It was a big day at Camp Mackall when personal weapons arrived, although everyone hated the cosmoline they came packaged in.
Here HQ2-511's S/SGT George E. Sharp of San Francisco, California holds a .45 Thompson submachine gun, a weapon that would become a prized ally (despite its weight) in the city and pillbox clearing efforts to come on Luzon in 1945.
The boys of the 511th PIR enjoyed Camp Mackall's superior facilities when not out on several-day bivouacs or long marches. Out of 12,000 volunteers, only 2,176 remained, having passed (i.e. survived) Colonel Orin Haugen's strict acceptance guidelines. At Mackall the soldiers practiced field problems and got to know the other units in their mother organization, the 11th Airborne Division under Major-General Joseph May Swing.
