{"id":1,"date":"1944-09-28T02:00:00","date_gmt":"1944-09-28T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/?p=1"},"modified":"2023-05-11T18:38:11","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T18:38:11","slug":"page-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/diary\/page-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Page 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thursday, 28 September 1944<\/strong> Camp Kilmer, New Jersey<\/strong>1<\/a><\/sup>Camp Kilmer was an American Army camp built in New Jersey in 1942. It served as the largest troop mobilization center in America during World War II, processing over 20 divisions for action in Europe. The camp was declared inactive in 1949, and in 2009, the camp was officially closed. \u201cCamp Kilmer,\u201d Accessed April 24, 2014. Globalsecurity.org.<\/span>
I awakened about 0630. It was just an ordinary morning, a bit on the unpleasant side, but it was also the day for which we had waited so long.\u00a0After giving the men a cheery good morning I packed my personal equipment & clothing and spent the rest of the morning checking a man here & there to see if he had snafued in any way.
We boarded our train about 1700, helped on our way by a band and a freezing drizzle, which later developed into a full-fledged rain, which lasted the rest of the day.\u00a0Arrived and took ferry to N.Y. Pier (Hudson River). Every one was carrying so much equipment.\u00a0 It seemed almost impossible to make it.
When we hit the pier, we were welcomed by a band and also by some Red Cross girls, who passed out do-nuts, coffee and candy.\u00a0We could barely see the ship which was to be our home until we touched land again.\u00a0I don\u2019t know how the others felt as they went up the gang plank, but I was as excited as a man could be without showing it.\u00a0Just as I hit the deck, the name, HMT HIGHLAND MONARCH, loomed out of the shadows, a british vessel of 15,000 tons.2<\/a><\/sup>A steel screw motorship built by Harland and Wolff of Belfast, the Highland Monarch was commissioned in 1928 for the Nelson Line. It was one of five \u201cHighland\u201d class ships and ferried Allied soldiers from America to England. It was eventually scrapped in 1960. \u201cGallery No. 39\u2014Troopships,\u201d Accessed April 24, 2014. Britisharmedforces.org <\/span> Once aboard, we were shown to our quarters, and what quarters.\u00a0Two decks below in what used to be a refrigerator room, of a fruit transport, they crowded twice as many G.I. Joes as normally would be assigned to such a space, gave us a quick lecture on safety precautions, told us how to swing hammocks and then \u201cThank God\u201d let us alone.\u00a0We weren\u2019t happy but we were tired. We soon hit the sack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday, 29 September<\/strong> HMT Highland Monarch<\/em><\/strong>
Sailed at 0430. Had run 63 miles by noon. Was awakened about 0630 by a destroyer which came [continued on next page<\/em>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, 28 September 1944 Camp Kilmer, New JerseyI awakened about 0630. It was just an ordinary morning, a bit on the unpleasant side, but it was also the day for which we had waited so long.\u00a0After giving the men a cheery good morning I packed my personal equipment & clothing and spent the rest of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2790,"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/2790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanitieslab.goucher.edu\/lest-i-forget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}