Howze Board

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Howze Board is the informal name ot the Tactical Mobility Requirements Board was created at the request of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to review and test new concepts integrating helicopters into the United States Army. It gave birth to idea of airmobility. It was named after its chairman, Hamilton H. Howze. It convened at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in 1962.[1] After investigating, testing, and evaluating the organizational and operational concepts of airmobility, the board concluded that the

"adoption of the Army of the Airmobile Concept-however imperfectly it may be described and justified in this report-is necessary and desirable. In some respect the transition is inevitable, just as was that from animal mobility to motor."

The board recommended the creation of an air assault division with 459 aircraft as compared to about 100 in a standard division. The new division, the 11th Air Assault Division, tested the airmobile concept, and its deployment to Vietnam in September 1965 as the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) changed the way U.S. forces conducted land warfare. The use of helicopters for reconnaissance, command and control, troop transport, attack gunships, aerial rocket artillery, medical evacuation, and supply was tantamount to a revolution in maneuver.[2]

The member of the board included:

  • General Hamiliton H. Howze, chairman
  • Brigadier General Joseph B. Starker
  • General Robert M. Shoemaker
  • Major General George S. Beatty, Jr.
  • Lieutenant General James H. Merryman

Steering and Review Committee[3]

  • Major General Ben Harrell
  • Major General William B. Rosson
  • Brigadier General John J. Lane
  • Brigadier General Edward L. Rowny
  • Brigadier General Delk M. Oden
  • Brigadier General Robert R. Williams
  • Colonel William M. Lynn, Jr.
  • Dr. Jacob A. Stockfisch
  • Dr. Edwin W. Paxson
  • Eugene Vidal
  • Fred Wolcott
  • Frank A. Parker
  • Edward H. Heinemann

Parker, Rowny, and Lynn also served as chiefs of working committees. Other senior board members (eventually added to the Steering and Review Committee) were named working committee chiefs-

  • Major General Clifton F. von Kann
  • Major General Norman H. Vissering
  • Brigadier General Frederic W. Boye, Jr.
  • Brigadier General Walter B. Richardson

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Role of the Helicopter in the Vietnam War
  2. ^ Combined Arms in Battle Since 1939 - Airmobile Operations
  3. ^ The Growth of the Airmobile Concept

This article incorporates text from [1], a public domain work of the United States Government.

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