The Division was directed to move into Camp Polk, east of the town of Leesville, Louisiana, near which the Division was situated at the end of maneuvers. At Camp Polk, the Division newspaper, The Journal, was instituted during maneuvers. A Journal sponsored contest resulted in the nickname of the Division, "Victory Division". But the Division post-maneuver training was cut short when orders were received to move the California Desert Training Center.
The Division began its California directed movement October 11, preceded by an advance detachment which took over Camp Coxcomb in the California desert. Coxcomb was a tent city, spread out in rectangular unit areas along a stretch of desert grass-studded sand, sloping slightly to the east from the piles of corrugated rock that had been named the Coxcomb Range.
Thirteen weeks of training were scheduled, beginning November 1. The scope of the desert area was such as to afford the Division its best training ground up to that time. For the first time, the Division could use live ammunition for most of its training problems. Bangalore torpedoes boomed through the night as troops learned to blast gaps in field obstructions, while many other phases of field work were covered in the "swing shift" training periods. Close battle conditions were simulated with considerable realism during artillery rolling barrage demonstration, when infantry troops were progressively deployed 150 yards behind the artillery barrage and light aerial bombardment.
T/Sgt. M. George Vanicek wrote the Division song, "The 95th Marches On, " was later published and copyrighted. "Prelude", a forty-page pictorial training history of the Division, was distributed to troops early in February.
Late in December, 1943, General Dunkelberg left the Division for a new assignment in the Aleutians, being replaced as assistant Division commander by Brig. Gen. Don D. Faith, former commander of the Women’s Army Corps. The Division was then directed to move to the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania.
The advanced party arrived at Indiantown Gap, February 12, with the entire Division closing in the new station February 25. Having boarded trains in California’s temperate winter climate, Division troops were not altogether prepared for the subzero weather that met them when they detrained in Pennsylvania. The weather couldn’t chill the troops’ enthusiasm for their new station, however, with the easy accessibility to several metropolitan areas (New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore) probably Indiantown Gap’s leading virtue in their eyes.
Outstanding in the Division’s latest training program was the series of exercises conducted in the West Virginia Maneuver Area. Besides combat teams, parts of all special troops units went through the mountain climbing exercises, while selected personnel attended the pack and assault schools. The pack schools afforded the Division’s mule-skinners a chance at their trade. Seneca Rock offered a 928-foot climb or descent to the cliff scalers who hung Tarzan like by their nylon ropes. "Rappels", "traverses" and "chimneys", among other terms, were added to the GI vernacular. The West Virginia training was generally regarded by veteran officers and enlisted men as the most rigorous single phase training undertaken by the 95th Division.
The influx of new men was heavy at Indiantown Gap. The Division received 4,000 troops from the drastically curtailed Army Specialized Training Program, half of this number being sent later to other units. Besides this total 2,190 other enlisted men were added to the Division’s rolls at its Pennsylvania station.
Later in March the 95th Division Artillery received a commendation for having attained the highest division artillery score in Army Ground Force battalion firing tests since the inauguration of a new form of tests in November, 1943. Also in March, the Division newspaper made another advance, The Journal becoming a six-page weekly. A few weeks earlier, The Journal became a four-page weekly, marking an advance over the newspaper’s previous history when it had been an every-other week publication.