“Camp Upton, Nov. 23 — A scarcity of luggage and a modicum of common sense and co-operative spirit will enable Brooklyn and Long Island draftees, beginning next week, to take up Army routing at this reception center with a high degree of military precision.

“‘Tell the boys to come light,’ advised Maj. Howard C. Bernizer, who yesterday utilized the services of a number of officers and enlisted men in staging a dry run, or dress rehearsal of a draftee’s first day in camp, for the benefit of news-gatherers.

“‘We have no room for luggage or musical instruments or any excess baggage,’ asserted the major, providing the recruits-to-be with some measure of hope for the future, however, by adding that they may be allowed to load up when assigned to permanent quarters.

Schedule for Draftees

“According to the schedule followed in the rehearsal, the draftees, who, of course, will arrive here as full-fledged, physically-examined soldiers, will merely submit their draft papers and be briefly checked over for cleanliness before tasting Army grub.

“After dining on roast beef, mashed potatoes, etc., they will hear a reading of the Articles of War, summarizing military law, and lectures on morale by the medical officer, line officer and chaplain, in addition to rates for Army life insurance.

“Then will come arrangements concerning allotment, if any, of their $21-a-month salary checks, following which the draftees, still in mufti, will be sent, in groups of six, to winterized wall tents, where lights will go off at 10:45 p.m and taps sound at 11.

Reveille at 6:30 a.m.

“In the tents each recruit will find an iron cot with springs all made up for him with four woolen blankets, a feather pillow and cotton mattress, and receive toilet kits equipped with a razor, comb, toothbrush, shaving brush, two face towels and a bath towel.

“Reveille will be at 6:30 a.m., whereupon the draftees will wash and shave, breakfast on cereal, fruit juice, bacon and eggs, and head back to the reception shack to obtain aluminum identification tags bearing their names and Army numbers and identifying their next of kin. A symbol for their blood type will be added later. “Officers in private booths will then interview the newcomers in order to determine the assignment that will best suit them, the questioning constituting the final preliminary to the exchange of mufti for the following Army wardrobe:

Miladdie’s Wardrobe

“Two fatigue shirts of blue denim, one overcoat, one oilskin raincoat, a blouse or small coat, two black neckties, two flannel olive drab shirts, canvas leggings, two pairs of long woolen olive drab trousers, two pairs of tan field shoes, four white handkerchiefs, a web belt, four pairs of short cotton underwear, a blue barracks bag, two blue denim fatigue hats, one overseas cap, one winter helmet, two U.S. collar ornaments and one pair of woolen gloves.

“The draftees, who will wind up the receptive routine by being inoculated against typhoid and paratyphoid and vaccinated against smallpox, will be given weapons and ammunition at the permanent center to which they will be sent about three or four days after arriving here.�

Camp Upton: WW I and WW II

Yaphank is a little town out on Long Island, roughly 50 miles from Brooklyn. Just northeast of the town 10,000 acres of uninhabited mosquito-infested scrub oak and pine were cleared in the summer of 1917 to prepare a camp large enough to process 40,000 draftees and prepare them for trench fighting in World War I. The name given to the facility was Camp Upton, named for Emery Upton, a Major General of the Civil War.

In September the first draftees began arriving and found themselves put to work as laborers in clearing the trees and tangled undergrowth to complete the other two thirds of the camp that remained unfinished. A rail spur was built connecting the camp with the Yaphank station of the Long Island Rail Road. Morris Gutentag of Oakdale, L.I. was one of those draftees. In a newspaper interview in 1981 he said, “Nothing was there; we even had to cut the stumps out. We didn’t have no rifles, nothing whatsoever. Broomsticks. We learned about it with broomsticks for about two or three weeks, until we got our rifles. The carpenters were working day and night to finish the barracks for us.�

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that the men from Eastern Long Island “were a fine looking set of fellows, well-built and with a freshness of face and quietness of manner that contrasted with the men who arrived from the city.�

A Holy Roller

The new soldiers at Camp Upton not only got uniforms and rifles, the American Bible Society saw to it that they received free Bibles. One recruit later wrote to a friend, “The Bible is printed on nice, thin paper and is excellent for rolling the makings of a cigarette. In fact, I have smoked through the New Testament as far as Second Corinthians.� A Show Must Go On

One famous draftee who came to Camp Upton in 1918 was the Russian-born composer Irving Berlin. Drafted at the age of 30 just after becoming a naturalized citizen, Berlin detested giving up his life of luxury in Manhattan. He once said of his first taste of the military, “I found out quickly I wasn’t much of a soldier. There were a lot of things about army life I didn’t like, and the thing I didn’t like most of all was reveille.� He went on to say, “I hated it. I hated it so much that I used to lie awake at night thinking about how much I hated it.�

Irving Berlin found some solace in writing the song “Oh, How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning.� The song caught on quickly with the soldiers and civilians alike.

Camp Upton’s commanding officer, Major General J. Frank Bell, had a brainstorm. He saw a need for a community center at the camp where friends and relatives of the servicemen could be made more comfortable when they visited. He called Berlin to his office and asked him if he could organize a benefit talent show to make perhaps $35,000 needed for the center.

The result of the C.O.’s request was Berlin’s show Yip! Yip! Yaphank. Berlin got help from about 70 of his entertainer friends including Al Jolson and came up with an elaborate production. It was a success at the camp’s Little Liberty Theatre, then moved to a successful run at the Century Theatre on Broadway. Playbills all over the city read: “UNCLE SAM PRESENTS Yip Yip Yaphank — a military mess cooked up by the boys at Camp Upton.�

Berlin’s songs were show-stoppers. A little known fact is that he wrote “God Bless America� for the show, but Berlin withdrew it because he felt it was “Just a little sticky. I couldn’t visualize soldiers marching to it. So I laid it aside and tried other things.� Berlin threw the music in his trunk and there it stayed until he pulled it out for the great Kate Smith to introduce to America on her Armistice Day 1938 radio show.

“Yip! Yip! Yaphank� ran at the Century for 32 performances and then moved to the Lexington Avenue Opera House for a short run. Expected to earn $35,000, the show eventually collected $83,000.

Reviewed By the Eagle

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle had its say with a review that was headlined: “YIP YIP YAPHANK WINS — Camp Upton Boys Make Big Advance on Manhattan Front.� The Eagle reserved special praise for the show’s score: “To hear Irving Berlin sing ‘How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning’ alone is worth a trip to Manhattan. There is more truth than poetry in the song and it came home strong to the boys under 45 in the audience last night, many of whom may be ‘cussing’ the bugler themselves, inside of a few short months.� — V.P.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2009 All materials posted on BrooklynEagle.com are protected by United States copyright law. Just a reminder, though -- It’s not considered polite to paste the entire story on your blog. Most blogs post a summary or the first paragraph,( 40 words) then post a link to the rest of the story. That helps increase click-throughs for everyone, and minimizes copyright issues. So please keep posting, but not the entire article. arturc at att.net