ThePewterPalace Our Love Affair with Avions

In December 2024, we visited the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas.

The main purpose of this stop was to uncover what we could in historical photos, archives and modern day photos of where Kevin’s father Harold “Shorty” Sherman was stationed at age 23 in 1942 during WWII. After his time at Fort Bliss, he was sent to active combat duty in the Philippines.

While here in 2024 we stayed in the Fort Bliss FAM RV Park. The park is actually off base but close with the BX (PX) and Commisary being about an 8 minute drive. Getting on base obviously required Military ID as does staying in their RV park. The RV park by the way was excellent and we will plan to stay here again to visit the base historical museums once they reopen. Both were closed for renovations and due to open summer of 2025.

* At the end of this post, we have a link to really cool historical video footage, period training films, etc of the era, at Fort Bliss, and about Cavalry trainings of the time. Enjoy!!

How did we get info if the museums were closed?

Luise used the Messenger link off the main museum’s Facebook page. Hoping to get a response, but in truth, not having much hope.  Lo and behold, someone from the museum did get back to us within 24 hours. They sent us screenshots of the historic map section shown below, noting that Dad’s 7th Cavalry would have been in barracks noted at the circled #7. The exercise and training fields were directly across Pershing Road, with the stable blocks running perpendicular to the road to lying the east or back side of the training field. This map, coupled with the modern map given to us at the RV park, solved our mystery – and off we went to capture modern-day images.

Park maps of the era:

Larger view of this side of the base. Note, the barracks that Dad would have been housed in were built in the 1900s to 1920s. More about them later. See #7 for the identified area for the 7th Cavalry.

Enlargement of the #7 area below. This one shows more clearly where buildings, parade grounds, training areas, and stables were for the 7th Cavalry.

What still remains? How does it look today (12/2024)

Sadly the stables have been removed and the exercise/training field for the 7th is now a very large parking lot. The NCO and officers housing blocks are nice, detached single family brick houses with small front porches that lie to the north and are intact and labeled as “historic housing”.

The 2 very large administrative buildings, 3 stories do also exist and are in use. It is clear from their architecture that they were built in the 1920s in a sort of quasi-adobe, Art Deco Mission influence. According to our museum source, part of these buildings housed soldiers of the 1st Cavalry. Wow! They had fancy digs!

Ditto for the Center Chapel on the same side of Pershing Rd that Dad’s barracks are on.

Here is a photo of the Grand Parade Ground, which was right near the original, then maingate – the Pershing Gate (gate is no longer used). You can see the monument and large lawn and flag pole. This area is on the same side as the 7th barracks and sits about 2 blocks to the north on Pershing Rd. look at the beautiful mountain view!

To the rear of the remaining barrack buildings are what we believe were mess halls for each wing of each barracks building.

Frosted windows on the bottom “U” of each building seems to indicate these were showers and bathrooms. Of the original 10 barracks buildings only 5 remain- each with a north and south wing connected by the bathrooms.

Many barracks had window coverings (or their interiors totally altered and broken up into meeting rooms) but we did find one that although it now has a kitchen in rear, this photo is looking in a rear window looking toward the front of the building towards Pershing Rd. You can imagine rows of metal bunks, a footlocker at the foot of each bed. Beds would have head of bed against exterior walls with foot of beds towards a center aisle. Probably also each soldier would have had a small shelf with hooks to hang coats, uniforms, etc. This was Dad’s home away from home in 1942. Zoom photo to see space easily.

A Memorial plaque at the end of the barrack row.

It was really nice to see that this plaque shed even more info about this original area of the base. The 7th Cavalry is mentioned. See the original barracks behind Kevin. Click on the images below to enlarge them.

Now, sadly, the exercise and training field and stable blocks of the 7th Cavalry have not survived.

These are what remain of the 1st Cavalry’s stable blocks. They run parallel to Pershing Rd. We are not entirely sure if they would have all been here during Dad’s time on base. They are quite altered and have storage uses now. But you can tell They were stables because the vertical bars on the windows and the windows tilt in about 10 inches but no more. The double doors for bringing in and out the horses are still visible on some of the buildings.

Just some other period buildings around the base that Dad would have seen during his time here in 1942.

So that ends our 2024 tour. The museum staff we connected with encouraged us to come back when they reopen in summer/fall 2025. They asked us to reach out ahead of our visit to set up a special appointment and they would do their best to gather pertinent info they have specific to the 7th Cavalry during Dad’s time here. Sounds great!

While YouTube surfing, Kevin also found these really cool historical footage videos. We have put them into a private viewing playlist for you on our YouTube channel. We enjoyed watching them and hope you do too! Here is the link to the Playlist. The 7th Cavalry is mentioned quite a few times and you will notice some of the buildings we saw on our visit. Specifically, the “Maneuvers” video in the first 30 to 40 seconds you will see the tall blonde buildings that are across the street from Dad’s barrack blocks.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDBRepJxG2cFTLVXqDsYwZ1Q04OhJOUIE&si=23XoE6wc0dkjyT-_

Hope you enjoyed this post. We will keep you updated for when we return again to Fort Bliss.

Sincerely

Kevin & Luisa