What a Company Officer Should Know, by Col. John C. McArthur, N.A. ( small HC, with 8 pages double printed, thereby lowering the price to only $3) Per the front page this book was once owned by Rudolph Davenport, of Troop "H", of the 312th Calvary, stationed in Fort Sheridan.
When America entered WWI, few men had military experience. Yet railroad car after railroad car would unload men at temporary tent camps. The company officer had to organize the men, determine who the noncommissioned officers would be, set up camp, set the rules, and get everyone trained to fight.
A Company Officer had to make sure his men learned a lot of stuff. When to get up, and when to go to sleep. Where to get rags to clean out gun oil, when the company cook won't let you use his flour bags. How to shoot muskets and machine guns. How to practice bayonet thrusts without hurting anyone. How to march. How to keep your feet in good shape (by wearing wool socks and not taking off your shoes.) How to deal with the heat (by not drinking too much water, and by sucking on a pebble). Where to urinate, and where not to. Where to spit, and were not to. How to deal with bad weather.
Of course there was training in trench warfare:
"Outlining of various lines of main, communicating, and special purpose trenches; actual construction of small sections and occupation of same; bomb throwing at dummy targets from trenches and in simulated advance on same. Laying out and construction of obstacles, particularly barbed wire entanglements, and advance through same; use of periscope, steel helmets, gas masks, and other requisites to moderns war."
And a good company officer must be able to get his men to do all this and remain cheerful. (Huh?)
I liked the plethora of forms at the book's end. There are more than 75 pages of them. Indeed, what good is an army without its forms!
Look for this book on the new non-fiction table. (L-mh)
