Army Ground Forces
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| Army Ground Forces | |
|---|---|
 Army Ground Forces Shoulder Sleeve Insignia |
|
| Active | 1942 – 1948 |
| Country | USA |
| Allegiance | Federal |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair Lieutenant General Ben Lear General Joseph Stilwell General Jacob L. Devers |
The Army Ground Forces was one of the three autonomous components of the Army of the United States during World War II, the others being the United States Army Air Forces and Army Service Forces. It was created on February 28, 1942 by Executive Order Number 9082 "Reorganizing the Army and the War Department" [1], and War Department Circular No.59, dated March 2, 1942.
Contents |
[edit] Origins
Army Ground Forces traces its origins back to General Headquarters, United States Army (GHQ), which was activated on July 26, 1940. Although inactive before this date, GHQ had long featured in mobilisation plans as a headquarters for directing US field armies overseas, similar to that of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. This was not realised in practice because the war was fought in many theatres, so overall direction was exercised by the War Department General Staff. Instead, GHQ was drawn into the enormous task of raising and training a mass army.
Nominally, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George C. Marshall, was the commanding general of GHQ, while his Chief of Staff was Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, who had been Commandant of the Command and General Staff School. However since General Marshall saw him infrequently and seldom visited GHQ, located at the Army War College, it was General McNair who directed GHQ.
In March 1942, a sweeping reorganisation of the Army reduced the number of officers reporting to the Chief of Staff. GHQ became Headquarters, Army Ground Forces, and opened at the Army War College on 9 March 1942. The posts of the chiefs of the four traditional combat arms - Infantry, Cavalry, Field Artillery, and Coast Artillery - were abolished and their functions, duties, and powers were transferred to the Army Ground Forces. McNair also became responsible for four new 'pseudo-arms' - airborne, armor, anti-aircraft and tank destroyer. He had to power to reorganise the ground army, cutting across traditional lines without branch rivalries.
[edit] Organization of Ground Troops
In 1941, it was estimated that between 200 and 350 divisions would be required to defeat Germany and Japan. However, only 89 divisions were ultimately readied. This was partially because requirements for service troops and overhead was greater than anticipated, and because the Army's overall strength became fixed at a lower lever than expected. Army strength was fixed at 7,500,000 enlisted men in 1942 and was subsequently cut to 7,004,000 enlisted men in 1943. Further cuts of 433,000 men were made by March 1945. As a result, Divisions scheduled for activation in the second half of 1943 were postponed to 1944 and then canceled entirely. No new divisions were formed after June 1943. Fortunately, these sufficed to bring about the defeat of Germany and Japan, largely because the Soviet Union carried most of the burden of fighting the German Army on the Eastern Front. However, it also meant that divisions were kept in the line longer than anticipated and took heavier casualties.
Energetic and painstaking efforts were made by Army Ground Forces to optimize the divisions for combat operations. Non-essential troops and equipment were eliminated. The principle was established that a unit would have only the equipment that it would normally need. Other economies were also made. For example, trucks were replaced, wherever possible, by trailers. While admittedly not as useful as trucks, not only were they cheaper to produce, but they required less personnel to maintain, and less space to ship. AS a result of economies, 89 divisions were active in 1945 for the same number of personnel as required to man 75 in 1943. General Douglas MacArthur pointed out hat the division, while well-balanced, soon became unbalanced in combat as infantry took casualties faster than other arms, requiring the relief of the division when most of its components were capable of further effort.
This eventually brought the entire training program down. In 1941, replacements were produced by Replacement Training Centers (RTCs). As new divisions were mobilized, they took their manpower directly from reception centers. The RTCs provided replacements for filler, and were organized to provided replacements in the proportion of units in the army. Casualties in combat units, particularly infantry units, exceeded the capacity of the RTCs to replace. Maintaining 700,000 men in infantry units required 1,800,000 men in the infantry arm by April 1945. Volunteers for the infantry were accepted from other arms and services. By 1944, all new inductees were being sent to RTCs, where they were trained for 13 to 17 weeks before being sent to combat units. As casualties mounted, a massive comb out began as the Army Ground Forces struggled to provide replacements.
Divisions training in the United States were stripped to provide replacements, and 17 of them lost most of their privates and non commissioned officers. The result was that divisions embarking for overseas in late 1944 and early 1945 had much less training than those leaving earlier. The last division to depart for overseas, the 65th Infantry Division, fared worst of all:
If the plans for building and training this division had been carried out as originally laid down by General McNair and his staff, the 65th when it moved overseas in 1945 might have been the most battleworthy of the long line of divisions produced by the Army Ground Forces. For into the planning of the organization, training, and equipment of this unit was poured the accumulated experience of four years' intensive effort. But, mainly because of personnel exigencies the control of which lay beyond the jurisdiction of the Army Ground Forces, the 65th was about the least ready for combat of all divisions trained in World War II. Its regiments had never worked with their supporting battalions of artillery in field exercises. The division commander had never maneuvered his command as a unit; in fact, the division had never been together, except for reviews and demonstrations, and its composition had changed greatly from one assembly to another. In the infantry regiments, only one man in four had been with the division for a year, and almost every fourth man had joined his unit within the past three months. The division was more of a hodgepodge than a team.[1]
[edit] Special Divisions
In 1942, the 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 90th Infantry Divisions were converted to motorized divisions, intended to operate with armored divisions, similar to the German Panzergrenadier divisions. These division had more transport than regular infantry divisions. However the proportion of infantry in the armored divisions was increased in 1943, and the regular infantry division actually had sufficient transport if trucks were taken from other duties, so the additional shipping space required for them did not appear worthwhile, and all were converted back to regular infantry divisions.
Three light divisions were formed, in response to combat experience in 1942 and 1943. The 10th Light Division was formed as a light division specialising in mountain warfare, the 71st Light Division as one specializing in jungle warfare, and the 89th Light Division as a light truck division. Theater commanders were lukewarm about the concept. General MacArthur felt that they had insufficient firepower, and they performed unsatisfactorily in training maneuvers, so the 71st and 89th were converted to regular infantry divisions. Despite its jungle training, the 71st Infantry Division was rushed to Europe in response to the German Ardennes Offensive. The 10th remained a special mountain division and fought as such in Italy.
[edit] Airborne
Five airborne divisions (11th, 13th, 17th, 82nd and 101st) were formed, but as early as the Allied invasion of Sicily it was apparent that there would not be sufficient troop carrier aircraft to employ them in the manner for which they had been intended. The activation of the 15th Airborne Division in 1943 was canceled, but this did nothing to reduce the disproportionate ratio of airborne to infantry divisions, as all divisions scheduled for activation in late 1943 were eventually canceled. General McNair considered converting the airborne divisions in the United States to light divisions but following the failure of the light division concept, the decision was taken to ship them as airborne divisions, cognizant of the fact that they would operate as light infantry divisions.
[edit] Anti-Aircraft
No arm was in such urgent demand in 1942 as anti-aircraft units, and these units were shipped at high priority as soon as, and sometimes even before, they were fully trained. Once the Allied Air Forces began to get the upper hand, demand tapered off and it became apparent that anti-aircraft units had been over-produced. Many units were then broken up for infantry replacements.
[edit] Armor
While Army Ground Forces endeavored to provide the troops with the best equipment available, it was not always able to provide better equipment than the German enemy. This was particularly apparent with respect to armor. American commanders tended, when forced to make a choice, to prefer mobility to firepower. The result was a number of uninspiring designs. In particular, the M6 Heavy Tank was a dud which convinced Army Ground Forces that a heavy tanks were no good and Ordnance Department that Army Ground Forces did not really want one. The M4 Sherman medium tank found itself out-performed by German tanks which began appearing in 1943.
Trimming the tables of organization of the armored divisions in 1943, Army Ground Forces reduced them by a third, halving the number of tanks. While the old organization was cumbersome and inefficient, the new was flexible but sometimes too lean and light, requiring supplementing.
[edit] Artillery
Although also frequently out-gunned by their German counterparts, American artillery built up a reputation for effectiveness and the infantry increasingly relied on the artillery to get them forward. The War Department General Staff ignored the Army Ground Force's recommendations for a powerful heavy artillery arm, only to have combat experience in Italy prove that air power could not substitute for heavy artillery. As a result, over 100 medium and heavy artillery battalions were activated in 1944, mostly through the conversion of coast artillery units.
[edit] Cavalry
Two horse cavalry divisions existed in 1941. The 1st Cavalry Division was shipped to Australia, where it was originally envisioned that it could operate in the mounted role. However, by the time it embarked, the defense of Australia was no longer paramount and it served in the South West Pacific Area in the dismounted role. The 2nd Cavalry Division was formed twice. Originally a bi-racial division, its white components were broken up to provide troops for armored units. It was reformed as a colored division only to be broken up again to provide service units. Two non-divisional cavalry regiments served as infantry in the South West Pacific Area and China Burma India. All other cavalry units were converted to the mechanized cavalry reconnaissance role. However, they only spent about 6% of their time on reconnaissance tasks, leading to a postwar consensus that either they lacked the combat power to perform their assigned role or hard been misused altogether.
[edit] Tank Destroyer
The tank destroyer arm was probably the most controversial. Tank destroyers based on the M3 Half-track proved too vulnerable in the North African campaign and tank destroyers were re-equipped with guns. Later, good self-propelled gun carriages became available, but massed enemy armor became scarce and most tank destroyer units began operating as field artillery.
[edit] Post-War
Army Ground Forces survived the post-war reorganization of the War Department. It became Army Field Forces in 1948, Continental Army Command (CONARC) in 1955, and ultimately United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) in 1973. This formation wears its sleeve patch insignia to this day.
[edit] References
- ^ Kent Roberts; Robert R. Palmer; and Bell I. Wiley Greenfield, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops, pp. 487-488
[edit] Books
- Kent Roberts; Robert R. Palmer; and Bell I. Wiley Greenfield, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops, ISBN 0933526688
- Robert R. Palmer, Bell I. Wiley and William R. Keast, The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, ISBN 0160019060
