Monday, April 14, 2008

Old replacements training center transformed Soldiers to engineers

With all the transformations the Fort Belvoir infrastructure has made - from camp to installation, and from an engineer post to one that houses multiple U.S. Army missions - perhaps the most important conversions to take place here were in the Soldiers who once trained here.

The mission of the Engineer Replacement Training Center during World War II was to train and convert newly inducted Soldiers into viable engineer Soldiers.

Fort Belvoir’s ERTC was the main of three centers for the Corps of Engineers. The other two were at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and Camp Abbot, Ore.

Quartered mainly on North Post, the ERTC trained more than 147,000 Soldiers to fill engineer units all over the world. The training included basic engineer and infantry training on North Post; at rifle ranges on South Post south of Theote Road and Route 1; and near Accotink Village.

The current southwest area was surrounded by ranges and used as a large impact area. Starting at Accotink, and going clockwise, were the Accotink Creek Range, the Anti-Aircraft Range, the Grenade Court, the Pig Farm Range, the Tracy Road Range, the Lorton Combat Range and the Bayliss Combat Range. The impact area was about one and three-quarter miles in diameter. Field exercises were usually held for two weeks at Fort A.P. Hill in Caroline County, Va.

Training included explosives, demolitions, bridging - both fixed and floating, rigging, carpentry, mine detection and removal, and chemical weapons. The Soldiers also learned to use the carbine, machine gun, M-1 rifle and M3A1 sub-machine gun.

Carpentry and rigging training took place in an area near what is now the Fairfax County Parkway near Accotink Village. Bridging training was conducted at Dogue Creek and at the Pontoon Basin at Gunston Cove.

In the field, Soldiers and officers carried a protective mask, a rifle, carbine or pistol, a field jacket, a steel helmet, canvas leggings, a cartridge belt with first aid pack, a canteen and a light pack.

Recently, Frank Paca, a nearby resident, contacted the History Office. Paca took basic training at Camp Abbot, and later served as a Soldier at Fort Leonard Wood with the 270th Combat Engineer Battalion of the 70th Infantry Division.

After commissioning at Officer Candidate School, he was assigned to the Fort Belvoir ERTC as a platoon leader and instructor. He served at Fort Belvoir from April 1945 to August 1946.

During his service at Belvoir, Paca took at least 280 photographs with a hard-to-obtain 35mm Leica camera. These photos form a significant record of training at Fort Belvoir during a major period of its history. Some of those photos accompany this article. The rest have now become part of the
History Office archives.