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SOLDIERS AS REPLACEMENTSReplacement Depots FaceBrushing Up In Theater%(One of tke most persistent gripes, according to the letters received op our Mail Call editor, has been the repple depples. The Stars andstripes assigned a reporter to cover the replacement depots. Hisseries of six articles tells you ivhat he has found and what steps have been taken to remedy the situation.)By Cpl. ED HOGANStaff Correspondent The much-maligned replacement depot has dug itself out ofthe mud and an honest effort is being made to give a new meaning to unassigned,” once a synonym for unhappy.Most GIs remember their association with the ’’repple depple”as the low point in their Army life and for good reason. It was not at all unusual to linger in one for many months awaiting assignnient. Overcrowding was the rule rather than the exception. Men were dumped together ‘regarcuess 01 tneir arm or serviceor their military occupational specialty and everyone took the same training.Harried cadres worked long hourstrying to bring some semblance ororder into conditions which at bestwere near chaotic. The strain made many of them irritable and the irritation was passed on to the replacement.As a result, the man moving into the theater, fresh from an outfit in which he was an integral part,became a confused and hurt animal. He resented the depot; he resented the U. S. Army.But more dangerous than this resentment was the new attitude creeping into him: He was slowly beginning to feel resentment toward the country whose uniform he wore.The faults of the replacement system which fathered this attitude resulted from the development of a completely new operation at a time when combat requirements took precedence over everything else in the Army. Because there never was anything like it in the past history of the U. S. Army fromwhich valuable operational lessons(Continued on page 8)American 1 sf ArmyBegins New DriveIbout War14th Vets Say;k foisieespondentfor most of them when instead of getting only a month at home thev received 45 days—the first 30 days for ’’recuperation and rehabilitation, then back to camp, then an-At Ayt 1C ____SHAEF, Dec. 10—As 3rd Armj forces met with stiffening resistance on their drive into the Saai Basin, American 1st Army troops to the east of Aachen launcheca new attack at dawn this morning intended to clear the Nazk from the west bank of the lowei Roer River.A number of small villages wen occupied in the early stages of the attack which was carried out ovei ground covered with several inche! of snow.Meanwhile, tanks and tank de-troyers were moved into the'actioreast of the Saar River by the 3rc Army forces closing in on a great arc on the industrial city of Saar-brucken. Additional crossings of theSaar were made and elements of Lt Gen. George S. Patton’s were within three miles of Saarbrucker from the west, four miles from the southeast and five miles from the south.At the northern end of the Saa arc, heavy fighting was going inside the main defenses of Siegfried Line and street fightir was in progress at Dillingen, tv miles to the north of the fortre town of MerzigTactical aircraft were operatii in close support of the ground fo: ces now in action at eight bridgi heads across the Saar. The hea^ guns of Allied artillery continue to blast away at Saarbrucken i conjunction with the planes.On the right flank of the(Continued on page 8)
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Rome Stars and Stripes
Roby, Missouri, US
Mon, Dec 11, 1944
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MA, USA 04 Jun 2021
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