Camp Coëtquidan, near Rennes, was the former artillery base of Napoleon where Harry S. Truman’s military role changed from trainee to battery commander. In July 1918, the camp became the setting for his first command and for the final training of the men and guns he would lead into action.

Setting and Arrival

In the first week of July, the 129th Regiment moved from Angers to Camp Coëtquidan for final training before entering combat. The former artillery base linked the regiment’s preparation to the operational role ahead: the men were to learn their weapons and work together as a battery before going to the front.

Truman Takes Command

At Camp Coëtquidan, Truman learned to his surprise that he was to command a battery. Colonel Karl D. Klemm summoned him and ordered him to begin at once. The appointment fulfilled Truman’s highest ambition, but it also placed him in charge of four guns and 194 men—a responsibility that frightened him even as he welcomed it.

On July 11, Truman first faced Battery D of the 2nd Battalion, 129th Field Artillery, known by reputation as Dizzy D. The battery’s predominantly Irish Catholic men from Kansas City had seen several officers fail to control them. Truman, a short, bespectacled officer who looked unlike the commanding figure they expected, had to establish his authority among men already wary of another new captain. The camp thus served not merely as a place to receive a command but as the ground on which he first had to earn the battery’s confidence.

Training for the Front

For a month, Truman drilled the men on the firing line, teaching them what he knew about the French 75. Their practice turned the weapon into a shared measure of the battery’s growing skill; the men boasted, in Missouri fashion, that they could hit a sparrow on a wire at 9,000 yards. Camp Coëtquidan’s final training period therefore brought together the place’s military purpose and Truman’s new command: before the battery went into action, he and his men had to become a working unit.