It took a long time to ramp up material production and train troops. They had broomsticks instead of guns and trucks with signs on them “I am a tank”. We still had, I think, horse mounted cavalry when Pearl Harbor was hit.
With the Pacific fleet decimated and the news of Japan invading and occupying all sorts of countries and islands in the Pacific, I bet it all seemed rather hopeless in the beginning.
He transferred over to tank destroyers a few months later, but all they were given were some rinky-dink M6's that were obsolete even before they rolled off the assembly line.
Fortunately they never deployed his unit with this vehicle, mainly due to the 95% vehicle loss suffered by the first TD battalion to deploy with the M6 (Kasserine Pass).