall that about the last thing needed to be done was to hang curtains on the enclosed porch, which had seventeen windows, and your grandmother had gone, with Mrs. Cloke (the wife of the Commanding Officer, Camp Eustis) to Newport News one afternoon to buy the necessary curtain material. During the preceding years, since our marriage, we had had household effects stored in four or five different warehouses, and feeling that at last we could expect to be settled long enough to use them to advantage, I had had them shipped to me at Camp Eustis. They arrived the afternoon that your grandmother went shopping for the curtains, and upon her return we worked until late that night unpacking the various boxes and barrels (with much wonder and anticipation as to what the next one might contain), and then I carried them all out and left them on the lawn for the Provost Sergeant to pick up next day.
Upon reaching my office the next morning I found awaiting me a telegram relieving me from duty at Camp Eustis in time to sail for the Panama Canal Department on the transport leaving New York in about ten days. (I was later told that this sudden move was due to the fact that, under the new Class B procedure, a major in Panama had just been Class B'd and relieved from duty and a replacement for him had become necessary.) I telephoned the Provost Sergeant not to pick up the empty containers, and we worked until late that night repacking the barrels and boxes we had so gleefully unpacked the night before. I think this probably established a record of some kind -- but of what kind I am not altogether sure.
The Quartermaster told me that if I could turn all the household goods over to him by a certain date, he was confident they could reach the Port of Embarkation in time for shipment to Panama with us. We worked with the packing detail nearly all day and night for several days, and met the date line.
We left Eustis on November 22nd, 1922, and arrived at the pier the day before the transport was to sail, and, after much tracing of cars by the railroads, we found that all our furniture was then in a railroad yard in Philadelphia and that it could not possibly be shipped on the transport. We were assured however that it would be shipped on the next transport, about a month later.
When I got aboard the transport I received orders detailing me as Commanding Officer of Troops. I had never been on a transport before and I had very little idea as to what the duties of the Commanding Officer of Troops consisted of. I found that there was no office space, and in fact no desk, on board set aside for him, and there was no copy of any orders of the previous Troop Commanders, and no copy of any Army Regulations or Transport Regulations available for his use. I learned that the troops consisted of some 300 recruits, with no company or other organization. For the first three days out of New York it was so rough that all the recruits, who were in the hold, were thoroughly and unqualifiedly sick and never appeared on deck. The job of cleaning up the hold, organizing the troops, feeding them, preparing the necessary papers required to effect their assignments on arrival did not leave me much time to get sick -- or, I am afraid, to be of much value as what is nowaday known as a baby sitter.
I may add that, as a result of the Report which I submitted upon completion of the voyage, the QM Department was directed to provide suitable office space, publications, etc. for the Commanding Officers of Troops on transports. I took about half a dozen trips later on transports, and I believe I was in command of troops each time. The provisions made for the Commanding Officer of Troops were certainly much better than those existing on my first trip.