Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years

Excerpts from a Tanker’s Story
BETWEEN THE WARS
105
On Sept. 17, 1920, a sham battle was staged over at Camp
Meade and 100,000 people came from Baltimore and
Washington by special trains to witness it. They had built
a small village and the general idea was for the old WWI
Biplanes to bomb this village, after which the tanks would
move in and clean up what remained. Our company did not
participate in these maneuvers, but we did act as an Infantry
company in keeping the crowds back off a concrete road,
carrying our Springfield rifles. The actual bombing took place
about ¾ of a mile from this road.
Everything went as scheduled at first. About halfway
through, after the village had been bombed and fires raging
everywhere, I, along with others, heard a whistling noise
coming toward us. Suddenly the crowd separated. I looked
around and about six feet from me a little boy was lying on the
ground with a huge spurt of blood going straight up from his
face. Someone goofed and shot a live shrapnel shell towards
the crowd, and a piece of it struck a man in the jugular vein
and he almost bled to death on the spot, after which it cut the
face off this little boy and on its way down from the boy, cut
several toes off another bystander. Right then and there I took
my rifle and left and went back to my headquarters. I could
have been reprimanded for this, but heard nothing until the
next day when I was ordered to appear at an inquest. First, we
went to the scene, picked up little splinters of bone, etc., and
then went to the major general commandant, and he along
with other high officers, questioned us all as to just what we
had seen. I was shaking like a leaf, especially so when I knew
By Unknown Tank Soldier
a warrant officer was taking all this down in shorthand.
Next day I read a full account of it in the Baltimore papers.
The little boy was four years old, Carl Dornbusch, from
Baltimore. Of course there were lawsuits over this awful
blunder, but I never did hear the outcome of it. This was the
first and only death I have ever witnessed. A very unpleasant
event to think about I can assure you.
Although Patton insisted on discipline, I find it hard to
believe he was as bad as the film made about him several years
ago. I do remember on one occasion we were on guard duty
at night around some WW1 ammunition dumps and he came
by to see if everything was OK. He asked the sergeant about
something and did not get a reply to his liking, so he said,
“Well, my God Sergeant, what did God give you a brain for?”
On the other hand, when Patton was transferred to Hawaii
near the end of my enlistment, we all gathered in the theatre
and he was so stricken with emotion he could hardly give his
farewell address to the troops.
***
(Left Top) 66th Infantry heavy tank training c.1937.
(Left Below) M2A2 tank maneuvers observed by community
members including small children in the field.
(Below) The Light Tank M2A2 has twin turrets, one containing a
.50-caliber machine gun and the other a .30-caliber machine gun.