PIN : 082504–000
ARMY HISTORICAL SERIES

American Military History

Volume II

The United States Army

in a

Global Era, 1917–2008

Second Edition

Richard W. Stewart

General Editor

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

American military history / Richard W. Stewart, general editor. — 2nd ed.

 p. cm. — (Army historical series)

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 1. United States—History, Military. 2. United States. Army—History. I. Stewart, 

 Richard W. (Richard Winship), 1951– II. Center of Military History. III. Title. IV. 

 Series.

 E181.A44 2009

 355’.00973—dc22 2009011595

Revised Edition—First Printed 2005—CMH Pub 30–22 
iii

Reina J. Pennington

Norwich University

William T. Allison

Georgia Southern University

James J. Carafano

The Heritage Foundation

Brig. Gen. Edward C. Cardon

U.S. Army Command and General

Staff College

Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan

U.S. Military Academy

John F. Guilmartin

Ohio State University

Michael S. Neiberg

The University of Southern Mississippi

Mark P. Parillo

Kansas State University

Larry Stubblefield

Deputy Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of 

the Army

Col. Bobby A. Towery

U.S. Army War College

Lt. Gen. David P. Valcourt

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine

Command

Steve Vogel

The Washington Post

Paul M. Wester Jr.

National Archives and Records

Administration

Army Historical Series

Advisory Committee

(As of October 2009) 

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Jeffrey J. Clarke, Chief of Military History

Chief Historian

Chief, Histories Division

Editor in Chief

Richard W. Stewart

Joel D. Meyerson

Keith R. Tidman
iv
v

Contents

Page

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

Preface to the 2005 Edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

Prologue: The War in Europe, 1914–1917 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter

1. The U.S. Army in World War I, 1917–1918 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The U.S. Army Arrives in Europe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Organizing the American Expeditionary Forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

The War Effort in the United States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The AEF Settles In. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

German Offensives and the AEF’s First Battles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Americans Help Stem the Tide, May–July 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The Growing AEF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

The AEF in the Aisne-Marne Campaign, July–August 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

An American Army and St. Mihiel, September 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

The Meuse-Argonne Campaign, September–November 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

The American Army and the Great War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

2. Between World Wars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Demobilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Immediate Duties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Reorganization under the National Defense Act of 1920. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Regular Army Strength and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

The Reserve Components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

The Army Air Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Domestic Employment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

National and Military Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

The Army Strengthened . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

The Beginnings of World War II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

The Prewar Mobilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Toward War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

3. World War II: The Defensive Phase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

The Outbreak of War: Action and Reaction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
vi

Chapter Page

Strategic Decisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

The Fall of the Philippines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Deploying American Military Strength. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Planning for a Cross-Channel Invasion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Torch Replaces Sledgehammer/Roundup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

End of the Defensive Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

4. Grand Strategy and the Washington High Command. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Strategic Planning for Offensive Warfare: Midwar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Completing the Strategic Patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Expansion and Distribution of the Wartime Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Balancing Means and Ends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

5. World War II: The War against Germany and Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

North Africa, November 1942–May 1943. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

The Tunisia Campaign, November 1942–May 1943. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

The Sicily Campaign, July–August 1943. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

The Surrender of Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

The Italian Campaign, September 1943–May 1945. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Cross-Channel Attack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Buildup and Breakout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Invasion of Southern France. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Pursuit to the Frontier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

The Ardennes Counteroffensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

The Russian Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

The Final Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

The Situation on V-E Day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

6. World War II: The War against Japan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Japan’s Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Guadalcanal and Papua: The First Offensives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Search for a Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Cartwheel: The Encirclement of Rabaul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

The Central Pacific Drive Begins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Acceleration of the Pacific Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

The Decision To Invade Luzon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

The Philippines Campaign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Iwo Jima and Okinawa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

The American Effort in China, Burma, and India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

The Japanese Surrender. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Retrospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

7. Peace Becomes Cold War, 1945–1950 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Demobilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Unification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Occupation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

The Rise of a New Opponent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

The Trends of Military Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

The Army of 1950. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

The Cold War Intensifies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
vii

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8. The Korean War, 1950–1953. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

The Decision for War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

South to the Naktong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

North to the Parallel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

North to the Yalu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

The New War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

The Static War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

The Aftermath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

9. The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response. . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Massive Retaliation and the New Look . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

The NATO Buildup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Continental Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

The Missile Era. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Challenges and Responses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

The Military Budget. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Defense Reorganization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

A Dual-Capability Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

The Reserve Forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

The Changing Face of the Cold War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Cuba and Berlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Detente in Europe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

A Growing Commitment to Underdeveloped Areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Trouble in the Caribbean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Civil Rights and Civil Disturbances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Secretary McNamara and the New Management System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Army Reorganization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Tactical Readjustment for Flexible Response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

The Reserve Forces and the Draft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Problems and Prospects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

10. The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background, Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967. . . . . . . . . 289

The Emergence of South Vietnam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

The Rise of the Viet Cong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

A New American President Takes Charge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Counterinsurgency Falters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Setting the Stage for Confrontation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Groundwork for Combat: Buildup and Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

The Highlands, 1965. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Defending Saigon, 1965–1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

II Corps Battles, 1966–1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Progress or Stalemate?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

11. The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975. . . . . . . . . . . . 337

The Tet Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Vietnamization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Military Operations, 1968–1969. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Cross-border Operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Withdrawal: The Final Battles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

An Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
viii

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12. Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

The All-Volunteer Force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

The Total Force Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

New Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

New Equipment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

New Organizations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

New Training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Military Operations for the Post-Vietnam Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

El Salvador. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Grenada. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Invasion of Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

The Army at the End of the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

13. Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

War in the Persian Gulf. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Striving for Strategic Mobility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

Northern Iraq: Operation Provide Comfort. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Somalia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Haiti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Multinational Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

The Breakup of Yugoslavia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Kosovo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

Army Transformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

14. The Global War on Terrorism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

Homeland Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

Afghanistan: The War against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Global Operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Back to Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

Phase IV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

The Doctrine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

The Surge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

Back to Afghanistan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508

Transforming While at War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516

Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

Map Symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

Charts

No.

1. PAVN Infiltration of the South: 1965–1975. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

2. Total Army Structure, September 30, 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

3. Organization of a Modular Infantry Brigade, September 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
ix

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Maps

No.

1. Western Front, September 1914–March 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2. Western Front, 20 March–11 November 1918 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3. Western Front, Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 26 September–11 November 1918. . . . . . . . . 46

4. Southern Approaches to Europe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

5. D-Day, 6 June 1944. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

6. Northern Europe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

7. Battle of the Bulge, The Last German Offensive, 16–25 December 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

8. The Pacific Axes of Advance, 1942–1945. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

9. New Guinea Operations, 22 April–30 July 1944. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

10. The Philippine Campaign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

11. Operation Iceberg: Tenth Army Invasion of Okinawa, 1–16 April 1945. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

12. The Korean Conflict, 1950–1951. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

13. The Stabilized Front, 1952–1953. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

14. Indochina, 1961. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

15. Battle of the Ia Drang, November 1965. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

16. III Corps Tactical Zone, 1965–1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

17. IV Corps Tactical Zone, 1965–1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

18. I Corps Tactical Zone, 1965–1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

19. II Corps Tactical Zone, 1965–1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

20. Tet Offensive, 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

21. Cambodian Incursion, May–June 1970. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

22. Lam Son 719, February 1971. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

23. Easter Offensive, March–May 1972. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

24. The Final Days, 1975 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

25. Operation Urgent Fury, October–December 1983. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

26. Operation Just Cause, D-day, Panama Canal, 20 December 1989,

and D-day: Rio Hato. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

27. Unified Command Areas, 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

28. Major U.S. Combat Units at the End of the Cold War, Germany, 1990. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

29. Operation Desert Storm, 24–28 February 1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

30. Mogadishu, 3–4 October 1993. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

31. Operation Uphold Democracy, 19 September 1994–31 March 1995,

and United Nations Mission, 31 March 1995–February 1996, Haiti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

32. Bosnia and Herzegovina Stabilization Force (SFOR), February–March 2002. . . . . . . . . . . 448

33. Kosovo Force (KFOR) Sectors, Serbia, and Kosovo Autonomous Province, May 2002. . 454

34. Major U.S. Operations, Afghanistan, October 2001–March 2002. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

35. Operation Anaconda, Afghanistan, March 2002. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

36. Invasion of Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, 21 March–9 April 2003. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

37. Initial Occupation Zones, Operation Iraqi Freedom, 1 June 2003. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

Illustrations

Lt. Benjamin Foulois. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

President Woodrow Wilson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Capt. Harry S. Truman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Men Wanted for the U.S. Army (Coastal Artillery). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
x

 Page

Young Soldier Bidding His Family Farewell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

World War I Helmet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

World War I Enlisted Service Coat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Model 1892 Machine Gun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Secretary Newton D. Baker Choosing a Number for the Draft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

World War I Gas Mask. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Man and Horse with Gas Masks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Antiaircraft Machine Gun Firing on German Observation Plane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Army Camp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Officers of the “Buffalos”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Storming Machine Gun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Pulling Caisson Uphill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Col. George C. Marshall, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Sgt. Alvin C. York. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Troops Arriving Home from France. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Luxembourgers Greeting the American Army of Occupation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

General Douglas MacArthur and Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Civilian Conservation Corps Camp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Maj. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

I Want You for the U.S. Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

The Sinking of the USS Arizona. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Damaged Aircraft at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Medium Tanks on an American Assembly Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

President Franklin D. Roosevelt Signing the Declaration of War on Japan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek with Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell. . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair and Maj. Gen. George S. Patton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

General Brehon B. Somervell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

B–25 Taking Off from an Aircraft Carrier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Surrender of U.S. Troops at Corregidor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

The Chaplain in World War II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Bataan Death March. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Women Working on an Aircraft Fuselage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Production Aids for the Grumman Aircraft Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Homefront Fires Are Enemy Victories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Americans Will Always Fight for Liberty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Landing Ship, Tank, Discharging Cargo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

1st Armored Division Insignia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Air Transport Plane Flying over the Pyramids of Egypt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Troop Quarters on a Transport Ship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Artillery Firing at Night. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Hill 609—Tunisia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Lt. Gen. George S. Patton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Soldiers Entering Caiazzo, Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

African-American Troops Crossing the Arno River. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

General Eisenhower and Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
xi

 Page

American Soldiers Landing on the Coast of France. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Troops Moving Ashore at Omaha Beach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Olive Drab Field Jacket. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Red Ball Express Sign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Dismal Weather at Metz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

American Infantrymen Fighting in Winter Snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

German Planes Strafe Road in Belgium. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Bastogne Pamphlet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Former Concentration Camp Prisoners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

American Servicemen Celebrating the German Surrender. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Admiral William F. Halsey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Kiska Raid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Armor in Alaska. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

At an Advanced South Pacific Pass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Howard Brodie Sketch for Yank Magazine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Soldiers Using Flamethrowers against the Japanese. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Moving In on a Japanese Machine-Gun Position. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

General MacArthur Wading Ashore at Leyte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

General Joseph W. Stilwell in Burma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Allied Prisoners of War Soon To Be Freed from a Camp in Yokohama. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

MacArthur Reviews Battle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

China-Burma-India Veterans Arriving in New York. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Defendants of the Nuremberg Trials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

General of the Army George C. Marshall, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

General Dwight D. Eisenhower. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

General of the Army Omar N. Bradley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

American Truce Team with Chinese Communists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Olive Drab Field Jacket with Double Brass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

President Harry S. Truman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

C–54 Cargo Plane Landing in Berlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Kim Il Sung. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

General of the Army MacArthur and Dr. Syngman Rhee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Infantrymen Observing Enemy Positions along the Naktong River. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Maj. Gen. William F. Dean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

A 75-mm. Recoilless Rifle in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

U.S. Military Adviser with South Korean Trainees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Inch’on Landing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

The 38th Parallel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Convoy from Wonsan to Hamhung. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Withdrawal from Kot’o-ri, 1950. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Taking a Village at Night. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Lt. Gen. James A. Van Fleet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Panmunjom Cease-Fire Talks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

General Mark W. Clark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Model 1951 Pile Cap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
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A Foot-Weary Soldier at Ease. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Dr. Wernher von Braun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Pershing Missile in Winter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

German Work Effort as Part of the Marshall Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Premier Nikita Khrushchev and President John F. Kennedy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Checkpoint Charlie Warning Sign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

East Berlin Policemen Making Repairs to the Berlin Wall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Soldiers Escorting African-American Students to School in Arkansas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Ho Chi Minh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

North Vietnamese Guerrillas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Special Forces and a Montagnard Commando Team. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Valor in Vietnam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Helicopter Lift into Battle near Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

U.S. Adviser and South Vietnamese Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

General William C. Westmoreland and Ambassador Maxwell Taylor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

President Lyndon B. Johnson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Dropping in on Charlie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

U.S. Air Force B–52 Dropping Bombs on an Enemy Base Camp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

U.S. Troops Flushing Viet Cong from a Tunnel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Battery of 105-mm. Howitzers Using High-Angle Fire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

U.S. Soldiers and a South Vietnamese Ranger on a Pacification Mission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Huey Helicopters Picking Up U.S. Soldiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Infantry Patrol in a Clearing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

Soldiers Preparing for Airlift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

After a Viet Cong Ambush in Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Aftermath of Heavy Fighting in Downtown Saigon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

General Westmoreland’s Tropical Combat Coat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Marines Patrolling Hue after the Tet Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Generals Earle G. Wheeler and Creighton W. Abrams with Secretary

of Defense Melvin R. Laird. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Artillery Training for South Vietnamese Soldiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Paramilitary Team Entering a Village in Tay Ninh Province . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

Long Range Patrol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

A Soldier Catching Up on the News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Captured Viet Cong Flag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Cobra Helicopters on a Cross-Border Run into Laos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Chopper Pick-up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Point Crossing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

South Vietnamese Soldiers on a Captured Tank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Female Drill Instructor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Female Mechanic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

Women’s Utility Coat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

General Creighton W. Abrams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

General William E. DePuy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

General Donn A. Starry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Abrams Tank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Bradley Fighting Vehicle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
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Tanks and Helicopters Training Together. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Infantrymen with a TOW Missile System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

Soldiers with Dragon Antitank Weapons on Patrol in Grenada. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Soldiers Guarding a Hospital Entrance in Panama. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

General Maxwell Thurman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Air Assault, Tinajitas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Final Glory (Father Ortiz) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

U.S. Soldier on Watch along the East/West German Border. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Painting an Abrams Tank for Operation Desert Shield/Storm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

Victory Division Soldier on Guard at Sunset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Lt. Gen. Frederick M. Franks, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Lt. Gen. William G. Pagonis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Patriot Missile Launchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Desert Camouflage Hat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

U.S. Checkpoint on Highway 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Ruined Iraqi Tank and Other Vehicles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

Burning Oil Wells in Kuwait. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

Army Medic with Somali Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Black Hawk Helicopter in Somalia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Ready for Convoy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

On Watch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Haiti, 1994. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

“Hummers” on a Flooded Road in Haiti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Soldiers on Patrol in a Haitian Village. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Sarajevo Suburb after a Clash between Serbs and Muslims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444

Vehicles Crossing the Sava River on a Pontoon Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Peace Keeper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452

Waiting To Phone Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

Ground Zero, New York. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

The Pentagon Two Days after the Attack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

National Guardsmen Augmenting Airport Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

September 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Operation Enduring Freedom Leaflets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Special Forces with Hamid Karzai. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

Karzai Reviewing the Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

General Tommy R. Franks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

Sfc. Paul R. Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Low Visibility during a Sandstorm in Southern Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Satan’s Sandbox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Infantrymen Providing Security South of Baghdad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Soldier Scanning the Rooftops in Baghdad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

Fallujah. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Desert Boots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

Street Fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

Saddam Hussein after Capture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

General Peter J. Schoomaker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498

Stryker Vehicle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

General George W. Casey, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

General David H. Petraeus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
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Spec. Ross A. McGinnis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

General Raymond T. Odierno. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508

Illustrations courtesy of the following: cover illustration by Elzie R. Golden; 3, 217, 316, U.S. 

Air Force; 8, Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum and Library; 11, 20, 27, 31, 33, 50, 56, 57, 

68, 80, 81, 84, 87, 91, 93, 94 (bottom), 114, 135, 147, 148, 154, 159 (top), 163, 164, 179, 198, 204, 

205, 215, 245, 268, 269 (top), National Archives; 14, Fort George G. Meade Museum; 44, Virginia 

Military Institute; 65, Bettman/Corbis Archives; 66, 306, Library of Congress; 86, Illustrated 

London News; 171, U.S. Navy; 75, 258, Smithsonian Institution; 260, National Park Service; 270, 

Corbis; 339, Lt. Col. Ernest I. Gruber, U.S. Army; 344, Department of Defense; 348, University 

of California–Berkley, Indochina Center; 377, 378, 385, 386, 396, 399, 401, 402 (top), 417, 418, 

421, 426, 427, 433, 434, 438 (bottom), 439, 446, 464, 465, 466, 474, 491, 494, 497, Defense Visual 

Information Center; 395, 407, Soldiers magazine; 488 (top), U.S. Marine Corps. Other illustrations 

from Department of the Army files.
xv

Foreword

American Military History provides the United States Army—in particular, its young officers, 

NCOs, and cadets—with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military 

History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has 

gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. 

Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this 

new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose. 

The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger 

and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition 

ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and 

of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments 

since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the 

story of the U.S. Army in action.

The first volume covers the Army’s history from its birth in 1775 to the eve of World War I. By 

1917, the United States was already a world power. The Army had sent large expeditionary forces 

beyond the American hemisphere, and at the beginning of the new century Secretary of War Elihu 

Root had proposed changes and reforms that within a generation would shape the Army of the 

future. But world war—global war—was still to come. This second volume of the new edition takes 

up that story and extends it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism.

The Center of Military History has continued to refine the new design for these volumes to 

reflect the highly visual nature of contemporary textbooks. This work’s primary audience is still 

the young officer and NCO; but by adopting a more illustrated format, it also hopes to promote a 

greater awareness of the Army’s history within the American public. In so doing, its authors remain 

mindful of the Center’s responsibility to publish an accurate and objective account that reflects the 

highest professional historical standards. The Center owes no less to the soldier and the veteran, to 

the student and the teacher, and to those pursuing a personal interest in learning more about the 

Army’s campaigns—and about its role in the larger history of the nation. 

Washington, D.C. JEFFREY J. CLARKE

24 September 2009 Chief of Military History

xvii

Preface

The story of the United States Army is always growing and changing. Historians constantly seek 

to reinterpret the past while accumulating new facts as America’s Army continues to be challenged 

on new foreign battlefields. Nor does the Army, as an institution, ever stand still. It necessarily 

changes its organization, materiel, doctrine, and composition to cope with an ever-changing world 

of current conflict and potential danger. Thus, the Center of Military History is committed to 

preparing new editions of American Military History as we seek to correct past mistakes, reinterpret 

new facts, and bring the Army’s story up to date. This new edition of that textbook, an important 

element in soldier and officer education since 1956, seeks to do just that.

This edition of American Military History builds on the previous edition, published in 2005, and 

expands its coverage to include an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009. 

This expanded section is necessarily only an initial survey of the first eight years of the war on 

terrorism; it is far from the final word on the subject. It may take an additional decade or more to 

collect sufficient documents, interviews, memoirs, and other sources to know the details of military 

and political planning, the implementation of those plans on the global battlefield, and the impact 

on the Army as an institution and on the nation. The events of the past eight years are more like 

current events than they are history. History—the detailed telling of a story over time based upon all 

the extant evidence—requires more time to find and analyze the documents and facts and bring to 

bear on that evidence the insight that comes only from perspective. However, today’s soldiers need 

their story told. The events in which they participate and in which they are such important elements 

need to be given some form and order, no matter how tentative. The Army continues to be the 

nation’s servant, and the soldiers that make up that Army deserve their recognition. They continue 

to protect our freedom at great personal risk to themselves and incalculable cost to their loved ones. 

This is their continuing story.

Washington, D.C. RICHARD W. STEWART

24 September 2009 Chief Historian

xix

Preface to the 2005 Edition

Despite the popular image of the solitary historian immured in the stacks of a library or 

archives, history is very much a collective enterprise. This is true not only in philosophical terms (all 

historians stand on the shoulders of previous generations of scholars) but also in the practical sense 

that historians rely heavily on the work of many others when they attempt to weave a narrative that 

covers centuries of history. American Military History is truly such a collaborative work. 

Over the years numerous military historians have contributed to the earlier versions of this 

textbook published in 1956, 1969, and 1989. In this latest telling of the story of the U.S. Army, additional scholars inside and outside the Center of Military History have conducted research, written or 

revised chapters and inserts, or reviewed the texts of others. Other experts have edited text, proofed 

bibliographies, prepared maps, and located photographs to bring this book together. 

It is important to highlight those historians and other professionals who have helped make this 

book a reality. Indeed, there were so many contributors that I hasten to beg forgiveness in advance if 

I have inadvertently left someone off this list. First, I wish to thank those many scholars outside the 

Center of Military History who voluntarily gave of their time to review chapters of this book and 

provide their expertise to ensure that the latest scholarship and sources were included. These scholars include: John Shy, Don Higginbotham, Robert Wright, John Mahon, William Skelton, Joseph 

Dawson, Joseph Glathaar, Gary Gallagher, Carol Reardon, Mark Grimsley, Perry Jamieson, Robert 

Wooster, Brian Linn, Timothy Nenninger, Edward Coffman, David Johnson, Stanley Falk, Mark 

Stoler, Gerhard Weinberg, Edward Drea, Steve Reardon, Allan R. Millett, Charles Kirkpatrick, and 

Eric Bergerud. Their careful reviews and suggested additions to the manuscript enriched the story 

immeasurably and saved me from numerous errors in interpretation and fact. Within the Center of 

Military History, of course, we have a number of outstanding historians of our own to draw upon. 

The Center is, I believe, as rich in talent in military history as anywhere else in the country; and I was 

able to take advantage of that fact. In particular, I would like to thank the following historians from 

the Histories Division for their writing and reviewing skills: Andrew J. Birtle, Jeffrey A. Charlston, 

David W. Hogan, Edgar F. Raines, Stephen A. Carney, William M. Donnelly, William M. Hammond, 

and Joel D. Meyerson. Within the division, every member participated in writing the short inserts 

that appear throughout the text. In addition to the names previously listed, I would be remiss if I did 

not also thank Stephen J. Lofgren, William J. Webb, Dale Andrade, Gary A. Trogdon, James L. Yarrison, William A. Dobak, Mark D. Sherry, Bianka J. Adams, W. Blair Haworth, Terrence J. Gough, 

William A. Stivers, Erik B. Villard, Charles E. White, Shane Story, and Mark J. Reardon. Whether 

they have been in the division for one year or twenty, their contributions to this work and to the 

history of the U.S. Army are deeply appreciated. 

I particularly wish to thank the Chief of Military History, Brig. Gen. John Sloan Brown, for his 

patience and encouragement as he reviewed all of the text to provide his own insightful comments. 

He also found time, despite his busy schedule, to write the final two chapters of the second volume to bring the story of the U.S. Army nearly up to the present day. Also, I wish to thank Michael 

Bigelow, the Center’s Executive Officer, for his contribution. In addition, I would like to note the 

support and guidance that I received from the Chief Historian of the Army, Jeffrey J. Clarke, and 

the Editor in Chief, John W. Elsberg. Their experience and wisdom is always valued. I wish to 
xx

thank the outstanding editor of American Military History, Diane M. Donovan, who corrected my 

ramblings, tightened my prose, and brought consistency to the grammar and style. Her patience and 

skilled work made this a much finer book. I also wish to thank those who worked on the graphics, 

photographs, and maps that helped make this book so interesting and attractive. This book would 

not have been possible without the diligence and hard work of the Army Museum System Staff, as 

well as Beth MacKenzie, Keith Tidman, Sherry Dowdy, Teresa Jameson, Julia Simon, and Dennis 

McGrath. Their eye for detail and persistence in tracking down just the right piece of artwork or 

artifact or providing the highest quality map was of tremendous value. 

Although countless historians have added to this text over the years, I know that any attempt to 

write a survey text on the history of the U.S. Army will undoubtedly make many errors of commission and omission. I take full responsibility for them and will endeavor, when informed, to correct 

them as best I can in future editions. In conclusion, I wish to dedicate this book to the finest soldiers 

in the world, to the men and women who have fought and died in service to the United States over 

two centuries and those who continue to serve to protect our freedom. They have built America 

into what it is today, and they continue to defend the principles upon which our great country was 

founded. This is their story.

Washington, D.C. Richard W. Stewart

14 June 2004 Chief, Histories Division
The event that set off war in Europe came in late June 1914 

at Sarajevo, when a fanatical Serbian nationalist assassinated 

Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian 

throne. In other times and under different conditions, this act might 

not have been enough to catapult the world into the most widespread 

and costly conflict man had yet known, one that would eventually put 

under arms 65 million men from thirty countries representing every 

continent. Yet as matters stood that summer of 1914, Europe was 

a tinderbox awaiting a spark, an armed camp with two rival power 

blocs. There was at first the Triple Alliance composed of Germany, 

Austria, and Italy. On the other side, the Entente Cordiale between 

Britain and France gradually merged with the Dual Alliance of France 

and Russia to become the Triple Entente. With the defection of Italy, 

Germany and Austria became the Central Powers, which Bulgaria and 

Turkey eventually joined. The Triple Entente became, with the addition of Italy, the nucleus of the Allied Powers.

Despite some halfhearted efforts to localize the dispute over the 

assassinated prince, since Russia backed Serbia and Kaiser Wilhelm II 

of Germany promised Austria full support, the only real question was 

when the war was to begin. The answer to that came on July 28, when 

Austria declared war on Serbia. As Russia began its ponderous mobilization process to back the Serbs, Germany rushed to strike first.

Germany’s location between Russia and France dictated for the 

Germans a two-front war. To meet this contingency, the German 

General Staff had laid plans to defeat France swiftly before the Russians 

with their ponderous masses could fully mobilize, then to shift forces 

rapidly to the east and destroy the Russians at will.

Prologue

The War in Europe

1914–1917
American Military History

2

The maneuver designed to defeat the French was the handiwork of 

Germany’s gifted former Chief of Staff, Count Alfred von Schlieffen, 

who lent his name to the plan. Deducing that the French would attack 

in Alsace and Lorraine, Schlieffen proposed to trap them in a massive 

single envelopment, a great scythe-like movement through the Low 

Countries and into northern France, then west and south of Paris. 

Schlieffen was prepared to give ground on his left wing in AlsaceLorraine to keep the French armies occupied until a powerful right 

wing—the tip of the scythe—could complete the envelopment. (See 

Map 1.)

The German staff modified the Schlieffen Plan continually between 

its creation and the start of the war, but one of the plan’s major faults 

was in the area of logistics. Such a massive movement of troops and 

horses quickly moved beyond available railroad support and could not 

be sustained. The troops at the tip of the spearhead would have to slow 

down due to supply problems before they would be able to encircle 

Paris. Yet the maneuver achieved such surprise that by late August the 

French and British armies were in full retreat and the threat to Paris was 

so real that the French government abandoned the city. Only a hastily 

arranged French counterattack against an exposed German flank saved 

Paris. That action afforded time for main British and French forces to 

turn, halt the Germans at the Marne River east of Paris, and drive them 

back to the Aisne River, forty miles to the north.

As stalemate developed along the Aisne, each side tried to envelop 

the northern flank of the other in successive battles that by October had 

extended the opposing lines all the way to the Belgian coast. Allied and 

German armies alike went to ground. The landscape from Switzerland 

to the sea soon was scarred with opposing systems of zigzag, timberrevetted trenches, fronted by tangles of barbed wire sometimes more than 

150 feet wide and featured here and there by covered dugouts providing 

shelter for troops and horses and by observation posts in log bunkers 

or concrete turrets. Out beyond the trenches and the barbed wire was a 

muddy desert called No-Man’s-Land, where artillery fire had eliminated 

habitation and vegetation alike, where men in nighttime listening posts 

strained to hear what the enemy was about, and where rival patrols clashed.

Eventually both sides would realize that they had miscalculated, 

that the newly developed machine gun and improved indirect-fire artillery had bolstered not the offense but the defense. This development 

had been presaged—but ignored—in the U.S. Civil War. Principles of 

war such as maneuver, economy of force, and surprise were seemingly 

subordinated to the critical principle of mass: masses of men (nearly 

2 million Germans and 3 million Allied troops); masses of artillery 

(barrages lasted days and even weeks before an offensive); and masses 

of casualties (the British and French in 1915 lost 1.5 million men killed, 

wounded, and missing). Yet through it all the opposing lines stood 

much as they had at the start. For more than two years they would vary 

less than ten miles in either direction.

To meet the high cost of the long, deadly struggle, the opposing 

powers turned more than ever before in history to the concept of the 

nation in arms. Even Britain, for so many years operating on the theory 

of a powerful navy and only a small (though highly professional) army, 

resorted to conscription and sent massive new armies to the continent. 

The landscape from Switzerland 

to the sea soon was scarred with 

opposing systems of zigzag, 

timber-revetted trenches, fronted 

by tangles of barbed wire.
Prologue

3

To appease the appetite of the vast armies for munitions, equipment, 

and supplies, the nations harnessed their mines, factories, and railroads 

to war production; levied high income taxes; froze wages and prices; 

and rationed food and other commodities. It was industrialized war on 

a vast scale never before seen.

On the battlefield, commanders persisted in a vain hope that 

somehow the stalemate might be ended and breakthrough and exploitation achieved. In April 1915 the Germans released clouds of chlorine 

gas against a French colonial division on the British sector of the front. 

The colonials broke, but the Germans were unprepared to exploit the 

advantage. The first use of poison gas thus was a strategic blunder, 

wasting total surprise for nothing more than local gains.

The British similarly blundered the next year, when they also introduced a new weapon prematurely. The tank, an ungainly, ponderous 

offspring of a marriage of armor with the caterpillar tractor, owed its 

name to British attempts to deceive the Germans that the vehicle was a 

water-storage device. In the tank’s first commitment in September 1916, 

thirty-four tanks helped the British infantry advance a painful mile and 

a half. There would be other attacks in later months involving tanks 

in strengths close to five hundred, but the critical element of surprise 

already had passed. Tanks later would prove sufficient to achieve the 

penetration everybody sought, but they were initially too slow and too 

subject to mechanical failure to fill the horse cavalry’s former role as the 

tool of exploitation.

For all the lack of decision, both poison gas and tank soon were 

established weapons, although the Germans were slow to make use of 

the tank. Another weapon, the airplane, meanwhile found full acceptance on both sides. Used at first primarily for reconnaissance, then 

as a counterreconnaissance weapon to fight the enemy’s planes, and 

finally as an offensive weapon to attack ground troops, by the time the 

war ended aircraft had engaged in strategic missions against railroads, 

factories, and cities, presaging the mass destruction that was to follow 

in another great war. 

The U.S. Army Signal Corps

and Aviation

The Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps for almost 

its first decade of existence consisted of one airplane and one 

pilot, Lt. Benjamin Foulois. Foulois did not know how to fly: he had 

to learn through trial-and-error and written instruction from the 

Wright brothers. He later remarked that he was the only person 

to obtain his pilot’s license by correspondence course. Although 

the Aviation Section had grown to twenty-seven aircraft and fiftyeight pilots by May 1916, it remained minuscule compared to the 

large and technically superior European aerial fleets engaged in 

World War I. Lt. Benjamin Foulois
Map 1

Oise R

Lys R

Somme R

Seine R

F L A N D E R S

U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

Ostende

Passchendaele

Vimy

Arras

Ypres

Dunkirk

Calais

Boulogne

Dover

Dieppe

Amiens

Cantigny

Montdidier

Compiègne

Noyon

PARIS

Château-

Soissons

Ch

des 

Miles

0 50

Schlieffen Plan

Limit of German Advance, Sep 1914

Front Line, Oct 1914

Hindenburg Line

Front Line, Mar 1918

September 1914–March 1918

WESTERN FRONT
Schelde R

Marne R

Moselle R

Meuse R

Sambre R

Aisne R

Rhine R

V o s g e s

M o u n t a i n s

G E R M A N Y

L U X E M B O U R G

B E L G I U M

F R A N C E

S W I T Z E R L A N D

N E T H E R L A N D S

Cologne

Liége

Antwerp

BRUSSELS

Awinoge

Mézières

Namur

Coblenz

Mainz

Metz

-Thierry

hemin

 Dames

Reims

Sedan

Verdun

 St. Mihiel

Seicheprey

Strasbourg

Basel
American Military History

6

Bloody battle followed bloody battle in quick succession in 1915, 

1916, and 1917. The names of the battles would echo throughout the 

ages as symbols of slaughter: Verdun (750,000 casualties), the Somme 

(1.3 million casualties), Passchendale (350,000 casualties). 

By early 1917 bloody stalemate on the Western Front continued 

and the collapse of the Russians on the Eastern Front threatened to 

free up millions of Germans for service in the west. In Russia, a spontaneous revolution had erupted in March, prompting the czar to abdicate and initiating a struggle for power between moderate Socialists and 

the hard-core revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks seized 

power in the October Revolution and immediately sued for peace. Only 

the slowness of the negotiations prevented the immediate release to the 

west of huge numbers of German soldiers. 

The worst was still to come. In 1917, after yet another failed 

French offensive, mutiny broke out in one French regiment and spread 

swiftly through fifty-four divisions. Many of the French soldiers swore 

that they would continue to defend their homeland, but they would no 

longer take part in offensive operations. 

More disastrous still were the results of an Austrian offensive 

launched with German assistance in Italy in the fall. In what became 

known as the Battle of Caporetto, the Italians in one blow lost 305,000 

men; 275,000 of them surrendered as the Italian Army fell back a 

hundred miles in panic. British and French divisions had to be rushed 

to Italy to keep the Italians in the war. By the time America was forced 

to enter the war in April 1917, the disasters on all the fronts had brought 

the Allies close to collapse.
On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson addressed 

Congress, asking for a declaration of war against Germany. 

Just over two months earlier, on January 31, the German 

government had announced its resumption of “unrestricted submarine warfare.” With the announcement, German U-boats would 

without warning attempt to sink all ships traveling to or from British 

or French ports. Under the new strategy, U-boats had sunk three 

American merchant ships with a heavy loss of American life in March 

1917. Two days after Wilson’s speech, the Senate overwhelmingly 

declared that a state of war existed between Germany and the United 

States. Two days later the House of Representatives followed suit. 

The United States had entered “the Great War.”

Since the United States went to war over the limited issue of 

Germany’s submarine warfare, the Wilson administration conceivably 

could have taken only a naval role against the German submarines. 

That role, however, never received fervent support from the Allied or 

the U.S. Army’s leadership. Pressure from both the British and French 

leaders urged Wilson to reinforce the Western Front that stretched 

from Belgium to Switzerland. Despite the carnage, the Army’s military 

leaders and planners saw the Western Front as the only place that the 

United States could play a decisive role in defeating Germany. That 

participation in the decisive theater would give Wilson a larger role and 

greater leverage in deciding the peace that followed. Thus it would be 

on the battlefields and in the trenches of France that the U.S. Army 

would fight in 1917 and 1918. 

The United States had joined a war that was entering into its fourth 

bitter year by the summer of 1917. After the opening battles of August 

1914, the British and French armies and their German foes had settled 

into an almost continuous line of elaborate entrenchments from the 

English Channel to Switzerland that became known as the Western 

Front. To break this stalemate, each side sought to rupture the other’s 

1

The U.S. Army in

World War I, 1917–1918
American Military History

8

lines, using huge infantry armies supported by increasingly massive 

and sophisticated artillery fire, as well as poison gas. Nevertheless, 

against the barbed wire and interlocking machine guns of the trenches, 

compounded by the mud churned up by massive artillery barrages, 

these attempts floundered and failed to make meaningful penetrations. 

Into this stalemate the U.S. Army would throw a force of over 2 million 

men by the end of the war. Half of these men fought in the trenches 

of northern France, mostly in the last six months of the war. It would 

prove to be the military weight needed to tip the strategic balance in the 

favor of the Allies.

The U.S. Army Arrives in Europe

In the latter part of April 1917 the French and British governments 

sent delegations to the United States to coordinate assistance and offer 

advice on the form of American involvement. Foreign Minister Arthur 

Balfour, Maj. Gen. G. M. T. Bridges, and the rest of the British mission 

arrived first; a few days later the French mission followed, led by former 

French Premier René Viviani and Marshal Joseph Joffre. Characteristic 

of the lack of planning and unity between the two Allies, the missions 

had devised no common plan for American participation, nor had they 

even held joint sessions before meeting with the Americans. Public ceremonies were well coordinated and presented a common, unified front; in 

private, each delegation pressed its own national interests and viewpoints. 

After obtaining American loans for their depleted war chests, the 

French and British officials proposed ways to best make use of American 

manpower. Neither of the Allies believed that the United States would 

be able to raise, train, and equip a large army quickly. Marshal Joffre, 

the former French Army Commander and victor of the 1914 Battle 

of the Marne, offered his proposal first. To bolster sagging morale, the 

Frenchman suggested that an American division be sent to France to 

symbolize American participation. He proffered French help with the 

Captain Harry S. Truman

(1884–1972)

In April 1917, 33-year-old Harry Truman rejoined the Missouri 

National Guard in which he had served during 1905–1911. He was 

promptly elected a first lieutenant in the 2d Missouri Field Artillery. Two 

months after debarking in France as part of the 35th Division, Truman 

was promoted to captain and commander of Battery D. Instinctively 

grasping the best way to treat citizen-soldiers, Truman quickly turned 

his battery into an operationally skilled unit. The long-term importance 

of this command experience for Truman is difficult to overstate: psychologically, he proved himself a success for the first time in his life, even as 

he acquired a bias against “West Pointers” and their perceived disdain 

for citizen-soldiers.

President Wilson
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

9

training of the American units, but he was careful to point out that the 

United States should eventually have its own army. 

The British had their own solution to use American manpower. 

General Bridges, a distinguished divisional commander, proposed the 

rapid mobilization of 500,000 Americans to ship to England, where 

they would be trained, equipped, and incorporated into the British 

Army. This proposal would be the first of many schemes to integrate 

American battalions and regiments into one of the Allied armies. 

Amalgamation, as the general concept of placing American 

soldiers into British or French units became known, had the advantage of expanding the existing military system rather than establishing 

an entirely new one. If the United States decided to build a separate 

force, it would have to start at the ground level and create the entire 

framework for a modern army and then ship it overseas. That endeavor 

would require more shipping and more time, both of which were in 

short supply in 1917. Conversely, using American troops in foreign 

armies would be an affront to national pride and a slur especially on 

the professionalism of the American officer corps. Furthermore, amal-

gamation would decrease the visibility of the American contribution 

and lessen the role American leadership would be able to play in the 

war and in the peace that followed. For these political and patriotic 

reasons, President Wilson rejected the proposal of having American 

troops serve under the British 

flag; however, he did agree to Joffre’s 

recommendation to send a division to France immediately. 

With the decision to send a division overseas, Maj. Gen. Hugh L. 

Scott, the Chief of Staff, directed the General Staff to study a divisional 

structure of two infantry brigades, each consisting of two infantry regiments. In consultation with Joffre’s staff, the Army planners, headed 

by Maj. John M. Palmer, developed a division organization with four 

regiments of 17,700 men, of which 11,000 were infantrymen. After 

adding more men, Maj. Gen. Tasker H. Bliss, Scott’s deputy, approved 

this “square” organization—four regiments in two brigades—for the 

initial division deploying to France. 

At the same time that Palmer’s committee worked on its study, Scott 

asked Maj. Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the Army’s Southern 

Department at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to select four infantry regiments and a field artillery regiment for overseas service. Pershing chose 

the 6th Field Artillery and the 16th, 18th, 26th, and 28th Infantries. 

Although these regiments were among the most ready in the Regular 

Army, they all needed an infusion of recruits to reach full strength. By 

the time the regiments left for France, they were composed of about 

two-thirds raw recruits. Nevertheless, on June 8, Brig. Gen William L. 

Sibert assumed command of the 1st Expeditionary Division and four 

days later sailed for France. The division would provide the nucleus of 

a larger American force in France.

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker selected General Pershing to 

command the larger expeditionary force. Ultimately, there was little 

doubt of the selection, even though Pershing was junior to five other 

major generals, including former Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Leonard 

Wood. Wood and the other candidates were quickly ruled out from 

active field command because of health or age, while Pershing was at 

fifty-six vigorous and robust. In addition, Pershing’s record throughout 
American Military History

10

his three decades of military service had been exceptional. By 1917 

he had proven himself as a tough, experienced, and loyal commander. 

In particular, his command of the Punitive Expedition made a favorable impression on Secretary Baker. In addition to having gained recent 

command experience in the field, Pershing demonstrated that he would 

remain loyal to the administration’s policies, although he might personally disagree with them. In early May Pershing was told to report to 

Washington, D.C. 

Shortly after Pershing arrived in Washington, he learned of his 

appointment as the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander. 

In turn he began selecting members of his headquarters staff. Pershing 

first chose resourceful and energetic Maj. James G. Harbord, a fellow 

Men Wanted for the U.S. Army (Coastal Artillery), Michael P. Whelan, 1909

Pershing demonstrated that 

he would remain loyal to the 

administration’s policies, although 

he might personally disagree 

with them.
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

11

cavalryman of long acquaintance, as the AEF Chief of Staff. Together, 

they settled on thirty other officers, including Maj. Fox Conner, who 

would end the war as the AEF’s Chief of Operations (G–3), and 

Capt. Hugh Drum, who would later become the Chief of Staff of the 

U.S. First Army. As the staff prepared to depart for France, Pershing 

reviewed the organization of the 1st Division, discussed the munitions 

situation, and went over the embarkation plans. He met with both 

Secretary Baker and President Wilson. On May 28, 1917, Pershing and 

his headquarters staff of 191 set sail for Europe. 

Pershing and his staff began much of the preliminary planning on 

the nature, scope, and objectives for the future AEF while en route to 

Europe. First in England and later in France, the group met their Allied 

counterparts, coordinated with the staffs, and assessed the conditions 

of wartime Europe. One staff committee inspected ports and railroads 

to begin arranging for the American lines of communications. Amid 

ceremonies and celebrations, the blueprints for the future AEF slowly 

took shape.

On June 26 the advance elements of the 1st Division joined 

Pershing and his staff in France. From St. Nazaire, the port of debarkation, the division traveled to the Gondrecourt area in Lorraine, about 

120 miles southwest of Paris. There, the division would undergo badly 

needed training. Not only had the War Department brought its regiments up to strength with new recruits, but it had also siphoned off 

many of their long-service, well-trained regulars to provide the nucleus 

for the new divisions forming in the United States. 

As the bulk of the division settled into its new home to learn the 

basics of soldiering, the French authorities persuaded Pershing to 

allow a battalion of the 16th Infantry to march through Paris on the 

Fourth of July to encourage the French people with the appearance of 

American troops. The parade culminated at Picpus Cemetery, burial 

place of Gilbert du Montier, the Marquis de Lafayette. At the tomb 

of the American Revolution hero, on behalf of Pershing, Col. Charles 

E. Stanton, a quartermaster officer fluent in French, gave a rousing 

speech, ending with the words “Lafayette, we are here!” Mistakenly 

attributed to Pershing, the words nevertheless captured the sentiments 

of many Americans: repaying an old debt. 

Organizing the American Expeditionary Forces

Before Pershing departed for France, Secretary Baker told him: 

“I will give you only two orders, one to go to France and the other 

to come home. In the meantime, your authority in France will be 

supreme.” Baker thus had given Pershing a free hand to make basic 

decisions and plan for the shape and form of the American ground 

contribution to the war in Europe. Consequently, during the summer 

of 1917, Pershing and his small staff went about building the AEF’s 

foundations.

In late June 1917 the most crucial decision that Pershing needed to 

make concerned the location of the American zone of operations. With 

the advanced elements of the 1st Division due to arrive in France by 

the end of the month, it was essential that the staff lay out the training 

areas. Moreover, the selection of supply lines and depots all hinged on 

A young soldier bids his family farewell 

in 1917.
American Military History

12

the establishment of the AEF’s sector. Accordingly, Pershing ordered 

his staff to make a reconnaissance of the Lorraine region, south and 

southwest of Nancy. For the American commander, the prime consideration in exploring this area was its potential for development and 

employment of a large, independent AEF in a decisive offensive. On 

June 21 the staff officers departed on a four-day tour of a number of 

villages and possible training areas in Lorraine.

When the team returned, they recommended that the AEF assume 

the section of the Allied line from St. Mihiel to Belfort. They considered 

the training areas in the region adequate. With the greatest concentration of training grounds in the area of Gondrecourt and Neufchâteau, 

they further proposed that the American training effort be centered 

there. Yet the suitability of the region’s training areas was not the major 

reason to select the Lorraine region as the American zone. Instead, 

Pershing’s staff believed that the area offered important military objectives (coal and iron mines and vital railroads) within reasonable striking 

distance.

The recommendation of the Lorraine sector of the Western Front 

as the American zone of operations, however, was not especially imaginative. Even before Pershing left Washington, the French had advised 

the Americans to place their troops somewhere in the eastern half of 

the Allied line. By the time the inspection team visited the area, the 

French had made considerable progress in preparing training areas for 

the AEF. In so doing, they simply took a realistic and practical view of 

the situation. 

With the massive armies of Germany, France, and Great Britain 

stalemated in the trenches of northern Europe since 1914, there was 

little chance of the Americans’ exercising much strategic judgment 

in choosing their zone of operations. On the Allied northern flank, 

the British Expeditionary Forces guarded the English Channel ports 

that provided their logistical link with Great Britain and provided an 

escape route from Europe in case the Western Front collapsed. To the 

British right, nationalism compelled the French armies to cover the 

approaches to Paris, the French capital. Moreover, the Allied armies 

were already straining the supply lines of northern France, especially 

the overburdened Paris railroad network. Any attempt to place a large 

American army north of Verdun would not only disrupt the British 

and French armies and limit any independent American activity, but 

it would also risk a complete breakdown of the supply system. These 

considerations left Lorraine as the only real choice for the American 

sector.

Although the military situation of 1917 had determined that the 

American sector would be on the Allied southern flank, neither Pershing 

nor his staff lamented the circumstance. On the contrary, they believed 

that Lorraine was ideally suited to deploy a large, independent AEF. 

Logisticians supplying an American army in Lorraine would avoid the 

congested northern logistical facilities by using the railroads of central 

France that stretched back to the ports along the southwestern French 

coast. Furthermore, the Americans could move into the region with 

relative ease and without disturbing any major Allied forces, since only 

a relative few French troops occupied Lorraine. Once there, the AEF 

could settle down to the task of training its inexperienced soldiers and 

With the massive armies of 

Germany, France, and Great 

Britain stalemated in the trenches 

of northern Europe since 1914, 

there was little chance of the 

Americans’ exercising much 

strategic judgment in choosing 

their zone of operations.
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

13

developing itself into a fighting force in the relative calm of a sector 

quiet since 1915. 

Once Pershing had organized and trained the AEF, it would be 

ready to attempt a major offensive. His planners believed that the area 

to the west of Lorraine offered excellent operational objectives. If 

the American forces could penetrate the German lines and carry the 

advance into German territory, they could deprive Germany of the 

important Longwy-Briey iron fields and coal deposits of the Saar. More 

important, an American offensive would threaten a strategic railroad 

that Germans used to supply their armies to the west. Cutting the vital 

railroad would seriously hamper German operations and might even 

cause a withdrawal of some forces along the southern portion of the 

German line. Nevertheless, it was perhaps an exaggeration when some 

of the AEF staff noted that these logistical and economical objectives 

were at least as important to the Germans as Paris and the channel 

ports were to the Allies. 

On June 26, the day after Pershing accepted his officers’ recommendation, he met with General Henri Philippe Petain, the hero of 

Verdun and now overall commander of French forces. Petain readily 

agreed to the Americans’ taking the Lorraine portion of the Western 

Front. By the end of June elements of the 1st Division began to move 

into the training areas near Gondrecourt. Within three months three 

more American divisions would join the 1st Division. 

With the decision to situate the AEF in Lorraine, Pershing and 

his staff turned their attention to the next order of business: a tactical 

organization for the AEF. Pershing himself wanted the AEF to be 

employed in decisive offensive operations that would drive the Germans 

from their trenches and then defeat them in a war of movement. That 

the AEF would fight in primarily offensive operations would be the 

guiding principle for the American planners, headed by Lt. Col. Fox 

Conner and Maj. Hugh Drum. As they developed their organizational 

schemes, they relied heavily on the General Staff ’s provisional organization of May 1917 and consulted with both their French and British 

counterparts. Before finalizing their recommendations, they met with 

another American group, under Col. Chauncey Baker, which the War 

Department had commissioned to study the proper tactical organization for the U.S. Army. The result of the AEF staff ’s studies and planning was the General Organization Project, which guided the AEF’s 

organization throughout the war. 

The General Organization Project outlined a million-man field 

army comprising five corps of thirty divisions. While the infantry division remained the primary combined-arms unit and standard building 

block of combat power, the AEF planners helped bring the modern 

concepts of operational corps and field armies to the U.S. Army. The 

organizational scheme was based on two principles: both the corps 

and division would have a “square” structure, and the division would 

contain a large amount of riflemen adequately supported by large 

numbers of artillery and machine guns.

Rather than mobile units that moved quickly to the battlefield, the 

AEF’s proposed corps and division organizations emphasized staying 

power for prolonged combat. In a war of masses and protected flanks, 

the AEF planners believed that success would come with powerful 

Above: World War I Helmet, 2d Division, 

1917. Below: World War I Enlisted Service 

Coat, 91st Division.
American Military History

14

blows of depth. This depth of attacking forces could be achieved with 

units of a square organization—corps of four divisions and divisions 

of four regiments. This square organization would permit the division 

to attack on a frontage of two brigades with the four regiments in two 

brigade columns. Similarly, a corps could attack with a phalanx of two 

divisions on line and two divisions in reserve. In these formations, once 

the strength of the attack was drained from losses or sheer exhaustion, 

the lead units could be relieved easily and quickly by units advancing 

from behind. The fresh units would then continue the attack. Thus 

the depth of the formations would allow the AEF to sustain constant 

pressure on the enemy. 

To maintain divisional effectiveness in the trenches of the Western 

Front, the General Organization Project enlarged the division to a 

strength of 25,484, about twice the size of Allied divisions. Increasing 

both the number and the size of the rifle companies accounted for 

more than three-quarters of this expansion. The project added one 

company to each of the division’s twelve rifle battalions and increased 

the size of a rifle company by fifty men for a total strength of 256. 

Three artillery battalions of seventy-two artillery pieces each would 

support the division’s four regiments of over 12,000 riflemen and fourteen machine-gun companies with 240 heavy machine guns. 

The AEF’s organizational plan also created modern corps and 

armies. In the past, the Army’s corps and field armies were little 

more than small headquarters to command their subordinate units. 

The General Organization Project created an army and several corps 

that each had headquarters to command, control, and coordinate the 

increasing large and complex subordinate echelons. The project’s field 

army had a headquarters of about 150 officers and men, while the 

corps had one of 350 officers and men. Moreover, both echelons of 

command had a significant amount of their own dedicated combat 

power outside the attached divisions. Ideally, the corps in the AEF 

The Machine Gun

The machine gun quickly became the most important 

direct-fire infantry weapon of World War I, and its importance only grew. A British infantry division was organized with 

18,000 men and 24 heavy machine guns at the beginning of 

the war. By the end of the war, a division was much smaller 

in manpower but had 64 heavy and 192 light machine guns 

down to the platoon level. Though a number of Americans had 

been closely associated with the development of the machine 

gun, the U.S. Army had been slow to adopt the new weapon. 

Combined with the sudden shift from neutrality to mobilization, 

this policy left the AEF heavily dependent on an assortment 

of French and British designs to provide the 260 heavy and 

768 light machine guns each 28,000-man U.S. infantry division required. By the Armistice, however, a variety of 

American weapons were entering service, most designed by John M. Browning. 

Colt “Potato Digger” Machine Gun
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

15

would have a brigade of heavy artillery and an engineer regiment as 

well as cavalry, antiaircraft, signal, and support units. The field army 

had a massive artillery organization of twenty-four regiments as well as 

large numbers of engineer, military police, and supply units. A corps 

would have about 19,000 such supporting troops, while an army would 

have 120,000. 

Consistent with the AEF planners’ emphasis on sustained combat 

over a period of time, they also created a system to feed trained replacements into the units at the front. In addition to four attached combat 

divisions, each corps contained two base divisions organized to coordinate the AEF’s replacement system. These divisions would feed replacements to the combat divisions, first from their own ranks and later from 

replacement battalions sent from the United States. With little need for 

a full complement of support units, artillery and engineer units would 

be detached from the replacement divisions and attached to the corps 

headquarters. The losses from the future American campaigns would 

fully test this system. 

In August the War Department incorporated the AEF’s proposed 

divisional organization in its table of organization. It also approved the 

six-division corps and the five-corps army. 

With the AEF’s organization settled by the end of August, Pershing 

only needed to decide where to aim this formidable force when it 

became ready. In September the AEF’s operational staff presented a 

comprehensive strategic study that outlined the long-range prospects 

for the war in Europe and laid the groundwork for an American offensive toward Metz in 1919. Although the planners recognized the logistical realities of having the AEF in Lorraine, they based their study 

on an analysis of the geopolitical situation of late 1917 and their own 

views of operational theory. The major premise behind the study was 

Pershing’s guiding principle to use the AEF as a separate army in a 

decisive offensive operation. 

The study noted that only the possible collapse of Russia would 

constitute a significant change in the military situation. Germany could 

then transfer forces from the Eastern Front and use them to strike a 

decisive blow on the Italian or Western Front. While the Italian Front 

offered Germany the best chance for local success, any long-term results 

would come from successful operations against the French or British 

armies on the Western Front. Believing that it would be difficult to 

defeat the British forces, the AEF planners predicted a German spring 

offensive against the French, probably in the central portion of the 

Allied line. 

On the Allied side, the great losses suffered in 1917 offensives 

precluded the British and French from undertaking any major offensive 

in 1918. Nor would the AEF be able to make any serious offensive in 

1918: there would not be enough American troops in France until early 

1919. Allied activity in 1918, therefore, would have to be restricted to 

meeting the predicted German offensive and to carrying out limited 

operations. One of those limited operations, the planners recommended, 

would be the first employment of the American army—the reduction 

of the St. Mihiel salient in the spring of 1918. (See Map 2.) The Germans 

had held the salient since the end of 1914, and its reduction would seize 

key terrain for future advances, free a critical French railroad, and train 
Map 2

Oise R

Lys R

Somme R

Seine R

F L A N D E R S

F 

U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

Ostende

Passchendaele

Vimy

Arras

Ypres

Dunkirk

Calais

Boulogne

Dover

Dieppe

Amiens

Cantigny

Montdidier

Compiègne

Noyon

PARIS

Château-

Soissons

Miles

0 50

Front Line, 20 Mar

German Amiens Offensive

German Lys Offensive

German Aisne Offensive

German Noyon-Montdidier Offensive

German Final Offensive

Allied Offensive, Sep–Nov

Front Line, 11 Nov

20 March–11 November 1918

WESTERN FRONT
Schelde R

Marne R

Moselle R

Meuse R

Sambre R

Aisne R

Rhine R

V o s g e s

M o u n t a i n s

G E R M A N Y

L U X E M B O U R G

B E L G I U M

F R A N C E

S W I T Z E R L A N D

N E T H E R L A N D S

Cologne

Liége

Antwerp

BRUSSELS

Awinoge

Mézières

Namur

Coblenz

Mainz

Metz

-Thierry

Chemin des Dames

Reims

Sedan

Verdun

 St. Mihiel

Seicheprey

Strasbourg

Basel
American Military History

18

American units and commanders. Likewise, the British 1918 operations should be made in preparation for the more substantial offensives 

planned for 1919. 

For 1919 the American planners argued for a grand offensive 

involving concurrent operations along the entire Western Front, 

preventing the Germans from shuttling forces from one threatened 

point to another. While the British and French attacked toward vital 

German communication and economic objectives in the north, the 

now-ready American ground forces would advance northeast from 

Lorraine along the Metz-Saarbrücken axis. A 45-mile advance northeast from Nancy would cut the two railroads running from Strasbourg 

to Metz and to Thionville. Together with the French interdiction of 

the rail lines to the north of Metz, this action would sever the German 

armies from the vital resources of Lorraine and the German left wing 

from the right and would precipitate the Germans to withdraw from 

some if not all of their lines from Belgium and France. This advance 

would provide General Pershing with the decisive offensive he desired. 

Over the summer and early fall of 1917, Pershing and his small 

headquarters laid the groundwork for a large American force deployed 

to the Western Front. This foundation helped shape every aspect of 

the AEF’s operation and organization, from training and tactics to 

troop strength and shipping. Moreover, until the armistice a year later, 

Pershing’s steadfast belief in the envisioned American advance toward 

Metz would influence his stubborn resistance against American forces’ 

serving under French or British flags and his equally stubborn insistence on the development of an independent American army. 

The War Effort in the United States

Despite the efforts of Pershing and his staff to organize the AEF 

and develop its strategic designs, as they well knew, in the summer of 1917 

the U.S. Army was in no position to make its weight felt. In April 1917 

the Regular Army had an aggregate strength of 127,588 officers and men; 

the National Guard could count another 80,446. Together, the total, little 

over 208,000 men, was minute compared to the armies already fighting 

in Europe. The small Army barely had enough artillery and machine 

guns to support itself, and before the formation of the 1st Division not 

a single unit of division size existed. Although service in the Philippines 

and Mexico had given many of the officers and men of the small Regular 

Army important field skills and experience, it had done little to prepare 

them for the large-scale planning, maneuvering of divisions and corps, and 

other logistical and administrative knowledge necessary for this new war. 

The task of managing the Army’s necessary expansion into a large, modern 

force fell largely to Newton Baker, the Secretary of War.

Secretary Baker seemed out of place heading America’s war effort. 

Small and unassuming, he looked more at home on a university campus 

than in the War Department. A longtime friend of Woodrow Wilson, 

Baker had been appointed Secretary of War in the spring of 1916, despite 

his pacifistic attitudes. Although as the mayor of Cleveland he had changed 

that city’s government into an efficient organization, as Secretary of War 

he would often stay on the moderate, uncontroversial course rather than 

strike out on a new path. Yet in the bureaucratic chaos that ensued after the 

Pershing’s steadfast belief in the 

envisioned American advance 

toward Metz would influence 

his stubborn resistance against 

American forces’ serving under 

French or British flags and his 

equally stubborn insistence on the 

development of an independent 

American army. 
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

19

United States’ entry into the war, Baker proved an unflappable leader who 

was 

flexible enough to force change if he had the correct tools. 

In the spring of 1917 Baker did not have the correct tools. The 

Army’s General Staff was a small war-planning agency rather than a 

coordinating staff for the War Department and its staff bureaus. The 

National Defense Act of 1916 had limited the number of General Staff 

officers that could be stationed in Washington to fewer than twenty, 

less than a tenth of England’s staff when it entered the war in 1914. 

Once the war broke out many of the talented officers left Washington 

for overseas or commands, while the staff had to undergo a massive 

expansion. Without a strong coordination agency to provide oversight, 

the staff bureaus ran amok. By July more than 150 War Department 

purchasing committees competed against each other on the open market, 

often cornering the market for scarce items and making them unavailable for the Army at large. While the General Staff at least established 

troop movement and training schedules, no one established industrial 

and transportation priorities. To a large degree the problem was that 

Baker did not have a strong Chief of Staff to control the General Staff 

and manage the bureaus. Both General Scott and his successor, General 

Bliss, were very near retirement and distracted by special assignments. 

Secretary Baker did little to alleviate these problems until late 1917. 

By then the situation had become a crisis. Responding to pressure 

from Congress and recommendations from the General Staff, Baker 

took action to centralize and streamline the supply activities. First, in 

November, he appointed industrialist Benedict Crowell, a firm believer 

in centralized control, as the Assistant Secretary of War; later Crowell 

would also assume duties as Director of Munitions. On the military side, 

Baker called back from retirement Maj. Gen. George W. Goethals, who 

had coordinated the construction of the Panama Canal. First appointed 

Acting Quartermaster General in December, Goethals quickly assumed 

the mantle of the Army’s Chief Supply Officer. Eliminating red tape 

and consolidating supply functions, especially the purchasing agencies, 

he also brought in talented administrators from both the military and 

the civilian sector to run the supply system. 

In the meantime, the Secretary of War was beginning to reorganize the General Staff. Congress had increased the size of the staff ’s 

authorization, but it wasn’t until Maj. Gen. Peyton C. March became the 

Chief of Staff in March of 1918 that the General Staff gained a firm, 

guiding hand. Over his thirty years of service, the 53-year-old March 

had gained an experience well balanced between line and staff. He had 

been cited for gallantry for actions as a junior officer in the War with 

Spain and in the Philippine Insurrection. He also served tours of duty 

with the Office of the Adjutant General. Forceful and brilliant, March 

was unafraid of making decisions. At the time of his appointment as 

Chief of Staff, March had been Pershing’s artillery chief in France. 

March’s overarching goal was to get as many men as possible to 

Europe and into the AEF to win the war. To achieve this, he wanted 

to establish effectiveness and efficiency in the General Staff and the 

War Department. He quickly went about clearing bureaucratic logjams, 

streamlining operations, and ousting ineffective officers. In May 1918 

he was aided immeasurably by the Overman Act, which granted the 

President authority to reorganize executive agencies during the war 
American Military History

20

emergency. Moreover, he received the additional authority of the rank 

of four-star general. March quickly decreed that the powerful bureau 

chiefs were subordinate to the General Staff and were to report to the 

Secretary of War only through the Chief of Staff. 

In August 1918 March drastically reorganized the General Staff. 

He created four main divisions: Operations; Military Intelligence; 

Purchase, Storage, and Traffic; and War Plans. The divisions’ titles 

fairly well explained their functions. Notably, with the creation of the 

Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division, for the first time the Army had 

centralized control over logistics. Under this reorganization, the total 

military and civilian strength of the General Staff increased to just over 

a thousand. In the process the General Staff had become an active, not 

merely a supervisory, operating agency. 

By the end of the summer of 1918, Generals March and Goethals 

and their talented military and civilian subordinates had engineered a 

managerial revolution in the War Department. Inefficiency, pigeonholes, and snarled actions were replaced by centralized control and 

decentralized operations. 

Yet even before General March formed an efficient and effective 

staff, the War Department had taken steps in the right direction. On 

May 18, 1917, as Pershing was preparing to sail for Europe, Congress 

passed the Selective Service Act to raise the necessary manpower for 

the war. With this act the United States experienced none of the difficulties and inequities with conscription that the Union had during the 

Civil War: the General Staff had studied those problems and carefully 

sought to avoid them as it prepared the draft for the legislation. The 

result was a model system. Based on the principle of universal obligation, it eliminated substitutes, most exemptions, and bounties and 

assured that conscripts would serve for the duration of the emergency. 

Initially, all males between the ages of 21 and 30 had to register; later 

The Draft

Having declared war on Germany, Congress in April 1917 was debating 

what would become the Selective Service Act. In the Office of the Judge 

Advocate General, Capt. Hugh S. Johnson learned that registration of drafteligible men could not begin for a month after the act’s passage: it would 

take that long to print the 30 million registration forms. Fearing the possible 

consequences of the delay, Johnson risked court-martial by illegally ordering 

the forms printed in advance. 

The act was passed on May 18, and the registration process began on 

June 5. At some 4,000 local draft boards, registrants were issued numbers 

that would determine the order in which they were called into military service. 

In Washington, on July 21 Secretary Baker held the First Draft, randomly choosing numbers that corresponded to those the draft boards had issued. A Second Draft on June 27, 1918, applied to men who had 

turned twenty-one since the First Draft and thus were eligible to be drafted. The draft brought more than 2.7 

million men to the colors during the war.

Secretary Baker chooses the first 

number for the Second Draft.
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

21

the range included males from 18 to 45. At the national level, the Office 

of the Provost Marshal General under Maj. Gen. Enoch Crowder 

established policy and issued general directives. The administration of 

the draft, however, was left to local boards composed of local citizens; 

these local civilians could grant selective exemptions based on essential 

occupations and family obligations.

The Selective Service Act was hugely successful. The Army’s prewar 

strength of a little over 200,000 men grew to almost 3.7 million by 

November 1918. About two-thirds of this number was raised through 

conscription. The Selective Service process proved so successful at 

satisfying the Army’s needs while ensuring that essential civilian occupations remained filled that voluntary enlistments ended in August 

1918. For the rest of the war, conscription remained the sole means of 

filling the Army’s ranks. 

The act also established the broad framework for the Army’s structure. It outlined three components of the Army: the Regular Army, the 

National Guard, and the National Army. As Pershing’s forces became 

more actively involved in the war, much of these identities disappeared as new soldiers were absorbed into units of all three elements. 

By mid-1918 the War Department changed the designation of all land 

forces to one “United States Army.” Nevertheless, the three components continued to manifest themselves in the numerical designations. 

For example, the Regular Army divisions were numbered from 1 to 

25. Numbers 26 through 75 were reserved for the National Guard and 

higher numbers for divisions of the National Army.

Just how large an army the United States needed depended in large 

measure on General Pershing’s plans and recommendations to meet the 

operational situation in France. In the General Organization Project 

of July 1917, Pershing and his staff called for a field army of about 

1 million men to be sent to France before the end of 1918. The War 

Department in turn translated Pershing’s proposal into a plan to send 

30 divisions with supporting services—almost 1.4 million men—to 

Europe by 1919. As the Germans launched their spring offensives and 

the AEF began more active operations, Pershing increased his estimates. 

In June 1918 he would ask for 3 million men with 66 divisions in France 

by May 1919. He quickly raised this estimate to 80 divisions by April 

1919, followed shortly (under pressure from the Allies) by a request for 

100 divisions by July of the same year. Although the War Department 

questioned whether 100 divisions could be sent to France by mid-1919 

and even whether that many would be needed, it produced plans to raise 

98 divisions, with 80 of them to be in France by the summer of 1919. 

These plans increased the original goal for divisions in France by the end 

of 1918 from 30 to 52. In the end the Army actually would form 62 divisions, of which 43 were sent overseas. Consequently, when the war ended 

in November 1918 the Army was running close to its projected goal of 

52 divisions in France by 1919.

To train these divisions the Army would eventually establish thirtytwo camps or cantonments throughout the United States. How much 

training incoming soldiers needed before going overseas had long been 

a matter of debate, but in 1917 the War Department settled on four 

months. It established a sixteen-week program that emphasized training 

soldiers by military specialty, e.g., ri

flemen, artillery gunners, supply or 
American Military History

22

personnel clerks, or medical specialists. Division commanders at the 

cantonments would train their men progressively from individual to 

battalion level but only within each battalion’s specialty fields. Within 

the four-month period, the War Department policy gave the divisional 

commanders latitude to vary the content and duration of the specialty 

training. Initially, much to the dismay of Pershing and his staff in 

France, this training only emphasized trench, or positional, warfare and 

excluded rifle marksmanship and other elements of a more open and 

mobile warfare. Moreover, with the entire training period dedicated 

to the development of individual and small-unit skills, the larger units 

never came together to train as combined-arms teams. Until the end 

of the war, the training managers at the War Department had various 

degrees of success as the department worked to establish a consistent 

training regime and to move away from the sole emphasis on trench 

warfare. The Army, however, was never able to implement an effective 

method for combined-arms training at the regiment and division levels 

before the units deployed. It would remain for the AEF in France to 

either complete the training of the incoming divisions or send them 

into combat not fully prepared. 

The training of replacements also remained problematic throughout 

the war. As early as the late summer of 1917, Pershing knew that 

sooner or later he would have to deal with the problem of replacing 

combat losses in his divisions. He complained to the War Department 

that he did not have the resources—especially time—to train replacements and instead recommended that a stateside division be assigned 

the mission of providing training replacements to each of his corps in 

France. The War Department did not act on his proposal and did little 

on its own to resolve the problem until early 1918. A major obstacle to 

a replacement training system was the Wilson administration’s concern 

that the establishment of replacement training centers would imply that 

the government anticipated wholesale American losses. Nevertheless, 

General March was able to establish several centers to train infantry, 

artillery, and machine-gun replacements in April 1918. Though the 

Army continued to make progress on creating a viable program, the 

press from replacements overwhelmed the nascent system; again, it was 

left up to the deployed forces to deal with the problem. 

The Plattsburg Movement

After the defeat of a Universal Military Training Program, during the summer of 1913 Army Chief of 

Staff Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood created two military training camps for college students. The program, 

reflecting Progressive-era social theory, expanded and developed into a popular movement promoting 

health and the social benefits of military training, citizenship responsibilities, and national unity. By 1916 the 

movement included a businessman’s training course at Plattsburg, New York, a camp that lent its name to the 

movement. Attendees, 16,000 in 1916 alone, paid out of their own pockets to receive the equivalent of four 

months’ military instruction in a few short weeks. The camps and their graduates became valuable resources 

in the World War I mobilization effort, when the camps became officer candidate schools and many of their 

alumni entered uniformed service.
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

23

The mobilization of manpower and the training of that manpower 

had been the major concern of a century of American military 

thought; but in World War I, the demands of arming, equipping, 

and supplying a 3-million-man Army meant that American industry 

also had to be mobilized. The National Defense Act of 1916 had to 

a degree anticipated this need with the creation of the Council of 

National Defense to provide a central point for the coordination of 

military industrial needs. Even before America’s entry into the war, 

the council had created the Munitions Standards Board to establish 

industry standards for the production of ordnance. Soon, however, 

it became apparent that the enormous materiel requirements of war 

would need careful management; thus the Munitions Standards Board 

grew in stages to become the War Industries Board. With both civilian 

and military representatives, the board had broad powers to coordinate all purchasing by the Army and Navy, to establish production 

priorities, to create new plants and convert existing plants to priority 

uses, and to coordinate the activities of various civilian war agencies. 

Under the vigorous leadership of industrialist Bernard Baruch, the 

War Industries Board would become the chief agency of economic 

and industrial mobilization for the war. 

The Army’s representative on the War Industries Board, Brig. 

Gen. Hugh Johnson, would later use his experiences with industrial coordination as the head of the New Deal’s National Recovery 

Administration in the 1930s. In general, the Army’s liaison with 

civilian mobilization agencies was coordinated through Baruch’s 

board; however, it maintained separate liaison with the administration’s Shipping and Railway War Boards. To secure the Army’s industrial and transportation requirements, Goethals and Johnson coordinated with one of the civilian boards for the appropriate allotments 

of available resources and services. 

Even with these efforts, the demand for arms was so immense and 

immediate and the time required for contracts to be let and industry to 

retool so lengthy that the Army had to depend heavily on Allied, especially French, weapons. For the AEF’s Air Service, the United States 

had 2,698 planes in service, of which 667, less than one-fourth, were of 

American manufacture. Of the almost 3,500 artillery pieces the AEF 

had in France, only 477 were of American manufacture and only 130 

of those were used in combat. Despite possessing the world’s largest 

automotive industry, the United States had to rely on French tanks for 

the operations of the AEF’s Tank Corps; in some instances British and 

French tank battalions supported U.S. troops. 

American industry had better success with the infantry weapons. 

Almost 900,000 ri

fles were on hand for the Army’s use when the war 

broke out. Two Army arsenals were producing the excellent Model 1903 

Springfield and could step up production. Three private companies were 

producing the Lee-Enfield ri

fle for the British; when they completed their 

contract, they began turning out Enfields modified for American ammu-

nition. Since the Army had not purchased a large number of machine 

guns in the prewar period, the AEF was armed almost exclusively with 

French machine guns and automatic rifles until July 1918. American 

industry, however, was able to recover relatively quickly and by the end 

of the war had produced excellent results. By the late summer of 1918 
American Military History

24

new American units were armed with superb Browning machine guns 

and the famous Browning Automatic Ri

fle (BAR); these weapons were 

the among the best of their kind in the world. 

Industry also did well in terms of the soldier’s personal needs. The 

Army worked closely with the War Food Administration to avoid the 

food scandals of earlier wars. Inductions had to be slowed briefly until 

sufficient uniforms could be accumulated, and shortages in some items 

persisted; but this resulted less from industry’s failures than from a 

cumbersome Quartermaster contracting system, which was eventually 

corrected. 

The AEF Settles In

As the War Department struggled with the complexities of 

manpower and economic mobilization, Pershing went about organizing and training his forces. To provide logistical support, he created 

a Commander of the Line of Communications, subsequently renamed 

Services of Supply, responsible directly to him. After a series of shortterm commanders, Maj. Gen. Francis J. Kernan, a capable administrator, 

headed the Services of Supply; Kernan would be followed by Maj. Gen. 

James G. Harbord, Pershing’s first Chief of Staff. Headquartered in 

Tours along the Loire River, the supply organization was divided into 

several base sections built around the French ports, an intermediate 

section for storage and classification of supplies, and an advance 

section for distribution to the zone of operations. Once the AEF 

entered combat, the advance section’s depots loaded supplies onto 

trains that moved forward to division railheads, whence the divisions 

pushed the supplies to the front in wagons and trucks. Like Goethals’ 

supply organization in the United States, Kernan and Harbord relied 

heavily on businessmen temporarily in uniform, like Charles G. Dawes, 

a Chicago banker who acted as the AEF’s General Purchasing Agent in 

Europe, and William W. Atterbury, a Vice President of the Pennsylvania 

Railroad, who supervised the AEF’s transportation system. 

Pershing also established his own General Staff in France. 

Re

flecting the French system, Pershing’s AEF staff ultimately included 

a Chief of Staff, a Deputy Chief, and five Assistant Chiefs supervising 

five sections: G–1 (Personnel), G–2 (Intelligence), G–3 (Operations), 

G–4 (Supply), and G–5 (Training). Under the commander’s watchful 

eye, the staff developed into a confident, competent, and loyal team 

that understood his goals and standards. As the war progressed, the 

staff officers could and did increasingly act and speak for Pershing 

without waiting for his personal approval. This practice would 

sometime raise the ire of subordinate commanders, who were more 

accustomed to direct contact with their commanding officer than 

receiving directives and guidance through staff officers. Nevertheless, 

Pershing’s staff officers freed him of the details of intricate plan-

ning and administration and allowed him to coordinate on strategic 

matters with the allies, confer with his subordinate commanders, and 

inspect and inspire his troops. 

One advantage that many of Pershing’s staff officers shared was 

their training at Fort Leavenworth’s service schools. A component of 

the Root reforms at the turn of the century, these schools provided 
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

25

comprehensive training in the tactics, administration, and employment of large-scale units. Eight of the twelve officers to serve as AEF 

principal staff officers had Leavenworth training. In addition, a great 

majority of the division, corps, and army chiefs of staff had been 

educated at Leavenworth. Because of their common educational experience, this group was called, somewhat disparagingly, the Leavenworth 

Clique. There is little question, however, that this common background 

and doctrinal training served the officers well as they coordinated the 

massive movement of American troops.

Pershing placed great value in the benefits of a Leavenworth education. Its graduates knew how to move large concentrations of men and 

equipment to battle, how to write clear and precise operation orders, 

and how to coordinate the staff and line to effect these operations. An 

unexpected windfall was the officers’ great familiarity with the Metz 

area by virtue of Leavenworth’s reliance on German maps—rather 

than inferior American maps—for map exercises and terrain analysis. 

The officers’ common Leavenworth experience, moreover, permitted 

the AEF staff to speak the same language and to approach strategic 

and tactical situations in a similar manner. “Except for an ominous 

rumble to the north of us,” one graduate noted in the fall of 1918, “I 

might have thought that we were back at Leavenworth ... the technique 

and the talk were the same.”

In September 1917 Pershing moved his General Headquarters 

(GHQ) to Chaumont, about 150 miles southeast of Paris. Perhaps 

symbolic of the growing autonomy—at least in thought—of the 

American leaders in France, Chaumont was also centrally located to the 

prospective American front lines and to the American training areas in 

Lorraine. From Chaumont, Pershing and his staff would oversee the 

training of the AEF divisions. 

With the massive infusion of new recruits into the Army, the 

AEF Commander knew that all American units were badly in need of 

training. His training staff outlined an extensive regime for the incoming 

divisions, divided into three phases: The first phase emphasized basic 

soldier skills and unit training at platoon, company, and battalion levels; 

the second phase had battalions join French regiments in a quiet sector 

to gain front-line experience; in the third phase, the division’s infantry 

and artillery would join for field training to begin to work as a combined 

team. Throughout the phases, regiment, brigade, and division staffs 

would conduct tactical command post exercises. Then the divisions 

would be ready for actual, independent combat operations.

By the fall of 1917 Pershing had four divisions to train. The 1st 

Division had been in France since late June 1917. It was joined by the 2d 

Division, with a brigade of soldiers and a brigade of marines; the 26th 

Division of the New England National Guard; and the 42d Division, 

called the Rainbow Division because it was a composite of guardsmen 

from many states. As with the 1st Division, many of these divisions’ 

men were new recruits. Only in mid-January 1918, six months after the 

1st Division’s arrival in France, did Pershing consider it ready to move 

as a unit into a quiet sector of the trenches. The other three divisions 

would follow later in 1918. 

For training in trench warfare, Pershing gratefully accepted the help 

of experienced Allied, especially French, instructors. For its training, 

The officers’ common Leavenworth 

experience ... permitted the AEF 

staff to speak the same language 

and to approach strategic and 

tactical situations in a similar 

manner.
American Military History

26

the 1st Division was paired with the crack French 47th Chasseur 

Alpin Division. The AEF also followed the Allied system of setting 

up special training centers and schools to teach subjects such as gas 

warfare, demolitions, and the use of the hand grenade and the mortar. 

Pershing, however, believed that the French and British had become 

too imbued with trench warfare to the exclusion of the open warfare. 

Since Pershing strongly held that the victory could come only after 

driving the Germans from their trenches and defeating them in open 

warfare, he insisted on additional training in offensive tactics, including 

detailed work in rifle marksmanship and use of the bayonet. 

Ideally, the divisions would go through their training cycle in three 

or four months. Unfortunately, the situation was rarely ideal. Soldiers 

and units arrived from the United States without many basic skills or 

training. Also, the regimental and divisional officers and men were too 

often sent away from their units to attend schools or perform labor 

details. Moreover, due to the German offensives in the spring of 1918, 

divisions were pressed into line service before they completed the full 

training regime.

Wanting to ensure that the Americans would not stumble in taking 

their first step, Pershing waited until late October 1917 to allow the 1st 

Division to have its first trial experience in the line. One battalion at a 

time from each regiment spent ten days with a French division. In early 

November one of these deployments resulted in the first U.S. Army 

casualties of the war when the Germans staged a trench raid against 

the same battalion that had paraded in Paris. With a loss of 3 men, the 

Germans captured 11 Americans and killed 3: Cpl. James B. Gresham, 

Pvt. Thomas F. Enright, and Pvt. Merle D. Hay. 

Gas in World War I

The Western Front had seen extensive chemical 

operations since April 1915; but in mid-July 1917, 12,000 

newly arrived U.S. soldiers found themselves stationed 

within thirty miles of the front without gas masks. The 

United States entered World War I with its troops essentially unprepared for chemical warfare, which had to be 

remedied before the AEF could add its combat power to 

that of the Allies. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps had to 

rely heavily on French and British expertise for chemical 

training, doctrine, and materiel. Building on this imported 

knowledge base, the U.S. forces devoted substantial 

resources to defensive and offensive chemical warfare. 

The Army eventually established a separate Chemical 

Warfare Service to coordinate the offensive, defensive, 

and supply problems involved. Gas inflicted over a 

quarter of all AEF casualties: one of each U.S. division’s 

four field hospitals had to be dedicated to treatment of gas injuries. Typical World War I Gas Mask
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

27

German Offensives and the AEF’s First Battles

By late 1917, as the AEF methodically pursued its training 

program, the Allied situation on the Western Front had reached low 

ebb. The French armies were still recovering from the disastrous 

Nivelle Offensive of April 1917 and subsequent mutinies in which the 

French soldiers told their officers that they would defend France but 

would no longer attack. The British armies, under Field Marshal Sir 

Douglas Haig, suffered shocking losses in the Passchendaele campaign. 

As a consequence of this offensive, British Prime Minister David 

Lloyd George withheld replacements to assure that Haig would have 

to remain on the defensive. The Allies appeared to have no alternative 

for 1918 but to grimly hold on until enough American troops arrived 

to assure the numerical superiority essential to victory.

While the Allies were smarting from their losses, Germany 

triumphed on its other fronts. In Russia, the Bolshevik Revolution 

ended the war on the Eastern Front in October. Using forces freed 

from the Eastern Front, the Germans spearheaded an Austro-German 

offensive against the Italians along the Isonzo River in late October. 

By November the Italians had been defeated and thrown back over 

sixty miles. What had been a three-front war for the Germans in the 

spring of 1917 was now essentially a single front. The Germans could 

concentrate their forces on the Western Front for offensive operations.

Against this strategic backdrop, the Allies pressed Pershing to 

abandon his plans to wait for 1919 to make a large-scale commitment 

of American forces. With Pershing unwilling to discard the objective 

of an independent American army, the questions over amalgamation surfaced anew at the end of 1917. The Allies had experienced 

commanders and units and the necessary artillery, aviation, and tank 

support; but they lacked men. Meanwhile, the American situation was 

the reverse. Amalgamation would permit American manpower to be 

quickly brought to bear to hasten the victory. Toward this end, the 

British opened the next round of the debate by going directly to the 

American leadership in Washington.

In late 1917 Lloyd George approached “Colonel” Edward House, 

President Wilson’s close adviser, on the possibility of American 

companies’ training and fighting, if necessary, as part of British units. 

President Wilson and Secretary Baker deferred the decision to Pershing, 

who stubbornly refused. The issue arose again early in 1918, when the 

British offered to transport 150 battalions of riflemen and machine 

gunners, which would be used to temporarily fill out British divisions. 

Pershing again refused but made a counterproposal for the British to 

ship six complete American divisions instead of only infantry battalions. These units would train with the British, although their artillery 

would train with the French. Once the training was over, the battalions and regiments would be formed into divisions under their own 

American officers. The British reluctantly consented to this six-division 

agreement. For the French, Pershing made additional agreements to 

have the four American divisions then in France to serve under the 

French in Lorraine. In addition, Pershing agreed to transfer the four 

African-American infantry regiments of the 93d Division to the French 

Army, where they were eventually incorporated into French divisions.

Gas Masks for Man and Horse 

ca. 1917–1918
American Military History

28

In opposing the amalgamation of the American troops into Allied 

commands, Pershing was not callous to the Allied situation. While he 

appreciated the threat of a German attack, neither he nor his staff shared 

the Allied pessimism of the threat. Pershing’s operational staff believed 

that the British and French could withstand the potential German offensive and that neither was at the brink of collapse. Moreover, Pershing 

steadfastly held to his objective of an independent American Army. 

Although he personally believed strongly in such a force, he was also 

following his instruction from Washington to create “a separate and 

distinct force.” Amalgamation would squander American forces in the 

present, instead of looking toward the future, when the United States 

would provide a bulk of the Allied forces, a bulk not to be used under 

foreign flags. To Secretary Baker Pershing explained that men were 

not pawns to be shoved from one army to another, that Allied training 

methods differed, and, most important, that once the American troops 

were put into Allied units they would be hard to retrieve. For the time 

being, the debate over amalgamation had subsided. 

As the Allies debated, the German high command planned a series 

of spring offensives to end the war. With the collapse of Russia and 

the victory at Caporetto over the Italians, Germany was able to achieve 

numerical superiority on the Western Front. Strategically, however, 

Germany’s manpower reservoir was shrinking, its economy was 

stretched to the limit, and its population faced starvation. To achieve 

victory, the German Army needed to act before the strategic difficulties overcame the battlefield advantages. With new tactics for massing 

artillery and infiltrating infantry through weaknesses in the Allied lines, 

the German military leaders believed they could strike decisive blows 

before American manpower and resources could weigh in for the Allies. 

On March 21, 1918, the first German blow fell on the British 

along the Somme. After a massive artillery barrage, sixty-two German 

divisions smashed the British line and achieved a penetration along a 

fifty-mile front. They were heading toward Amiens, a communications 

hub on the Somme that in German hands would effectively split the 

French and British armies. (See Map 2.) British forces rallied to prevent 

the capture of Amiens, and by the end of March the German offensive 

had bogged down. The Germans nevertheless had achieved a brilliant 

Hutier Tactics

Named for General Oskar von Hutier, German Eighth Army commander on the Eastern Front in 1917, 

Hutier Tactics employed rolling and box artillery barrages to enable infantry to bypass strong points and 

penetrate enemy positions deeply enough to envelop adjacent Russian defenses. Their greatest success 

occurred during the 1917 German capture of Riga; and this success at the operational level brought the 

favorable notice of the General Staff and Chief of Staff as well as General Erich von Ludendorff’s decision to employ them with storm troops during the spring 1918 Western Front offensive. Germany began 

developing infantry storm-troop units and tactics on the Western Front as early as 1915, as maneuver there 

stagnated. The General Staff supported developing special units, tactics, and weapons to enable local 

penetrations of enemy weak points to permit envelopment of bypassed enemy forces and strong points. 
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

29

tactical victory: an advance of forty miles in eight days, 70,000 prisoners 

and 200,000 other Allied casualties. Strategically, the result was empty. 

The Germans had failed to destroy the British armies or separate them 

from the French.

Operationally, at this point, the Americans could do little materially to assist the British. On March 25 Pershing offered General Petain 

any AEF division that could be of service and postponed the idea of 

fielding American divisions under the American I Corps. Appreciating 

the offer, Petain preferred for the Americans to replace French divisions in quiet sectors, freeing the more experienced French divisions 

for action against the Germans. Field Marshal Haig specifically asked 

Pershing for any available heavy artillery or engineer units. Pershing 

had no heavy artillery available but sent three engineer regiments north. 

The German offensives also jarred the Allied leadership into 

building a stronger joint command structure. After the Italian defeat at 

Caporetto in November 1917, the British and French leaders agreed 

to the creation of the Supreme War Council to coordinate actions 

and strategy on the Western Front. In addition to political leaders, the 

council provided for a committee of military advisers; General Bliss, 

the former Chief of Staff, more than ably served as the American 

representative. Although the council provided a useful forum for the 

Allies, committees are rarely able to provide firm direction. Consequently, 

when the German attack fell on the Somme, the Allies saw the need to 

coordinate the British and French responses to the attack. They chose 

General Ferdinand Foch, both respected and capable, to coordinate 

the forces around the Amiens salient. Later, he was charged with coordination of all Allied land forces. Although Foch never had the full 

authority to command the Allied forces, through persuasion and force 

of character, he was able to successfully orchestrate the other strongwilled Allied commanders, including General Pershing. 

In April the Germans launched another attack on the British 

lines. This time the attack was aimed along the Lys River, to the 

north of the Amiens salient. Once again the Germans achieved 

tactical victory but operationally only created another salient in the 

Western Front.

With the German advances in March and April, the Allied leadership again pressed Pershing for the service of American troops with 

their armies. At the end of March the Supreme War Council had drafted 

Joint Note No. 18, which recommended that priority of shipping go to 

American infantry. To the British, this looked to nullify the six-division 

agreement of January; they wanted to ship just ri

flemen and machine 

gunners for the next four months (April–July). Pershing stubbornly 

refused. Over the next few weeks, in a series of confused and often 

contradicting negotiations in London, Washington, and France, the Allies 

and the Americans bickered over American manpower. At the end of 

April Pershing and Lord Alfred Milner, the new British War Minister, 

agreed to a modified six-division agreement: British shipping would 

transport six American divisions to train with Haig’s armies, but Pershing 

agreed to have all the infantry and machine gunners shipped first. 

At the May summit of Allied and American leaders (only President 

Wilson was absent) at Abbeville, France, the Allies, led by French Premier 

George Clemenceau, again brought up the issue of amalgamation. 
American Military History

30

Over the two-day conference, virtually all the Allied leaders pressed 

Pershing to bring over American infantry at the expense of the rest 

of the divisional elements throughout the summer of 1918. At one 

point, General Foch asked Pershing in exasperation, “You are willing to 

risk our being driven back to the Loire?” The American replied: “Yes, 

I am willing to take the risk. Moreover, the time may come when the 

American Army will have to stand the brunt of this war, and it is not 

wise to fritter away our resources in this manner.” Pershing continued 

to believe that the Allies were overestimating the effect of the German 

offensives and exploiting the situation to recruit American soldiers for 

their armies. 

Finally, after two days of acrimonious debate, Pershing proposed to 

continue the agreement with Milner for both May and June. Discussion 

of troop shipments in July would be delayed for the time being. The 

Allies unhappily accepted this arrangement. The Abbeville Agreement 

held that 130,000 Americans were to be transported in British shipping 

in May 1918 and 150,000 in June. American shipping would be used to 

ship artillery, engineer, and other support and service troops to build a 

separate American army. 

In the meantime AEF divisions fought their first two engagements, 

albeit in only local operations. In late April Maj. Gen. Clarence Edwards’ 

26th (Yankee) Division held a quiet sector near St. Mihiel. On April 20 

the quiet erupted with a heavy German bombardment followed by a 

regiment-size German attack to seize the village of Seicheprey. Boxing 

in the defenders with artillery, the German attackers overwhelmed two 

American companies and seized the trench line. The American division 

botched the counterattacks; when it finally advanced, the Americans 

found that the enemy had withdrawn. The Germans left behind 160 

dead, but they took over 100 prisoners and in

flicted over 650 casualties. 

Pershing was infuriated. In the midst of the debate over amalgamation, he did not need a humiliating setback that would raise questions 

about the American ability to handle divisions—or higher units. Much 

more satisfying to Pershing and the American leadership was the 1st 

Division’s attack at Cantigny. 

In mid-April the 1st Division went north in response to the 

German Lys offensive. Petain had selected its sector near Montdidier, 

along the line where the Germans had been stopped in front of Amiens. 

Once in line, the division’s new commander, Maj. Gen. Robert L. Bullard, 

an aggressive, long-time regular, urged his French corps commander for 

an offensive mission. Finally, Petain himself agreed that Bullard’s men 

should attack to seize the village of Cantigny on commanding ground 

near the tip of the salient. Even after careful preparations and rehearsals, 

the regiment-size American attack was not a sure thing: twice before, the 

French had taken and lost the key piece of terrain. 

On the morning of May 28 Col. Hanson Ely’s 28th Regiment, well 

supported by American and French artillery and by French tanks, took 

the village in a well-executed assault. The difficulty came in holding 

the town against German counterattacks. To help deal with the enemy 

attacks, the Americans could rely only on their own organic artillery after the supporting French guns withdrew to deal with another 

large German offensive. The American gunners, however, proved 

up to the task and assisted in breaking up several actual or potential 
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

31

counterattacks. When the German counterattacks came, they were 

poorly coordinated with their own artillery; Ely’s men repulsed them. 

Altogether, the Americans would repulse six counterattacks. After 

three days of counterattacks and constant artillery shelling, Ely and 

his regiment were replaced by the 18th Regiment. During their efforts 

in taking and holding Cantigny, the Americans lost almost 200 men 

killed and suffered another 800 casualties. Yet for the Americans, this 

local operation was only the first step. 

Americans Help Stem the Tide, May–July 1918

To bleed off reserves from the north, on May 27 the German high 

command launched its third spring offensive at the French lines in the 

Chemin des Dames area northeast of Paris. By the end of the first day 

the attackers had driven the French over the Aisne River, the second 

defensive line. By the next day they were across the Vesle River and 

driving toward the Marne. When the offensive eventually ground to a 

halt, German troops were within fifty miles of Paris, almost as close as 

they had come in 1914.

The offensive had caught the Allies flatfooted. With most of the 

reserves in the north, Foch and Petain struggled to scrape up enough 

reserves to form a new line. To the west, the American 1st Division 

extended its lines to free a French division for redeployment. Moreover, 

two large American divisions (Maj. Gen. Omar Bundy’s 2d Division 

and Maj. Gen. Joseph T. Dickman’s 3d Division) entered the line near 

Château-Thierry on the Marne. Of the five American divisions almost 

ready for battle, Bundy’s and Dickman’s were closest to the path of the 

Germans. On May 30 they had been ordered forward to feed into the 

French line under French command. 

Loaded on trucks, troops of the 3d Division’s 7th Machine Gun 

Battalion arrived on the Marne first and were in position to help French 

troops hold the main bridge site over the river on May 31. The next day 

Dickman’s infantry arrived. For the next week, the division repulsed the 

An antiaircraft machine gun of the 101st Field Artillery fires on a German observation 

plane at Plateau Chemin des Dames, France, in March 1918.
American Military History

32

limited German attacks in its sector. On June 6 the division assisted the 

French 10th Colonial Division in an attack to Hill 204 overlooking the 

Marne. The 3d Division held an eight-mile stretch of ground along the 

Marne for the next month. 

On June 1 Bundy’s 2d Division had assumed defensive positions 

astride the Paris-Metz highway west of Château-Thierry. In 1918 the 2d 

Division had a distinctive organization: it had a brigade of Army regulars 

and a brigade of marines. Bundy placed the two brigades abreast with 

the marines to the west and the regulars to the east. As the Americans 

settled into their positions, the French troops withdrew through the 2d 

Division’s lines. Across from Bundy’s lines, the Germans moved into 

Belleau Wood and the surrounding area while their artillery shelled the 

American positions. Nevertheless, the German advance had shot its 

bolt and the Americans had no difficulty holding their position. 

Once the German advance was stopped, the 2d Division was 

ordered to seize Belleau Wood and the villages of Bouresches and 

Vaux to the east. The attack began on June 6. Over the next month the 

infantrymen and marines fought a bloody, toe-to-toe fight against four 

German divisions. The struggle for Belleau Wood was particularly hard 

fought. The fight became a test of wills, with the Germans checking the 

Army Camp, George Harding, 1917
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

33

mettle of the Americans. By June 17 the marines had taken Bouresches. 

Six days later they cleared Belleau Wood, and on July 1 the infantrymen 

captured Vaux. Though the Americans had gained their objectives and 

inflicted over 10,000 casualties on the Germans, the price was reciprocally steep. Bundy’s division suffered over 9,777 casualties, including 

1,811 dead. One of the opposing German commanders noted that the 

division “must be considered a very good one and may even be reckoned as storm troops.” The AEF had proved itself in battle. 

While the 2d Division continued its battle in the tangled forest 

of Belleau Wood, the Germans launched their fourth offensive. One 

German army attacked southwesterly from the Amiens salient, while 

another launched a westward attack from the Marne salient. The 

German high command hoped to shorten their lines and ease their 

logistical difficulties by joining the two bulges in their lines. The French, 

however, having been forewarned of the offensive, launched a vigorous 

artillery strike on the German assault troops and disrupted the force of 

the attack. By June 13 both attacks were halted after only limited gains. 

With these meager gains, the German high command planned yet 

another offensive against the French. Once again the Germans wanted 

to use two converging attacks to shorten their lines and draw off 

reserves from the British sector, thus setting the conditions for their 

future operations in Flanders. On July 15 one German army attacked 

south from positions east of Reims while another attacked southeast 

from the Marne salient. Again, the Allies were tipped off about the 

attack and sent a counterbarrage against the Germans. Moreover, the 

allied forces, including the U.S. 42d Division and the three AfricanAmerican infantry regiments of the 93d Division, withdrew from the 

forward lines, leaving the German artillery and infantry assaults to 

hit an empty bag. By the time the Germans reached the French and 

American main defensive line, their attack was played out.

Officers of the “Buffalos,” 367th Infantry, 92d Division, in France, ca. 1918
American Military History

34

In front of the German attack against the Marne, the French 

commanders did not want to allow the enemy a foothold over the river 

and maintained the forward positions. The Germans thus were able to 

make greater headway, up to five miles beyond the Marne at some points. 

On the eastern flank of the French line, however, the U.S. 3d Division 

prevented the Germans from crossing the Marne. Dickman’s men had 

been in the area since early June. Initially, Dickman had deployed them in 

depth with two regiments forward and two in reserve. But since the division was required to defend a lot of ground, he had to spread the defenses 

more thinly across the front. By mid-July the division was defending a tenmile front with four infantry regiments abreast. Nevertheless, Dickman 

established as much of an echelon defense as he could: an outpost line of 

rifle pits along the Marne River (backed by the main defensive line along 

the forward slopes of the hill line about 1,500 yards from the river) and a 

reserve line about 3,000 yards beyond that. 

On the early morning hours of July 15 the Germans began their 

attack against the 3d Division with a creeping barrage followed shortly 

by an assault-crossing of the Marne. The weight of the attack came 

against Col. Edmund Butts’ 30th Infantry and Col. Ulysses Grant 

McAlexander’s 38th Infantry. After heavy fighting in the morning, 

when the 30th Infantry inflicted horrendous casualties on the Germans, 

Butts’ men were forced back to a line along the hills where they had 

stopped the Germans. McAlexander faced a more precarious position when the adjacent French division hastily retreated, leaving the 

38th Infantry’s right flank exposed. Turning some of the regiment to 

defend that flank, McAlexander also had to deal with a penetration 

of his main line. Although fighting on three sides, the riflemen and 

machine gunners of the 38th Infantry held, earning the sobriquet Rock 

of the Marne. By the end of the day the German attack against the 

3d Division had been stopped. Between the 30th and 38th Infantries 

the Americans had defeated six regiments from two German divisions. 

One German 1,700-man regiment was so badly cut up that the German 

leaders could only find 150 survivors at nightfall on July 15.

The AEF’s combat along the Marne carried an unfortunate note. 

Four rifle companies of the 28th Division from the Pennsylvania 

National Guard had been attached to the French division to the east of 

Rock of the Marne

On July 15, 1918, the 38th Infantry of the 3d Infantry Division successfully defended its position on 

the Paris-Metz railroad, 200 yards from the River Marne, against six German attacks. It was the last great 

offensive of the German Army and the first fight of the 38th Infantry in World War I. Initially, the Germans 

succeeded in driving a wedge 4,000 yards deep into the 38th Infantry’s front while the U.S. 30th Infantry on 

its left and the French 125th Division on its right withdrew under heavy pressure. With the situation desperate, 

the regiment stood and fought. The two flanks of the 38th Infantry moved toward the river, squeezing the 

German spearhead between them and exposing it to heavy shelling by the 3d Division artillery. The German 

Army’s offensive failed. With this brave stand the 38th Infantry earned its nom de guerre Rock of the Marne. 

General John J. Pershing declared its stand “one of the most brilliant pages in our military annals.” 
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

35

the 38th Infantry. When the French retreated, they neglected to inform 

the Pennsylvanians; the riflemen became surrounded. Most of them 

were killed or captured; only a few fought their way to the south. By 

the time the survivors made it back to friendly lines, they found their 

division in line against the Germans. 

The Growing AEF

Prior to March 1918 Pershing’s efforts to create a distinct 

American ground combat force had been checked by the shortage of 

transportation available for troops and the objectives and demands 

of the Allies. In December 1917 only 183,000 American soldiers were 

in France, comprising parts of five divisions and performing various 

service support functions. During the first three months of 1918 the 

number of Americans doubled, but only an additional two combat 

divisions had arrived. However, after April 1918 the various shipping 

arrangements with the Allies, especially the British, had begun to pay 

dividends; American troops began to pour into Europe. At the end 

of June over 900,000 Americans had arrived in France, with 10,000 

arriving daily. 

In early July the AEF had reached the million-man mark, with 

twenty-three combat divisions (an equivalent of almost fifty Allied divisions). Six of the AEF’s divisions had seen combat over the previous 

two months: two of those were holding segments of active front 

lines; four were in reserve positions. The 4th Division joined those in 

reserve. Six other divisions were training in the American sector around 

Chaumont, and another five were training with the British behind the 

front lines in the north. Four more were brigaded with French divisions 

for training along quiet sectors of the line, while the regiments of the 

93d Division served with French divisions. 

Since late 1917 Pershing had envisioned as the next step in establishing 

an independent American army the creation of American corps organizations with tactical command over American divisions. Toward this end he 

had established I Corps in January 1918 under the command of the unassuming but extremely capable Maj. Gen. Hunter Liggett. Over the next six 

months Liggett held administrative control over four American divisions, 

overseeing their training and interceding on their behalf with the French 

commanders. With the assistance of his effective Chief of Staff, Col. Malin 

Craig, he also ensured that his corps staff and headquarters were trained. 

The I Corps spent much of its time collocated with the French XXXII 

Corps in the Pont-à-Mousson region north of Toul. 

By the end of June the AEF had formed three more corps headquarters. In late February 1918 the II Corps assumed administrative 

control of the American troops training with the British. In June Maj. 

Gen. George W. Read took command; until that time the corps staff 

had reported directly to GHQ. During the late spring the III and IV 

Corps were formed to manage Americans unit-training with the French 

Seventh and Eighth Armies, respectively. Eventually, General Bullard 

would assume command of the III Corps, while General Dickman 

would take over the IV Corps. 

At the same time the AEF was organizing its first corps, Pershing 

was eyeing the front north of Toul, along the St. Mihiel salient, as the 

Pershing had envisioned as the 

next step in establishing an 

independent American army 

the creation of American corps 

organizations with tactical 

command over American divisions.
American Military History

36

sector to employ them. Ever since the 1st Division initially occupied 

a sector north of Toul in early 1918, the AEF staff had planned to 

expand that sector into an area of operations first for an American 

corps, then for an American army. In May, once the military situation 

stabilized after the failure of the German offensives in March and April, 

General Foch proposed concentrating available U.S. divisions to establish a separate AEF sector and left it to Petain and Pershing to work 

out the details. Subsequently, the two national commanders agreed that 

once four American divisions were in line along the Toul front, the 

sector would be turned over to the AEF. The AEF headquarters began 

to make arrangements to move units into the region, then the Germans 

struck with their Marne offensive on May 27. The available U.S. divisions were sent northward to help stem the tide along the Marne.

By June the better part of five American divisions was positioned 

in the Château-Thierry area. Forgoing the Toul sector for the time 

being, Pershing decided to use this concentration of American divisions 

for the first tactical employment of an AEF corps. In mid-June, with 

General Petain’s permission, the AEF’s GHQ notified General Liggett 

and his I Corps to prepare to move to the Château-Thierry region. 

As the I Corps prepared to move north, the AEF made an important 

shift in its doctrine for the employment of corps. Initially, the GHQ 

had followed the policy of assigning 6 divisions (4 combat, 1 base, and 

1 depot divisions) permanently to each corps headquarters. The reaction to the German offensives, however, meant that the corps’ assigned 

divisions were strewn individually over the recent battle zones. With 

the AEF corps’ divisions scattered, it seemed unlikely that it would be 

in position to take tactical control of the divisions. Consequently, the 

AEF announced that divisions and special troops would be assigned 

temporarily to the corps. Organically, the corps itself would consist of 

only a headquarters and some artillery, aviation, engineer, and technical 

units. The change also re

flected the French system for a more flexible 

corps organization that could be adapted to a particular mission.

Liggett and his I Corps staff arrived at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, 

southwest of Château-Thierry, on June 21. There, the I Corps assumed 

administrative control over the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, and 28th Divisions. 

More important, the corps began to work with the French III Corps 

that was holding the sector just west of Château-Thierry. A little less 

than two weeks later the I Corps took tactical control of the sector with 

the French 167th Division and the U.S. 26th Division. Perhaps fittingly, 

the corps assumed command on the American Independence Day, July 

4, 1918. Fourteen days later the I Corps would provide the pivot for the 

first large-scale Allied counteroffensive in 1918. 

The AEF in the Aisne-Marne Campaign 

July–August 1918

Even as the Germans launched their June and July offensives, 

General Foch had been looking for an opportunity to strike a counterblow. The Marne salient presented an excellent prospect: the salient was 

inherently weak as the German forces relied on a single railroad through 

Soissons for the majority of their supplies. The Germans had failed 

to improve the situation with their June offensive. In mid-June Foch 
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

37

directed Petain to begin making plans for an attack against Soissons; 

Petain and his commanders completed the plans by the end of June. 

After French intelligence had warned him of the German attack east 

of Chateau-Thierry that would begin on July 15, Foch set the date for 

his counterattack as the eighteenth. Consequently, as the Germans 

were attacking on the eastern flank of the salient, the Allies would be 

attacking against their exposed western flank. 

The Allied attack plan called for two French armies to attack on July 

18 toward Braine on the Vesle River. In the north, the French Tenth 

Army would conduct the main attack between the Aisne and the Ourcq 

Rivers; in the south, the French Sixth Army would attack between the 

Ourcq and the Marne. Their mission was to cut the German lines of 

communications in the salient. The French Fifth and Ninth Armies 

on the eastern flank would join the attack after defeating the German 

offensive. Foch expected the reduction of the Marne salient to follow.

Under the cover of the forest of Villers-Cotterêts, the assault 

forces for the French Tenth Army gathered efficiently and secretly in 

the three days prior to the attack. Against the German defenders along 

the western flank of the salient, Foch had been able the gather twentythree first-class divisions. Among them were the 1st and 2d Divisions 

assigned to the French XX Corps. Administratively the two U.S. divisions fell under General Bullard’s III Corps, which had been rushed 

Storming Machine Gun, George Harding, 1918
American Military History

38

to the sector. Pershing had wanted Bullard to command the American 

troops; but Bullard arrived in the assembly areas too late to properly 

exercise tactical command, and he was instead attached to the XX 

Corps as an assistant commander. In addition to the two U.S. divisions 

with the Tenth Army, three more American divisions would take part 

in the initial days of the operation. In the French Sixth Army area, the 

U.S. 4th Division supported two French corps with an infantry brigade 

apiece, while Liggett’s I Corps with the 26th Division held the eastern flank of that army. Meanwhile, the 3d Division supported the French 

Ninth Army. 

On July 18 the Franco-American attack came as a tactical and 

operational surprise to the Germans. To preserve secrecy the Allies had 

made no artillery preparation of any kind prior to the attack. Instead 

the infantry attack was supported by over 550 tanks; short but intensive 

preparatory fires preceded a rolling barrage. Moreover, many of the 

assault units had moved into attack positions during the night before 

the attack. Darkness, heavy rain, and mud hampered the American divisions’ movements to the front; and some of the 2d Division’s infantry 

reached their jump-off point with only minutes to spare.

Spearheading the Tenth Army’s attack, the XX Corps began a dawn 

assault to seize the high ground to the south of Soissons and cut the 

key rail lines. It attacked on a three-division front: Maj. Gen. Charles 

Summerall’s 1st Division on the northern 

flank, General Harbord’s 

2d Division on the southern, and the Moroccan 1st Division in the 

center. On July 18 both American divisions made remarkable progress, 

advancing over three miles and achieving their objectives by 8:00 

a.m. 

The next day the corps renewed its attack. The Germans, however, 

had been heavily reinforced with machine guns and artillery during the 

night; the French and American infantry found the advance slower and 

more costly. After a day of hard fighting, Harbord asked for the relief 

of his division; it was replaced by a French division. In two days the 2d 

Division had advanced more than eight miles and captured 3,000 prisoners and sixty-six field guns, at a cost of almost 4,000 men. Summerall’s 

division remained in line for another three days and cut the Soissons–

Château-Thierry highway and the Villers-Cotterêts railroad and held the 

ground that dominated Soissons. In its five-day battle the 1st Division 

captured 3,800 prisoners and seventy guns from the seven German 

divisions used against it. For these gains, the division paid a heavy price: 

7,000 casualties (1,000 killed and a 73 percent casualty rate among the 

infantry’s field officers). 

Despite the high cost, the XX Corps’ attack was an operational 

success. To counter the Allied attack south of Soissons, the German 

high command halted its offensive east of Château-Thierry and withdrew from its footholds over the Marne. Furthermore, the allied interdiction of the supply line through Soissons made the Marne salient 

untenable and the Germans began to withdraw.

To the south of the Tenth Army, the Sixth Army also attacked 

on July 18. Among the attacking units was Maj. Gen. George H. 

Cameron’s 4th Division, which supported the French II and VII Corps. 

From July 18–20 Cameron’s division advanced about four miles in two 

separate sectors. More significantly, Liggett’s I Corps advanced up the 

spine of the Marne salient for four weeks. With the American 26th 
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

39

Division and the French 167th Division, I Corps pushed beyond the old 

Belleau Wood battlegrounds and advanced about ten miles from July 

18–25. For the next three weeks the corps made steady gains against the 

tenacious German defenders. Advancing with the 42d Division from 

July 25–August 3 and then the 4th Division from August 3–12, the 

American corps crossed the Ourcq and then the Vesle, a distance of 

almost fifteen miles. On August 12 Liggett and his headquarters were 

withdrawn to the Toul sector in preparation for the next offensive. 

To the east of Château-Thierry, the AEF troops also played a 

significant role. The 3d Division had been a mainstay of this portion 

of the Marne line since early June. Initially, its role was to pin down 

German forces as the Sixth and Tenth Armies advanced. After July 20, 

as part of the French XXXVIII Corps, the division crossed the Marne, 

cleared the northern bank, and pursued the Germans as they withdrew. 

The division pushed forward until relieved by the 32d Division on July 

29. The 32d Division continued the advance until it reached the Vesle. 

On August 1 Bullard’s III Corps arrived and assumed tactical control 

of the 32d, 28th, and 3d Divisions from the French XXXVIII Corps. 

Thus for a few days the American I and III Corps stood side by side 

on the front lines. 

At the end of the first week of August, the Aisne-Marne Campaign 

came to a close. The campaign successfully removed the threat against 

Paris and freed several important railroads for Allied use. It also 

Pulling Caisson Uphill, George Harding, 1918
American Military History

40

eliminated the German high command’s plans for another offensive 

against the British in Flanders. More important, the campaign effectively seized the initiative from the Germans and gave it to Foch and his 

national commanders. With the initiative passing to the Allies, so too 

passed the chance for Germany to defeat Britain and France before the 

United States could intervene in force. 

To maintain pressure on the Germans, Foch had Petain continue 

the advance beyond the Vesle. From mid-August to mid-September 

this advance included troops from the American III Corps before they 

withdrew southward to join the new American First Army. From August 

28–September 1 Maj. Gen. William G. Haan’s 32d Division attacked 

north of Soissons, seizing the key town of Juvigny and making a twoand-a-half-mile penetration of the German lines. In early September, 

the 28th and the 77th Divisions attacked northward, almost reaching 

the Aisne River by September 16. 

An American Army and St. Mihiel, September 1918

Shortly after the dramatic advance of the 1st and 2d Divisions south 

of Soissons, Pershing renewed his efforts for an independent American 

field army. On July 21 he approached Petain about organizing an army 

and establishing its own distinct area of operations. Pershing wanted 

one sector in the active Marne front and another in a more quiet sector, 

the Toul area, where he could send exhausted units to rest and refit. He 

wanted to form the American First Army in the active sector and take 

command himself. Petain agreed in principle to Pershing’s plans, and 

together they met with Foch. Foch was favorably disposed to the plan 

but made no firm commitment.

Three days later, as the Allied forces were approaching the Ourcq 

River, Foch called a meeting of his senior military commanders to lay 

out his plan to maintain the initiative on the Western Front. He envisioned a set of immediate limited offensives aimed at freeing important 

railroads and key resources. Beside the ongoing Marne Campaign, these 

included operations to reduce the Lys and Amiens salients in the north 

and the St. Mihiel salient in the south. The latter was to be an American 

operation. Upon completion of these limited operations, Foch wanted 

a general offensive along the entire front, pushing to end the war in the 

summer of 1919. 

On the same day Pershing officially announced the formation of 

the American First Army, with an effective date of August 10, 1918. 

When on August 4 the I and III Corps assumed adjacent sectors south 

of the Vesle, arrangements were made to extend both their fronts 

to cover the entire French Sixth Army’s sector. By August 8 the two 

corps held a front of eight miles and had control of six American and 

two French divisions. Petain’s headquarters issued orders affecting the 

relief of the Sixth Army by the American First. On August 10 Pershing 

achieved one of his major objectives for the AEF, the formation of 

an independent American army that combined American corps and 

American divisions. 

These arrangements were quickly overtaken by events. By the time 

Petain and Pershing could establish a sector for an American army, 

the situation along the Vesle had stabilized. With no need or desire 
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

41

to occupy an inactive sector, Pershing arranged with Petain to begin 

moving his army headquarters southward to prepare for operations 

against the St. Mihiel salient. Leaving Petain with the American III 

Corps of three divisions, Pershing began shifting other American units 

to the St. Mihiel region. American troops from the Vesle region, the 

Vosges, the training areas around Chaumont, and the British sector 

were concentrated along the salient. Initially, the forces available to the 

American First Army were three American corps of fourteen divisions 

and a French corps of three divisions. 

Just as the concentration of American forces was making headway, 

Foch, newly promoted to Marshal of France, came to Pershing’s headquarters on August 30. Pershing and his staff had been planning to 

achieve Foch’s desire to reduce the St. Mihiel salient and then push the 

Germans back along the whole front as stated at the July 24 conference. 

But now, several weeks later, Foch had reconsidered the need for the 

St. Mihiel operation. Based on a suggestion from Field Marshal Haig, 

the British commander, Foch wanted to launch a series of converging 

attacks against the Germans’ lateral lines of communications. This 

plan called for British forces to attack southeasterly and the FrancoAmerican forces to attack northward from the Meuse-Argonne region 

in a vast double envelopment against the German Army. With the 

northward attack, a full reduction of the St. Mihiel salient would be 

unnecessary. Foch further complicated the situation by proposing to 

divide the American army into two pieces on either side of the MeuseArgonne, separated by a French army. He made his proposal even more 

uninviting to the AEF by detailing two French generals to “assist” the 

Americans. 

Not surprisingly, Pershing fervently objected to the suggestion of 

dividing the American forces. He offered counterproposals, which Foch 

dismissed as impractical. Quickly, the tempers of the two commanders flared. Foch demanded to know if the American commander wanted 

to go into battle. Pershing replied, “Most assuredly, but as an American 

Army.” Having reached an impasse, Foch departed. 

Once again Pershing turned to his friend Petain for assistance. 

Petain wanted American support and cooperation and believed that 

a strong AEF with its own sector of the front was in the best interest 

of the French Army. Together, Petain and Pershing met with Foch on 

September 2. Supported by Petain, Pershing offered to assume the entire 

sector of the front from Pont-à-Mousson through the Meuse valley to the 

Argonne Forest, a length of about ninety miles. The AEF commander 

contended that the attack against the St. Mihiel salient could begin within 

two weeks and that it offered operational advantages to Foch’s desired 

attack along the Meuse as well as the potential to build confidence and 

experience in the American First Army. Foch insisted that the operation 

be limited to simply reducing the salient and that the Americans would 

have to attack northward by the end of the month. Pershing noted that 

after his Army had eliminated the salient it could pivot and still launch 

its offensive against the Meuse-Argonne on schedule. Finally, the three 

commanders agreed to two distinct American operations supported by 

French troops and equipment: the elimination of the St. Mihiel salient 

beginning about September 10 and the larger offensive along the west 

bank of the Meuse starting between September 20–25.
American Military History

42

With approval to proceed with the St. Mihiel offensive, the AEF 

staff began the final planning for the operation. Resulting from a 

German offensive in September 1914, the St. Mihiel salient was a 

200-square-mile triangle jutting fourteen miles into the Allied lines 

between the Moselle and Meuse rivers. Bounded by Pont-à-Mousson to 

the south, St. Mihiel to the west, and the Verdun area to the north, the 

terrain was mostly rolling plain, heavily wooded in spots. After three 

years of occupation, the Germans had turned the area into a fortress 

with heavy bands of barbed wire and strong artillery and machine-gun 

emplacements. Eight divisions defended the salient, with five more in 

reserve.

The Americans planned to make near-simultaneous attacks against 

the two flanks of the salient. While an attached French corps of three 

divisions pressed the apex of the salient, the three divisions of the 

newly formed V Corps would attack southeasterly toward Vigneulles. 

General Cameron, who had impressed Pershing in the July operations, 

commanded the corps. Cameron’s men would link up with the three 

divisions of the IV Corps, now under General Dickman who had 

fought so well along the Marne. To the right, the experienced I Corps 

of four divisions would push to the base of the salient. The I and IV 

Corps were to attack at 5:00 a.m., the French corps an hour later, and 

the V Corps at 8:00.

Pershing was determined not to fail in his first operation as an army 

commander. To support his 11 divisions (7 American and 4 French), he 

arranged for the use of over 3,000 guns, 1,400 planes, and 267 tanks. 

The British and the French provided the vast majority of artillery, planes, 

and tanks, though a large number of the planes and some of the tanks 

were manned by Americans. Initially, to maintain the element of surprise, 

Pershing was going to have little to no artillery fire before the attack; 

but in the end he decided to use a four-hour bombardment along the 

southern flank and a seven-hour one along the western flank. In addition, 

Pershing, at the suggestion of Petain, developed an elaborate scheme to 

deceive the Germans into thinking that the American first blow would 

come to the south near Belfort; the scheme worked well enough to get 

the Germans to move three divisions into that sector.

At 1:00 on the morning of September 12 the artillery began its 

bombardments. As planned, four hours later the infantry and tanks of 

Barbed Wire

Barbed wire was invented in the United States in 1873 as agricultural fencing. By the outbreak of World 

War I it had become an important element of field fortifications. Barbed-wire entanglements tens of meters 

deep combined with trenches and machine guns to make the Western Front essentially impassible to large 

bodies of troops. A substantial fraction of artillery rounds were spent for the sole purpose of cutting the wire 

in front of attacking infantry. The emplacement, maintenance, and removal of barbed wire entanglements 

consumed the bulk of infantry patrols and much of the combat-engineering effort. New tactics and the introduction of improved equipment such as tanks and bangalore torpedoes reduced, but by no means eliminated, 

barbed wire as a battlefield obstruction. 
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

43

the I and IV Corps attacked on a twelve-mile front. Pivoting on the I 

Corps, Dickman’s infantrymen swept ahead over five miles. Meanwhile, 

the V Corps kicked off its attack at 8:00, also making good progress. 

The Germans put up a determined defense long enough to retreat in 

good order. (They had been ordered to withdraw from the salient on 

September 8 but had been slow in executing the order.) By the end of 

the day the 1st Division, advancing from the south, was within striking 

distance of Vigneulles and ten miles from the advancing columns of 

the V Corps’ 26th Division. 

On the afternoon of September 12 Pershing learned that columns 

of Germans were retreating on roads from Vigneulles and urged both 

the 1st and 26th Divisions to continue their attacks through the night. 

Despite having made a very deliberate advance during the day, the 26th 

Division moved quickly throughout the night; one regiment captured 

Vigneulles by 2:30 on the morning of the thirteenth. At dawn a brigade 

of the 1st Division had made contact with the New Englanders. 

With the capture of Vigneulles and the linkup of the two converging 

American columns, the critical part of operation was over. By the end 

of September 13 the First Army had taken practically all its objectives.

In two days the American soldiers had cleared a salient that had 

remained virtually undisturbed for three years. While suffering 7,000 

casualties, the American army in

flicted over 17,000 casualties, mostly 

prisoners, on the German defenders as well as seizing 450 cannon and 

a large amount of war stores. Although the defenders had planned 

to leave the salient, the attack’s timing came as a surprise and hurried 

their withdrawal. The operation freed the Paris-Nancy railroad and 

secured the American rear for the upcoming northward thrust. More 

important, the battle had given Pershing and his First Army staff 

experience in directing a battle of several corps supported by tanks 

and aircraft. It would be needed for the much larger and complex 

operation along the Meuse. 

The Meuse-Argonne Campaign 

September–November 1918 Though local operations to improve the defensive positions and 

aggressive patrolling continued along the St. Mihiel front, the main effort 

of Pershing and the AEF shifted forty miles to the northwest along the 

west bank of the Meuse. Over the next two weeks, the AEF now executed 

a complex and massive movement of troops, artillery, and supplies to its 

new battleground. This movement was completed over only three roads 

capable of heavy traffic and confined to the hours of darkness to main-

tain secrecy. Over 820,000 men were transferred in the region: 220,000 

French and Italian troops left the area, and about 600,000 Americans 

entered. Of the 15 American divisions that took over the sector, 7 had 

been involved in the St. Mihiel operation, 3 came from the Vesle sector, 

3 from the area of Soissons, 1 near Bar-le-Duc, and 1 from a training 

area. That this movement went off without a serious setback was largely 

attributable to the careful planning of a young staff officer on Pershing’s 

First Army staff, Col. George C. Marshall. 

The AEF’s attack into the Meuse-Argonne region was part of 

Foch’s larger general offensive against the Germans. Together with 
American Military History

44

the concentric attacks of the British toward Mons and the Americans 

toward Mézières, the French would attack in the center, as well as 

supporting both of their allies in their operations. This broad-front 

campaign would force the Germans to defend the entire front. Foch’s 

objective was to cut the enemy’s vital lateral rail lines and compel the 

Germans to retire inside their own frontier before the end of 1918. For 

this grand offensive, Foch had 220 divisions, of which forty-two were 

the big divisions of the AEF.

The American First Army would attack northward in conjunction 

with the French Fourth Army. Its main objective was the rail line between 

Carignan-Sedan-Mézières, an artery of the important rail system running 

through Luxembourg, Thionville, and Metz. (See Map 3.) That objective 

was about thirty miles from the jump-off line east of Verdun. In addition, by attacking east of the Argonne Forest, the First Army’s offensive 

would out

flank the German forces along the Aisne, in front of their 

French counterparts to the west. 

The American army’s area of operations was fifteen to twenty 

miles wide, bounded by the unfordable Meuse River on the east and 

the dense Argonne Forest and the Aire River on the west. The heights 

of the Meuse dominated the east side of the American sector, while 

the Argonne sat on high ground that commanded the western side. 

Between the river and the forest, a hogback ridge ran southeast and 

northwest from Montfaucon, Cunel, and Barricourt. A series of three 

lateral hill lines presented barriers to a northward advance. In addition 

to the Argonne, the area was dotted with various woods that presented 

even more obstacles to the American advance. 

For their defense of the area, the Germans took full advantage 

of the region’s rugged terrain. The high ground on either 

flank gave 

them excellent observation points from which to rain artillery on the 

American advance. Moreover, like the St. Mihiel salient, the Germans 

had occupied the area for several years and had developed an elaborate 

defensive system of four fortified lines featuring a dense network of 

wire entanglements, machine-gun positions with interlocking fires, and 

concrete fighting posts. In between these trench lines, the Germans 

had developed a series of intermediate strong points in the numerous George C. Marshall, Jr. 

(1880–1959)

Col. George C. Marshall, Jr., made his reputation during World 

War I while serving as operations officer for the U.S. First Army. Marshal 

Ferdinand Foch insisted that the First Army break off its long-planned 

attack south and west of Verdun on the St. Mihiel salient and instead 

attack north through the Argonne Forest. Marshall directed the team that 

planned the shift in the axis of attack and then successfully supervised the 

movement of 600,000 troops, 3,000 guns, and 40,000 tons of supplies to 

the new sector in ten days. The American attack commenced on schedule, 

due in no small measure to Marshall’s planning expertise.
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

45

woods and knolls. The German defensive system was about fifteen 

miles deep with five divisions on line and another seven in immediate 

reserve. Petain believed that the German defenses were so strong that 

the Americans would do well if they captured Montfaucon, on the 

second line, before winter. 

Against this imposing defense, the American First Army mustered 

over 600,000 men. It would attack with nine divisions on line and 

another five in reserve. These were divided among the three attacking 

corps: Bullard’s III Corps on the east, Cameron’s V Corps in the center, 

and Liggett’s I Corps on the west. The American infantrymen were 

supported by 2,700 pieces of artillery, 189 tanks, and 821 aircraft. 

Pershing and his staff envisioned the offensive in two stages. 

During the first stage U.S. forces would penetrate the third German 

line, advancing about ten miles and clearing the Argonne Forest to link 

up with the French Fourth Army at Grandpré. The second stage would 

consist of a further advance of ten miles to out

flank the enemy posi-

tions along the Aisne and prepare for further attacks toward Sedan and 

Mézières on the Meuse River. Additional operations were planned to 

clear the heights along the east bank of the Meuse.

The first attacks would kick off on September 26. Initially, the 

operations plan called for two thrusts on either side of the high ground 

around Montfaucon, with a linkup achieved before the Germans could 

bring in additional reinforcements. The V Corps would make the main 

attack, taking Montfaucon and penetrating the second German line. On 

its 

flanks, the I and III Corps would advance to protect both the army’s 

and the V Corps’ 

flanks. In addition, their corps artillery was charged 

with suppressing the German artillery on the 

flanks. Pershing wanted 

to seize Cunel and, to its west, Romagne, by the end of the second day. 

At 5:30 

a.m., after a three-hour artillery bombardment, the three 

corps launched their attacks in the Meuse-Argonne. Despite a heavy 

fog, the rugged terrain, and the network of barbed wire, the weight of 

the American onslaught quickly overran the Germans’ forward positions. On both flanks, the corps made good progress. In the III Corps 

sector, Maj. Gen. John Hines’ 4th Division pushed ahead about four 

miles, penetrated the German second line, and defeated several counterattacks in the process. On the western flank, Liggett’s corps reached 

its objectives, advancing three miles on the open ground to the east 

of the Argonne. Maj. Gen. Robert Alexander’s 77th Division made 

lesser gains in the Argonne itself. In the center, however, the V Corps 

experienced problems and was checked to the south of Montfaucon; 

it was not until the next day that Cameron’s men were able to seize the 

position. 

Throughout the remainder of September, the First Army slowly 

plodded forward. Heavy rains on September 27–28 bogged down the 

few tanks that had not already succumbed to mechanical failure. The 

rains also interfered with the forward movement of the supporting 

artillery and the resupply efforts as the already congested roads 

became muddy. Moreover, the Germans had used the delay in front of 

Montfaucon to rush local reserves to the strong positions in the center 

of their line, south of Cunel and Romagne. As the American battalions 

and companies encountered German machine-gun positions in depth, 

the advance slowed further. Once the American infantry silenced the 
Map 3

X X X X X

C R O W N P R I N C E

X X

80 X X

77

X X

77

X X

42

X X

77

X X

37

X X

79

X X

79

X X

77

X X

78

X X

28

X X

28

X X

35

X X

89

X X

89

X X

90

X X

90

X X

91

X X

91

X X

32

X X

32

X X

33

X X

26

X X

26

X X

29

X X

Fr

X X

80 X X

4

X X

4

X X

5

X X

2

X X

2

X X

3

X X

1

X X

1

X X

5

X X

33

X X X

V

X X X

V

X X X

V

X X X

I I I

X X X

I I I

X X X

I I I

X X X

I

X X X

I

X X X

I

X X X X

F r F O U R T H

X X X X

F I R S T

X X X X X

A E F

x x x x x

F R E N C H x x x x x

x x x x x

x x x x x

x x x

x x x

x x x

x x x

x x x

x x x

A M E R I C A N

H E I G

H T S O F 

A R G O

N

N E F O R E S T

Meuse R

Aisne R

Aire R

Aire R

Meuse R

Chiers R

Lo

Othain R

Se

Mezieres

SEDAN

Cheveuges

Chemery Raucourt

Martincourt

Barricourt

Beaumont

Buzancy

Boult-aux-Bois

Grandpré

Apremont

Varennes

ST. MENEHOULD

St. Remy-sur-Bussy

Rarecourt

Vaubecourt

Clermont

VERDUN

Souilly

Haudainville

Vacherauville

Ancemont

Montfaucon

Romagne

Cunel

Dun-sur-Meuse

Brieulles

Jametz

Montmedy

Damville

Consenvoye

Vouziers

Monthois

Le Chesne

Stenay

Mouzay

Douzy

Mouzon

Carignan

Florenville

B 

3 Nov

11 Nov

3 Oct

Evening 1 Nov

Morning 1 Nov

Evening 26 Sep

Morning 26 Sep

MEUSE-ARGONNE OFFENSIVE

26 September–11 November 1918

THE WESTERN FRONT

Front Line, 26 Sep

Front Line, 11 Nov

0 10

Miles
X X X X X

G A L L W I T Z

X X X X X

A L B R E C H T

X X

28

X X

92

X X

92

X X

Fr

X X

7

X X

33

X X

81

elms

X X

81

elms

X X X

V I

X X X

F r

X X X

I V

X X X X

F r E I G H T H

X X X X

S E C O N D

x x x x x

x x x x

x x x

x x x

x x x x

T H E M

E

U

S

E

Meuse R

Orne R

Orne R

Orne R

Moselle R

Seille R

Moselle R

Chiers R

Loison R

emois R

Apremont

ST. MIHIEL

Troyon-sur-Meuse

Hattonchatel

Etain

Riaville

METZ

Thiaucourt

Beaumont Dieulouard

Pont-a Mousson

Moranville

Virton

Arlon

Longwy

LUXEMBOURG

Audun

Thionville

Spincourt

Briey

Conans

Gravelotte

rs

Longuyon

E L G I U M

F R A N C E

G E R M A N Y

L U X E M B O U R G

26 Sep

11 Nov

A French corps, to which the American

79th, 26th, and 81st Divisions were assigned,

occupied the line from here south to the

Second Army boundary.
American Military History

48

forward positions, supporting guns to the rear opened fire. In addition, 

the German artillery poured enfilading fire onto the attackers from 

the heights of the Meuse and the Argonne Forest. The advance had 

become a continuous series of bloody, hard-fought engagements.

Nor were all the First Army’s difficulties from the enemy or 

weather. Of the nine divisions in the initial assault, only three (the 4th, 

28th, and 77th) had significant combat experience. The 79th Division, 

which had the critical mission to take Montfaucon, had been in France 

for only seven weeks. The heavy fog and rain and the broken terrain 

exacerbated the situation for the inexperienced troops. Many divisions 

suffered from a lack of coordination among their own units and liaison 

with adjoining and higher units. Teamwork between the infantry and 

their supporting artillery often proved awkward and ineffective, especially in those divisions that had to rely on artillery brigades from other 

divisions since their own brigades were unavailable. 

Overcoming these problems, the First Army advanced eight miles 

into the German lines by the end of September. Remarkably, it had 

fought through some of the strongest positions on the Western Front 

and captured 9,000 prisoners and a large amount of war supplies, 

including 100 guns. With the severity of the fighting and the intermingling of units in the twisted terrain, Pershing had little choice but to 

pause to reorganize. 

Elsewhere on the Western Front, the remainder of Foch’s general 

offensive had also slowed. The effort in Flanders had bogged down in 

the rain and mud, while the French armies in the center of the Allied 

line had not yet begun their attacks. Along the Somme, Haig’s British 

armies did make a penetration of the German Hindenburg Line, with 

the help of the 27th and 30th Divisions of the AEF’s II Corps. The 

British expanded the penetration to create a gap all the way through the 

German fortifications; but at the beginning of October, the British had 

to pause to improve their own lines of communications.

During the first days of October Pershing took advantage of the 

pause to rotate three battle-hardened divisions (the 3d, 32d, and 1st) 

into the line, relieving some of the less experienced (the 37th, 79th, 

and 35th). As the First Army reorganized its line, the Germans also 

strengthened their position with six new divisions brought into the area 

for a total of eleven. The numerical odds were beginning to even. 

At 5:30 a.m. on October 4 the First Army renewed its general attack. 

The III and V Corps were to take the heights around Cunel and Romagne, 

Code Talkers

As a means to secure radio communications, the U.S. Army in World War I used Choctaw Indians with 

their unique language to rapidly and securely transmit information across the airwaves. This experiment was 

a success, and the Army would later turn to several tribes of American Indians in World War II (Comanche 

and Sioux among others) to use their native tongues in that conflict. Although often overshadowed by the more 

celebrated Navajo code talkers of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Choctaws of the U.S. Army pioneered the codetalker concept in World War I. 
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

49

respectively. Meanwhile, the I Corps was to neutralize the enemy’s flanking fire from the Argonne and gain some room to maneuver around 

the forest. The fighting was especially severe. The American infantry 

launched a series of frontal attacks to penetrate the German lines and 

then to exploit the exposed enemy flanks. Progress was slow. The III 

and V Corps made some gains against their objectives, but the Cunel 

and Romagne heights remained in German hands. On the west, the 

1st Division gained three miles and the I Corps captured an important 

ridge on the east edge of the Argonne. As new American divisions were 

rotated into line, the Germans continued their reinforcement efforts; and 

by October 6 they had twenty-seven divisions in the area.

As the two corps on the east continued their fight for high ground 

in the center of the First Army sector, Liggett’s I Corps executed 

an effective flanking operation. On October 7, as the 77th Division 

attacked northward in the Argonne, Liggett sent the 82d Division 

almost due west into the rear of the German positions. By noon the 

Germans were withdrawing from the forest. By the tenth, the I Corps 

had cleared the forest. 

With the divisions of First Army fighting in the Meuse-Argonne 

region, other American divisions were providing crucial assistance to 

the French and British advances. To the north, two divisions of General 

Read’s II Corps continued to support the British advance. With the 

French Fourth Army on the First Army’s western 

flank, the 2d Division 

(now commanded by Maj. Gen. John A. Lejeune of the Marine Corps) 

captured Mont Blanc Ridge, which provided the only natural defensive 

line south of the Aisne River, in a hard-fought battle from October 2–4. 

On October 10 the 36th Division relieved the 2d Division and advanced 

to the Aisne River by the thirteenth. The advance to the Aisne River 

brought the French Fourth Army on line with the American First Army.

On October 8 Pershing had the French XVII Corps attack across 

the Meuse near Brabant, due east of Montfaucon. The corps’ two 

French and two American divisions advanced two miles and captured 

3,000 prisoners and several important observation points. This limited 

operation also forced the Germans to divert divisions away from the 

main battleground between the Meuse and the Argonne. 

On October 14 the First Army launched a general assault all along 

the German lines. The III and V Corps once again aimed at taking 

the fortified hills and forests of the Cunel-Romagne front. Over the 

next four days the 3d, 5th, and 32d Divisions battled for and captured 

the vital strong points. On the western 

flank, the I Corps advanced 

to the southern half of Grandpré on October 16. By the third week 

in October the First Army had reached most of the objectives of the 

first phase of the campaign: penetration of the third German line and 

clearing of the Argonne. 

By mid-October Pershing realized that too much of the operational 

and tactical direction of the war was concentrated in his hands. As AEF 

commander, he was the American theater commander responsible for 

the administration, training, and supplying of the American troops in 

France as well as coordination with the other national commanders. In 

addition, he was the field commander for three corps of fourteen divi-

sions in a desperate fight over rough terrain. Moreover, the First Army 

had become unwieldy, with over a million men along an 83-mile front. 
American Military History

50

Sgt. Alvin C. York (1887–1964)

On October 8 some doughboys of the 82d Infantry Division 

(“All American”) were attacking westward into the Argonne 

Forest to outflank the strong German positions. Among the 

attackers was a lean backwoodsman from Tennessee, Acting 

Sgt. Alvin York. When heavy enemy fire slowed his regiment’s 

attack, York and a patrol were sent to suppress the machinegun positions. Working its way behind the German lines, the 

patrol surprised an enemy battalion headquarters and forced 

its surrender. Shortly after, German machine guns and rifles 

opened on the doughboys, wounding over half the patrol. York 

single-handedly silenced the German fire, killing around twenty 

of the enemy in the process. York and the remainder of the 

patrol led 132 prisoners back to American lines.

On October 12 Pershing organized the Second Army and named 

Bullard its commander. Bullard and his army assumed control over 

thirty-four miles of the front—the quiet sector between the Meuse 

and the Moselle south of Verdun. The active Meuse-Argonne sector 

remained the First Army’s responsibility, and on October 16 General 

Liggett assumed command of that army. Pershing could now focus his 

attention on the larger strategic issues of theater command.

After visiting the First Army’s corps and divisions, Liggett discovered that the Army was in deplorable shape after weeks of continuous 

and bitter fighting. Several divisions were combat ineffective, having 

less than 25 percent of their authorized strength. Liggett estimated that 

there were over 100,000 stragglers, which drained the army’s strength. A 

lack of draft animals immobilized the army’s artillery. The army needed 

to rest and refit, so for the next two weeks Liggett allowed it to do just 

that and resisted pressure to do more than local attacks.

More important, however, Liggett retooled and remodeled the 

First Army. He took particular care in retraining his infantry and artillery. Some infantry received special training in techniques for attacking 

strong points, while the rest were trained to bypass these defenses. 

Artillery batteries laid out supporting plans to use interdicting fires to 

isolate infantry objectives and to conduct counterbattery fires against 

German artillery. In his commanders Liggett instilled the need to maximize supporting fires and gas to suppress enemy defenses.

To prepare for the second phase of the offensive, Liggett 

ordered a series of limited attacks aimed at securing a suitable line 

of departure. Both III Corps, now under General Hines, and V 

Corps, now under General Summerall, launched local attacks to 

clear forests and seize hills in the center of the line. Some of these 

attacks involved heavy and hard fighting, but the bloodiest of the 

local operations was the I Corps’ ten-day battle to capture Grandpré, 

which fell on the twenty-seventh. Meanwhile, Liggett and his army 

staff ensured that supplies were stockpiled and roads repaired. By 
the u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

51

the end of October the First Army was ready for the next general 

attack.

On November 1 Liggett’s First Army attacked north, toward the 

Meuse River. The main objective was the Barricourt Ridge in the center, 

a realistic advance of five miles. Only once the ridgeline was secured 

would the army thrust west to maneuver around the Bourgogne Forest, 

link up with the French Fourth Army, then thrust northeast to drive to 

Sedan and the Meuse River. On the first day of the attack Summerall’s 

corps, in the center, easily gained control of the ridgeline. Hines’ corps, 

in the east, kept pace and advanced to the Meuse River. Only Dickman’s 

corps, in the west, failed to make much progress. On the following day, 

however, the I Corps made excellent progress and cleared the flank of 

the French Fourth Army. Over the next several days, Liggett’s army 

continued to advance as fast as it could displace its artillery and supplies 

forward. At one point the advance was so rapid that it ran off the 

AEF headquarters’ maps. By November 4 the First Army had elements 

along the heights overlooking the Meuse and brought the railroad from 

Sedan to Mézières under artillery fire. The Americans had achieved 

their objective. 

Liggett’s careful preparation of the First Army paid off. Infantry 

and artillery coordination was superb. Troops pushed through and 

around German strong points, while special assault troops reduced 

them. Improved staff work and coordination afforded the First Army 

the flexibility to bypass German defenses. Unlike former attacks that 

made strong first-day gains followed by increasingly smaller ones, this 

attack was different: the advance on the third day exceeded those of the 

first. Under Liggett’s tutelage, the American units had finally developed 

into a well-trained, well-organized fighting force.

A week after Liggett’s forces reached the Meuse, the Armistice was 

signed. The fighting ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of 

the eleventh month—November 11, 1918.

When it ended, the Meuse-Argonne Campaign was the greatest 

battle that the U.S. Army had fought in its history. Almost 1.25 million 

American troops had participated during the course of the 47-day 

campaign. American casualties were high—over 117,000—but the 

results were impressive. The American First Army had driven fortythree German divisions back about thirty miles over some of the most 

difficult terrain and most heavily fortified positions on the Western 

Front. It had inflicted over 120,000 casualties on the Germans and 

captured 468 guns. 

The American Army and the Great War

When the war ended, the American participants were convinced 

that the AEF had played a decisive role in the defeat of Germany. In 

200 days of fighting the AEF had captured about 49,000 Germans and 

1,400 guns. Over 1 million American soldiers in 29 divisions saw active 

operations. The AEF lost over 320,000 casualties, of which 50,280 were 

killed and another 200,600 were wounded in action. In October the 

Americans held over 101 miles, or 23 percent, of the Western Front; in 

November, as the front contracted with the German retreat, the AEF 

held over 80 miles, or one-fifth of the line. 

Improved staff work and 

coordination afforded the First 

Army the flexibility to bypass 

German defenses. 
American Military History

52

Obviously, some of these numbers paled in comparison to those 

of the rest of the Allies. For example, the French fought for four 

years with over 1.35 million men killed. Also, from July to November 

1918, the French armies captured 139,000 Germans and 1,880 guns. 

Moreover, the AEF achievements would not have been possible 

without Allied assistance. The French and British helped train and 

transport the American soldiers and supplied much of the artillery, 

tanks, and airplanes for the AEF. The French especially engendered 

the cooperation of the American army. General Petain himself often 

intervened on behalf of Pershing and the AEF to establish the independent American army fighting on his own sector of the front. More 

than other Allied leaders, Petain seemed to understand what the AEF 

meant to the Allied cause. 

More than its achievements on the battlefield, the 2-million-man 

AEF helped the Allied cause by its mere presence. Throughout 1918, 

while Germany grew progressively weaker, the Allied military strength 

grew stronger by virtue of the growing AEF. Besides the sheer weight 

of numbers, the Americans also helped rejuvenate flagging Allied 

spirits, both on and off the battlefield. In short, the AEF provided 

sufficient advantage to assure victory for the Allied side.

Pershing’s AEF was the first modern American army. It had 

deployed to Europe and fought alongside the Allies in a mass, industrialized war. It never lacked élan—from Soissons to the banks of the 

Meuse, the AEF aggressively attacked its enemy. Although at the beginning of active operations the American soldiers showed more courage 

than skill, they and their leaders learned quickly. Within the span of 

several months, the best American divisions showed considerable 

tactical skill in their battles in October and November 1918. Leaders 

like Hunter Liggett and John Hines proved able tacticians and understood the conditions on the Western Front. At the higher levels, the 

AEF staffs proved the equal of their Allied counterparts. 

For the U.S. Army, the ground forces of World War II would be 

direct descendants of the AEF of 1918. Many World War II generals 

had been captains, majors, and colonels in the AEF, learning their tactics 

and trade on the fields and forests of France. World War II battles were 

planned and coordinated by staffs organized and operated based on 

the precedents of the general staffs of the AEF’s armies, corps, and 

divisions. In both wars, combat divisions were the means of projecting 

and measuring combat power. Like the AEF the American armies of 

1944 were built around divisions grouped in corps and supported by 

corps and army troops. A harbinger of the future, the American army 

of World War I was more similar to those that followed than those that 

came before. The U.S. Army was seemingly ready to assume its place in 

the world as one of the great armies of a great power. 

The French and British helped 

train and transport the American 

soldiers and supplied much of the 

artillery, tanks, and airplanes for 

the AEF.
the

u.s. army in world war I, 1917–1918

53

Discussion Questions

1. In what ways was America prepared or unprepared for war in 

1917? How successfully did the U.S. Army overcome its initial problems?

2. How much strategic or operational 

flexibility did the American 

Army have when the United States entered the war?

3. Why did Pershing disagree with the concept of amalgamation? 

Was he correct? Discuss the viewpoints of the French and the British.

4. What role did the U.S. Army play in the operations of the AisneMarne and St. Mihiel? Why were these operations important to the 

Army’s development?

5. What did the Army learn from the Meuse-Argonne Campaign? 

What should it have learned?

6. How did World War I change the Army? Recommended Readings

Barbeau, Arthur E., and Florette Henri. The Unknown Soldiers: African 

American Troops in World War I. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. 

Beaver, Daniel R. Newton D. Baker and the American War Effort, 1917–

1919. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966.

Braim, Paul F. The Test of Battle: The American Expeditionary Forces in the 

Meuse-Argonne Campaign. Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Books, 

1998. 

Coffman, Edward M. The Hilt of the Sword: The Career of Peyton C. March. 

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966.

———. The War To End All Wars: The American Military Experience in 

World War I. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. 

Eisenhower, John S. D. Yanks: The Epic Story of the American Army in 

World War I. New York: Free Press, 2001. 

Johnson, Douglas V., and Rolfe L. Hillman, Jr. Soissons 1918. College 

Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.

Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies. Bloomington: Indiana 

University Press, 1986. 

Other Readings

American Battle Monuments Commission. American Armies and 

Battlefields in Europe: A History, Guide, and Reference Book. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps, 1989.

Asprey, Robert B. At Belleau Wood. Denton: University of North Texas 

Press, 1996.

Bruce, Robert B. A Fraternity of Arms: America & France in the Great War. 

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. 

DeWeerd, Harvey A. President Wilson Fights His War: World War I and the 

American Intervention. New York: Macmillan, 1968. 

Hallas, James H. Squandered Victory: The American First Army at St. Mihiel. 

Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995.

Marshall, George C. Memoirs of My Services in the World War, 1917–1918. 

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. 
American Military History

54

Trask, David F. The United States in the Supreme War Council: American 

War Aims and Inter-Allied Strategy, 1917–1918. Westport, Conn.: 

Greenwood Press, 1978. 

Triplet, William S. A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir, 1917–1918, 

ed. Robert H. Ferrell. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 

2000. 

Wilson, John B. Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and 

Separate Brigades. Army Lineage Series. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 1998.

Zimmerman, Phyllis A. The Neck of the Bottle: George W. Goethals and the 

Reorganization of the U.S. Army Supply System, 1917–1918. College 

Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992.
S

oon after the Armistice of November 1918, the War Department 

urged Congress to authorize the establishment of a permanent 

Regular Army of roughly 500,000 and a three-month universal 

training system that would permit quick expansion of this force to 

meet the demands of any new major war. Congress and American 

public opinion rejected these proposals. It was hard to believe that 

the defeat of Germany and the exhaustion of the other European 

powers did not guarantee there would be no major war on land for 

years to come. Although American leaders recognized the possibility 

of war with Japan, they assumed that such a war, if it came, would be 

primarily naval in character. Reliance on the Navy as the first line of 

national defense remained a cornerstone of U.S. military policy for the 

next two decades.

Another factor that determined the Army’s character between the 

world wars was the United States’ decision not to join the League of 

Nations, thus rejecting a chance to participate in an international security system. In keeping with a traditional distrust of foreign alliances and 

large military establishments, the American people also proved unwilling 

to support an Army in being any larger than required to defend the 

Continental United States and its overseas territories and possessions, 

to sustain knowledge of the military arts, and to train inexpensive and 

voluntary reserve components. The Army between the wars was thus 

a small “mobilization army,” focusing much of its time and energy on 

planning and preparing for future expansion to meet contingencies. As 

threats seemed to diminish around the world, the interest in funding 

for even that small army began to wane. And since the Army had huge 

stocks of materiel left over from its belated production for World War I, 

there was no push for funding to modernize that small force. Thus the 

principal concern of the War Department until the 1930s was simply 

maintaining the manpower to fulfill those peacetime missions.

2

Between

World Wars
American Military History

56

Demobilization

Planning for demobilization had begun less than a month before the 

Armistice, since few in the United States had expected the war to end 

so quickly. Almost all officers and men in the Army became eligible for 

discharge when the fighting in Europe stopped. The War Department 

had to determine how to muster out these men as rapidly and equitably 

as possible, without unduly disrupting the national economy, while 

maintaining an effective force for occupation and other postwar duties. 

It decided that the traditional method of demobilizing by units was 

most likely to achieve those goals. Units in the United States relocated 

to thirty demobilization centers around the country so their personnel 

could be outprocessed and discharged near their homes. Overseas 

units returned as quickly as shipping space could be found for them, 

processed through debarkation centers operated by the Transportation 

Service, and moved to the demobilization centers for deactivation and 

discharge. In practice the unit system was supplemented by a great 

many individual discharges and by the release of certain occupational 

groups, such as railroad workers and anthracite coal miners.

In the first full month of demobilization the Army released approximately 650,000 officers and men, and within nine months it had demobilized nearly 3.25 million without seriously disturbing the American 

economy. Demobilization of war industries and disposal of surplus 

materiel paralleled the release of soldiers, but the War Department kept 

a large reserve of weapons and materiel for peacetime or new emergency use. Despite the lack of advance planning, the demobilization 

process worked reasonably well.

The Army faced one major concern as the process unfolded. 

Reflecting its lack of planning for the conclusion of hostilities and 

Troops Arriving Home from France, 1919
between world wars

57

return to a peacetime posture, the Army had no authority to enlist men 

to replace those being discharged. On February 28, 1919, Congress 

ended that dilemma by authorizing enlistments in the Regular Army 

for either one or three years. By the end of the year the Active Army, 

reduced to about 19,000 officers and 205,000 enlisted men, was again a 

regular volunteer force.

Immediate Duties

Regular Army units continued to guard the Mexican border during 

1919 and 1920 due to the ongoing revolutionary disturbances in that 

country. Because the National Guard had not yet been reorganized, 

the Regular Army also had to supply troops on numerous occasions 

through the summer of 1921 to help suppress domestic disorders 

arising out of labor disputes and race conflicts in a restless postwar 

America. 

American soldiers remained in Europe for some time as the demobilization continued, guarding against renewed hostilities. A newly 

activated Third Army crossed the French border into Germany on 

December 1, 1918, to occupy the region around Koblenz, between 

Luxembourg and the Rhine River. Eight U.S. divisions organized into 

three corps participated in the occupation of Germany. Similarly, an 

Army regiment sent to Italy before the end of hostilities spent four 

Occupation of the Rhineland

Pursuant to the terms of the 

Armistice ending Western Front 

hostilities on November 11, 1918, the 

Allies (Belgium, France, Great Britain, 

and the United States) constituted 

forces that would occupy the German 

Rhineland. British forces occupied the 

area on its left, with French forces 

on its right. The Third Army entered 

Luxembourg on November 20 and 

was surprised by the warm reception from the German-speaking 

Luxembourgers. Proceeding to the 

Rhine, Third Army forces entered 

Germany on December 1 and again 

were greeted with some warmth by 

most Germans, who for the most 

part were relieved not to be under the sway of the French. The American occupation of German territory 

proceeded largely without incident, though German attitudes toward the occupiers cooled after the Peace 

Conference at Versailles. Political disagreements between the American and French commanders led General 

Pershing to comply willingly with U.S. government desires to return American forces to the United States as 

rapidly as possible. The last U.S. troops on the Rhine departed for home in January 1923.

Luxembourgers Greeting the American Army of Occupation, 1918
American Military History

58

months participating in the occupation of Austria. American occupation troops encountered no unusual difficulties with the populace, and 

their numbers were rapidly reduced after the Paris Peace Conference 

ended in May 1919. They numbered only about 15,000 by the beginning 

of 1920. After rejecting the Treaty of Versailles that resulted from the 

peace conference, the United States technically remained at war with 

Germany until a separate peace was signed in the summer of 1921. 

Occupying forces gradually withdrew after that, until the last thousand 

troops departed on January 24, 1923.

After the Armistice, Army units continued to serve elsewhere in 

the world, including two generally unsuccessful expeditions into revolution-torn Russia. In August 1918 the chaos in Russia resulting from 

the Bolshevik seizure of power induced President Woodrow Wilson to 

order the Army to join Allied forces in expeditions into Russian territory. Multinational forces penetrated the Murmansk-Archangel region 

of European Russia and entered Siberia via Vladivostok to safeguard 

various interests, and support anti-Bolshevik forces. The European 

Russia force, containing about 5,000 American troops under British 

command, suffered heavy casualties while guarding Allied war supplies 

meant for the Tsarist forces and communication lines before withdrawing in June 1919. The Siberian force of about 10,000, under Maj. 

Gen. William S. Graves, encountered many difficulties in its attempts to 

rescue Czech troops, captured soldiers of the newly collapsed AustroHungarian empire trapped by the deteriorating Russian situation, and 

to curb Japanese expansionist tendencies in the region between August 

1918 and April 1920. Together these two forces incurred about 500 

combat casualties. While seen in the West as only a footnote to World 

War I, the American and Allied intervention into the Russian civil war 

was deeply resented by the eventually triumphant Reds and continued 

to foster suspicion of American intentions in the minds of the leaders 

of the new Soviet Union for years to come. 

Between 1923 and 1941, the only Army forces stationed on foreign 

soil were the garrison of about 1,000 maintained at Tientsin, China, 

from 1912 until 1938 and a force of similar strength dispatched from 

the Philippines to Shanghai for five months’ duty in 1932. The Marine 

Corps provided the other small foreign garrisons and expeditionary 

forces that U.S. policy required after World War I, particularly in the 

Caribbean area. There remained, of course, the large American garrison 

The Siberian Expedition

In August 1918, as a civil war raged in Russia, the War Department ordered American troops to the Siberian 

port of Vladivostok. A major aim of this action was to constrain the territorial ambitions of Japan, ostensibly a 

partner in the intervention. Wisely, the American commander refused to involve U.S. forces in hostilities on behalf 

of Russian “White” counterrevolutionaries. In January 1920, in view of the ground commander’s assessment that 

the Whites were doomed, the War Department withdrew the American troops. When the last forces left on April 

1, the ill-starred episode had created a memory the Russians never forgot and left the graves of 192 Americans 

in the frozen wastes of Siberia.
between world wars

59

in the Philippines with the mission of guarding those islands as part 

of the American empire and another major garrison in the Panama 

Canal Zone protecting that vital waterway. We should not discount the 

importance of these forces in the careers of thousands of officers and 

men in the interwar period. It was the principal “real world” mission 

of a large proportion of the Regular Army throughout the 1920s and 

1930s. Nevertheless, the main challenges that confronted the U.S. Army 

between the Armistice that ended World War I and renewed hostilities in 

Europe in 1939 were not operational in nature but rather organizational 

and financial.

Reorganization under the National Defense Act of 1920

After many months of careful consideration, Congress passed 

a sweeping amendment to the National Defense Act of 1916. The 

National Defense Act of June 4, 1920, governed the organization and 

regulation of the Army until 1950 as one of the most constructive pieces 

of military legislation ever adopted in the United States. It rejected the 

theory of an expansible Regular Army that Army leaders had urged since 

the days of John C. Calhoun. In its place the new defense act established 

the Army of the United States as an organization of three components: 

the standing Regular Army, the National Guard, and the Organized 

Reserves. That component consisted of the Officers’ Reserve Corps 

and the Enlisted Reserve Corps, two distinct organizations. Each of the 

three Army components was to be so regulated in peacetime that it could 

contribute its appropriate share of troops in a war emergency. 

The act acknowledged and authorized the historical practice of the 

United States: a standing peacetime Army too small to be expanded to 

meet the needs of a large war and reliance on a new force of citizensoldiers when large-scale mobilizations were necessary. In contrast to 

earlier practice, training the National Guard and Organized Reserves 

became a major peacetime task of the Regular Army. To fulfill that 

mission Congress authorized a maximum Regular Army officer strength 

of 17,726 officers, more than three times the prewar number. At least 

half the new career officers were to be chosen from among nonregu-

lars who had served during the war. The act also required that officer 

promotions, except for doctors and chaplains, be made from a single list. 

That policy equalized opportunities for advancement throughout most 

of the Army. Congress authorized a maximum Regular Army enlisted 

strength of 280,000 men, but the actual enlisted and officer strengths 

would depend on the amount of money appropriated annually.

The new defense act also authorized the addition of three new 

branches to the arm and service branches established before 1917. The 

new branches were the Air Service and the Chemical Warfare Service, 

re

flecting new combat techniques demonstrated during the war, and 

the Finance Department. The Tank Corps that emerged during World 

War I, representing another new combat technique, was absorbed into 

the Infantry.

The National Defense Act of 1920 specifically charged the War 

Department with mobilization planning and preparation for the event of 

war, assigning the planning and supervision of industrial procurement to 

the Assistant Secretary of War and the military aspects of that responsibility 
American Military History

60

to the Chief of Staff and the General Staff. The World War I experience 

had greatly strengthened the position and authority of the General Staff in 

both Washington and Paris. When General John J. Pershing became Chief 

of Staff in 1921 he reorganized the War Department General Staff on 

the model of his wartime General Headquarters staff in France. The reorganized staff included five divisions: G–1, Personnel; G–2, Intelligence; 

G–3, Training and Operations; G–4, Supply; and a new War Plans Division 

that dealt with strategic planning and related preparations for war. The War 

Plans Division eventually helped to draft color-coded plans for the event of 

war with individual nations, such as War Plan Orange for Japan; it would 

also serve as the nucleus for any new wartime General Headquarters established to direct operations. The General Staff divisions assisted the Chief 

of Staff in his supervision of the military branches of the War Department 

and of the field forces. The only major change in this organizational framework during the 1920s came in 1926, when the Air Corps was established 

as an equal combat arm.

Nine geographic corps areas of approximately equal population 

assumed command and administrative responsibilities for the field forces 

in the Continental United States; departments with similar authority 

directed forces overseas in Panama, Hawaii, and the Philippines. 

The division, rather than the regiment, became the basic unit of the 

interwar Army, particularly for mobilization planning. Each corps area 

was allocated 6 infantry divisions: 1 Regular Army, 2 National Guard, 

and 3 Organized Reserve. In addition, a cavalry division patrolled the 

Mexican border; in Pacific outposts, Army mobile units were organized 

as separate Hawaiian and Philippine Divisions. The defense act had 

contemplated a higher organization of divisions into corps and armies, 

but no such organizations existed in fact for many years.

Education for and within the Army between the world wars received 

far greater attention than ever before. This reflected the National Defense 

Act’s emphasis on peacetime preparedness and the increasing complexity 

of modern warfare. The U.S. Military Academy and the Reserve Officers’ 

Training Corps (ROTC) program furnished most of the basic schooling 

for new officers. Thirty-one special service schools provided branch 

training. These branch schools trained officers and enlisted men of the 

National Guard and Organized Reserves in addition to the Regular Army, 

utilizing extension courses to supplement their residential programs. Three 

general service schools formed the capstone of the Army educational 

system. The oldest, located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and known 

from 1922 to 1947 as the Command and General Staff School, provided 

officers with the requisite training for divisional command and General 

Staff positions. In Washington, the Army War College and, after 1924, the 

Army Industrial College prepared senior officers of demonstrated ability 

for the most responsible command and staff positions and assisted in the 

development of war plans. By establishing the Industrial College, the Army 

acknowledged the high importance of industrial mobilization and logistical 

training for the conduct of modern warfare.

Regular Army Strength and Support

When the National Defense Act was adopted in June 1920, the 

Regular Army contained about 200,000 soldiers, roughly two-thirds 

By establishing the Industrial 

College, the Army acknowledged 

the high importance of industrial 

mobilization and logistical 

training for the conduct of 

modern warfare.
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61

the maximum authorized strength. In January 1921 Congress directed 

a prompt reduction in enlisted strength to 175,000 and in June 1921 

decreased that figure to 150,000. A year later Congress limited the 

Regular Army to 12,000 commissioned officers and 125,000 enlisted 

men, not including the 7,000 or so in the Philippine Scouts; Army 

strength stabilized at about that level until 1936.

Appropriations for the military expenses of the War Department 

also stabilized after the early 1920s at roughly $300 million per year. 

This was about half the estimated cost of fully implementing the force 

structure authorized in the National Defense Act. During this period 

the United States spent less on its Army than on its Navy, in accordance with the national policy of depending on the Navy as the first 

line of defense. War Department officials, especially in the early 1920s, 

repeatedly expressed alarm over Congress’ failure to fully fund the 

force structure described in the National Defense Act. They believed 

that U.S. strategy required a minimum Regular Army enlisted strength 

of 150,000, a figure that grew to 165,000 after the Air Corps Act of 

1926. From his position as Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur 

pointed out that in 1933 the active strength of the Army ranked only 

seventeenth in the world. 

Despite its limited size, the Regular Army still deserved international respect. Foreign observers rated its recently established, newly 

equipped Air Corps second or third in actual power. But the Air Corps’ 

small inventory of modern equipment offered a marked contrast to the 

rest of the Army, where ground units had to get along as best they could 

for almost two decades with weapons left over from World War I. The 

Army was well aware that these old weapons were becoming increasingly obsolete. In 1933 General MacArthur described the Army’s tanks, 

with the exception of a dozen experimental models, as completely 

useless for employment against any modern unit on the battlefield. 

During the interwar era the Army focused its limited resources on 

maintaining personnel strength rather than on procuring new equipment. Army arsenals and laboratories were consequently handicapped 

by small budgets. Despite that obstacle they worked continuously to 

devise new items and to improve old ones, capitalizing on the rapid 

technological advances of the 1920s and 1930s. Service boards, acting 

as links between branch schools and headquarters, tested prototypes 

and determined doctrines for their employment so they could be incorporated into training manuals. Little new equipment was forthcoming 

for ground units until Army appropriations began to rise in 1936, but 

the emphasis on maintaining force levels meant that the acquisition of 

such equipment did not consume scarce resources in a period of rapid 

obsolescence.

For a number of years only about a quarter of the officers and half 

of the enlisted men of the Regular Army were available for assignment 

to tactical units in the Continental United States. Many units existed 

only on paper; almost all had only skeleton strength. The Regular 

Army’s nine infantry divisions possessed the combined strength of only 

three full divisions. In May 1927 one of those undermanned infantry 

divisions, a cavalry brigade, and 200 aircraft participated in a combinedarms maneuver in Texas; but for the most part Regular Army units had 

to train as battalions or companies.
American Military History

62

The continued dispersion of understrength divisions, brigades, and 

regiments among a large number of posts, many of them relics of the 

Indian Wars, was a serious hindrance to training Regular Army soldiers; 

though it was helpful in training the reserve components. Efforts to 

abandon small posts continued to meet stubborn opposition from local 

interests and their elected representatives in Congress. In the Infantry, 

for example, in 1932 the twenty-four regiments available in the United 

States for field service were spread among forty-five posts, thirty-four 

of them hosting a battalion or smaller unit.

Most of the organic transportation of field units was of World 

War I vintage, and the Army did not have the money to concentrate 

them for training by other means. Nor were there large posts in which 

to house them if transportation became possible. The best training of 

larger units occurred overseas in the fairly sizable garrisons the Army 

maintained in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Panama. Cuts in appropriations and pay in the early 1930s as a result of the Great Depression 

made travel and training all the more difficult, further reducing the 

readiness of Army units.

The Reserve Components

Promoting the integration of the Regular Army, National Guard, 

and Organized Reserves by establishing uniformity in training and 

professional standards was one of the major purposes of the National 

Defense Act of 1920. While falling considerably short of fully realizing that goal, the new Army structure did foster an unprecedented 

amount of military training for the reserve components. This training 

brought the regular out of his traditional isolation from the civilian 

community and acquainted large numbers of National Guard and 

Organized Reserve personnel with the problems and views of professional soldiers. Reserve component units and the groups in training that 

contributed to their ranks had an average strength of about 400,000 

between the wars. The Reserve Component Training Program would 

result in an orderly and effective mobilization of the National Guard 

and Organized Reserve into the Active Army during 1940 and 1941.

The absorption of the National Guard into the Regular Army 

during World War I originally left the states without any Guard units 

after the Armistice. The National Defense Act of 1920 contemplated 

a National Guard of 436,000, but its actual interwar strength stabilized 

at about 180,000. This force relieved the Regular Army of any duty 

in curbing domestic disturbances within the states from the summer 

of 1921 until 1941 and stood ready for immediate induction into the 

Active Army whenever necessary. The War Department, in addition 

to supplying regular training officers and large quantities of surplus 

World War I materiel, applied about one-tenth of its military budget to 

the support of the Guard in the years between the wars. Guardsmen 

engaged in forty-eight armory drills and fifteen days of field training 

each year. Though not comparable to Regular Army units in readiness 

for war, by 1939 the increasingly federalized Guard was better trained 

than it had been when mobilized for duty on the Mexican border in 

1916. Numerically, the National Guard was the largest component of 

the Army of the United States between 1922 and 1939.
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63

In addition to the Guard, the civilian community contained a large 

number of trained officers and enlisted men after World War I, which 

provided a reservoir of manpower for the Army. Few enlisted men 

joined the Enlisted Reserve Corps to participate in the Organized 

Reserves after their wartime service. In contrast, large numbers of offi-

cers maintained their commissions by serving in the Officers’ Reserve 

Corps (ORC). ORC strength remained fairly consistent during the 

interwar period at about 100,000 officers, but its composition gradually 

changed as war veterans were replaced by men commissioned through 

the ROTC or the Citizens’ Military Training Camp (CMTC) programs. 

University training programs to prepare citizens for military service 

had a long history. It can be said to have begun in 1819, when Norwich 

University in Vermont established the first such program. Soon other 

military colleges were established and military training gained prominence in the state land-grant schools set up under the Morrill Act of 

1862. ROTC was formally established in the Defense Act of 1916. 

The CMTC program was more recent and limited, emerging from the 

Plattsburg movement just before World War I and the citizens’ training 

camps it fostered.

For several decades before World War I the Army had provided 

equipment and annually detailed up to one hundred regular officers to 

support college military training through ROTC programs, but until 

the defense acts of 1916 and 1920 the program was only loosely associated with the Army’s own needs. The new dependence on the National 

Guard and Organized Reserves for Army expansion, and the establishment of the Officers’ Reserve Corps as a vehicle to retain college men 

in the Army of the United States after graduation, gave impetus to a 

greatly enlarged and better regulated ROTC program after 1920. By 

1928 there were ROTC units in 325 schools enrolling 85,000 college and 

university students. Officers detailed as professors of military science 

instructed these units, and about 6,000 graduates were commissioned 

in the ORC each year. Thousands of other college graduates received 

at least some military training through the inexpensive program, which 

paid rich dividends in 1940 and 1941, when the nation began mobilizing to meet the threat of war.

The Army’s CMTC program, a very modest alternative to the 

system of universal military training proposed in 1919, provided about 

30,000 young volunteers with four weeks of military training in summer 

camps each year between 1921 and 1941. Those who completed three, 

later four, years of CMTC training and related home-study courses 

became eligible for commissions in the Officers’ Reserve Corps. The 

CMTC thus provided another source of leadership for the Organized 

Reserves. Although relatively few officers emerged directly from the 

program, a substantial number of CMTC participants later attended 

West Point, entered ROTC programs, or received commissions during 

World War II.

The Army Air Corps

The airplane and the tank both came to symbolize the changing 

face of warfare during Word War I. But U.S. aviation programs retained 

their vitality after the war, while the tank fell captive to the conservatism 
American Military History

64

of existing service branches after the National Defense Act of 1920’s 

dissolution of the Tank Corps. The glamour of 

flight had captured 

the public imagination, and champions of air power insisted that the 

new technology could change the face of warfare. Strategic bombing, 

according to Italy’s Giulio Douhet and other theorists, could replace 

traditional land and naval actions as the dominant form of warfare by 

directly targeting an enemy nation’s population and industrial base, 

hence its will and capacity to wage war.

Advocates of strategic bombing disagreed with the Army’s 

prevailing view of the airplane as a vehicle for reconnaissance and fire 

support, producing a split within both the Army and the Air Service 

itself. Brig. Gen. (Acting) William “Billy” Mitchell emerged from the 

war as the leading U.S. champion of strategic air power, demonstrating 

the potential of heavy bombers in a series of tests against obsolete 

warships during 1921 and 1923. Mitchell’s outspoken behavior and 

open criticism of prevailing aerial doctrine resulted in his 1925 reduction to the permanent rank of colonel, 1926 court-martial for insubordination, and subsequent resignation from the Army.

The debate over the proper role of air power continued into World 

War II. As late as 1940 the Army General Staff largely disagreed with 

the decision of Maj. Gen. Frank M. Andrews, Commander, General 

Headquarters Air Force, to purchase the B–17 heavy bomber. The 

decision was referred to as Andrews’ Folly, but it marked the culmination of two decades of effort to produce an effective strategic 

bomber. Dissent extended into the proper structure for the use of air 

power, as champions of strategic bombing sought to free aerial operations from those of the Army and Navy. In December 1925 a report 

from a House of Representatives committee chaired by Congressman 

Florian Lampert called for an independent Air Force combining all 

Army and Navy aircraft and a Department of Defense to coordinate 

the three services. A board President Calvin Coolidge established 

under the leadership of Dwight W. Morrow concluded that a separate air arm and a defense department were not necessary. In the Air 

Corps Act of 1926, Congress accepted the Morrow Board’s recommendation to establish an Assistant Secretary of War for Air Affairs, 

to rename the Air Service the Air Corps, and to represent the Air 

Corps on the General Staff.

The Morrow Board’s compromise plan provided a greater degree 

of independence for the advocates of strategic air power, but it also 

guaranteed that the War and Navy Departments could continue to 

harness the airplane as a tactical vehicle. Army Aviation pursued both 

potentials during the interwar period, substantially benefiting from 

dedicated funding and rapidly advancing technologies. But, despite 

precedence over many other Army priorities, even the Army Air Corps 

suffered from limited budgets; and the goals of the five-year expansion 

program authorized by the Air Corps Act were not met until the United 

States began preparing for war.

Domestic Employment

The most notable domestic use of regular troops in the twenty 

years of peace that followed World War I happened in the nation’s 
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65

capital during the summer of 1932. Several thousand 

“Bonus Marchers” remained in Washington after the 

adjournment of Congress dashed their hopes for 

immediate payment of a bonus for military service in 

the war. On July 28 marshals and police tried to evict 

one group encamped near the Capitol, and the ensuing 

riot produced some bloodshed. President Herbert C. 

Hoover directed the Army to intervene. A force of 

about 600 cavalrymen and infantrymen with a few tanks 

advanced to the scene under the personal leadership 

of Chief of Staff MacArthur. The troops cleared the 

Bonus Marchers from the Capitol and eventually evicted 

them from the District of Columbia, burning their 

shantytown in the process. The Army had performed 

an unpleasant task in an efficient manner; but the public 

largely viewed the use of military force against civilians, 

most of them veterans, as heavy-handed. The incident 

tarnished the Army’s public image and helped to defeat 

the administration in the next election.

Aside from the Bonus Marchers incident, the 

most conspicuous employment of the Army within 

the United States after World War I was in a variety 

of nonmilitary tasks that fell to it because no other 

institution possessed the necessary organization or 

resources. After large-scale natural disasters the Army 

often provided the first substantial relief effort. The 

Army, especially the National Guard, was used extensively in a variety of humanitarian relief efforts after 

floods, storms, and fires, following a long tradition of 

such operations. Army Engineers expanded their work on rivers and 

harbors for the improvement of navigation and flood control; and for 

four months in 1934 the Air Corps, on orders from President Franklin D. 

Roosevelt, took over airmail shipment for the Post Office Department. 

That endeavor had tragic consequences, as the unprepared Air Corps 

struggled to meet the challenge during a period of unusually poor weather. 

Twelve pilots lost their lives in the first few weeks of the operation.

The Army’s most important and immediately disruptive nonmilitary peacetime operation began in 1933, after Congress passed 

the Emergency Conservation Work Act in response to the Great 

Depression. The relief legislation put large numbers of jobless young 

men into reforestation and other reclamation work under the aegis of 

the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) it created. Despite MacArthur’s 

strenuous protestations that running the CCC would have an adverse 

effect on Army readiness, President Roosevelt directed him to mobilize 

the CCC and run its camps without in any way making the program a 

covert military project.

Within seven weeks the Army mobilized 310,000 men into 1,315 

camps more rapidly and orderly than any other mobilization in the 

Army’s history. For more than a year the War Department had to 

keep about 3,000 regular officers and many noncommissioned officers 

assigned to this task; in order to do so the Army had to strip tactical 

units of their leadership. Unit training came to a halt, and the Army’s 

General MacArthur and Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower stand among 

troops in Anacostia Flats.
American Military History

66

readiness for immediate military employment was nearly destroyed. In 

the second half of 1934 the War Department called a large number of 

reserve officers to active duty as replacements for the regulars, and by 

August 1935 about 9,300 reserve officers not counted in Active Army 

strength were serving with the CCC. A good many of them continued 

in this service until 1941.

The Army never wanted to insert military training into the work 

program, in part because the CCC camps were small and isolated enough 

to make that task quite difficult. But despite its initial serious interference with normal Army operations and deliberate nonmilitary nature, the 

CCC program eventually improved the country’s military preparedness. 

It furnished many thousands of reserve officers with valuable experience 

and gave nonmilitary but disciplined training to over 3 million men, many 

of whom would serve in the military during World War II.

National and Military Policy

For fifteen years, from 1921 to 1936, American policy accepted the 

premise that future wars with other major powers, except possibly Japan, 

could be avoided. National decision makers pursued that goal by maintaining a minimum of defensive military strength, avoiding entangling 

commitments with Old World nations, and using American good offices 

to promote international peace and the limitation of armaments. Reacting 

to a widely held belief that an arms race had contributed to the outbreak 

of World War I, that the arms race might continue, and that such a contest 

would prove costly, in 1921 the United States called for an international 

conference to consider the limitation of major types of armaments, especially capital ships such as battleships and aircraft carriers.

CCC Camps

By March of 1933, 13.6 million people were unemployed in 

the United States. President Franklin Roosevelt, only two days after 

his inauguration, called a meeting to create a Civilian Conservation 

Corps. The CCC would put more than 3 million young men to work 

improving public lands. Rather than create a new bureaucracy, the 

President used existing governmental departments. The U.S. Army’s 

primary function for the CCC was to organize and administer the 

camps. This was a major logistical undertaking in that each state 

normally had as many as several dozen camps in operation at one 

time. A typical camp consisted of a dozen or more barracks, a post 

exchange, recreational building, mess hall, classroom, dispensary, 

officers’ quarters, blacksmith shop, garage, bathhouse, supply room, 

green house, and storage buildings. Many Army officers, who otherwise would not have had an opportunity to construct and administer 

an installation or supervise large numbers of men during the interwar 

years, significantly benefited from this experience. CCC Camp in Granite County, Montana
between world wars

67

The treaties that emerged from the Washington Naval Conference 

in 1922 temporarily checked the race for naval supremacy. Their provisions froze new capital-ship construction in the United States, Great 

Britain, Japan, and other signatory nations for ten years. Limitations on 

individual capital-ship size and armament and a 5:5:3 ratio in the total 

permissible capital-ship tonnage of the United States, Great Britain, 

and Japan guaranteed that none of the three great naval powers could 

successfully launch a Pacific offensive as long as the powers respected 

the treaty provisions. Separate provisions froze the construction of 

new fortifications or naval facilities in the western Pacific. The treaties 

made a U.S. defense of the Philippines against a Japanese attack nearly 

impossible, but the general agreement to maintain the status quo in the 

Pacific and in China offered fair assurance against a Japanese war of 

aggression as long as the Western powers did not themselves become 

embroiled in the European-Atlantic area.

During 1928 the United States and France joined in drafting the 

Pact of Paris, through which many nations renounced war as an instrument of national policy. Thereafter the United States proclaimed that, 

if other powers did likewise, it would limit its armed forces to those 

necessary to maintain internal order and defend its national territory 

against aggression and invasion. In 1931 the Chief of the Army’s War 

Plans Division advised the Chief of Staff that the defense of frontiers 

was precisely the cardinal task for which the Army had been organized, 

equipped, and trained. There was no real con

flict between national 

policy and the Army’s conception of its mission during the 1920s 

and early 1930s. But, in the Army’s opinion, the government and the 

American public in their antipathy to war failed to support even the 

minimum needs for national defense.

The clouds of war began to form again in 1931, when the Japanese 

seized Manchuria and defied the diplomatic efforts of the League of 

Nations and the United States to end the occupation. Japan left the 

League in 1933 and a year later announced that it would not be bound 

by the postwar system of arms control treaties that had begun with the 

Washington Naval Conference after the last of its obligations under 

that system expired in 1936. In Europe, Adolf Hitler came to power in 

Germany during 1933, denounced the Treaty of Versailles, embarked 

on rearmament, and occupied the demilitarized Rhineland by 1936. 

Italy’s Benito Mussolini launched his own war of aggression by attacking 

Ethiopia in 1935. Spain’s 1936 revolution produced a third dictatorship 

and an extended civil war that became a proving ground for weapons 

and tactics used later in World War II.

In response to these developments the U.S. Congress passed a series 

of neutrality acts between 1935 and 1937, hoping to avoid entanglement 

in another European con

flict. The United States tried to strengthen its 

international position in other ways by opening diplomatic relations 

with the Soviet Union in 1933, by promising eventual independence 

to the Philippines in 1934, and by liquidating its protectorates in the 

Caribbean area and generally pursuing the policy of the good neighbor 

toward Latin America.

No quick changes in American military policy followed. But beginning in 1935 the armed forces began receiving larger appropriations 

that allowed them to improve their readiness for action. Changes in 
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68

the Army over the next three years reflected the increasingly critical 

international situation and the careful planning of the War Department 

during General MacArthur’s 1930–1935 tour as Chief of Staff. His 

recommendations led to a reorganization of the combat forces and a 

modest increase in their size, accompanied by more realistic planning 

for using the manpower and industrial might of the United States for 

war if it should become necessary.

The Army Strengthened

The central objective of the Chief of Staff ’s recommendations 

was strategic mobility, using the Army’s limited resources to replace 

horses as a means of transportation and to create a small, hard-hitting 

force ready for emergency use. In pursuit of those objectives the 

Army wanted to mechanize and motorize its regular combat units 

as soon as possible and bring them to full strength so they could 

be trained effectively. The Army also needed new organizations to 

control the training of larger ground and air units and combinedarms teams and to command them if war came. Between 1932 and 

1935 the War Department created four army headquarters and a 

General Headquarters Air Force in the Continental United States for 

those purposes. Under these headquarters, beginning in the summer 

of 1935, regular and National Guard divisions and other units started 

training together in summer maneuvers and other exercises, including 

joint exercises with the Navy. In the same year Congress authorized 

the Regular Army to increase its enlisted strength to the long-sought 

goal of 165,000. Substantial increases in equipment and housing 

budgets followed, so that by 1938 the Regular Army enjoyed greater 

Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, ca. June 1940
between world wars

69

combat strength and improved readiness. The strength and readiness 

of foreign armies had been increasing even more rapidly.

The slow improvement in Army readiness by the end of the 1930s 

highlights the fact that the Army was more prepared for war than many 

of its critics, arguing from the vantage of hindsight after World War 

II was over, have been willing to admit. In many ways, the Army was 

as prepared as it could be to fight the war that the civilian and military 

leadership of the country expected it to fight, a war focusing on the 

defense of the western hemisphere—“Fortress America”—rather than 

the war that finally arrived in 1941. When America was forced into war 

in a very different strategic world of 1941, a world that saw the fall of 

France and the near collapse of both the USSR and the British Empire, 

it was forced to prepare large expeditionary forces for overseas combat 

on a grand scale for a global, two-front war. None of this was foreseen 

in the 1930s.

The Army in the 1920s and 1930s, responding as always to the 

strategic needs of the nation as formulated by the civilian leadership and short on personnel, equipment, and funding, had to focus 

on its primary assigned mission of hemispheric defense. Most of the 

modernization funds of the Army were absorbed in the rapid expansion of the new Army Air Corps that was seen as one of the Army’s 

principal contributions to that mission. 

The second priority of the Army was the defense of the nation’s 

seaports. To accomplish this, the Army poured huge sums into the 

modernization of the coastal fortifications at eighteen major seaports, 

increasing the number and caliber of the coast artillery guns and 

improving the defenses of their emplacements. Almost one-third of 

the Army’s manpower, over 50,000 soldiers, was tied up in the coast 

artillery mission as the logical backstop to the Navy and Air Corps 

defensive belts. The Army even retained a separate coast artillery 

branch until 1950. In the 1930s the Army was relatively prepared for 

war but not for the war that came. 

During the slow rebuilding of the 1930s the Army began to 

concentrate, when resources allowed, on equipping and training its 

combat units for mobile operations rather than for the static warfare 

that had characterized the Western Front in World War I. It managed 

to develop some new weapons and equipment that promised improved 

fire power and mobility once they could be obtained in quantity. Such 

projects included the mobile 105-mm. howitzer that became the principal divisional artillery piece of World War II and light and medium 

tanks that were much faster than the lumbering models of World War 

I. The Army’s tanks still reflected their design origins in the Infantry 

and Cavalry. Infantry tanks were designed to support infantry assaults, 

and cavalry tanks were developed as “iron horses” to support traditional cavalry missions. Consequently, Army tanks would not compare 

favorably in firepower, one on one, to World War II German and 

Russian models. However, many American tanks, such as the fabled 

M4 Sherman, would be so mechanically reliable and were produced in 

such great numbers that they proved highly competitive in support of 

vast infantry formations in mobile warfare. 

In terms of infantry weapons, the Army proved highly innovative, adopting the Garand semiautomatic rifle in 1936 as a replacement 

In many ways, the Army was as 

prepared as it could be to fight 

the war that the civilian and 

military leadership of the country 

expected it to fight, a war 

focusing on the defense of the 

western hemisphere.
American Military History

70

for the 1903 Springfield. This gave the U.S. soldier a marked advantage over his World War II German or Russian counterparts who still 

employed bolt-action rifles. The infantryman was also assisted by the 

comparatively rapid motorization of the Army. Horsepower yielded to 

motor power as quickly as vehicles could be acquired, although horse 

cavalry retained a hold on Army thinking and tactics for years. After 

successful field tests the Army decided to improve the mobility of its 

regular infantry divisions by reducing them from four to three infantry 

regiments. The new “triangular” divisions would employ only motor 

transport, decreasing their overall size to little more than half that 

of their World War I counterparts but enhancing their mobility and 

combat power. 

The complexities of mobilizing for industrialized warfare required 

careful planning. The Army’s Industrial Mobilization Plan of 1930 

established the basic principles for harnessing the nation’s economic 

strength to war needs, and continued revisions of the plan through 1939 

improved its provisions. Manpower planning followed a similar process 

and culminated in the Protective Mobilization Plan of 1937. Under that 

plan, the first step in a general mobilization would be the induction of 

the National Guard into federal service, providing the Army an initial 

protective force of about 400,000. The Navy and this defensive force 

would then protect the nation while the Army engaged in an orderly 

expansion to planned strengths of 1, 2, or 4 million, as necessary. The 

Army’s manpower planning included, for the first time prior to actual 

war, a definite training plan that specified the location, size, and schedules of replacement training centers, unit training centers, and schools. 

It also incorporated the details of unit and individual training programs 

and the production of a variety of training manuals.

While these plans eventually helped to guide the mobilization that 

began in the summer of 1940, they had their faults. Planners set their 

sights too low. They assumed a maximum mobilization of World War I 

dimensions, but the Army mobilized more than twice as many men for 

World War II and required an even greater comparative industrial effort 

to meet their needs. Until 1939 planners also assumed that mobilization 

for war would come more or less suddenly, instead of relatively slowly 

The Triangular Division

The World War I square division consisted of about 25,000 men. It had considerable hitting and 

staying power but lacked flexibility. During the 1930s, the Army tested a triangular configuration 

in which each level of command from the rifle company through the division had three subordinate maneuver elements and a fire support element. This organization permitted a commander to 

maneuver two units, retain a third in reserve, and bring organic fire to bear. Adopted in 1940, the 

new infantry division also minimized support elements to slim down to 15,000 men, which made it 

easier to transport. Corps and army commands each had pools of units, such as tank battalions, to 

attach to divisions when they needed more capability. This flexible configuration was both powerful 

and maneuverable and would soon prove its worth, not only on the battlefields of Europe and the 

Pacific but also in the postwar Army.
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71

during many months of nominal peace. The Protective Mobilization 

Plan standardized many existing weapons designs to facilitate procurement and stockpiling, an understandable decision given the Army’s 

poor equipment state and the ominous international situation. But 

standardization, in combination with the Army’s earlier emphasis on 

funding personnel strength at the expense of research and development, impeded weapons programs in an era of rapidly advancing 

military technology. As a result the Army entered World War II with 

weapons designs from the mid-1930s, many of them already obsolete. 

The Beginnings of World War II

The German annexation of Austria in March 1938 and the Czech 

crisis in September of the same year awakened the United States and 

the other democratic nations to the imminence of another great 

world con

flict. In retrospect that new conflict had already begun with 

Japan’s 1937 invasion of China. When Germany seized Czechoslovakia 

in March 1939, war in Europe became a near certainty since Hitler 

apparently had no intention of stopping his eastward expansion and 

Great Britain and France had decided that they must fight rather than 

acquiesce to further German aggression. In August Germany made a 

deal with the Soviet Union that provided for a partition of Poland and 

gave Joseph Stalin a free hand in Finland and the northern Baltic states. 

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. France and Great 

Britain responded by declaring war on Germany but provided little direct 

assistance. An overwhelming majority of the American people wanted 

to stay out of the new war if they could, and this sentiment necessarily 

governed the initial U.S. response to the perilous international situation.

President Roosevelt and his advisers, fully aware of the danger, had 

launched a limited preparedness campaign at the beginning of 1939. By 

that date improvements in aircraft technology and the unproven but 

intriguing theories of strategic bombing had introduced a new factor 

into the military calculations of the United States. It would soon be 

technically feasible for a hostile European power to establish air bases 

in the western hemisphere from which to attack the Panama Canal 

(the key to American defense) or the Continental United States itself. 

Such an act would negate the oceanic security that the United States 

had traditionally enjoyed. Increasing the power of the Army Air Corps 

to counter that aerial threat became a key goal of defense planners as 

Europe braced for war.

Army and Navy officers began drafting a new series of war plans 

for facing a hostile coalition as the preparedness campaign began. 

Students at the Army War College had started researching such coalition 

plans during 1934, working in close cooperation with the General Staff. 

The 

Rainbow plans would be the successors to existing plans that used 

colors to symbolize potential adversaries, e.g., War Plan 

Orange for a 

war against Japan. The new plans incorporated aspects of both War 

College research and the older color plans. A month after the European 

war began, the President, by formally approving the 

Rainbow I plan, 

changed the avowed national military policy from one of guarding only 

the United States and its possessions to one of hemispheric defense, a 

policy that guided Army plans and actions until the end of 1940.
American Military History

72

Immediately after the European war started, the President 

proclaimed a limited national emergency and authorized increases in 

Regular Army and National Guard enlisted strengths to 227,000 and 

235,000, respectively. He also proclaimed American neutrality, but at 

his urging Congress soon gave indirect support to the Western democracies by ending the prohibition on munitions sales to nations at war 

embodied in the Neutrality Act of 1937. British and French orders for 

munitions in turn helped to prepare American industry for the largescale war production that was to come. When the quick destruction of 

Poland was followed by a lull in the war, the tempo of America’s own 

defense preparations decreased. The Army concentrated on making its 

regular force ready for emergency action by providing it with full and 

modern equipment as quickly as possible and by conducting in April 

1940 the first genuine corps and army training maneuvers in American 

military history. 

These maneuvers were followed the next year by some of the 

largest maneuvers in Army history, in Louisiana and North Carolina. 

The Louisiana Maneuvers in particular were important testing grounds 

for new doctrine and equipment as well as for the expanded officer 

corps. Armies, corps, and divisions conducted massive motorized and 

armored movements in a series of “force on force” mock battles. 

The adequacy of the Army’s preparations depended on the fate of 

France and Great Britain. Germany’s April 1940 conquest of Denmark 

and Norway, the subsequent defeat of the Low Countries and France, 

and the grave threat Great Britain faced by June forced the United 

States to adopt a new and greatly enlarged program for defense during 

that month. Before the summer of 1940 had truly begun, it appeared 

that the United States might eventually have to face the aggressors of 

the Old World almost alone.

The Prewar Mobilization

Under the leadership of Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall 

and, after July, of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, the Army initiated a large expansion designed to protect the United States and the 

rest of the western hemisphere from any hostile forces that might 

be unleashed from the European conflict. The Army expansion was 

matched by a naval program designed to give the United States a twoocean Navy strong enough to deal simultaneously with the Japanese in 

the Pacific and Germany and its new war partner, Italy, in the Atlantic 

(if they defeated Great Britain). Both expansion programs had the overwhelming support of the American people, who were now convinced 

that the danger to the United States was very real but remained strongly 

opposed to entering the war. Congressional appropriations between 

May and October 1940 reflected the threat. The Army received more 

than $8 billion for its needs during the following year, a greater sum 

than it had received to support its activities over the preceding twenty 

years. The munitions program approved for the Army on June 30, 1940, 

called for the procurement of all items needed to equip and maintain a 

1.2-million-man force by October 1941, including a greatly enlarged and 

modernized Army Air Corps. By September the War Department was 

planning to create an Army of 1.5 million soldiers as soon as possible.

The Army concentrated on 

making its regular force ready 

for emergency action by 

providing it with full and modern 

equipment as quickly as possible 

and by conducting in April 1940 

the first genuine corps and army 

training maneuvers in American 

military history.
between world wars

73

On August 27, 1940, Congress approved the induction of the 

National Guard into federal service and the activation of the Organized 

Reserves to fill the ranks of this new Army. It also approved in the 

Selective Service and Training Act of September 14 the first peacetime 

draft of untrained civilian manpower in the nation’s history. Units of 

the National Guard, draftees, members of the Enlisted Reserve Corps, 

and the reserve officers required to train them all entered active service 

as rapidly as the Army could construct camps to house them. During 

the last six months of 1940 the Active Army more than doubled in 

strength, and by mid-1941 it achieved its planned strength of 1.5 

million officers and men.

A new organization, the General Headquarters, took charge of 

training the Army in July 1940. During the same month the Army 

established a separate Armored Force and subsequently the Antiaircraft 

and Tank Destroyer Commands that with the Infantry, Field Artillery, 

Coast Artillery, and Cavalry increased the number of ground combat 

arms to seven. The Infantry’s tank units and the Cavalry’s mechanized 

brigade combined to form the Armored Force, over the objections 

of the Chiefs of the Infantry and Cavalry branches. Chief of Staff 

Marshall believed that he had to take this drastic step in light of the 

reluctance of those conservative branches to pursue a role for armor 

greater than supporting the infantry and performing traditional cavalry 

missions. He also saw the startling success of German blitzkrieg operations in the opening days of the war in Europe.

During 1940 and 1941 the existing branch schools and a new 

Armored Force School concentrated their efforts on improving the fitness 

of National Guard and reserve officers for active duty, and in early 1941 

the War Department established officer candidate schools to train men 

selected from the ranks for junior leadership positions. In October 1940 

the four armies assumed command of ground units in the Continental 

United States and thereafter trained them under the supervision of the 

General Headquarters. The corps area commands became administrative 

and service organizations. Major overseas garrisons were strengthened; 

and the Army established new commands to supervise the garrisoning of 

Puerto Rico and Alaska, where there had been almost no Regular Army 

troops for many years. In June 1941 the War Department established the 

Parachute Test Platoon

The Army had considered organizing an “air infantry” as early as May 1939 in light of German air-landed 

forces’ 1938 seizure of the Vienna airport. In January 1940 the Army decided to study the feasibility of air 

infantry and the air transport of ground troops. Germany’s use of airborne troops in their May 1940 invasion 

of the Low Countries gave these studies added impetus. On June 25 the War Department directed the Infantry 

School to organize a parachute test platoon. Two officers and 49 enlisted men were selected from over 200 

volunteers, and the platoon undertook a rigorous course of physical training and small-unit tactics, with classes on 

parachute packing and parachuting. The first platoon member jumped from an aircraft on August 16. The first 

mass jump occurred on August 29; in September the War Department authorized constitution of the 1st Parachute 

Battalion, marking the Army’s entry into this new form of warfare.
American Military History

74

The Father of American Armor

Adna R. Chaffee, Jr. (1884–1941), son of the second Chief of Staff 

of the Army Adna R. Chaffee, Sr., struggled to mechanize the Army for 

fourteen years, beginning as a major on the General Staff in 1927 and 

culminating in his command of U.S. Armored Forces (1940–1941). One of 

the first American cavalrymen to recognize that the tank must supplant the 

horse on the battlefield, Chaffee also understood that armored warfare 

would require the participation of all the branches and services. His 

constant advocacy of this concept ensured that the U.S. Army, unlike the 

British Army, was spared a controversy between “all-tank” and combinedarms advocates. Though his command of the Armored Force would be 

cut short when he died of a brain tumor in 1941, his role as Father of 

American Armor was secure.

Army Air Forces to train and administer air units in the United States. In 

July it began the transformation of General Headquarters into an operational post for General Marshall as Commanding General of the Field 

Forces. By the autumn of 1941 the Army had 27 infantry, 5 armored, 

and 2 cavalry divisions; 35 air groups; and a host of supporting units in 

training within the Continental United States. But most of these units 

were still unready for action, in part because the United States had shared 

so much of its old and new military equipment with the nations actively 

fighting the Axis triumvirate of Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Toward War

On the eve of France’s defeat in June 1940, President Roosevelt had 

directed the transfer or diversion of large stocks of World War I weapons, 

ammunition, and aircraft to both France and Great Britain. After France 

fell, these munitions helped to replace Britain’s losses from the evacuation 

of its expeditionary force at Dunkerque. Additional aid to Britain materialized in September, when the United States agreed to exchange fifty overage destroyers for offshore Atlantic bases and the President announced 

that future U.S. production of heavy bombers would be shared equally with 

the British. Open collaboration with Canada from August 1940 provided 

strong support for the Canadian war effort (Canada had followed Great 

Britain to war in September 1939). These foreign aid activities culminated 

in the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 that swept away the pretense of 

American neutrality by openly avowing the intention of the United States 

to become an “arsenal of democracy” against aggression. Prewar foreign 

aid was largely a self-defense measure; its fundamental purpose was to help 

contain the military might of the Axis powers until the United States could 

complete its own protective mobilization.

Thus by early 1941 the focus of American policy had shifted from 

hemispheric defense to limited participation in the war. Indeed, by 

then it appeared to Army and Navy leaders and to President Roosevelt 

that the United States might be drawn into full participation in the 
between world wars

75

not-too-distant future. Assuming the probability of simultaneous 

operations in the Pacific and the Atlantic, they agreed that Germany 

was the greater menace and that if the United States did enter the war it 

ought to concentrate first on the defeat of Germany. This principle was 

established as shared policy in staff conversations between American 

and British military representatives in Washington ending on March 29.

After those conversations the Army and Navy began adjusting the 

most comprehensive of the existing war plans, Rainbow 5, to correspond with ongoing military preparations and actions. During the 

following months the trend moved steadily toward American participation in the war against Germany. In April the President authorized 

an active naval patrol of the western half of the Atlantic Ocean in 

response to German submarine warfare. In May the United States 

accepted responsibility for the development and operation of military 

air routes across the North Atlantic via Greenland and across the South 

Atlantic via Brazil. During that month it appeared to the President and 

his military advisers that a German drive through Spain and Portugal to 

northwestern Africa and its adjacent islands might be imminent. This 

prospect, together with German naval activity in the North Atlantic, 

caused the President to proclaim an unlimited national emergency and 

direct the Army and Navy to prepare an expeditionary force to be sent 

to the Azores as a step toward blocking any German advance toward 

the South Atlantic. Then, in early June, the President learned that Hitler 

was preparing to attack the Soviet Union. That offensive would divert 

German military power away from the Atlantic for some time.

The Germans did invade the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941; three 

days later U.S. Army troops landed in Greenland to protect the island from 

German attack and to build bases for the air ferry route across the North 

Atlantic. The Army units and nearby Coast Guard elements quickly captured 

several German weather teams in the Greenland area, highlighting the strategic importance of the region. Earlier that month President Roosevelt 

had decided that Americans should relieve British troops guarding another 

critical outpost in the North Atlantic, Iceland, and the first contingent of 

U.S. forces reached that island nation in early July. A sizable Army expeditionary force followed in September. In August the President and British 

Prime Minister Winston Churchill met in Newfoundland and drafted the 

Atlantic Charter, which defined the general terms of a just peace for the 

world. By October the U.S. Navy was fully engaged in convoy-escort duties 

“OHIO”

By mid-1941, with no attack on the United States, National Guardsmen and draftees whose congressionally mandated twelve months of active service had begun in the fall of 1940 were growing restless. 

Although inadequate training facilities and equipment were improving, morale dipped as lengthy political 

debate over an extension of service proceeded. In the camps, the hand-lettered acronym “OHIO” (for 

Over the Hill in October, the end of the mandated year) appeared on walls, weapons, and vehicles. 

Congress, by a one-vote margin in the House in August 1941, precluded a disastrous disruption in the 

building of the Army by extending the period of service by six months.

I Want You for the U.S. Army 

James Montgomery Flagg, 1941
American Military History

76

in the western reaches of the North Atlantic and its ships, with some 

assistance from Army aircraft, were joining British and Canadian forces in 

their struggle against German submarines. In November Congress voted 

to repeal prohibitions against the arming of American merchant vessels 

and their entry into combat zones. The stage was set, as Prime Minister 

Churchill noted on November 9, for “constant fighting in the Atlantic 

between German and American ships.”

These overt moves toward involvement in the war had solid backing 

in the American public opinion. Only an increasingly small, though 

vociferous, minority criticized the President for the nation’s departure 

from neutrality. But the American people were still not prepared for an 

open declaration of war against Germany.

American policy toward Japan stiffened as the United States 

moved toward war in the Atlantic. Although the United States wanted 

to avoid a two-front war, it was not ready to do so by surrendering 

vital areas or interests to the Japanese as the price of peace. When the 

Japanese moved large forces into southern French Indochina in late 

July 1941, the United States responded by cutting off oil shipments 

and freezing Japanese assets. At the same time the War Department 

recalled General MacArthur from his retirement and position as Field 

Marshal of the Philippine Army to serve as Commander of both U.S. 

and Philippine Army forces in the Far East. It also decided to send 

Army reinforcements to the Philippines, including heavy bombers 

intended to dissuade the Japanese from making any more southward 

moves.

For their part, the Japanese, while continuing to negotiate with the 

United States, tentatively decided in September to embark on a war 

of conquest in Southeast Asia and the Indies as soon as possible. The 

plan called for immobilizing American naval opposition through an 

initial air strike against the U.S. Fleet stationed at the great naval base 

of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. When intensive last-minute negotiations in 

November failed to produce any accommodation, the Japanese made 

their decision for war irrevocable. 

The United States should not, perhaps, have been as surprised as 

it was by Japanese attacks on Hawaii and the Philippines on December 

7, 1941. Japan’s expansion aims by then were quite obvious, and the 

United States was the only major obstacle in its path. When Roosevelt 

MacArthur and the Philippines

Upon stepping down as U.S. Army Chief of Staff in 1935, Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) led a military 

mission to the Philippine Islands and became military adviser to the nascent commonwealth. Focusing on his task 

“to survey the military needs of the Philippine commonwealth,” General MacArthur sought to create a defense 

force that could defend the Philippines after independence. He encountered numerous obstacles: financial 

demands that outpaced available funds, the War Department’s reluctance to provide tangible support, unexpectedly high training requirements for Filipinos (who had high illiteracy rates and spoke numerous dialects), 

lagging conscription numbers, and the growing Filipino fear of Japan. In late 1940 War Department policy 

changed, and full-scale mobilization of the Philippines began in mid-1941. However, time was about to run out. 
between world wars

77

cut off U.S. shipments of oil to Japan, the situation grew even more 

critical. Despite this evidence and the benefit of superb U.S. codebreaking efforts against Japanese naval and diplomatic codes (Magic

intercepts) similar to British successes against the Germans (codenamed Ultra), America was caught militarily and psychologically 

unprepared for war.

The Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines immediately ended the remaining division of American opinion on participation in the war, and the United States officially entered hostilities with 

a unanimity of popular support that was unprecedented in its military 

history. This was also the first time that the United States entered a war 

with a large force in being and an industrial system partially retooled 

for hostilities. The Army stood ready to defend the western hemisphere 

against invasion with a force of 1,643,477 soldiers. This is the mission 

for which it was prepared. Yet, on many levels, it was not ready to take 

part in a very different type of war, a war of large-scale expeditionary 

forces launched to conduct complex combined and joint operations 

across the huge expanses of two oceans. Many months would pass 

before the United States could begin even limited offensives against the 

well-prepared, battle-hardened forces of the Axis powers. Discussion Questions

1. Some commentators have described U.S. policy as isolationist in 

the interwar era. What impact did this policy have on the Army in the 

interwar period, and how did this affect national security policy?

2. Interwar military policy emphasized maintaining force levels over 

procuring state-of-the-art equipment. Why did the War Department 

make that decision, and how ready was the Army for war in this period?

3. Describe the U.S. Army school system during the interwar 

period. What was its role, and how well did it perform that role? What 

was its impact on the Army?

4. During the late 1930s the United States began to rearm and 

eventually abandoned its policy of strict neutrality to support France 

and Great Britain. How did the President implement this policy shift? 

Could neutrality and a continued policy of defending only U.S. territory 

have served the nation’s interests better than supporting the allies?

5. What roles, missions, and operations did the Army perform 

during the interwar period? How successful was the Army, and did these 

missions or operations enhance or detract from its ability to perform its 

wartime missions? 

6. To what extent did the outbreak of European hostilities in 1939 

find the Army operating with outdated doctrine or organizations? How 

did this compare with prior experience, especially from World War I? 

What lessons can we learn? Recommen

ded Readings

Cline, Ray S. Washington Command Post: The Operations Division. U.S. Army 

in World War II. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 

1951, chs. 1–4.
American Military History

78

Gabel, Christopher R. The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1991.

Gole, Henry G. The Road to Rainbow: Army Planning for Global War, 

1934–1940. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003.

Griffith, Robert K. Men Wanted for the U.S. Army: America’s Experience 

with an All-Volunteer Army between the World Wars. Westport, Conn.: 

Greenwood Press, 1982.

Johnson, David E. Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. 

Army, 1917–1945. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Matloff, Maurice, and Edwin M. Snell. Strategic Planning for Coalition 

Warfare, 1941–1942. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1999, chs. 1–4.

Murray, Williamson, and Allan R. Millett, eds. Military Innovation in the 

Interwar Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, chs. 

3–4, 7–10.

Winton, Harold R., and David R. Mets, eds. The Challenge of Change: 

Military Institutions and New Realities, 1918–1941. Lincoln: University 

of Nebraska Press, 2000, chs. 5–6.

Other Readings

Dallek, Robert. Franklin Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. 

New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

English, John A., and Bruce I. Gudmundsson. On Infantry, rev. ed. 

Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishing, 1994, ch. 3.

Huntington, Samuel P. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of 

Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957, 

ch. 11.

Hurley, Alfred F. Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power, rev. ed. Bloomington: 

Indiana University Press, 1975.

Killigrew, John W. The Impact of the Great Depression on the Army. New 

York: Garland, 1979.

Kington, Donald M. Forgotten Summers: The Story of the Citizen’s Military 

Training Camps, 1921–1940. San Francisco, Calif.: Two Decades 

Publishing, 1995.

Koistinen, Paul A. C. Planning War, Pursuing Peace: The Political Economy 

of American Warfare, 1920–1939. Lawrence: University Press of 

Kansas, 1998.

Kreidberg, Marvin A., and Merton G. Henry. History of Military 

Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945. Westport, Conn.: 

Greenwood Press, 1975, chs. 12–15.

Lisio, Donald J. The President and Protest: Hoover, MacArthur, and the Bonus 

Riot. New York: Fordham University Press, 1994.

Maurer, Maurer. Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919–1939. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Air Force, 1987.

Odom, William O. After the Trenches: The Transformation of U.S. Army 

Doctrine, 1918–1939. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 

1999.
The news came as a shock, even as the attack itself had come. 

About one o’clock in Washington on the afternoon of December 

7, 1941, the first news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 

Hawaii, reached the War Department. It caught by surprise not only 

the American people at large, who learned of the attack a short while 

later, but also their leaders, including the very officers who had earlier 

been so much concerned over the possibility of just such an attack. 

These officers and their political superiors had expected the Japanese 

momentarily to use all their forces against weakly held British and Dutch 

positions in the Far East (and probably, but not certainly, against the 

Philippines). But without warning in the early morning of December 

7, powerful carrier-borne air forces had smashed the U.S. Pacific Fleet 

at anchor in Pearl Harbor. The same day, about noon on December 8 

in the Philippines, the Japanese Air Force targeted U.S. assets in central 

Luzon. Formosa-based warplanes virtually destroyed the bulk of the 

U.S. Far East Air Force lined up on the Clark and Iba airfields not far 

from Manila. For the second time within a quarter-century, Americans 

found themselves fully involved in a war they had not sought and, 

although they had had ample warning, one for which they were still 

woefully unprepared.

The Outbreak of War: Action and Reaction

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was one of the most brilliant 

tactical feats of the war. From six carriers that had advanced undetected 

to a position just 200 miles north of Oahu, some 350 aircraft came in 

through the morning mist, achieving complete tactical surprise. They 

bombed and strafed the neatly aligned Army planes on Hickam and 

Wheeler Fields, as well as Navy and Marine Corps aircraft; they carefully 

singled out as targets major units of the Navy’s battle force at anchor in 

the harbor. Fortunately, the fleet’s three carriers were away at the time 

3

World War II

The Defensive Phase
American Military History

80

and the attackers failed to hit the oil 

tanks and naval repair shops on shore. 

But the blow was devastating enough. 

About 170 aircraft were destroyed and 

102 damaged; all eight battleships were 

sunk or badly damaged along with other 

vessels; and total casualties came to 

about 3,400, including 2,402 service men 

and civilians killed. Japanese losses were 

about forty-nine aircraft and five midget 

submarines. In an astonishing achievement, the enemy managed to apply in 

one shattering operation a combination 

of the principles of surprise, objective, mass, security, and maneuver. In 

its larger strategic context, the Pearl 

Harbor attack also exemplifies the principles of the offensive and economy 

of force. The joint congressional committee investigating the attack 

justly called it the “greatest military and 

naval disaster in our Nation’s history.” 

These two attacks, on Pearl Harbor and on the Philippines, effectively crippled American striking power in the Pacific. The Philippines 

and other American possessions in the western Pacific were isolated, 

their loss a foregone conclusion. The Hawaiian Islands and Alaska 

lay open to invasion; the Panama Canal and the cities, factories, and 

shipyards of the West Coast were vulnerable to raids from the sea 

and air. Months would pass before the United States could regain a 

capacity for even the most limited kind of offensive action against its 

Pacific enemy. As Japanese forces moved swiftly southward against the 

Philippines, Malaya, and the Netherlands Indies, Japan’s Axis partners, 

Germany and Italy, promptly declared war on the United States, thus 

ending the uncertainty as to whether the United States would become 

a full-fledged belligerent in the European war. For the first time in its 

history, the United States had embarked upon an all-out, two-front war.

Meanwhile, Britain was battling to maintain its hold on the eastern 

Mediterranean region that lay athwart its historic lifeline to its empire 

in the Far East. Late in 1940 small British forces based in Egypt gained 

important successes against Italian armies in Libya, and the Greeks 

in the winter of 1940–1941 resoundingly defeated an invading Italian 

army and chased it back into Albania. But German armies quickly 

came to the aid of their ally. In April 1941 the famous panzer divisions, 

supported by overwhelming air power, swept through the Balkans, 

crushing the Yugoslav and Greek armies and a British expeditionary 

force hastily dispatched to aid the latter. The following month German 

airborne forces descended on the island of Crete and swamped British 

and Greek defenders in a spectacular, though costly, attack. In Libya, 

a powerful German-Italian army under General Erwin Rommel drove 

the British back across the Egyptian border, isolating a large garrison in 

Tobruk and threatening the Nile Delta. Against these disasters Britain 

could count only the final expulsion of the Italians from the Red Sea 

The sinking of the USS Arizona came to symbolize the devastation of the 

attack and the American determination to avenge “a day that will 

live in infamy.”
world war II: the defensive phase

81

area and of the Vichy French from Syria, the suppression of proGerman uprisings in Iraq, and the achievement of a precarious naval 

ascendancy in the eastern and western portions of the Mediterranean. 

During the remainder of 1941 the British gradually built up strength in 

eastern Libya, and late in the year they succeeded in relieving Tobruk 

and pushing Rommel back to his original starting point at El Agheila.

Since mid-1940 the military fortunes of the anti-Axis powers had 

declined as the European war expanded. Germany had crushed all its 

continental European opponents in the west and then attempted to 

destroy Britain’s air forces as a prelude to an invasion across the English 

Channel. During the air battles over Britain in August and September 

1940, the Royal Air Force had won a brilliant but close-run victory. 

During the following winter and spring the waning threat of invasion 

had been replaced by the equally deadly and more persistent menace of 

economic strangulation. German aircraft pulverized Britain’s ports and 

inland cities, while U-boats, surface raiders, and mines decimated shipping. By 1941 the imports on which the United Kingdom depended for 

existence had dwindled to less than two-thirds of their prewar volume, 

and the British people faced the prospect of outright starvation.

By June 1941, however, the storm center of the war had moved 

elsewhere. Only slightly delayed by the conquest of the Balkans, Hitler 

on June 22, 1941, hurled German might against the Soviet Union, the 

only remaining power on the European continent capable of challenging 

his dominance. By early December, when the onset of winter and stiffening Soviet resistance finally brought the advance to a halt, the German 

armies had driven to the suburbs of Moscow, inflicted huge losses 

on the Red Army, and occupied a vast expanse of European Russia 

embracing its most densely populated and industrialized regions. This, 

as it turned out, was the high tide of German success in World War II; 

Hitler, like Napoleon, was to meet disaster on the wind-swept plains of 

Russia. But in December 1941 few were willing to predict this outcome. 

British and American leaders assembling in Washington at the end of 

that month to make plans for dealing with the crisis had to reckon with 

the probability that in the year to come, unless the Western Allies could 

somehow force Germany to divert substantial forces from the Eastern 

Front, the German steamroller would 

complete the destruction of the Soviet 

armies. Hitler would then be able, with 

the resources and enslaved peoples of 

all Europe at his feet, to throw his full 

power against the West.

American military leaders had 

already given thought to this grim prospect and to the implications it held for 

America’s role in the war. In the Victory 

Program, which the Army and Navy 

drew up at the President’s behest during 

the summer of 1941, the leaders of the 

two services had set forth in some detail 

the strategy and the means they considered necessary to win ultimate victory 

if, as they expected, Soviet Russia 

A B–17C Aircraft at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, After the Attack 

on Pearl Harbor
American Military History

82

succumbed to the Axis onslaught. The strategy was the one laid down in 

the Rainbow 5 war plan: wearing Germany down by bombing, blockade, 

subversion, and limited offensives while mobilizing the strength needed 

to invade the European continent and to defeat Germany on its own 

ground. Japan, meanwhile, would be contained by air and sea power, 

local defense forces, China’s inexhaustible manpower, and the Soviet 

Union’s Siberian divisions. With Germany out of the running, Japan’s 

defeat or collapse would soon follow. 

As for the means, the United States would have to provide them in 

large part, for the British were already weary and their resources limited. 

The United States would serve not merely, to use the President’s catchy 

phrase, as the “arsenal of democracy,” supplying weapons to arm its 

Allies, but also as the main source of the armies without which no wars, 

above all this war, could be won. U.S. Army leaders envisaged the eventual mobilization of 215 divisions, 61 of them armored, and 239 combat 

air groups, requiring a grand total, with supporting forces, of 8.8 million 

men. Five million of these would be hurled against the European Axis. 

Victory over the Axis powers would require a maximum military effort 

and full mobilization of America’s immense industrial resources.

Yet the Victory Program was merely an expression of professional 

military views, not a statement of national military policy. That policy, 

on the eve of Pearl Harbor, ostensibly was still hemisphere defense. 

Much of the Army’s resources were focused on coastal artillery defenses 

and the establishment of air bases to defend the Panama Canal and the 

coasts of America. Much of America’s plans and resources throughout 

the 1930s had focused on this mission and not on a mission of preparing 

for expeditionary warfare in Europe or the Pacific. The pace of rearmament and mobilization in the summer and fall of 1941 was actually 

slowing. Signs pointed to a policy of making the American contribution 

to the defeat of the Axis, as columnist Walter Lippmann put it, one 

“basically of Navy, Air, and manufacturing,” something a great deal 

less than the all-out effort envisaged in the Victory Program. Public 

and congressional sentiment, moreover, still clung to the hope that an 

immediate showdown with the Axis powers could be avoided and that 

the country would not be forced into full belligerent participation in 

the war, as evidenced by a near defeat of the bill to extend Selective 

Service, continuation of a prohibition against sending selectees outside 

The Persian Corridor

In order to ensure that the Soviet Union stayed in the war, the United States and Britain moved troops 

into Persia (present-day Iran) and established rail and road supply routes into the southern Soviet Union. 

Huge truck convoys delivered supplies and vehicles to the Soviets, but the majority of the materiel flowed 

in by train. Only the naval supply route through the Pacific to the Soviet Far East succeeded in delivering 

more to the Soviets. In third place was the sprint past the Germans in the North Atlantic and around Norway 

to Murmansk and Archangel. In all, American shipments of aircraft, tanks, trucks, oil, and other Lend-Lease 

cargo through Iraq and Iran from July 1941 to the end of the war were enough, according to one U.S. Army 

estimate, to keep sixty Soviet divisions in the fight. 

Public and congressional 

sentiment, moreover, still clung 

to the hope that an immediate 

showdown with the Axis powers 

could be avoided and that the 

country would not be forced into 

full belligerent participation in 

the war.
world war II: the defensive phase

83

the Western Hemisphere, and apathetic public response to submarine attacks on American destroyers escorting convoys to Britain in 

September and October.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines changed 

the picture. A wave of patriotic indignation over Japanese duplicity and 

brutality swept the country. Isolationism virtually evaporated as a public 

issue, and all parties closed ranks in support of the war effort. Indeed, 

in retrospect, despite the immediate tactical success the Japanese 

achieved at Pearl Harbor, that attack proved to be a great blunder for 

them politically and strategically. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt took one of the first tangible 

steps toward equipping America to fight the new war the month after 

Pearl Harbor. Early in January he dramatized the magnitude of the 

effort now demanded by proclaiming a new set of production goals: 

60,000 airplanes in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943; 45,000 tanks in 1942 and 

75,000 in 1943; 20,000 antiaircraft guns in 1942 and 35,000 in 1943; 

0.5 million machine guns in 1942 and as many more in 1943; and 8 

million deadweight tons of merchant shipping in 1942 and 10 million 

in 1943. Vanished were the two illusions that America could serve only 

as an arsenal of democracy, contributing weapons without the men to 

wield them, or, conversely, that the nation could rely solely on its own 

fighting forces, leaving other anti-Axis nations to shift for themselves. 

“We must not only provide munitions for our own fighting forces,” 

Roosevelt advised Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, “but vast quantities to be used against the enemy in every appropriate theater of war.” 

A new Victory Program boosted the Army’s ultimate mobilization goal 

to 10 million men; and the War Department planned to have seventyone divisions and 115 combat air groups organized by the end of 1942, 

with a total of 3.6 million men under arms. As an Army planner had 

predicted back in the spring of 1941, the United States now seemed 

destined to become “the final reserve of the democracies both in 

manpower and munitions.”

Medium Tanks on an American Assembly Line
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84

One of the more unpleasant side effects of the Japanese attack on 

Pearl Harbor was the growing clamor on the West Coast for the immediate internment of all persons of Japanese ancestry. In this public fear, 

racism doubtless played a role. The Japanese, even those born in America 

and thus citizens, were characterized as not being “real Americans” and 

of being a dangerous “fifth column” of potential spies and traitors. The 

fact that there was little to no evidence behind these fears did not seem 

to matter in the panic immediately after December 7. 

The War Department had plans in place for the internment of 

all aliens of potentially belligerent states including Italy, Germany, and 

Japan. There were 40,869 Japanese aliens and about 58,000 Italian and 

22,000 German aliens in the three Pacific states. In addition, there were 

71,484 American-born, American citizens of Japanese ancestry in that 

region of the country. Initial plans thus only addressed the necessity of 

detaining aliens, not citizens, from the West Coast and removing them 

to the Zone of the Interior. During time of war this was a common 

practice under international law. Numerous Italian and German citizens living in America were also targeted for detention, and hundreds 

were arrested and interned for a time. Such a program of internment 

would ensure that there was no chance for such persons who technically were loyal to a foreign government to engage in sabotage or 

intelligence activities. The main controversy, 

however, was when this program was extended 

to U.S. citizens, specifically against U.S. citizens 

of Japanese ancestry.

The Army was to some degree caught in 

the middle of this problem. The commander 

of the Western Defense Command, Lt. Gen. 

John L. DeWitt, at first opposed any evacuation of U.S. citizens regardless of their ancestry. 

However, strong pressure from California 

congressional delegations and an approval of 

a more draconian evacuation plan by President 

Roosevelt changed the situation. By February 

20 DeWitt and his staff had planned for the 

forced movement and internment of all people 

of Japanese ancestry, citizens and noncitizens, 

out of coastal “security” areas. Similar plans to 

include large numbers of German and Italian 

aliens in this internment program were in effect 

scuttled when the War Department decreed 

first that Italians would be evacuated only with 

the express permission of the Secretary of War 

and only on an individual basis. “Bona fide” 

German refugees would also be exempted. 

This had the effect of preventing any largescale internment of Italian or German aliens, 

although some 187 Germans had been apprehended as security risks by early 1942.

After the President’s Executive Order 

9066 of February 19 and the implementing 

War Department directives of February 20, President Roosevelt signs the declaration of war on Japan, 

December 8, 1941.
world war II: the defensive phase

85

the mass evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry—citizens and 

noncitizens—began. The Army, FBI, and other agencies coordinated 

the evacuation. Despite the lack of any hard evidence of spying activities or intention to commit sabotage, over 110,000 Japanese Americans 

were rounded up and interned in camps (“Relocation Centers”) away 

from the Pacific coast. What little justification was possible for interning 

noncitizens was not available for interning native-born American citizens, and the program was attacked both at the time and for decades 

thereafter. It was not until 1988 that this injustice was officially addressed 

and compensation provided for those who suffered this indignity. 

The degree to which such draconian measures were unnecessary 

can be highlighted by how the military and civilian leadership in Hawaii 

handled their Japanese American “problem.” There were over 159,000 

Japanese Americans in Hawaii, about 30 percent of the population, 

and military commanders had feared extensive sabotage by these individuals in the event of war with Japan. On December 7 the Air Corps 

planes at Hickam Field were parked wing tip to wing tip to keep them 

close together and make them easier to protect from sabotage. (This 

made them sitting ducks for the Japanese bombers.) 

Immediately after December 7 American counterintelligence and 

FBI agents rounded up 736 individual Japanese aliens; by the end 

of January 1942 that total had reached about 1,300. Yet no massive 

internment of Japanese American citizens was seriously contemplated 

or executed. They were deemed vital to the war effort, and military 

necessity in this instance overrode all concerns. The results of this very 

different policy in Hawaii led Japanese Americans to 

flock to the colors 

to form labor battalions and infantry units. Two of the most decorated 

units in the American Army in World War II were the 100th Infantry 

Battalion and the 442d Infantry Regimental Combat Team, both 

recruited from Japanese Americans. Nineteen individuals in these units 

were awarded the nation’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, in 

2000 as a belated recognition of their loyalty and bravery.

Strategic Decisions

Late in December 1941 President Roosevelt and Prime Minister 

Winston Churchill met with their advisers in Washington (the 

Arcadia

Conference) to establish the bases of coalition strategy and to concert 

immediate measures to meet the military crisis. They faced an agonizing 

dilemma. Prompt steps had to be taken to stem the spreading tide of 

Japanese conquest. On the other hand, it seemed likely that the coming 

year might see the collapse of Soviet resistance and of the British position 

in the Middle East. In this difficult situation the Allied leaders made a farreaching decision that shaped the whole course of the war. Reaffirming 

the principle laid down in Anglo-American staff conversations in 

Washington ten months earlier, they agreed that the first and main effort 

must go into defeating Germany, the more formidable enemy. Japan’s 

turn would come later. Defeating Germany would involve a prolonged 

process of “closing and tightening the ring” about Fortress Europe. 

Operations in 1942 would have to be defensive and preparatory, though 

limited offensives might be undertaken if the opportunity presented 

itself. Not until 1943 at the earliest could the Allies contemplate a return 
American Military History

86

to the European continent “across the Mediterranean, from Turkey into 

the Balkans, or by landings in Western Europe.”

Another important action taken at the Arcadia Conference was 

the establishment of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS). This staff 

element consisted of the professional military chiefs of both countries 

and answered to the President and Prime Minister for planning and 

directing the grand strategy of the coalition. Its American members 

were the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall; the Chief 

of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold R. Stark (replaced early in 1942 by 

Admiral Ernest J. King); and the Chief (later Commanding General) of 

the Army Air Forces, Lt. Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold. In July a fourth 

member was added, the President’s personal Chief of Staff, Admiral 

William D. Leahy. Since the CCS normally sat in Washington, the British 

Chiefs of Staff, making up its British component, attended in person 

only at important conferences with the heads of state. In the intervals 

they were represented in Washington by the four senior members of the 

permanent British Joint Staff Mission, headed until late in 1944 by Field 

Marshal Sir John Dill, the former Chief of the British Imperial General 

Staff. Under the CCS grew a system of primarily military subordinate 

committees specifically designated to handle such matters as strategic and 

logistical planning, transportation, and communications.

By February 1942 the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), consisting of 

the U.S. members of the CCS, had emerged as the highest authority 

in the U.S. military hierarchy, though never formally chartered as such, 

responsible directly to the President. Like the CCS, the JCS in time 

developed a machinery of planning and working committees, the most 

important of which were the Joint Staff Planners, the Joint Strategic 

Survey Committee, and the Joint Logistics Committee. No executive machinery was created at either the CCS or JCS level. The CCS 

ordinarily named either the British Chiefs or the U.S. Joint Chiefs to 

act as its executive agent, and these in turn employed the established 

machinery of the service departments.

Germany First

At the December 1941 Arcadia Conference in Washington, Britain 

and the United States agreed to put the war in the Pacific second 

to victory in Europe—even if that meant a U.S. withdrawal from the 

Philippines and its other possessions in the Pacific. Admiral Harold 

R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations in 1940, had argued when 

contemplating such an eventuality, “If Britain wins decisively against 

Germany we could win everywhere, but ... if she loses, the problems 

confronting us would be very great; ... we might, possibly, not win

anywhere.” This policy was not popular with the many Americans 

thirsting for revenge against the Japanese for Pearl Harbor, but it 

was realistic. As U.S. Commander in the Southwest Pacific, General 

MacArthur would also argue vehemently against the approach; but it 

remained U.S. policy until Germany surrendered in 1945. 

Churchill and Roosevelt at the Arcadia

Conference, 1941
world war II: the defensive phase

87

In the spring of 1942 Britain and 

the United States agreed on a worldwide division of strategic responsibility. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff 

were to have primary responsibility for 

the war in the Pacific and the British 

Chiefs for the Middle East–Indian 

Ocean region, while the EuropeanMediterranean-Atlantic area would 

be a combined responsibility of both 

staffs. China was designated a separate 

theater commanded by its chief of 

state, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, 

though within the United States’ 

sphere of responsibility. In the Pacific, 

the Joint Chiefs established two main 

theaters, the Southwest Pacific Area 

(SWPA) and the Pacific Ocean Area 

(POA), the former under General 

Douglas MacArthur, the latter under 

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. The POA 

was further subdivided into North, 

Central, and South Pacific areas, 

the first two directly controlled by Nimitz, the third by Rear Adm. 

Robert L. Ghormley. Later in 1942 the U.S. air and service troops 

operating in China, India, and northern Burma were organized as 

U.S. Army Forces, China-Burma-India (CBI), under Lt. Gen. Joseph 

W. Stilwell. On various other far-flung lines of communications, U.S. 

Army forces, mostly air and service troops during 1942, were organized under similar theater commands. In June Maj. Gen. Dwight D. 

Eisenhower arrived in England to take command of the newly established European Theater of Operations; after the landings in North 

Africa late in the year, a new U.S. theater was organized in that region.

The British and the Americans had decided at the Arcadia

Conference that Allied forces in each overseas theater would operate 

as much as possible under a single commander, and this principle was 

subsequently applied in most theaters. Within theaters, subordinate 

unified commands were created, in some cases for Allied ground, 

naval, or air forces and most frequently for task forces formed to carry 

out a specific operation or campaign. The authority of Allied theater 

commanders over national forces was always restricted with respect to 

areas and missions; as a last resort, senior national commanders in each 

theater could appeal to their own governments against specific orders 

or policies of the theater commander. In practice, this right of appeal 

was rarely invoked.

In essence, unified command at the Allied level gave the 

commander control of certain specific forces for operational purposes, 

rather than jurisdiction over a given geographical area. Administration 

of national forces and the allocation of resources were usually handled 

through separate national channels. In certain cases, interallied boards 

or committees responsible to the Allied theater commander controlled 

the common use of critical resources (such as petroleum products) or 

Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek with General Stilwell
American Military History

88

facilities (such as railways and shipping) within a theater. Administration 

of U.S. forces overseas also generally followed separate Army and Navy 

channels, except in the Pacific, where from 1943 on supply, transporta-

tion, and certain other services were jointly administered to a limited 

degree.

Even before Pearl Harbor, Army leaders had realized that the 

peacetime organization of the War Department General Staff, dating 

back to 1921, was an inadequate instrument for directing a major war 

effort. Originally, a small coordinating and planning body, the General 

Staff, and especially its War Plans and Supply Divisions, rapidly 

expanded during the emergency period into a large operating organization increasingly immersed in the details of supervision to the detriment of its planning and policymaking functions. The Chief of Staff, 

to whom some sixty-one officers and agencies had direct access, carried 

an especially heavy burden.

Three additional features of the organization demanded remedy. 

One, the continued subordination of the Army Air Forces to General 

Staff supervision, con

flicted with the Air Forces’ drive for autonomy. 

Another was the anomalous position of the General Headquarters 

(GHQ), whose role as command post for the field forces and respon-

sibilities in the fields of training and logistics clashed with the authority 

of the General Staff at many points. Finally, the division of supply 

responsibilities between the Supply Division (G–4) and the Office 

of the Under Secretary of War (with requirements and distribution 

assigned to the former and procurement to the latter) was breaking 

down under the pressure of mobilization.

Spurred by the Pearl Harbor disaster, which seemed to accentuate 

the need for better staff coordination in Washington, on March 9, 1942, 

General Marshall put into effect a sweeping reorganization of the War 

Department. Under the new plan, which underwent little change during 

the war years, the General Staff, except for the War Plans and Intelligence 

Divisions, was drastically whittled down and limited in function to broad 

planning and policy guidance. An expanded War Plans Division, soon 

renamed the Operations Division (OPD), became General Marshall’s 

command post and in effect a superior general staff for the direction of 

overseas operations. The Army Air Forces had virtually complete control 

of the development of its special weapon—the airplane. Administering 

its own personnel and training, it organized and supported the combat 

air forces to be employed in theaters of operations and came also to 

exercise considerable in

fluence over both strategic and operational 

planning. The groundwork was even then being laid for the Army Air 

Forces’ rise to the status of a separate service after the war.

The reorganization of March 9 created two new commands: the 

Army Ground Forces (AGF) and the Services of Supply, later renamed 

the Army Service Forces (ASF). The former, headed by Lt. Gen. Lesley 

J. McNair, took over the training mission of GHQ, now abolished, and 

absorbed the ground combat arms. To the ASF, commanded by Lt. Gen. 

Brehon B. Somervell, were subordinated the supply (renamed technical) 

and administrative services, the nine corps areas, and most of the Army 

posts and installations throughout the United States, including the ports 

of embarkation through which troops and supplies 

flowed to the forces 

overseas. In supply matters, Somervell now reported to two masters, the 
world war II: the defensive phase

89

Chief of Staff for requirements and distribution and the Under Secretary 

of War, Mr. Robert P. Patterson, for procurement. His subordination to 

the latter was, in reality, only nominal since most of Patterson’s organization was transferred bodily to Somervell’s headquarters. Except for equipment peculiar to the Army Air Forces, the ASF thus became the Army’s 

central agency for supply in the United States. It drew up the Army’s 

“shopping list” of requirements, the Army Supply Program. Through 

the seven technical services (Quartermaster, Ordnance, Signal, Chemical, 

Engineer, Medical, and Transportation), the ASF procured most of the 

Army’s supplies and equipment and distributed these materials to the 

Army at home and abroad, as well as to Allies under Lend-Lease. Finally, 

it operated the Army’s fleet of transports and it trained specialists and 

service units to perform various specialized jobs. General Somervell 

himself became General Marshall’s principal logistical adviser.

All this looked to the future. In the first few weeks after Pearl 

Harbor, while the Navy was salvaging what it could from the wreckage 

at Pearl Harbor and striving to combat German submarines in the 

western Atlantic, the War Department made desperate efforts to bolster 

the defenses of Hawaii, the Philippines, the Panama Canal, Alaska, and 

the U.S. West Coast. By the end of December, the danger of an attack 

on the Hawaii-Alaska-Panama triangle seemed to have waned, and the 

emphasis shifted to measures to stave off further disasters in the Far 

East. The British and Americans decided at Arcadia that the Allies 

would attempt to hold the Japanese north and east of the line of the 

Malay Peninsula and the Netherlands Indies and to reestablish communications with the Philippines to the north. To coordinate operations 

in this vast theater, the Allied leaders created the ABDA (AmericanBritish-Dutch-Australian) Command, including the Netherlands Indies 

(present-day Indonesia), Malaya, Burma, and the Philippines; although 

Lesley J. McNair

(1883–1944)

McNair built a strong reputation as a 

trainer during World War I and became a 

close friend of Col. George C. Marshall, Jr. 

During World War II, General Marshall made 

him the chief trainer of the U.S. Army, first 

as Chief of Staff of General Headquarters 

(1940–1942) and then as Commanding 

General of the Army Ground Forces (1942–

1944). McNair oversaw the development of 

a systematic training and testing program for 

the ninety divisions that the Army mobilized 

during the war. He was killed by a misdirected 

American bomb while observing operations 

near St. Lô, France, on July 25, 1944.

General McNair (left) and Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., 

Studying a Map
American Military History

90

in the latter case MacArthur continued reporting directly to Washington. 

British Lt. Gen. Sir Archibald P. Wavell was placed in overall command 

of ABDA. Through India from the west and Australia from the east, 

the Allies hoped in a short time to build up a shield of air power stout 

enough to blunt the Japanese threat.

For a time it seemed as though nothing could stop the Japanese 

juggernaut. In less than three weeks after Pearl Harbor, the isolated 

American outposts of Wake Island and Guam fell to the invaders; the 

British garrison of Hong Kong was overwhelmed; and powerful land, 

sea, and air forces were converging on Malaya and the Netherlands 

Indies. Picked, jungle-trained Japanese troops drove down the Malay 

Peninsula toward the great fortress of Singapore, infiltrating and 

outflanking successive British positions. Two of the most formidable 

warships in the British Navy, the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle 

cruiser Repulse, sailing without air cover, were sunk by Japanese torpedo 

planes off the east coast of Malaya, a loss that destroyed the Allies’ 

last hope of effectively opposing Japan’s naval power in the Far East. 

Attacked from the land side, Singapore and its British force of over 

80,000 troops surrendered on February 15, 1942, in the greatest single 

defeat in British history. 

Meanwhile, the Japanese had invaded the Netherlands Indies from 

the north, west, and east. In a series of actions during January and 

February, the weak Dutch and Australian naval forces, joined by the 

U.S. Asiatic Fleet withdrawing from the Philippines, were destroyed 

piecemeal; only four American destroyers escaped south to Australia. 

On March 9 the last Allied ground and air forces in the Netherlands 

Indies, almost 100,000 men (mostly native troops, but including one 

U.S. National Guard field artillery battalion on Java) surrendered to the 

invaders. 

In Burma, the day before, the British had been forced under heavy 

bombing to evacuate Rangoon and retreat northward. Before the end 

of April the Japanese had completed the occupation of Burma, driving 

the British westward into India and the bulk of General Stilwell’s 

Chinese forces back into China. Stilwell and the remnants of other 

General Brehon B. Somervell

(1892–1955)

Somervell was a hard-driving engineer officer who made things happen. 

Heading the huge federal Works Progress Administration in New York City during 

the Great Depression, he orchestrated the construction of La Guardia Airport. 

As the Army expanded in the year before Pearl Harbor, he reorganized the 

Quartermaster Corps’ Construction Division to meet the urgent need for new 

facilities. Somervell took command in March 1942 of what would become the 

Army Service Forces, an organization of more than 2 million soldiers and civilians. An innovative, decisive, and tough manager, Somervell directed the massive 

supply operations that were crucial to Allied victory.
world war II: the defensive phase

91

Chinese units retreated to India, where, 

living up to his nickname of Vinegar 

Joe, he announced to the world that his 

units had taken “a hell of a beating.” 

In the process the Japanese had won 

possession of a huge section of the 

Burma Road, the only viable land route 

between China and India. Henceforth 

and until late in the war, communication between China and its allies was 

to be limited to an air ferry from India 

over the “hump” of the Himalayan 

Mountains. During the late spring 

strong Japanese naval forces reached 

the coastal cities of India and even 

attacked Britain’s naval base on Ceylon.

By the end of April 1942 the 

Japanese had thus gained control of 

Burma, Malaya, Thailand, French 

Indochina, the Netherlands Indies, 

and the Malay Archipelago; farther to 

the east, they had won strong lodgments on the islands of New Guinea, 

New Britain, and in the Solomons. 

They were in a position to flank the approaches to Australia and New 

Zealand and cut them off from the United States. The Japanese had 

won this immense empire at remarkably little cost through an effective 

combination of superior air and sea power and only a handful of welltrained ground divisions. The Japanese had seized and held the initiative while keeping their opponents off balance. They had concentrated 

their strength for the capture of key objectives such as airfields and 

road junctions and for the destruction of major enemy forces, while 

diverting only minimum forces on secondary missions, thus giving an 

impression of overwhelming numerical strength. They had frequently 

gained the advantage of surprise and had baffled their enemies by their 

speed and skill in maneuver. The whole whirlwind campaign, in short, 

had provided Japan’s enemies with a capsule course of instruction in the 

principles of war. The Americans were able to launch only a few carrier 

and submarine attacks on the Japanese, including the Doolittle bomber 

raid on Tokyo on April 18. These operations, while having a major 

impact on American morale, were militarily insignificant and failed to 

slow the Japanese. Only the stubborn defense of the Philippines had 

significantly disrupted Japanese plans.

The Fall of the Philippines

Only in the Philippines, almost on Japan’s southern doorstep, was 

the timetable of conquest delayed. When the Japanese struck, the 

defending forces in the islands numbered more than 130,000, including 

the Philippine Army, which, though mobilized to a strength of ten 

divisions, was ill trained and ill equipped. Of the U.S. Army contingent of 31,000, more than a third consisted of the Philippine Scouts, 

An Army B–25 takes off from the USS Hornet to participate in the Doolittle Raid on 

Japan, April 1942.
American Military History

92

most of whom were part of the Regular Army Philippine Division, the 

core of the mobile defense forces. The Far East Air Force before the 

Japanese attack had a total of 277 aircraft of all types, mostly obsolescent but including 35 new heavy bombers. The Asiatic Fleet, based in 

the Philippines, consisted of 3 cruisers, 13 old destroyers, 6 gunboats, 

6 motor torpedo boats, 32 patrol bombers, and 29 submarines. A regiment of marines, withdrawn from Shanghai, also joined the defending 

forces late in November 1941. Before the end of December, however, 

American air and naval power in the Philippines had virtually ceased 

to exist. The handful of bombers surviving the early attacks had been 

evacuated to Australia; the bulk of the Asiatic Fleet, its base facilities in ruins, had withdrawn southward to help in the defense of the 

Netherlands Indies.

The main Japanese invasion of the Philippines, following preliminary landings, began on December 22, 1941. While numerically inferior 

to the defenders, the invading force of two divisions with supporting 

units was well trained and equipped and enjoyed complete mastery of 

the air and on the sea. The attack centered on Luzon, the northernmost 

and largest island of the archipelago, where all but a small fraction of 

the defending forces was concentrated. The main landings were made 

on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf in the northwest and Lamon Bay in the 

southeast. General MacArthur planned to meet and destroy the invaders 

on the beaches, but his troops were unable to prevent the enemy from 

gaining secure lodgments. On December 23 MacArthur ordered a general 

withdrawal into the mountainous Bataan Peninsula, across Manila Bay 

from the capital city. Manila itself was occupied by the Japanese without 

resistance. The retreat into Bataan was a complex operation, involving 

converging movements over difficult terrain into a cramped assembly 

area from which only two roads led into the peninsula itself. Under 

constant enemy attack, the maneuver was executed with consummate 

skill and at considerable cost to the attackers. Yet American and Filipino 

losses were heavy, and MacArthur’s ill-advised abandonment of large 

stocks of supplies foredoomed the 

defenders of Bataan to ultimate defeat 

in the siege that followed.

By January 7, 1942, General MacArthur’s forces held hastily prepared 

defensive positions across the upper part 

of the Bataan Peninsula. Their presence 

there and on Corregidor and its satellite 

island fortresses guarding the entrance 

to Manila Bay denied the enemy the use 

of the bay throughout the siege. In the 

first major enemy offensive, launched 

early in January, the “battling bastards of 

Bataan” were outflanked and forced to 

give ground back to a final line halfway 

down the peninsula. Thereafter combat 

operations paused until April while the 

Japanese brought in reinforcements. The 

defenders of Bataan were, however, too 

weak to seize the initiative themselves.

General Wainwright broadcasts surrender instructions to U.S. forces 

in the Philippines.
world war II: the defensive phase

93

Meanwhile, the President ordered General MacArthur to leave 

his post and go to Australia to take command of Allied operations against the Japanese in the Southwest Pacific. In mid-March 

he and a small party made their way through the Japanese lines by 

motor torpedo boat to Mindanao and from there flew to Australia. 

Command of the forces in the Philippines devolved upon Lt. Gen. 

Jonathan M. Wainwright.

By April the troops on Bataan were subsisting on about fifteen 

ounces of food daily, less than a quarter of the peacetime ration. 

Their diet, mostly rice supplemented by carabao, mule, monkey, or 

lizard meat, was gravely deficient in vitamins and provided less than 

1,000 calories a day, barely enough to sustain life. Weakened by hunger 

and poor diet, thousands succumbed to malaria, dengue, scurvy, 

beriberi, and amoebic dysentery, made impossible to control by the 

shortage of medical supplies, especially quinine. The U.S. Navy made 

desperate efforts to send food, medicine, ammunition, and other 

supplies through the Japanese blockade to the beleaguered forces. 

But during the early weeks, before the enemy cordon had tightened, 

it proved impossible, despite promises of lavish pay and bonuses, to 

Bataan and Corregidor

One day after the Japanese 

landings in Lingayen Gulf and Lamon 

Bay on December 23, 1941, General 

MacArthur decided he would have 

to fall back to the Bataan Peninsula 

and fight a delaying action there until 

a relief force from the United States 

arrived in the Philippines. Two corps 

of the Philippine Army, including seven 

Filipino infantry divisions, two regiments 

of Filipino Scouts, and a regiment 

of U.S. Infantry, defended Bataan 

against furious assaults launched by 

elements of the Japanese 14th Army. 

The attackers, possessing a tremendous 

superiority in air power, artillery, and 

armor, finally forced the Americans and 

Filipinos to surrender on April 9, 1942. 

The remaining American bastion in the 

Philippines, the heavily fortified island 

of Corregidor in Manila Bay, succumbed 

after a 25-day-long intensive aerial 

and artillery preparatory barrage followed by an amphibious assault by the Japanese 4th Infantry Division on 

May 4–5. Corregidor remained in enemy hands until the American 11th Airborne Division liberated the island in 

February 1945. 

Surrender of U.S. Troops at Corregidor, May 1942
American Military History

94

muster the necessary ships and crews. 

Only about 4,000 tons of rations ever 

reached Manila Bay. 

At the beginning of April the 

Japanese, behind a pulverizing artillery barrage, attacked again. The 

American lines crumpled, and in a 

few days the defending forces virtually 

disintegrated. On April 9 Maj. Gen. 

Edward P. King, Jr., commanding the 

forces on Bataan, surrendered. For 

almost another month the garrison 

on Corregidor, including some 2,000 

refugees who reached the island from 

Bataan when forces there surrendered, 

held out under air bombardment and 

almost continuous plunging fire from 

heavy artillery massed on adjacent 

shores and heights—one of the most 

intense artillery bombardments, for so 

small a target, of the entire war. On 

the night of May 5, after a final terrible 

barrage, Japanese assault troops 

won a foothold on Corregidor; the 

following night, when it became apparent that further resistance was 

useless, General Wainwright surrendered unconditionally. Under his 

orders, which the Japanese forced him to broadcast, other American 

commanders in the Philippines capitulated one by one. By early June, 

except for scattered guerrilla detachments in the hills, some composed 

of American officers and men who disobeyed the surrender order, all 

organized resistance on the islands had ceased.

Prisoners of War Forced To Participate in the Infamous Bataan Death March from 

Bataan to Cabanatuan

The Chaplain in World War II, Ken Riley, 1975
world war II: the defensive phase

95

Deploying American Military Strength

After more than a year and a half of rearming, the United States in 

December 1941 was still in no position to carry the war to its enemies. 

On December 7 the Army numbered some 1,644,000 men (including 

about 120,000 officers), organized into 4 armies, 37 divisions (30 

infantry, 5 armored, 2 cavalry), and over 40 combat air groups. Three 

of the divisions were overseas (2 in Hawaii, 1 in the Philippines), with 

other garrison forces totaling fewer than 200,000. By spreading equipment and ammunition thin, the War Department might have put a 

substantial force into the field to repel an attack on the Continental 

United States. Seventeen of the divisions at home were rated as 

technically ready for combat but lacked the supporting units and the 

training necessary to weld them into corps and armies. More serious 

still, they were inadequately equipped with many weapons that recent 

operations in Europe had proven indispensable (e.g., tank and antitank 

guns, antiaircraft artillery, radios, and radar); and some of these shortages were aggravated by lack of auxiliary equipment like fire-control 

mechanisms.

Above all, ammunition of all kinds was so scarce that the War 

Department was unwilling to commit more than one division and a single 

antiaircraft regiment for service in any theater where combat operations 

seemed imminent. In fact, only one division-size task force was sent to the 

far Pacific before April 1942. Against air attacks, too, the country’s defenses 

were meager. Along the Pacific coast, the Army had only forty-five modern 

fighter planes ready to fly and only twelve 3-inch antiaircraft guns to defend 

the whole Los Angeles area. On the East Coast, there were only fifty-four 

Army fighter planes ready for action. While the coastal air forces, primarily 

training commands, could be reinforced by airlift, in the interior of the 

country, the total number of modern fighter aircraft available was less than 

1,000. Fortunately, there was no real threat of an invasion in force, and the 

rapidly expanding output of munitions from American factories promised 

to remedy some of these weaknesses within a few months. Furthermore, 

temporary diversions of Lend-Lease equipment, especially aircraft, helped 

The Victory Plan

In May 1941 the United States lacked an up-to-date plan for its potential requirements if it were involved 

in a war in Europe. Maj. Albert C. Wedemeyer, a planner on the War Department General Staff, was assigned 

to develop a plan within ninety days—an extremely difficult task, since lack of a national consensus on the war 

had precluded firm strategic guidance from civilian authorities. Wedemeyer, thoroughly prepared by extensive 

strategic reading and attendance at the German Kriegsakademie, determined that the United States would be 

fighting a two-front war with Germany and Japan and required mechanized and armored forces with a powerful 

air arm to defeat the enemy. Although slightly overestimating the size and structure of the required land force, his 

projected Army of 8.7 million troops was presciently close to the actual peak strength of 8.1 million. Wedemeyer’s 

plan (often called the Victory Plan or Victory Program), a wise and essential meshing of politico-military considerations, was used to guide the nation in a war only months away.
American Military History

96

to bolster the overall defense posture within the first few weeks after Pearl 

Harbor. The Army hoped by April to have as many as thirteen divisions 

equipped and supplied with ammunition for combat.

The training of combat-ready divisions was also slowed by 

the nation’s fears about internal security, homeland defense, and 

factory sabotage. After Pearl Harbor, legitimate concerns about such 

matters ballooned into a near panic. After the Japanese attack the 

War Department implemented its plans for continental defense. The 

President and the Army Chief of Staff quickly assigned nineteen of 

the thirty-four divisions then undergoing training to the Eastern and 

Western Defense Commands. Those commands dispersed units to 

patrol the coastline and guard key defense plants, bridges, and dams. 

In doing so, these units were removed from their training programs for 

months. 

As the continental defense assignments dragged on with no signs 

of invasion or sabotage, General McNair, head of Army Ground 

Forces, argued for returning ground tactical units to their training cycles 

to prepare them for deployment overseas. When Army Chief of Staff 

General Marshall undertook the comprehensive War Department reorganization in March 1942, he approved McNair’s recommendation and 

returned most ground forces to training missions under Army Ground 

Forces command. However, many units suffered from a four-to-sixmonth interruption of their training due to this diversion. Homeland 

security and preparations for taking the war to the enemy always pull 

the nation’s leaders in two different directions. 

Once the divisions were ready to deploy, U.S. planners faced 

another dilemma. Although the U.S. Merchant Marine ranked second 

only to Great Britain’s and the country possessed an immense shipbuilding capacity, the process of chartering, assembling, and preparing 

shipping for the movement of troops and military cargo took time. 

Time was also needed to schedule and organize convoys; and, owing 

to the desperate shortage of escort vessels, troop movements had to 

be widely spaced. Convoying and evasive routing greatly reduced the 

effective capacity of shipping. Moreover, vast distances separated U.S. 

ports from the areas threatened by Japan, and to these areas went the 

bulk of the forces deployed overseas during the months immediately 

following Pearl Harbor. Through March 1942, as a result, the outflow 

of troops to overseas bases averaged only about 50,000 per month, as 

compared with upwards of 250,000 during 1944, when shipping was 

fully mobilized and plentiful and the sea lanes were secure.

There seemed a real danger early in 1942, however, that German 

U-boats might succeed in reducing transatlantic deployment to a 

trickle—not so much by attacking troop transports, most of which 

could outrun their attackers, as by sinking the slow cargo ships upon 

which the forces overseas depended for support. Soon after Germany’s 

declaration of war, the U-boats struck at the virtually unprotected 

shipping lanes in the western Atlantic and subsequently extended their 

attacks to the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean areas and the mouth of 

the St. Lawrence. During the spring of 1942 tankers and freighters 

were torpedoed in plain view of vacationers on East Coast beaches, 

and coastal cities dimmed or extinguished their lights that ships might 

not provide silhouetted targets for the U-boats. The Navy lacked the 

Homeland security and 

preparations for taking the war 

to the enemy always pull the 

nation’s leaders in two different 

directions.
world war II: the defensive phase

97

means to cope with the peril. In late December 1941 it had only twenty 

assorted surface vessels and about a hundred aircraft to protect the 

whole North Atlantic coastal frontier. During the winter and spring 

these were supplemented by another hundred Army planes of longer 

range, several armed British trawlers, and as many improvised craft as 

could be pressed into service.

But the toll of ship sinkings increased. In March 788,000 deadweight tons of Allied and neutral dry cargo shipping were lost, in June 

936,000 tons. Tanker losses reached an all-time peak of 375,000 tons in 

March, which led to a temporary suspension of coastal tanker movements and to gasoline rationing in the seaboard states. During the first 

six months of 1942, losses of Allied shipping were almost as heavy as 

during the whole of 1941 and exceeded new construction by almost 2.8 

million deadweight tons. The United States was able by May to balance 

its own current losses by building new ships; Britain and other Allied 

countries continued until the following August to lose more than they 

could build, and another year passed before new construction offset 

cumulative losses.

Slowly and with many setbacks a system of countermeasures was 

developed. Convoying of coastal shipping, with ships sailing only by 

day, began in the spring of 1942. North-south traffic between U.S. and 

Caribbean and South American ports was also convoyed, on schedules 

interlocked with those of the transatlantic convoys. The latter, during 

1942, were protected in the western half of the Atlantic by the U.S. 

and Canadian Navies, in the eastern half by the British. Troops were 

transported across the Atlantic either without escort in large, speedy 

liners like the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary (between them, they 

carried almost a quarter of all U.S. troops sent to Europe) or in heavily 

escorted convoys. Throughout the war, not a single loaded troop transport was sunk on the United Kingdom run. The slow merchant ships 

were convoyed in large groups according to speed.

But with responsibility for U.S. antisubmarine operations divided 

between the Navy and Army Air Forces, effective cooperation was 

hampered by sharp disagreement over organization and methods and 

available resources throughout 1942 were inadequate. The U-boats, 

meanwhile, were operating with deadly effect and in growing numbers. 

Late in the year they began to hunt in packs, resupplied at sea by large 

cargo submarines (“milch cows”). The Allied convoys to Murmansk 

and other northern Soviet ports suffered especially heavy losses on 

their long passage around the top of the Scandinavian Peninsula. In 

November shipping losses from all causes soared above 1.1 million 

deadweight tons—the peak, as it turned out, for the entire war, but few 

at the time dared so to predict.

In the Pacific, fortunately, the principal barriers to deployment of 

U.S. forces were distance and lack of prepared bases, not enemy submarines. Japan’s fleet of undersea craft made little effort to prey on the Allied 

sea lanes and probably over the vast reaches of the Pacific could not have 

inflicted serious damage in any case. The chief goal of American deploy

-

ment to the Pacific during most of 1942, following the initial reinforce-

ment of Hawaii and the Panama Canal, was to build up a base in Australia 

and secure the chain of islands leading to it. Australia was a vast, thinly 

populated and, except in its southeastern portion, a largely undeveloped 
American Military History

98

island continent, 7,000 miles and almost a month’s sail from the U.S. West 

Coast. It had provided a haven for some 4,000 American troops who 

on December 7 had been at sea bound for the Philippines. In January 

a task force of division size (Poppy Force) was hastily assembled and 

dispatched to New Caledonia to guard its eastern approaches. During 

the first few weeks the main effort of the small American forces went 

into sending relief supplies to the Philippines and aircraft and troops to 

Java to stem the Japanese invasion. Beginning in March, as the futility of 

these efforts became evident and coincident with the arrival of General 

MacArthur to assume command of all Allied forces in the Southwest 

Pacific, the construction of base facilities and the buildup of balanced air 

and ground forces got under way in earnest.

This buildup had as its first object the defense of Australia itself, 

for at the end of January the Japanese had occupied Rabaul on New 

Britain Island, thus posing an immediate threat to Port Moresby, the 

weakly held Australian base in southeastern New Guinea. In February 

President Roosevelt pledged American help in countering this threat, 

and in March and April two infantry divisions (the 41st and 32d) left the 

United States for the Southwest Pacific. At the same time, construction 

of air and refueling bases was being rushed to completion in the South 

Pacific islands that formed steppingstones along the ocean routes to 

Australia and New Zealand. After the western anchor of this chain, 

New Caledonia, was secured by the Poppy Force, Army and Marine 

garrisons and reinforcements were sent to various other islands along 

the line, culminating with the arrival of the 37th Division in the Fiji 

Islands in June.

These moves came none too soon: during the spring and summer 

the Japanese, after occupying Rabaul, pushed into the southern 

Solomons, within easy striking distance of the American bases on 

Espíritu Santo and New Caledonia. They also sent forces to establish 

bases along the northeastern coast of New Guinea, just across the 

narrow Papuan peninsula from Port Moresby, which the Americans 

and Australians were developing into a major advanced base in preparation for an eventual offensive northward. The stage was thus set for 

a major test of strength in the Pacific: American forces were spread 

thinly along an immense arc from Hawaii to Australia with outposts far 

to the north in Alaska; the Japanese had secured the vast areas north 

and west of the arc and with the advantage of interior lines could strike 

in force at any point. 

The first test came in May, when the Japanese made an attempt 

from the sea to take Port Moresby. This was successfully countered 

in the carrier battle of the Coral Sea. Thereupon the Japanese struck 

eastward, hoping to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet and to seize Midway 

in a bid for naval supremacy in the Pacific. A diversionary attack on 

Dutch Harbor, the most forward U.S. base in Alaska, caused considerable damage; and the Japanese were able to occupy the islands of Kiska 

and Attu in the foggy Aleutian chain. But the main Japanese forces, far 

to the south, were crushingly defeated, with especially heavy losses in 

irreplaceable carriers, aircraft, and trained pilots. The Battle of Midway 

in June 1942 was one of the truly decisive engagements of the war. 

By seriously weakening Japan’s mobile striking forces, Midway left the 

Japanese virtually helpless to prevent the consolidation of American 

Midway left the Japanese 

virtually helpless to prevent the 

consolidation of American positions 

and the eventual development of 

overwhelming military supremacy 

throughout the Pacific.
world war II: the defensive phase

99

positions and the eventual development of overwhelming military 

supremacy throughout the Pacific. Only two months later, in fact, 

American forces took the first step on the long “road back” by landing 

on Guadalcanal in the southern Solomons.

Although the 

Rainbow 5 plan was put into effect immediately after 

Pearl Harbor, the desperate situation in the Pacific and Far East and 

the shortage of shipping and escorts ruled out most of the scheduled 

Atlantic, Caribbean, and South American deployments. In January reinforcements were sent to Iceland and a token force to Northern Ireland. 

By June two full divisions (the 34th Infantry and the 1st Armored) had 

reached Ireland, while the remainder of the 5th Infantry had arrived in 

Iceland, completing the relief of the U.S. Marine brigade and most of 

the British garrison on that island. No more divisions sailed eastward 

until August. Meanwhile, garrisons in the Atlantic and the Caribbean 

were building up to war strength. But plans to occupy the Azores, the 

Canaries, and Cape Verdes and to capture Dakar on the west African 

coast went by the board, primarily for lack of shipping. Also abandoned after lengthy discussion was Project Gymnast, which Prime 

Minister Churchill had proposed at the 

Arcadia Conference, for an 

Anglo-American occupation of French North Africa.

Thus, despite the reaffirmation of the “Germany first” strategy at 

Arcadia, the great bulk of American forces sent overseas during the first 

half of 1942 went to the theaters of war against Japan. Of the eight 

Army divisions that left the country before August, five went to the 

Pacific. Including two more already in Hawaii and a Marine division at 

sea bound for New Zealand (eventually for the landings on Guadalcanal 

in August), eight divisions were deployed against Japan in July 1942. Of 

the approximately 520,000 Army troops in overseas bases, 60 percent 

was in the Pacific (including Alaska) and the newly established ChinaBurma-India Theater; the remainder was almost entirely in Caribbean 

and western Atlantic garrisons. Of 2,200 Army aircraft overseas, about 

1,300 were in the Pacific (including Alaska) and the Far East, 900 in the 

western Atlantic and Latin America. Not until August did the U.S. Army 

Air Forces in the British Isles attain sufficient strength to 

fly a single 

independent bombing mission over northern France.

Planning for a Cross-Channel Invasion

The Army’s leaders and planners, schooled in a tradition that emphasized the principles of mass and offensive, had been fretting over the 

scale of deployment to the Pacific since early in the year. Late in January, 

then Brig. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a War Department staff officer 

whom General Marshall had assigned to handle the crisis in the Pacific, 

noted, “We’ve got to go to Europe and fight—and we’ve got to quit 

wasting resources all over the world.” In the joint committees Army 

planners urged that as soon as the situation could be stabilized in the 

Southwest Pacific, U.S. forces should begin to concentrate in the British 

Isles for an offensive against Germany. Secretary Stimson and others 

were pressing the same views on the President. In the middle of March 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved this course of action; in April, at the 

President’s order, General Marshall and Harry Hopkins, the President’s 

personal representative, went to London to seek British approval.
American Military History

100

Logistical considerations heavily favored both the general strategy 

of concentration against Germany and the specific plan of invading 

northwestern Europe from a base in the British Isles. Because the target 

area was close to the main sources of British and American power, two 

to three times as many forces could be hurled against northwestern 

Europe (with a given amount of shipping) as could be supported 

in operations against Japan. Britain itself was a highly industrialized 

country, fully mobilized after two-and-a-half years of war and well 

shielded by air and naval power—a ready-made base for a land invasion and air attacks on Germany’s vitals. While invasion forces were 

assembling, moreover, they would serve to garrison the British Isles. 

Finally, an attack across the English Channel would use the only short 

water crossing to the Continent from a base already available and would 

thrust directly at the heart of Fortress Europe by the main historic 

invasion routes.

Even so, the plan was a desperate gamble. If northwestern Europe 

offered the Allies a position of strength, the Germans also would be 

strong there, close to their own heartland, served by the superb rail and 

road nets of western and central Europe and shielded by submarines 

based along the entire length of Europe’s Atlantic front. The limited 

range of fighter aircraft based in southern England narrowly restricted 

the choice of landing areas. Much hinged on the USSR, where for the 

present the bulk of Germany’s land forces was pinned down. If the 

Soviet Union collapsed, an invasion from the west would be a suicidal 

venture. The invasion therefore had to be launched before the Soviet 

armies were crushed and, moreover, in sufficient strength to draw 

substantial German forces away from the Eastern Front and avert that 

very catastrophe.

On the face of it, these two requirements seemed to cancel each 

other. Allied planners had little hope that the Russians could stand up 

under another summer’s onslaught; it was obvious, in view of the scarcity of shipping, that any attack the Western Allies could mount by the 

coming summer or early fall would be hardly more than a pinprick. The 

best solution General Marshall’s planners could offer to this dilemma 

was to set the invasion (

Roundup) for the spring of 1943. Until then, 

through air bombardment of Germany and a continued flow of mate-

riel to the Soviet Union, the Allies hoped to help the Soviet armies stave 

off defeat. If these measures should fail, and Soviet resistance seemed 

about to collapse, then, with whatever forces were on hand, the Allies 

would have to invade the continent in 1942 (

Sledgehammer)—and no 

later than September, before bad weather closed in over the channel. 

The Allies would follow the same course in the unlikely event that 

Germany itself showed signs of serious weakness in 1942.

In London, Mr. Hopkins and General Marshall found the British 

delighted that the United States was ready to commit itself to a major 

offensive against Germany in 1943. The British readily agreed that 

preparations should begin immediately for an invasion the following 

spring, and they undertook to provide more than half the shipping 

needed to move about a million American troops and immense quantities of materiel to the United Kingdom. They warned, however, 

that their first concern at present was to maintain their position in 

the Middle East, where late in January Rommel’s revitalized Africa 
world war II: the defensive phase

101

Corps had inflicted a serious reverse on the Eighth Army. Both sides 

were now feverishly building up for a new offensive. The British also 

expressed deep misgivings over the proposed emergency cross-channel 

operation in the fall. Nevertheless, the British approved the American 

plan, essentially the War Department’s plan, “in principle”—a phrase 

that was to give much trouble in the coalition war. The immediate relief 

General Marshall’s staff felt in Washington was reflected by General 

Eisenhower, then Chief, Operations Division, War Department General 

Staff, who noted: “At long last, and after months of struggle ... we are 

all definitely committed to one concept of fighting. If we can agree on 

major purposes and objectives, our efforts will begin to fall in line and 

we won’t just be thrashing around in the dark.”

But there were also strong reservations on the American side. 

Admiral King did not contest in principle the Germany-first strategy. 

But he was determined not to allow preparations for the cross-channel 

invasion to jeopardize “vital needs” in the Pacific, by which, as he 

candidly stated early in May, he meant the ability of U.S. forces “to 

hold what we have against any attack that the Japanese are capable of 

launching.” Only the President’s peremptory order on May 6 that the 

invasion buildup in Britain must not be adversely affected (indeed, it had 

scarcely begun) prevented a large-scale diversion of forces and shipping to the Pacific to counter the Japanese offensive that culminated 

in the great naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. The President 

himself made it clear, on the other hand, that aid to the Soviet Union 

would have to continue on a mounting scale, whatever the cost to 

Bolero (the American buildup in the United Kingdom) in materiel and 

shipping. And even Army leaders were unwilling to assign shipping for 

the movement until the scheduled buildup of garrisons in the western 

hemisphere and various other overseas stations had been completed, 

which, it was estimated, would not be until August at the earliest. Until 

then British shipping would have to carry the main burden.

Not until June 1942, therefore, did the first shipload of American 

troops under the new plan set sail for England in the great British luxury 

liner Queen Elizabeth. Almost simultaneously a new crisis erupted in the 

Middle East. At the end of May, after a four-month lull, Rommel seized 

the initiative and swept around the southern flank of the British Eighth 

Army, which held strong positions in eastern Libya from El Gazala on 

the coast, south to Bir Hacheim. After two weeks of hard fighting in 

which the British seemed to be holding their own, Rommel succeeded 

in taking Bir Hacheim, the southern anchor of the British line. During 

the next few days British armor, committed piecemeal in an effort to 

cover a withdrawal to the northeast, was virtually wiped out by skillfully 

concealed German 88-mm. guns. The Eighth Army once again retreated 

across the Egyptian frontier; on June 21 Tobruk, which the British had 

expected to hold out behind Axis lines as in 1941, was captured with its 

garrison and large stores of trucks, gasoline, and other supplies.

News of this disaster reached Prime Minister Churchill in Washington, 

where he had gone early in the month to tell the President that the British 

were unwilling to go through with an emergency cross-channel landing 

late in 1942. General Marshall immediately offered to send an armored 

division to help the hard-pressed British in Egypt, but it was decided 

for the present to limit American aid to emergency shipments of tanks, 

“At long last, and after months of 

struggle ... we are all definitely 

committed to one concept of 

fighting. If we can agree on 

major purposes and objectives, 

our efforts will begin to fall 

in line and we won’t just be 

thrashing around in the dark.”
American Military History

102

artillery, and the ground components of three combat air groups. This 

move required the diversion for many weeks of a substantial amount of 

U.K. shipping from the North Atlantic on the long voyage around the 

Cape of Good Hope. But the heaviest impact on the invasion buildup 

in the United Kingdom resulted from the diversion of British shipping 

to the Middle East and the retention there of shipping the British had 

earmarked for the buildup. For the time being, British participation in the Bolero program virtually ceased.

By the end of August, with only seven months to go before the 

invasion was to be launched, only about 170,000 American troops 

were in or on their way to the British Isles. The shipment of equipment and supplies, particularly for the development of cantonments, 

airfields, and base facilities, was hopelessly behind schedule. There 

seemed little likelihood that enough shipping would be available to 

complete the movement across the Atlantic of a million troops, with 

the 10–15 million tons of cargo that must accompany them, by April 

1943 as scheduled. And even if the shipping could have been found, 

Britain’s ports and inland transportation system would have been 

swamped before the in

flux reached its peak. Thus, by the late summer 

of 1942, a spring 1943 invasion of the continent seemed a logistical 

impossibility. Torch Replaces 

Sledgehammer/Roundup

By this time, in fact, American military leaders had become discouraged about a cross-channel invasion in the spring of 1943, though not 

primarily because of the lag in the buildup program. In June the British 

had decided that 

Sledgehammer, for which they had never had any 

enthusiasm, could not be undertaken except in a situation that offered 

good prospects of success—that is, if the Germans should seem about 

to collapse. At the moment, with the German summer offensive just 

starting to roll toward the Caucasus and the lower Don, such a situation did not appear to be an imminent possibility. The British decision 

was influenced in part by the alarming lag in deliveries of American 

landing craft, of which less than two-thirds of the promised quota for 

the operation was expected to materialize. The British also argued that 

the confusion and losses attendant upon executing 

Sledgehammer—

and the cost of supporting the beachhead once it was established—

were likely to disrupt preparations for the main invasion the following 

spring. Since 

Sledgehammer, if carried out, would have been in the 

main a British undertaking, the British veto was decisive. The operation 

was canceled.

As a substitute, the British proposed a less risky venture—landings in French North Africa—that they were confident could be 

accomplished in stride, without jeopardizing 

Roundup. To Stimson, 

Marshall, King, and Arnold this proposal was unacceptable. Failure 

would be a costly, perhaps fatal rebuff to Allied prestige. Success 

might be even more dangerous, the Americans feared, for it might 

lead the Allies step-by-step into a protracted series of operations 

around the southern periphery of Europe. Such operations could 

not be decisive and would only postpone the final test of strength 

with Germany. At the very least, an invasion of North Africa would, 
world war II: the defensive phase

103

the Americans were convinced, rule out a spring 1943 invasion of 

the continent. The Army planners preferred the safer alternative of 

simply reinforcing the British in Egypt.

The British proposal was nevertheless politically shrewd, for it 

was no secret that President Roosevelt had long before expressed a 

predilection for this very undertaking. He was determined, besides, to 

send American ground forces into action somewhere in the European 

area before the end of 1942. Already half persuaded, he hardly needed 

Churchill’s enthusiastic rhetoric to win him over to the new project. 

When General Marshall and his colleagues in the Joints Chiefs of Staff 

suggested as an alternative that the United States should immediately 

go on the defensive in Europe and turn its main attention against Japan, 

Roosevelt brusquely rejected the idea.

In mid-July Hopkins, Marshall, and King went to London under 

orders from the President to reach agreement with the British on 

some operation in 1942. After a vain effort to persuade the British to 

reconsider an invasion of the continent in 1942, the Americans reluctantly agreed on July 24 to the North Africa operation, now christened 

Torch, to be launched before the end of October. The President, overruling Marshall’s suggestion that a final decision be postponed until 

mid-September to permit a reappraisal of the Soviet situation, cabled 

Hopkins that he was “delighted” and that the orders were now “full 

speed ahead.” Into the final agreement, however, Marshall and King 

wrote their own conviction that the decision on Torch “in all probability” ruled out an invasion of the continent in 1943 and meant further 

that the Allies had accepted “a defensive, encircling line of action” in 

the European-Mediterranean war.

End of the Defensive Stage

With the decision for Torch, the first stage in the search for a 

strategic plan against Germany came to an end. In retrospect, 1941–

1942 had been a period in which scarcity and the need for defense 

had shaped the Allies’ strategy. The British and American approaches 

to war had their first conflict, and the British had won the first round. 

That British notions of strategy tended to prevail was not surprising. 

British forces had been mobilized earlier and were in the theaters in 

far greater numbers than American forces. The United States was still 

mobilizing its manpower and resources. It had taken the better part of 

the year after Pearl Harbor for U.S. forces to have an appreciable effect 

in the theaters. Strategic planning in 1942 had been largely opportunistic, hand-to-mouth, and limited by critical shortages in shipping and 

munitions. Troops had been parceled out piecemeal to meet immediate 

threats and crises. Despite the Germany-first decision, the total U.S. 

Army forces deployed in the war against Japan by the end of the year 

actually exceeded the total U.S. Army forces deployed in the war against 

Germany. The one scheme to put Allied planning on an orderly, longrange basis and to achieve the concepts of mass and concentration in 

which General Marshall and his staff had put their faith had failed. 

By the close of the critical first year after Pearl Harbor, an effective 

formula for halting the dissipation of forces and materiel in ventures 

regarded as secondary still eluded the Army high command.

Strategic planning in 1942 

had been largely opportunistic, 

hand-to-mouth, and limited by 

critical shortages in shipping and 

munitions. 
American Military History

104

Discussion Questions

1. Why was the United States caught so unprepared by the Japanese 

attacks against Hawaii and the Philippines? What were the similarities 

and differences between the two garrisons and the defense each put up?

2. The surrender of U.S. forces at Bataan and Corregidor was 

the worst disaster in the history of the U.S. Army. Could it have been 

avoided? How?

3. Why did the United States see Germany as the greatest threat in 

late 1941? Was this policy correct? Why or why not?

4. When Churchill heard the news about Pearl Harbor, he reportedly said that he immediately thanked God that victory was now sure 

for Britain. Why did he have such confidence? 

5. How did the United States and Great Britain coordinate their 

forces during World War II? How did the methods differ from those 

the Allies had adopted in World War I?

6. Under what circumstances could the Allies have launched an 

invasion of the European continent in 1942? What could the United 

States have contributed to such an operation? Why did the diversion of 

resources to the Mediterranean affect the timetable for an invasion of 

the continent in 1943?Recommen

ded Readings

Greenfield, Kent Roberts, ed. Command Decisions. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2002, chs. 5–7.

Kirkpatrick, Charles E. An Unknown Future and a Doubtful Present: Writing 

the Victory Plan of 1941. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1992.

Leighton, Richard M., and Robert W. Coakley. Global Logistics and Strategy, 

1940–1943. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 1995, chs. 6–7, 14–15.

Matloff, Maurice, and Edwin M. Snell. Strategic Planning for Coalition 

Warfare, 1941–1942. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995, chs. 8, 12, 16–17.

Prange, Gordon. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. 

New York: Penguin Books, 2001.

Whitman, John W. Bataan Our Last Ditch: The Bataan Campaign, 1942. 

New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990. 

Other Readings

Churchill, Winston S. The Second World War, 6 vols. Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin, 1950, vols. 3, 4.

Cline, Ray S. Washington Command Post: The Operations Division. U.S. Army 

in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1990, chs. 5–7.

Conn, Stetson, Rose C. Engelman, and Byron Fairchild. Guarding the 

United States and Its Outposts. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2000.
world war II: the defensive phase

105

Craven, Wesley F., and James L. Cate, eds. The Army Air Forces in World 

War II, 7 vols. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983, 

vol. 1.

Green, Constance M., Harry C. Thomson, and Peter C. Roots. The 

Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War. U.S. Army in World 

War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1990.

Gwyer, J. M. A., and J. R. M. Butler. History of the Second World War, 6 

vols., ed. J. R. M. Butler. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 

1964, vol. 3.

Millett, John D. The Organization and Role of the Army Service Forces. U.S. 

Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1989, ch. 2.

Morison, Samuel E. History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, 15 

vols. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001–2002, vols. 1, 3, 4.

Morton, Louis. The Fall of the Philippines. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1989.

Pogue, Forrest C. George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1942. New 

York: Viking, 1966.

Watson, Mark S. Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations. U.S. Army 

in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1991, ch. 15.

I

n 1943 the debate within the Grand Alliance over strategy against 

the Axis powers entered a new stage. The midwar period (roughly 

to the establishment of a foothold in Normandy in the summer 

of 1944) was the time of increasing plenty. The power to call the 

tune on strategy and to choose the time and place to do battle passed 

to the Allies. U.S. troops and supplies flowed out in ever-increasing 

numbers and quantity, and the full impact of American mobilization 

and production was felt not only in the theaters but also in Allied 

councils. But the transition to the strategic initiative introduced many 

new and complex problems for the high command in Washington. 

Active and passive fronts were now established all over the world. 

The Torch decision had thrown all Allied planning into a state of 

uncertainty. For Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall 

and the Army planners in the Washington command post, the basic 

strategic question was how to limit operations in subsidiary theaters 

and decisively carry the war to the Axis powers. They had to start over 

and seek new and firmer long-range bases upon which to plan for 

victory in the multifront coalition war.

Strategic Planning for Offensive Warfare: Midwar

The decision for Torch continued to affect the great debate on 

European strategy between the Americans and the British that endured 

down to the summer of 1944. The issues that emerged were disputed in 

and out of the big international conferences of midwar, from Casablanca 

in January 1943 to Second Quebec in September 1944. In that debate 

Prime Minister Winston Churchill eloquently urged ever onward in 

the Mediterranean: Sicily, landing in Italy, Rome, the Pisa-Rimini line; 

then “north and northeast.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself 

fascinated by the possibilities in the Mediterranean, to a considerable 

extent seconded these moves, despite the reluctance of the American 

4

Grand Strategy and the

Washington High Command
American Military History

108

chiefs. Pleading his case skillfully, the British leader stressed the need to 

continue the momentum, the immediate advantages, the “great prizes” 

to be picked up in the Mediterranean and the need to continue the 

softening-up process while the Allies awaited a favorable opportunity 

to invade the continent across the English Channel. That sizable Allied 

forces were present in the Mediterranean and that there was an immediate chance to weaken the enemy in that area were telling arguments.

At the same time the Americans, with General Marshall as the foremost military spokesman, gradually made progress toward limiting the 

Mediterranean advance, toward directing it to the west rather than to 

the east, toward linking it directly with a definite major cross-channel 

operation, and thereby winning their way back to the idea of waging 

a war of mass on the continent. Part of the task of military planners 

was to reconcile the strategic concepts of Roosevelt, Churchill, and 

Soviet Premier Joseph V. Stalin—a nearly impossible task. The series 

of decisions reached at the 1943 conferences—Casablanca in January, 

Washington (Trident) in May, First Quebec (Quadrant) in August, 

and Cairo-Tehran (Sextant-Eureka) in November and December—

reflect the compromises of the Americans and the British between 

opportunism and long-range commitments, between a war of attrition 

and a war of concentration. They also mirrored the constant pressure 

of Marshall Stalin for a second front on the continent of Europe to aid 

him in his desperate struggle with the Nazis.

Each of these conferences marked a milestone in coalition strategy and 

in the maturation of American strategic planning. At Casablanca, General 

Marshall made a last vigorous but vain stand for a cross-channel operation in 1943. The conferees did approve the round-the-clock Combined 

Bomber Offensive against Germany that both the Americans and the 

British viewed as a prerequisite to a future cross-channel operation. 

The conferees’ establishment of the COSSAC (Chief of Staff to the 

Supreme Allied Commander) to begin planning such an operation was 

another major accomplishment. They also assigned first priority to the 

U-boat war, both because of the criticality of the British food supply 

and the importance of control of the seas to any cross-channel operations. But no real long-range plan for the defeat of the Axis powers 

emerged. Casablanca merely recognized that the Anglo-Americans 

would retain the initiative in the Mediterranean and defined the shortrange objective in terms of a prospective operation against Sicily.

The Army and the OSS

The success of special operations early in World War II led William J. Donovan to persuade President 

Roosevelt to form the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Although the OSS lay outside the armed services, it came 

under Joint Chiefs of Staff supervision in wartime and included several military personnel. In Western Europe, 

the Mediterranean, China, and Southeast Asia, the OSS engaged in intelligence collection, propaganda, guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and subversion—in short, almost anything that appealed to Donovan’s innovative mind. 

At war’s end, President Harry S. Truman inactivated the OSS, but its activities later inspired the formation of the 

Central Intelligence Agency.
grand strategy and the washington high command

109

Unlike the small, disunited American delegation, the well-prepared 

British operated as a cohesive team and presented a united front. 

President Roosevelt, still attracted to the Mediterranean, had not yet 

made the notion of a decisive cross-channel attack his own. A striking 

illustration of the want of understanding between the White House and 

the military staffs came in connection with the unconditional-surrender 

formula to which Roosevelt and Churchill publicly committed themselves at Casablanca. The President had simply informed the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of his intention to support that concept as the 

basic Allied aim in the war at a meeting at the White House shortly 

before the conference. But neither the Army nor the Joint Staff made 

any study of the meaning of this formula for the conduct of the war 

before or during the conference, nor did the President encourage his 

military advisers to do so.

To the American military staff it appeared at the time that the long 

experience of the British in international negotiations had carried the 

day. Keenly disappointed, Brig. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, General 

Marshall’s principal adviser at Casablanca, wrote: “we lost our shirts 

and ... are now committed to a subterranean umbilicus operation in 

midsummer.... we came, we listened, and we were conquered.” General 

Wedemeyer admired the way the British had presented their case:

They swarmed down upon us like locusts with a plentiful supply 

of planners and various other assistants with prepared plans.... As an 

American I wish that we might be more glib and better organized to 

cope with these super negotiators. From a worm’s eye viewpoint it was 

apparent that we were confronted by generations and generations of 

experience in committee work and in rationalizing points of view. They 

had us on the defensive practically all the time.

The members of the American military staff took the lessons 

of Casablanca to heart. If they did not become glibber, they at least 

organized themselves better. To meet the British on more equal terms, 

they overhauled their joint planning system and resolved to reach closer 

understandings with the President in advance of future meetings. As a 

by-product of the debate and negotiation over grand strategy in midwar, 

the planning techniques and methods of the Americans became more 

nearly like those of their British ally, even if their strategic ideas still 

differed. They became more skilled in the art of military diplomacy, of 

quid pro quo, or what might be termed the tactics of strategic planning. 

At the same time their strategic thinking became more sophisticated. 

The Casablanca Conference represented the last 

fling for the “eitheror” school of thought in the American military staff. Henceforth, staff 

members began to think not in terms of this or that operation, but in 

terms of this and that—or what one planner fittingly called “permuta-

tions and combinations.” The outstanding strategic questions for them 

were no longer to be phrased in terms of either a Mediterranean or 

a cross-channel operation, but in terms of defining the precise rela-

tions between them and how they related to the Combined Bomber 

Offensive, as well as the war against Japan.

In the debate, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff countered British 

demands for more emphasis upon the Mediterranean, particularly the 
American Military History

110

eastern Mediterranean, by supporting further development of Pacific 

offensives. Holding open the “Pacific alternative” carried with it the 

threat of no cross-channel operation at all. The war in the Pacific thereby 

offered the U.S. staff a significant lever for keeping the Mediterranean 

issue under control. At the same time General Marshall recognized 

that the Mediterranean offensive could not be stopped completely with 

North Africa or Sicily and that definite advantages would accrue from 

knocking out Italy, further opening up the Mediterranean for Allied 

shipping, and widening the air offensive against Germany.

Beginning with the compromise agreements at 

Trident in the 

spring of 1943, the American representatives could point to definite 

steps toward fixing European strategy in terms of a major cross-channel 

undertaking for 1944. At that conference they assented to a plan for eliminating Italy from the war, which the British urged as the “great prize” 

after Sicily. But the forces, the Americans insisted, were to be limited 

as much as possible to those already in the Mediterranean. At the same 

time they won British agreement to the transfer of four American and 

three British divisions from the Mediterranean to the United Kingdom. 

Both sides agreed to continue the Combined Bomber Offensive from 

the United Kingdom in four phases to be completed by April 1944 and 

leading up to an invasion across the channel shortly thereafter. Most 

encouraging was the President’s unequivocal announcement in favor of a 

cross-channel undertaking for the spring of 1944. The British agreed that 

planning should start for mounting such an operation with a target date 

of May 1944 on the basis of twenty-nine divisions built up in the United 

Kingdom (Operation 

Roundhammer, later called Overlord). The bare 

outlines of a new pattern of European strategy began to take shape.

That pattern took clearer shape at 

Quadrant. There, the American 

chiefs urged a firm commitment to 

Overlord, the plan developed by 

a British-American planning staff in London. The British agreed but 

refused to give it the “overriding priority” over all operations in the 

Mediterranean area that the Americans desired. Plans were to proceed 

for eliminating Italy from the war, establishing bases as far north as 

Rome, seizing Sardinia and Corsica, and landing in southern France. 

Forces for these operations would be limited to those allotted at Trident. With a definite limitation on the Mediterranean offensive and 

authorization for a definite allocation of forces for the approved crosschannel operation and for an extended Combined Bomber Offensive 

in support of it, the strategic pattern against Germany was taking on 

more final form.

After 

Quadrant came new danger signals for the Washington high 

command. The British were making overtures for active operations in 

the Aegean, which the Americans interpreted, wrongly or rightly, as 

a prelude to a move on the Balkans (Churchill’s “soft-underbelly” of 

Europe fixation) and a consequent threat to the cross-channel strategy. 

At the Moscow Conference in October 1943 came other warning signs 

from another and more unexpected source. At that meeting of the 

foreign ministers, a prelude to the full-dress conference at Tehran to 

follow, the representatives of the Anglo-American staffs met for the first 

time with the Russian staff. In a surprise maneuver, the Russians, who 

from the beginning had been pleading for the second front in Europe, 

intimated that they might be willing to accept an active campaign in 
grand strategy and the washington high command

111

Italy as the second front. The Russian delegation would never have 

generated such an idea without the personal approval of Stalin.

With these portents in mind, the uneasy American Joint Chiefs of 

Staff accompanied President Roosevelt on board the USS Iowa en route 

to the Cairo Conference in November 1943. During the rehearsals on 

that voyage for the meetings ahead, the President afforded his military 

advisers a rare glimpse into his reflections on the political problems that 

were bound up with the war and its outcome. His concern lest the United 

States be drawn into a permanent or lengthy occupation of Europe came 

out sharply in the discussion with the JCS on the zones of occupation 

in postwar Germany. He told the JCS, “We should not get roped into 

accepting any European sphere of influence.” Nor did he wish the 

United States to become involved in a prolonged task of reconstituting 

France, Italy, and the Balkans. “France,” he declared, “is a British baby.” 

Significantly, the President added: “There would definitely be a race for 

Berlin. We may have to put the United States Divisions into Berlin as 

soon as possible.” With a pencil he quickly sketched on a simple map of 

Europe the zonal boundaries he envisaged, putting Berlin and Leipzig in 

a big American zone in northern Germany—one of the most unusual 

records of the entire war and later brought back to Washington by Army 

officers in the American delegation.

Tehran proved to be the decisive conference in determining the 

strategy for the war in Europe. There, for the first time in the war, 

President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and their staffs met with 

Marshal Stalin, the Soviet dictator, and his staff. Churchill made eloquent 

appeals for operations in Italy, the Aegean, and the east Mediterranean, 

even at the expense of a delay in Overlord. For reasons of its own, 

the USSR put its weight behind the American concept of strategy. 

Confident of its capabilities, demonstrated in its great comeback 

since the critical days of Stalingrad, the 

Soviet Union asserted its full power as 

an equal member of the Allied coalition. Stalin came out vigorously in 

favor of Overlord and limiting further 

operations in the Mediterranean to one 

operation directly assisting Overlord, 

an invasion of southern France. In 

turn, the Russians promised to launch 

an all-out offensive on their front to 

accompany the Allied moves and to 

enter the war against Japan as soon as 

Germany was defeated. Stalin’s strong 

stand put the capstone on the Western 

strategy against Germany. The AngloAmerican chiefs agreed to launch 

Overlord during May 1944 in conjunction with a southern France operation 

and to consider these the supreme 

operations for that year.

The final blueprint for Allied 

victory in Europe had taken shape. 

Germany was to be crushed between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill at the Tehran Conference
American Military History

112

the jaws of a gigantic vise applied from the west and the east. How 

much reliance President Roosevelt had come to place in General 

Marshall was reflected in his decision not to release Marshall for the 

command of the cross-channel attack. He told General Marshall, “I 

... could not sleep at night with you out of the country.” While it 

must have been a major disappointment to Marshall, he put the longhoped-for command behind him and focused on the job at hand. 

President Roosevelt gave the nod to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 

who had built a solid reputation as the successful leader of coalition 

forces in the Mediterranean. Preparations for the big cross-channel 

attack began in earnest.

The last lingering issue in the long-drawn-out debate was not 

settled until the summer of 1944. In the months following the Tehran 

Conference, the southern France operation came perilously close to 

being abandoned in favor of the British desire for further exploitation 

in Italy and possibly even across the Julian Alps into the Hungarian 

plain. Complicating the picture was a shortage of landing craft to carry 

off both 

Overlord and the southern France attack simultaneously. But 

General Marshall and the Washington military authorities, backed by 

President Roosevelt, remained adamant on the southern attack. The 

British and the Americans did not reach final agreement on a southern 

France operation until August—two months after the 

Overlord landings—just a few days before the operation was actually launched, when 

Churchill reluctantly yielded. This concluding phase of the debate 

represented the last gasp of the peripheral strategy with a new and 

sharper political twist. Churchill was now warily watching the changing 

European scene with one eye on the retreating Germans and the other 

on the advancing Russians.

A number of misconceptions would arise during the postwar 

period about this Anglo-American debate over strategy. What was at 

stake in the midwar debate was not whether to launch a cross-channel 

operation. Rather, the question was: Should that operation be the fullbodied drive with a definite target date that the Americans desired or 

the final blow to an enemy critically weakened in a war of opportunity 

that the British desired? It is a mistake to assume that the British did not 

from the first want a cross-channel operation. The difference lay essen-

tially in the precise timing of that attack and in the extent and direction 

of preparatory operations. Once agreed on the major blow, the British 

stoutly held out for a strong initial assault that would ensure success 

in the operation. It is also a mistake to assume that the Americans 

remained opposed to all Mediterranean operations. Indeed, much of 

their effort in 1943–1944 was spent in reconciling those operations 

with a prospective cross-channel operation.

What about the question of a Balkan alternative that has aroused 

so much controversy? Would it not have been wiser to have invaded 

the continent through the Balkans, thereby forestalling Soviet domination? We must emphasize the fact that this is a postwar debate. The 

Balkan invasion was never proposed by any responsible leader in Allied 

strategy councils as an alternative to 

Overlord, nor did any Allied 

debate or combined planning take place in those terms. After the war 

Churchill steadfastly denied that he wanted a Balkan invasion. The British 

contended that the Americans had been frightened by the specter rather 
grand strategy and the washington high command

113

than by the substance of the British proposals. Indeed, the American 

staff had been frightened by the implications of Churchillian proposals 

for raids, assistance to native populations, throwing in a few armored 

divisions, and the like—for the eastern Mediterranean and Balkan 

regions. For the American staff, Mediterranean operations had offered a 

striking demonstration of how great the costs of a war of attrition could 

be. The so-called soft underbelly of Italy, to which the Prime Minister 

had glowingly referred, turned out to be a hard-shelled back demanding 

more and more increments of American and Allied men and means. The 

mere thought of being sucked step by step, by design or by circumstance, 

into a similar undertaking in the Balkans, an area of poor terrain and 

communications—even if it were an unrealistic fear on the part of the 

American staff—was enough to send shivers up the spines of American 

planners. Certainly, neither the President nor the American staff wanted 

to get involved in the thorny politics of the Balkan area, and both were 

determined to stay out. The Allies never argued out the Balkan question 

in frank military or political terms during World War II.

Frustrated by the loss of what he regarded as glittering opportunities in the Mediterranean, Churchill struck out after the war at the 

American wartime “logical, large-scale mass-production thinking.” 

But Gordon Harrison, the author of Cross-Channel Attack, argued: “To 

accuse Americans of mass-production thinking is only to accuse them 

of having a mass-production economy and of recognizing the military 

advantage of such an economy. The Americans were power-minded.” 

From the beginning they thought in terms of taking on the main 

German armies and beating them. Behind the Americans’ fear of a 

policy of attritional and peripheral warfare against Germany in midwar 

lay a continued anxiety over its ultimate costs in men, resources, and 

time. This anxiety was increased by their concern with getting on with 

the war against Japan. Basic in their thinking was a growing realization 

of the ultimate limits of American manpower and a growing anxiety 

about the effects of a long, continuous period of maximum mobilization on the home front. All these factors combined to confirm their 

faith in the doctrine of military concentration. It was an exercise in the 

principle of mass on a large scale.

As it turned out, the final strategy against Germany was a compro-

mise of American and British views—of British peripheral strategy and 

the American principle of mass. To the extent that the cross-channel 

operation was delayed a year later than the Americans wished in order 

to take advantage of Mediterranean opportunities and to continue the 

softening-up process, the British prevailed. Perhaps still haunted by 

the ghosts of Passchendaele and Dunkerque, the British were particularly sensitive to the requisite conditions for Overlord, for example, 

how many enemy troops could be expected to oppose it. But, as the 

Americans had hoped from the beginning, the cross-channel attack 

turned out to be a conclusive operation with a fixed target date; it was 

given the highest priority and the maximum force to drive directly at the 

heart of German power.

Thus, by the summer of 1944 the final blueprinting of the Allied 

strategy for defeating Germany was complete. Despite the compromises with opportunism, American staff notions of fighting a concentrated, decisive war had been clearly written into the final pattern. 
American Military History

114

Those notions had been reinforced by the addition, from Casablanca 

onward, of the unconditional-surrender aim. The peripheral trend had 

been brought under control, and General Marshall had managed to 

conserve American military power for the big cross-channel blow. The 

Americans had learned to deal with the British on more equal terms. 

The military chiefs had drawn closer to the President, and the U.S. side 

was able to present a united front vis-à-vis the British.

During the midwar Anglo-American debate, significant changes 

had taken place in the alignment of power within the Grand Alliance. 

These shifts had implications as important for war strategy as for 

future relations among the wartime partners. By the close of 1943 

the mighty American industrial and military machine was in high gear. 

The growing flow of American military strength and supplies to the 

European Theater assured the acceptance of the American strategic 

concept. The Soviet Union, steadily gathering strength and confidence 

in 1943, made its weight felt at a critical point in the strategic debate. 

Britain had virtually completed its mobilization by the end of 1943, and 

stresses and strains had begun to appear in its economy. Relative to the 

Soviet Union and the United States, Britain was becoming weaker. In 

midwar the Americans drew up with and threatened to pass the British 

in deployed strength in the European Theater. Within the coalition, 

Industrial Mobilization

The reverse of Axis fortunes in World War II roughly coincided with the entry of the “arsenal of democracy” 

into the conflict. In 1944 the United States produced more than 40 percent of global munitions output and greatly 

exceeded the combined output of either all the Axis or all the Allied countries.

Left: Women workers install fixtures 

and assemblies to a tail fuselage section 

of a B–17 bomber. Above: Production 

Aids for the Grumman Aircraft 

Engineering Corporation.
grand strategy and the washington high command

115

Britain’s military power and notions of fighting the war were being 

overtaken. Tehran, which fixed the final European strategy, marked a 

subtle but important change in the foundations of the Alliance. For 

the strategists of the Pentagon and of the Kremlin the doctrine of 

concentration had provided a common bond.

Completing the Strategic Patterns

From the standpoint of the Washington high command, the main 

story of military strategy in World War II, except for the important and 

still unanswered question of how to defeat Japan, came to an end in 

the summer of 1944. The last stage, culminating in the surrender of 

Germany and of Japan, was the period of the payoff, of the unfolding 

of strategy in the field. In this final phase, the problems of winning the 

war began to run up against the problems of winning the peace.

Once the Allied forces became firmly lodged on the European 

continent and took up the pursuit of the German forces, the war 

became for General Marshall and his staff essentially a matter of 

tactics and logistics with the Supreme Allied Commander, General 

Eisenhower, assuming the responsibility for making decisions as military circumstances in the field dictated. But to Churchill, disturbed by 

the swift Soviet advance into Poland and the Balkans, the war seemed 

more than ever a contest for great political stakes. In the last year of 

the European conflict, therefore, the two approaches often became a 

question of military tactics versus political considerations.

By the summer of 1944 the shape of things to come was already 

apparent. Once on the continent, General Eisenhower was given more 

and more responsibility for political decisions or fell heir to them by 

default. Lacking political guidance from Washington, the commander 

in the field made decisions on the basis of military considerations. He 

fell back on the U.S. staff notions of defeating the enemy and ending 

the war quickly and decisively with the fewest casualties. This trend 

became even more marked in 1945 in the commander’s decision to 

stop at the Elbe and not to attempt to take Berlin or Prague ahead of 

the Russians.

As usual, General Marshall and the U.S. staff backed the decisions 

of the commander in the field. Typical of Marshall’s approach were two 

statements he made in April 1945: one in response to a British proposal 

to capture Berlin, the other concerning the liberation of Prague. With 

reference to Berlin, Marshall joined with his colleagues in the JCS in 

emphasizing to the British Chiefs of Staff “that the destruction of the 

German armed forces is more important than any political or psychological advantages which might be derived from possible capture of 

the German capital ahead of the Russians.... Only Eisenhower is in a 

position to make a decision concerning his battle and the best way to 

exploit successes to the full.” With respect to Prague, Marshall wrote 

to Eisenhower, “Personally and aside from all logistic, tactical or strategic implications, I would be loath to hazard American lives for purely 

political purposes.”

Such views of the Army Chief of Staff took on added signifi-

cance, for during Roosevelt’s final and his successor’s early days in 

office the burden of dealing with important issues fell heavily on the 
American Military History

116

senior military advisers in the Washington high command. Marshall’s 

stand on these issues was entirely consistent with earlier Army strategic 

planning. Whatever the ultimate political outcome, from the standpoint 

of a decisive military conclusion of the war against Germany it made 

little difference whether the forces of the United States or those of the 

Soviet Union took Berlin and Prague. At the same time, in purely military dealings with the Russians in the closing months of the European 

conflict, and as Soviet and American troops drew closer, the American 

staff began to stiffen its stand and a firmer note crept into its negotiations for coordination of Allied efforts. Early in 1945 Marshall advised 

Eisenhower to forget diplomatic niceties in dealing with the Russians 

and urged him to adopt a direct approach “in simple Main Street 

Abilene style.”

Churchill’s inability to reverse the course of the last year of the 

war underscored the changed relationships between U.S. and British 

national military weight and the shifting bases of the Grand Alliance. 

With British manpower already mobilized to the hilt, after the middle 

of 1944 British production became increasingly unbalanced; the British 

fought the remainder of the war with a contracting economy. The 

Americans did not hit the peak of their military manpower mobilization until May 1945—the month Germany surrendered. Reaching their 

war production peak at the end of 1943, they were able to sustain it at 

high levels to the end of the war. The greater capacity of the American 

economy and population to support a sustained, large-scale Allied 

offensive effort showed up clearly in the last year of the European 

war. Once entrenched on the continent, American divisions began to 

outnumber the British more and more. Through the huge stockpiles of 

American materiel already built up and through control of the growing 

U.S. military manpower on the continent, General Eisenhower ensured 

the primacy of U.S. staff thinking on how to win the war. Whatever 

his political predilections, Churchill had to yield. As the war against 

Germany lengthened beyond the hoped-for end in 1944, British influence in high Allied councils went into further decline. The last year of 

the war saw the United States and the Soviet Union emerging as the 

two strongest military powers in Europe, the one as intent on leaving 

Europe soon as the other was on pushing its strategic frontiers westward. On the Western side, the struggle was to be concluded the way 

the American military chiefs had wished to wage it from the beginning—as a conventional war of concentration.

Meanwhile, as the war with Germany was drawing to a close, the 

strategy for defeating Japan had gradually been taking shape. Despite 

the Germany-first principle, the so-called secondary war simply would 

not stand still. From the beginning, in the defensive as well as in the 

offensive stage, the Pacific exerted a strong pull on American forces 

and resources. Though final plans had to await the defeat of Germany, 

American public opinion would not tolerate a strictly defensive, limited 

war against Japan in the meantime. The pace of advance in the Pacific 

became so fast that it almost caught up with the European conflict. In 

the Pacific, as in the Mediterranean, American strategists learned that 

forces in being had a way of creating their own strategy.

While the European war strategy was fashioned on the international 

level, the war against Japan from the beginning was almost exclusively 

The greater capacity of 

the American economy and 

population to support a 

sustained, large-scale Allied 

offensive effort showed up 

clearly in the last year of the 

European war.
grand strategy and the washington high command

117

an American affair, its strategy essentially an interservice concern. The 

American plans and decisions in the Pacific war were presented to the 

international conferences, where they usually received Allied approval 

with little debate. Disputes and arguments were on the service level 

for the most part, with General Marshall and Admiral Ernest J. King 

(Chief of Naval Operations) working out compromises between 

themselves. In the process General Marshall often acted as mediator 

between the Navy and General Douglas MacArthur, the Commander 

of the Southwest Pacific Area.

The traditional naval concern with the Pacific and the necessarily 

heavy reliance in the theater upon shipping, especially assault shipping, 

put the main burden of developing offensive strategy upon the Navy. 

But Navy plans for a central Pacific offensive had to be reconciled 

with General MacArthur’s concept of approaching Japan via the New 

Guinea–Philippines axis. Thus a twofold approach, “a one-two punch,” 

replaced the original single-axis strategy. This double-axis advance 

produced a strategy of opportunity similar to what the British had 

urged for the war in Europe and took the Allies to the threshold of 

Japan by the time the European war ended. Long debated was the critical question of whether Japan could be defeated by bombardment and 

blockade alone or if an invasion would be necessary. In Washington, 

during the late spring of 1945, the Army’s argument that plans and 

preparations should be made for an invasion was accepted as the safe 

course to follow.

The rapid pace of the Pacific advance outran the American plans 

for the China-Burma-India Theater, and that theater declined in strategic importance in the war against Japan. Disillusioned by Chinas’ 

inability to play an active role in the final defeat of Japan, American 

military leaders sought to substitute the USSR. To save American lives 

in a Pacific 

Overlord, those leaders in general became eager to have 

the USSR enter the war against Japan and pin down Japanese forces on 

the Asiatic mainland. Before final plans for a Pacific 

Overlord could be 

put into effect, however, the Japanese surrendered. The dramatic dropping of atomic bombs on August 6 and 9 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 

respectively, came as a complete surprise to the American public and 

to the Army strategic planners, with the exception of a handful of top 

officers in the Washington command post who were in on the secret. 

In a sense the supersession of strategic plans by a revolutionary development of weapons was a fitting climax to a war that had throughout 

shown a strong tendency to go its own way.

The last year of the war witnessed, along with the finishing touches 

on grand strategy, the changeover from the predominantly military to 

the politico-military phase. As victory loomed, stresses and strains 

within the coalition became more apparent. With the Second Quebec 

Conference in September 1944, agreement among the Allies on military plans and war strategy became less urgent than the need to arrive 

at acceptable politico-military terms on which the winning powers 

could continue to collaborate. That need became even more marked at 

Yalta in February 1945 and at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. To 

handle these new challenges after building up a staff mechanism geared 

to the predominantly military business of fighting a global and coalition 

war necessitated considerable adjustment of Army staff processes and 
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planning. In midwar, Army planning had been geared to achieve the 

decisive blow on the continent that had been a cardinal element in the 

planners’ strategic faith. Scarcely were the Western Allies ensconced 

on the continent, however, when the challenges of victory and peace 

were upon the Army planners. They entered the last year of the war 

with the coalition disintegrating, the President failing in health, and a 

well-organized politico-military machine lacking. Besides the frictions 

generating on the foreign fronts, the Army still had to cope with the 

immense problem of what to do with the beaten foe—with terms of 

surrender, occupation, and postwar bases. The military inherited by 

default problems no longer easily divided into military and political.

Expansion and Distribution of the Wartime Army

To the Washington high command, strategic plans were one vital 

ingredient in the formula for victory. Manpower was another. Indeed, 

at stake in the midwar debate was the fresh and flexible military power 

of the United States. That power was also General Marshall’s trump 

card in negotiations with the coalition partners. To put a brake on diversionary deployments to secondary theaters and ventures and to conserve 

American military manpower for the big cross-channel blow became the 

major preoccupation of the Chief of Staff and his advisers in midwar. 

Behind their concern for effective presentation of the American strategic 

case at the midwar international conferences lay the growing uneasiness 

of General Marshall and his staff over the American manpower problem. 

To continue what appeared to them to be essentially a policy of drift in 

Homeland Security during

World War II

Prior to World War II, U.S. national strategy had centered on 

defending the United States and its possessions against invasion and 

other foreign military threats. With the outbreak of war in Europe, 

U.S. strategic planning shifted to embrace participation in a coalition war against Germany, Italy, and Japan. Despite prosecuting a 

global war, however, the Army retained significant responsibilities 

for homeland security. That mission entailed theater air defense, 

maintaining coastal fortifications near major harbors, guarding major 

defense plants and railroads, and supporting the Office of Civilian 

Defense that coordinated the efforts of some 5 million volunteers 

nationwide. The War Department feared with good reason that 

the last two functions could impair the Army’s meeting its strategic 

commitments overseas. The lack of any realized threat to the United 

States allowed the Army to gradually deemphasize its homeland 

security mission and reduce troops assigned to this mission to fewer 

than 65,000 in mid-1944, with troops being replaced by auxiliary 

military police and state guard forces.

Homefront Fires Are Enemy Victories,

Jes W. Schlaikjer, 1944
grand strategy and the washington high command

119

Allied strategy raised grave issues about mobilizing and deploying U.S. 

forces. To support a war of attrition and peripheral action, in place of 

concentrated effort, raised serious problems about the size and kind of 

Army the United States should and could maintain.

To establish a proper manpower balance for the United States in 

wartime was as difficult as it was important. In light of the estimated 

15–16 million men physically fit for active military service, on the 

surface it seemed hard to understand why there should be any U.S. 

manpower problem at all. The problem as well as the answer stemmed 

basically from the fact that the Allies had from the beginning accepted 

the proposition that the single greatest tangible asset the United States 

brought to the coalition in World War II was the productive capacity of 

its industry. From the very beginning, U.S. manpower calculations had 

to be closely correlated with the needs of war industry.

The Army therefore had to compete for manpower not only with 

the needs of the other services but also with the claims of its own 

industry. By 1943 the arsenal of democracy was just beginning to hit its 

full productive stride. To cut too deeply into the industrial manpower 

of the country in order to furnish men for the Army and Navy might 

interfere seriously with arming U.S. and Allied troops. Furthermore, 

the United States was fighting a global con

flict. To service its lines of 

communications extending around the world required large numbers 

of men, and great numbers of troops were constantly in transit to and 

from the theaters. To carry the fight across the oceans demanded a 

powerful Navy and a large merchant 

fleet that also had to be given 

a high priority for manpower. Each industry as well as each theater 

commander was continually calling for more men. The problem for 

the Army was not only how much it should receive for its share of the 

manpower pool but also how it should divide that share most effectively to meet the diverse demands made upon it.

By 1943 the Army Staff increasingly realized that the U.S. 

manpower barrel did have a bottom. Even before the end of 1942 the 

bottom was becoming visible. Also evident was the fact that, while the 

United States would remain the major arsenal of democracy, it could 

no longer be regarded as a limitless source of munitions. The pool of 

unemployed that had cushioned the shock of mobilization for three 

years had been almost drained. Industrial expansion had slowed; labor 

had become tight in many areas; and in November 1942 the President 

had placed a ceiling of 8.2 million officers and men upon the Army’s 

expansion during 1943, intimating at the same time that this limit would 

probably hold for the duration of the war. General Marshall and his 

colleagues in the JCS were still determined that the United States make 

a major contribution in fighting forces to the defeat of the Axis powers. 

But postponement of the invasion of northwestern Europe, together 

with the indicated limitations on American manpower and resources, 

made it necessary to reconsider the nature of that contribution. To 

match strategy, manpower, and production for the offensive phase of 

the war became a basic task of the Washington high command during 

the remainder of the war.

Supply programs for 1943 re

flected prospective changes in the 

American role in the war. Cuts fell most heavily on the ground munitions 

program, which was reduced by more than one-fifth, and on Lend-Lease 
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120

to nations other than the Soviet Union. Some reductions were also made in naval ship construction, but 

the program for building escort vessels was left intact 

and the merchant shipbuilding program was actually 

enlarged. The emphasis was on producing first all the 

tools needed to defeat the U-boats and secure the sea 

lanes for the deployment of American forces overseas 

and at the same time to ensure that ample shipping 

would be available for this purpose. Soviet armies had to 

be assured a continuous flow of munitions to stave off 

the Germans. Meanwhile, airpower—heavy bombers 

to batter the German homeland, carrier-borne aircraft 

to restore mobility and striking power to the forces in 

the Pacific—had to be built up and brought to bear 

as rapidly as possible, while the slower mobilization 

and deployment of ground forces was under way. The 

ground army, finally, had to be shaped to operate, at least 

during the coming year and a half, in relatively small 

packages at the end of long lines of communications 

in a great variety of terrain. Its units had to be compact, 

versatile, and easily transportable, but also mobile and 

able to hit hard. Every ton of shipping, as Lt. Gen. 

Lesley J. McNair, head of the Army Ground Forces, 

declared, had to deliver the maximum of fighting power.

The changing requirements and circumstances of 

coalition warfare in the offensive phase greatly affected 

plans and programs for expanding the U.S. Army—in 

total growth and internal distribution of strength as 

well as in overseas deployment. Manpower squeezes, 

together with strategic, logistical, and operational 

considerations, helped to change the shape as well as 

the size of the Army. By the end of 1942 the U.S. Army 

had grown to a strength of 5.4 million officers and men. Although 

this was still well under the ceiling of 8.2 million the President set in 

November, the mobilization of ground combat elements was already 

nearing completion. Seventy-three divisions were then in being, and 

no more than 100 were expected to be activated. In June 1943 the goal 

was reduced to ninety divisions, with an overall strength ceiling of 7.7 

million men—far under the heavily mechanized force of 215 divisions 

that the framers of the Victory Program in 1941 had considered none 

too large to take on the German Army. Actually, the U.S. Army in 1945 

reached a peak strength of 8.3 million and eighty-nine divisions. The 

last division was activated in August 1943.

The strength of ground combat units in the Army increased hardly 

at all after 1942, even though sixteen divisions and some 350 separate 

artillery and engineer battalions were added after that date. These additional units had to be formed by means of redistribution and economies within existing personnel allotments in the same categories. Since 

the Army as a whole increased by almost 3 million men after 1942, its 

ground combat elements, even including replacements, declined from 

over half the Army’s total strength at the beginning of 1942 to about 

a third in the spring of 1945. It was no mean achievement to maintain 

Americans Will Always Fight for Liberty, Bernard Perlin, 1943
grand strategy and the washington high command

121

the Army’s combat units at full strength during the heavy fighting of 

1944 and 1945. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese were able to do 

as much.

Mindful of the untrained divisions sent overseas in World War I, 

General Marshall from the first set as his goal thorough and realistic 

training of large units in the United States culminating in large-scale 

maneuvers by corps and armies. Since all divisions had been activated 

by August 1943 and the mass deployment of the Army overseas did not 

begin until late in that year, most divisions were thoroughly trained. The 

major threat to an orderly training program came in 1944, when many 

trained divisions had to be skeletonized to meet the demand for trained 

replacements. Equipment shortages were a serious obstacle to effective training in early 1943, as in 1942, as was the shortage of trained 

commissioned and noncommissioned officers to provide cadres.

In 1943 the Army’s ground combat forces continued to undergo the 

drastic reorganization and streamlining begun in 1942. Changes in the 

types of units required reduced the planned number of armored divisions 

from twenty to sixteen, eliminated all motorized divisions, and cut back 

tank-destroyer and antiaircraft units. The armored corps disappeared. 

Armored and infantry divisions were reduced in personnel and equipment. Tanks taken from armored divisions were organized into separate 

tank battalions, to be attached to divisions as needed; motor transport 

was pooled under corps or army headquarters for greater 

flexibility.

The division remained the basic fighting team of arms and services 

combined in proportions designed for continuous offensive action 

under normal battle conditions. It retained a triangular organization. 

The infantry division contained 3 regiments and included, besides 4 

artillery battalions (3 armed with 105-mm. howitzers, 1 with 155-mm. 

howitzers), a reconnaissance troop (scout cars and light tanks), and 

engineer, ordnance, signal, quartermaster, medical, and military police 

units. Each regiment could readily be teamed with an artillery battalion. 

Reinforced with other elements of the division or with elements 

assigned by corps or army headquarters, it formed the regimental 

combat team. The total strength of the infantry division was reduced 

from its prewar strength of 15,245 to 14,253.

The armored division as organized in 1942 had consisted of 2 tank 

regiments and 1 armored infantry regiment plus 3 battalions of armored 

artillery and an armored reconnaissance battalion. This arrangement was 

calculated to produce 2 combat commands with varying proportions 

of tanks and infantry in division reserve. The armored division also 

included supporting elements corresponding to those in the infantry 

divisions but motorized to increase mobility. In the armored division 

as reorganized in 1943, battalions replaced regiments. The new model 

contained 3 medium tank battalions, 3 armored infantry battalions, and 

3 armored artillery battalions. These, with supporting elements, could 

be combined readily into 3 combat commands (A, B, and Reserve). 

The total strength of the armored division was reduced from 14,620 

to 10,937. Two armored divisions remained “heavy” divisions, with the 

old organization, until the end of the war.

The only other special type of division of real importance retained 

in 1943 was the airborne division. Including parachute and gliderborne regiments, it was designed as a miniature infantry division, 
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122

with lighter, more easily transportable artillery and the minimum 

of vehicles and service elements needed to keep it fighting after an 

airdrop until it could be reinforced. Its strength was only 8,500 until 

early 1945, when it was raised to 12,979. By the beginning of 1945 

other experimental and special-type divisions (mountain, motorized, 

light, jungle, and cavalry) had either disappeared or largely lost their 

special characteristics.

Underlying all this change were the basic aims of making ground 

forces mobile, flexible, and easily transportable by increasing the 

proportion of standardized and interchangeable units in less rigid 

tactical combinations. Nor did this streamlining involve any sacrifice of 

effective power. Army leaders were convinced, and experience on the 

whole proved, that these units could not only move faster and farther, 

but they could also strike even harder than the units they replaced.

Premobilization planning had contemplated that African Americans 

would be included in the ranks of a wartime Army proportionately 

to their number in the whole population and proportionately also 

in each of the arms and services. The Army achieved neither goal; 

but the number of African-American troops reached a peak strength 

of over 700,000, and more than 500,000 of them served overseas. 

Contemporary attitudes and practices in American society kept African 

Americans in segregated units throughout the war. Most AfricanAmerican soldiers overseas were in supply and construction units. In 

truck units such as the famous Red Ball Express in Northern France 

in 1944, African-American manpower proved a critical asset in winning 

the supply battle so crucial to victory at the front. Many others who 

served in the two African-American combat divisions (the 92d and 93d 

Infantry Divisions), in separate combat support battalions, and in a 

fighter group directly engaged the enemy on the ground and in the air. 

In 1944 the manpower shortage became nationwide. The Army, 

under the double pressures of accelerated deployment schedules and 

heavy demands for infantry replacements for battle casualties in the 

two-front full-scale war, was driven to stringent measures. The Army 

Specialized Training Program, which had absorbed 150,000 soldiers 

in college study, was dissolved; the aviation cadet training program 

was drastically curtailed. To release soldiers for battle, the Army drew 

heavily on limited-service personnel and women for noncombat duties. 

The induction of female volunteers had begun in mid-1942; and in the 

following year, for the first time in the Army’s history, women had been 

given a full legal military status in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). 

Growing in strength, the WAC reached a peak of 100,000 by the spring 

of 1945.

As the Army moved overseas, many posts were consolidated or 

closed, releasing large numbers of overhead personnel. Overstrength 

tactical units were reduced in size and the excess manpower transferred 

to other units or the individual replacement pool. Coast artillery units 

were converted to heavy artillery, hundreds of antiaircraft units were 

dissolved, and nondivisional infantry regiments became a source of 

infantry replacements. To meet the threat of the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes in December 1944, the handful of divisions 

remaining in the United States, most of them earmarked for the Pacific, 

were rushed to Europe; the United States was left without a strategic 
grand strategy and the washington high command

123

reserve. In May 1945 the overall ground army numbered 68 infantry, 16 

armored, and 5 airborne divisions.

The extent to which the Army depended on its air arm to confer 

striking power and mobility is suggested by the enormous growth of 

the Army Air Forces (AAF): from about 400,000 men at the beginning 

of 1942 to a peak of over 2.4 million early in 1944. At the end of the 

war in Europe, it had 243 organized groups in being and a numerical 

strength of 2.3 million men. More than 1.5 million of the worldwide 

AAF strength in March 1945 consisted of service troops, troops in 

training, and overhead.

After 1942 the growth of the ground army also occurred for the 

most part in services and administrative elements. By March 1945 these 

comprised 2.1 million (not counting hospital patients and casuals en 

route) of the ground army’s 5.9 million personnel. This growth re

flected 

both the global character of the war, with its long lines of communications, and the immense numbers of noncombatant specialists needed 

to operate and service the equipment of a modern mechanized army. 

They were also a manifestation of the American people’s insistence on 

providing the American citizen-soldier with something like his accustomed standard of living. Less tangible and more difficult to control was 

the demand for large administrative and coordinating staffs, which was 

self-generating since administrators themselves had to be administered 

and coordinators coordinated. One of the most conspicuous phenomena 

of global war was the big headquarters. In the European Theater in 1944, 

overhead personnel, largely in higher headquarters, numbered some 

114,000 men. On the eve of V-E Day, with overseas deployment for the 

two-front war complete, almost 1.3 million of the 2.8 million men who 

remained in the United States were in War Department, Army Ground 

Forces, Army Service Forces, and Army Air Forces overhead agencies to 

operate the Zone of the Interior establishment.

The assignment to the Army of various administrative tasks swelled 

the demand for noncombatant personnel. One such task was the administration of military Lend-Lease. Another was the development of the 

atomic bomb, the super-secret, $2 billion Manhattan Project assigned 

to the Corps of Engineers. Two of the Army’s overseas commands 

(the China-Burma-India Theater and the Persian Gulf Command) had 

missions largely logistical in character. From the first the Pacific theaters 

generated the heaviest demands for service troops to build, operate, 

and service the manifold facilities a modern army needed in regions 

where these had been virtually nonexistent. To a lesser degree these 

needs were also present in the Mediterranean, and operations against 

the Germans everywhere involved the task of repairing the ruin the 

enemy had wrought. Big construction projects like the Alcan Highway 

(from western Canada to Alaska) and the Ledo Road in Burma added 

to the burden. To carry out the Army’s vast procurement program (to 

compute requirements, negotiate contracts, and expedite production) 

called for a multitude of highly trained administrators, mostly civilian 

businessmen whom the Army put into uniform.

Thus, for every three fighting men in the ground army there were 

two technicians or administrators somewhere behind, engaged in functions other than killing the enemy. Behind the fighting front stretched 

the pipeline filled with what General McNair once called “the invisible 
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124

horde of people going here and there but seemingly never arriving.” 

In March 1945 casuals en route or in process of assignment numbered 

300,000. Far more numerous were the replacements, who at this time 

totaled 800,000 in the ground army; AAF replacements numbered 

300,000. The Army had made almost no provision for replacements 

in the early plans for creating units. The necessity of providing spaces 

for them as well as for larger numbers of service and AAF troops in 

the Army’s total allotment of manpower went far to account for the 

difference between the 215 divisions in the original Victory Program 

and the 89 actually organized.

Replacements kept the effective strength of the Army from declining. 

The number of soldiers in hospitals in World War II seldom fell below 

200,000 and at the beginning of 1945 reached a peak of almost 500,000. 

Throughout the war the Army suffered a total of 936,000 battle casualties, including 235,000 dead; to the latter must be added 83,400 nonbattle 

deaths. The Army’s dead represented about 3 percent of the 10.4 million 

men who served in its ranks during World War II.

Despite the acknowledged primacy of the European war, only 

gradually did the 

flow of American troops overseas take the direction 

the Army planners desired. Not until 

Overlord was given top priority 

at the Tehran Conference at the end of 1943 could the two-front war 

finally begin to assume the focus and 

flow into the channels the War 

Department had planned for in the early stages of the coalition war. 

During 1943 the Army sent overseas close to 1.5 million men, including 

13 divisions. Over two-thirds of these totals, including more than 1 

million troops and 9 divisions, were deployed against Germany. In these 

terms the balance was finally being redressed in favor of the war against 

Germany. The cumulative totals at the end of 1943 showed 1.4 million 

men, including 17 divisions, deployed against Germany, as opposed to 

913,000 troops, including 13 divisions, lined up against Japan—a sharp 

contrast to the picture at the end of 1942, when in manpower and 

number of divisions the war against Japan had maintained an edge over 

the war in Europe.

On the other hand, the failure of the Allies to agree on a specific 

plan for the cross-channel attack until Tehran permitted deployment 

in the war against Japan to develop at a much quicker pace than the 

planners had expected. It was not until October 1943 that the divisions in Europe exceeded those in the Pacific. And when the efforts 

of the Navy and Marine Corps, especially in the Pacific, are added to 

Army deployment overseas, a different picture emerges. Actually, after 

two years of war, the balance of U.S. forces—and resources—between 

the European and Japanese arenas was fairly even. Indeed, of the total 

of 3.7 million men (Army, Navy, and Marines) overseas during 1943, 

slightly more than half were arrayed against Japan. By the close of that 

year Army planners fully comprehended the growing costs of fighting 

a multifront war on an opportunistic basis and the difficulty of keeping 

a secondary war secondary in the absence of a firm long-range plan for 

the primary war.

By the end of the midwar period, in September 1944, General 

Marshall and his staff could survey the state of Army deployment with 

considerable satisfaction. Channeling U.S. military power to the United 

Kingdom for a concentrated attack against Germany had been a long 
grand strategy and the washington high command

125

struggle. More divisions were sent overseas in the first nine months 

of 1944, with the bulk of them going to the European Theater, than 

had been shipped overseas during the previous two years. To support 

Overlord and its follow-up operations, the Army funneled forces 

into the European Theater and later into continental Europe in everincreasing numbers during the first three quarters of 1944. Slightly over 

2 million men, including 34 divisions and 103 air groups, were in the 

European Theater at the end of September 1944—over 45 percent of 

the total number of troops overseas in all theaters. By then, the overall 

breakdown of Army troops overseas gave the war against Germany a 2:1 

advantage over the Japanese conflict, and this was matched by the Army 

divisional distribution. Forty divisions were located in Europe and the 

Mediterranean, with 4 more en route, compared with 21 in the Pacific. 

In the air, the preponderance lay even more heavily in favor of Europe. 

With the bulk of the Army’s combat strength overseas deployed against 

the Third Reich and with most of the divisions still in the United States 

slated to go to the European Theater, General Marshall and his planners 

could consider their original concept well on the way to accomplishment. 

Though there were still over 3.5 million men left in the Continental 

United States at the end of September, there were only 24 combat divisions remaining. The Army planners had hoped to maintain some of the 

divisions as a strategic reserve to cope with emergencies.

When the crisis caused by the Ardennes breakthrough of December 

1944 denuded the United States of all the remaining divisions, the 

possibility of having raised too few divisions caused War Department 

leaders from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson on down some anxious 

moments. Fortunately, this was the last unpleasant surprise; another 

such crisis would have found the divisional cupboard bare. Indeed, the 

decision for ninety divisions—the Army’s “cutting edge”—was one of 

the greatest gambles the Washington high command took during World 

War II. 

Thus, in the long run, Marshall and his staff were not only able to 

reverse the trend toward the Pacific that had lasted well into 1943 but 

had gone to the other extreme during 1944. Because of unexpected 

developments in the European war, not one division was sent to the 

Pacific after August 1944; and planned deployment totals for the Pacific 

The 90-Division Decision

One of the most under-appreciated strategic risks that U.S. Army leaders, particularly Chief of Staff 

Marshall, accepted during World War II was the midwar decision to limit to ninety the number of U.S. Army 

combat divisions created. This decision, finally reached in May 1944 after more than two years of debate and 

analysis, above all reflected Marshall’s astute judgment and ability to see the full spectrum of issues from broad 

national needs down to American combat capabilities. Crediting the fighting ability of U.S. soldiers and units, 

Marshall recognized that every additional division absorbed men required more elsewhere. With only a finite 

number of trained officers, and relying upon the steady flow of individual replacements to keep those ninety divisions up to strength, the United States was able to ensure that it provided steady, decisive combat power. Although 

tested by the emergency of the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944, Marshall’s calculated risk proved correct.
American Military History

126

for 1944 were never attained. European deployment, on the other hand, 

mounted steadily and substantially exceeded the planners’ estimates. At 

the end of April 1945, when the Army reached its peak strength of 5.4 

million overseas, over 3 million were in the European Theater and 1.2 

million in the Pacific. Regardless of the type of war fought in World 

War II—concentration and invasion in Europe or blockade, bombardment, and island-hopping in the Pacific—each required a tremendous 

outlay of American military strength and resources.

Balancing Means and Ends

Throughout the conflict the matching of means with ends, of 

logistics with strategy, continued to be a complex process, for World 

War II was the greatest coalition effort and the first really global war in 

which the United States had participated. The wherewithal had to be 

produced and delivered to a multitude of allies and farflung fronts over 

long sea lines of communications and all somehow harnessed to some 

kind of strategic design to defeat the enemies. As the war progressed, 

the Army strategic planners learned to appreciate more and more the 

limits of logistics in the multifront war. From the standpoint of the 

Americans, the basic strategic decisions they had supported from the 

beginning (the Germany-first decision and the primacy of the crosschannel attack) were in large measure justified by logistics. Each would 

capitalize on the advantages of concentrating forces and material 

resources on a single major line of communications and link the major 

arsenal represented by the United States with the strategically located 

logistical base offered by Great Britain. The realities of logistics had in 

part defeated their original 

Bolero strategy, and forces and resources 

in being in other theaters had generated their own offensive strategy.

In the midwar era, while Allied plans remained unsettled, the 

competing claims of the Pacific and Mediterranean for a strategy of 

opportunism, the continuing needs of other farflung fronts, added to 

the accumulated “fixed charges” (e.g., aid to China, Britain, and the 

Soviet Union and the rearming of the French) took a heavy toll on 

American resources. The full-blown war economy was matched by 

the full-blown war on the global scale. In and out of the international 

conferences of midwar in the era of relative plenty, the adjustment of 

means and ends went on and logistics remained a limiting, if not always 

the final determining, factor in the strategic debate. The scope, timing, 

landing places, and even the choice of specific operations were to a 

large extent in

fluenced by the availability of the wherewithal, by the 

quantities that could be produced and delivered to the fighting fronts.

To logisticians in World War II, the balance among supplies and 

equipment, trained troops, and the shipping to transport them—the 

only means then feasible for mass movement overseas—was of 

continuing concern. In planning for that balance the factor of lead time 

was particularly important. For example, for the invasion of Normandy 

in June 1944 planning for the production of materiel had to start two 

years in advance, the buildup in England at least a year in advance, and 

the actual planning of detailed logistical support six months before the 

landings. Usually the shorter the lead time for logistical preparations, 

the narrower the range of strategic choices tended to be.
grand strategy and the washington high command

127

To the end the Army was of course one cog in the mighty American 

war machine, and it had to compete for resources with its sister services 

and with Allies. The home front also had to be supported. While the 

war cut deeply into the life of the American people, it was fought based 

on a “guns and butter” policy without any real sacrifice in the American 

standard of living. The Army was not anxious to cut into that standard 

of living. Nor did it have final say over the allocation and employment 

of key resources. To balance the allocation of forces, supplies, and 

shipping among the many fronts and nations, within the framework 

of the close partnership with the British, required a degree of central 

logistical control and direction at both combined and national levels 

unknown in earlier wars. A complex network of Anglo-American and 

national civilian and military agencies for logistical planning emerged. 

In the melding of resources and plans that continued in and out of the 

international conferences, planners took their cue from the basic decisions of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS)—in this sense, the top 

logistical as well as strategic planning organization.

An imposing structure of federal agencies and committees grew 

up in Washington to control the nation’s economic mobilization. 

Its keystone was the in

fluential War Production Board (WPB) that 

controlled the allocation and use of raw materials, machine tools, and 

facilities with powers similar to those of the War Industries Board in 

World War I. In the military sphere the War Department, like the Navy 

Department, had a large degree of autonomy in controlling requirements planning, production, and distribution of materiel for its forces. 

The actual procurement (purchasing and contracting of munitions and 

other war materials) was carried out directly by the Army’s technical 

services and the Navy’s bureaus. Within the Joint Chiefs of Staff organization many logistical problems at issue between the services were 

settled by negotiation. The War Shipping Administration (WSA) operated and allocated the critical U.S. merchant shipping. Close cooperation between WSA and the British Ministry of War Transport resulted 

in the pooling of the two merchant 

fleets comprising the bulk of the 

world’s mercantile tonnage. Other civilian agencies dealt with such 

critical commodities as food, petroleum products, and rubber. In the 

spring of 1943 most of the mobilization agencies were subordinated 

to a new coordinating unit, the Office of War Mobilization headed by 

former Justice James F. Byrnes.

Theoretically, U.S. munitions production along with that of the 

British Empire was placed in a common pool and distributed according 

to strategic need. Two Munitions Assignments Boards, each representing both countries and responsible to the CCS, made allocations. 

One board, sitting in Washington, allocated U.S. production, while a 

second in London allocated British production. Using the principles 

of Lend-Lease and reciprocal aid, these two boards made allocations 

to other Western Allied countries as well as to the United States and 

Britain. Supplies for the Soviet Union were governed by separate 

diplomatic protocols, and the boards seldom attempted to alter their 

provisions in making assignments. The common-pool theory, however, 

proved somewhat too idealistic for complete application. From the start 

it really applied almost entirely to American production, for the British 

had little surplus to distribute. Their contributions to the American 
American Military History

128

effort, though substantial, normally took the form of services and 

soft goods rather than military hardware. In these circumstances the 

Americans almost inevitably came to question the application of the 

common-pool theory and to make assignments on the premise that 

each partner had first call on its own resources. British participation 

in the allocation of American production became only nominal in the 

later war years.

However imperfect the application of the common-pool concept, 

Lend-Lease, with its counterpart, reciprocal aid, proved an admirable instrument in coalition warfare. Lend-Lease did what President 

Roosevelt had initially intended it should. It removed the dollar sign 

from Allied supply transactions and gave the Allies an unprecedented flexibility in distributing materiel without generating complicated 

financial transactions or postwar problems such as the war debts World 

War I had created. Under the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, the War 

Department turned over to Allied countries approximately $25 billion 

worth of war materials. About 58 percent went to Britain, 23 percent 

to Russia, 8 percent to France, 7 percent to China, and the remainder 

to other countries. Included in these supplies were some 37,000 light 

and medium tanks, nearly 800,000 trucks, and 3,400 locomotives. The 

Army Service Forces was the Army’s operating agency for administering this program; and from 1942 on, military Lend-Lease requirements were included with U.S. Army requirements in the Army supply 

program. This American largess was distributed almost exclusively to 

achieve complete military victory in the war, not to contribute to the 

postwar political purposes of any ally.

Even with American production in high gear during 1943–1945, 

critical shortages or bottlenecks developed to hamper operations at 

various stages. In early 1943, as in 1942, the most stringent limiting 

factor was the production of ships to transport troops and supplies. 

Indeed, in the spring of 1943, when President Roosevelt decided to 

divert scarce shipping to support the faltering British economy, he had 

to overrule the JCS, deeply concerned over American military requirements. After mid-1943, amid the changing requirements of the war in 

full bloom, the logistical bottlenecks tended to be specialized rather 

than general. From late 1943 until June 1944, the most serious critical 

shortage became the supply of assault shipping to land troops and 

supplies in amphibious operations. In the case of landing craft, the 

shortage was most severe in one specific category, the Landing Ship, 

Tank (LST). In April 1944 Winston Churchill became exasperated 

enough to wonder whether history would ever understand why “the 

plans of two great empires like Britain and the United States should 

be so much hamstrung and limited” by an “absurd shortage of the 

L.S.T.’s.” In the last stage, after troops were ashore and fighting on the 

European continent, the principal bottleneck shifted to port and inland 

clearance capacity in that area and in the Pacific.

The basic problem of allocating resources between the war against 

Germany and the war against Japan remained almost to the end. Although 

the basic Germany-first decision held throughout the con

flict, one of the 

most persistent questions concerned the proportion by which available 

resources should be divided between the two wars. This question re

flected 

some divergence of political, military, geographical, and psychological 
grand strategy and the washington high command

129

factors in the Anglo-American strategy of the war. For Britain, the war 

against Japan tended to be a sideshow; its leaders tended to emphasize 

the effort in Europe and the Mediterranean at the expense of the Pacific. 

The United States more than met its commitments in Europe but insisted 

from the beginning on a margin of safety in the war against Japan, for 

which it early had taken major responsibility. Furthermore, the pull to the 

Pacific in midwar that the U.S. Navy and General MacArthur, both now 

on the offensive, particularly welcomed became for the Washington high 

command a lever against overcommitment in the Mediterranean. At the 

midwar conferences the Anglo-American debate focused on the division 

of resources among the theaters where the two nations combined their 

efforts: the Mediterranean, northwest Europe, and Southeast Asia. For 

the Pacific, American military leaders simply presented their decisions, 

logistical as well as strategic, to the conferences for the stamp of approval. 

In effect, American military leaders in midwar went far toward asserting 

unilateral control over the division of American resources between the 

two wars.

In the final analysis, the multifront nature of the war developed as 

a product of changing circumstances rather than of a predetermined 

grand design. Coalition strategy evolved as a result of a complex, 

continuing process—a constant struggle to adjust ends and means, to 

reconcile diverse pressures, pulls, and shifting conditions in the global 

war, and to effect compromises among nations with diverse national 

interests. That strategy, frequently dictated by necessity, often emerged 

from events rather than having determined them.

The Washington high command was to end the war as it began 

it, without a fully developed theory on how to match strategic plans, 

manpower, and resources for a coalition, global war. But throughout its 

search for the formula for victory it had consistently pursued its goal of 

LST Discharging Cargo over a Pontoon Causeway
American Military History

130

winning the war decisively, of complete military victory. This was the 

overriding goal; all secondary issues, such as postwar political aims, while 

not ignored, were clearly of lesser importance. This does not mean that 

the joint chiefs were naïve to the dangers, especially after it was clear in 

1944 that the war would be won, of postwar Soviet power and its domination of Eastern Europe. There were voices within the highest levels of 

government that clearly saw the dangers of any single power dominating 

Europe. There is evidence that the attitude of total cooperation with 

the Soviets began to break down in the middle of 1945, when it became 

clearer that U.S. national security interests might not be well served by 

blindness to the obvious dangers of a dominant or expansionist Soviet 

Union. Nevertheless, the focus of the military strategists remained on 

completing the military defeat of Germany and then turning all the 

power of the “United Nations” against Japan. For that, cooperation 

with the Soviet Union remained vital; no other agenda could upset that 

goal. Whatever general political objectives the President had—he was a 

supremely political animal—he was committed to the strategic doctrine 

of complete victory first. The military planners, while not ignoring the 

future any more than the President did, maintained a similar focus.

Institutionally, World War II became for American strategists and 

logisticians an organization war, a war of large planning staffs in the 

capitals and the theater headquarters. Strategy and logistics became big 

business, established industries in the huge American wartime military 

establishment. World War II contributed significantly to the education 

of American Army planners in these arts. General Marshall, for example, 

once succinctly observed that his military experience in World War I had 

been based on roads, rivers, and railroads; for World War II he had to 

learn all over again and to acquire “an education based on oceans.”

Throughout, Americans evinced their national habit in war: 

a penchant for quick, direct, and total solutions. The strategic principles they stressed were entirely in harmony with their own traditions and capacities. They proved particularly adept in adapting their 

mass-production economy to war purposes and in applying power on 

a massive scale. How far they had come in the quarter-century since 

World War I was evidenced by a comparison of their strategic experience in the two coalition world wars of the twentieth century. In World 

War I the United States, a junior partner, conformed to the strategy set 

by the Allies; in World War II the United States came to hold its own 

in Allied war councils and played an in

fluential role in molding Allied 

strategy, virtually dictating the strategy of the Pacific war. By the end 

of the war America was the senior partner in the coalition with Britain 

and potentially the only direct rival to the growth of Soviet power. 

In meeting the problems of global coalition warfare, in the greatest 

con

flict in which the United States had been involved, American strate-

gists and logisticians came of age.

The multifront war of mass, technology, and mobility that taxed the 

strategists and logisticians in Washington also challenged the overseas 

commands and the tacticians in the field. As the war had progressed, 

the role of the theater commands in strategy, logistics, and tactics had 

become increasingly significant. It is appropriate, therefore, at this point 

to turn from the Washington high command to the Army overseas and 

to trace the actual course of operations in the double war.
grand strategy and the washington high command

131

Discussion Questions

1. Why did the Americans invade North Africa? If you were planning the American strategy for 1942–1943, what would you do?

2. Discuss the comparative roles of Britain, the Soviet Union, and 

the United States in the fight against Germany. To what degree was 

the invasion of North Africa and then Italy a second front against 

Germany? How would Marshall Stalin have viewed this issue?

3. To what degree was Churchill motivated by his view of what 

postwar Europe would look like? Roosevelt? Stalin?

4. Why did the proposal to invade southern France in 1944 cause 

such a major disagreement between the Americans and the British?

5. Why was it so important to obtain the Soviet Union’s involvement in the war against Japan? What was the strategic situation in the 

war against Japan at the time of the Yalta Conference in February 1945? 

At Potsdam in July 1945? 

6. Discuss the background of the Army’s decision to activate only 

ninety divisions. What impact would more divisions have had? Recommended Readings

Cline, Ray S. Washington Command Post: The Operations Division. U.S. Army 

in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 2003.

Coakley, Robert W., and Richard M. Leighton. Global Logistics and 

Strategy, 1943–1945. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1989. 

Greenfield, Kent R., ed. Command Decisions. Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 2002. 

Hayes, Grace P. The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II: The 

War against Japan. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1982.

Leighton, Richard M., and Robert W. Coakley. Global Logistics and 

Strategy, 1940–1943. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995. 

Matloff, Maurice. Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944. 

U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 2003. 

Overy, Richard. Why the Allies Won. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

Paret, Peter, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the 

Nuclear Age. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.

Pogue, Forrest C. George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943–1945. 

New York: Viking, 1973.

Reynolds, David, Warren F. Kimball, and A. O. Chubarian, eds. Allies 

at War: The Soviet, American, and British Experience, 1939–1945. New 

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Ross, Steven T. American War Plans, 1941–1945: The Test of Battle. 

London: Frank Cass, 1997.

Stoler, Mark A. Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 

Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II. Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
American Military History

132

Other Readings

Brown, John S. Draftee Division: The 88th Infantry Division in World War II. 

Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986.

Churchill, Winston S. The Second World War, 6 vols. Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin, 1948–1953, esp. vols. 4, 5, 6.

Edmonds, Robin. The Big Three: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin in 

Peace & War. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991.

Feis, Herbert. Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin: The War They Waged and 

the Peace They Sought. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 

1957.

Greenfield, Kent R. American Strategy in World War II: A 

Reconsideration. Malabar, Fla.: Krieger Pub. Co., 1982.

Hinsley, F. H. British Intelligence in the Second World War, 5 vols. New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 1979–1990.

———, Robert P. Palmer, and Bell I. Wiley. The Organization of Ground 

Combat Troops. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 1988.

Laqueuer, Walter, ed. The Second World War: Essays in Military and 

Political History. London: Sage Publications, 1982.

Lee, Ulysses. The Employment of Negro Troops. U.S. Army in World 

War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

2000.

Love, Robert William, Jr. “Fighting a Global War, 1941–45.” In In Peace 

and War: Interpretations of American Naval History, 1775–1984, 2d ed., 

ed. Kenneth J. Hagan. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. 

McJimsey, George T. The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Morison, Elting E. Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and 

Times of Henry L. Stimson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960.

Pogue, Forrest C., et al., “The Wartime Chiefs of Staff and the 

President.” In Soldiers and Statesmen: Proceedings of the 4th Military 

History Symposium, ed. Monte D. Wright and Lawrence J. Paszek. 

Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1989.

Stimson, Henry L., and McGeorge Bundy. On Active Service in Peace and 

War. New York: Octagon Books, 1971.
With the invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch), the 

U.S. Army in late 1942 began a European ground offensive that it would sustain almost without pause until Italy 

collapsed and Germany was finally defeated. For the next twoand-one-half years, more than a million Americans would fight in 

lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea and close to 4 million on the 

European continent, exclusive of Italy, in the largest commitment 

to battle the U.S. Army had ever made. Alongside these Americans 

marched British, Canadian, French, and other Allied troops in 

history’s greatest demonstration of coalition warfare; on another 

front, massed Soviet armies contributed enormously to the victory. 

In company with these allies, after a shaky start in North Africa, 

the U.S. Army came of age. Taking advantage of its strengths in 

mobility, artillery firepower, and close air support and forcing its 

way back onto a continent from which the Axis had driven the Allies 

four years before, American ground forces did their part to defeat 

the most vaunted military machine in the world at the time.

North Africa, November 1942–May 1943

Although the Allies made the decision to launch Operation Torch

largely because they could not mount a more direct attack against the 

European Axis early in the war, they also had more specific and attractive objectives: to gain French-controlled Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia 

as a base for enlisting the French empire in the war; to assist the British 

in the Libyan Desert in destroying Axis forces in North Africa; to open 

the Mediterranean to Allied shipping; and to provide a steppingstone 

for subsequent operations.

5

World War II

The War against

Germany and Italy
American Military History

134

The Germans and their Italian allies controlled a narrow but strategic strip of the North African littoral between Tunisia and Egypt 

with impassable desert bounding the strip on the south. (See Map 4.) 

Numbering some 100,000 men under a battle-tested German leader, 

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the German-Italian army in Libya posed 

a constant threat to Egypt, the Near East, and French North Africa 

and by controlling the northern shores of the Mediterranean denied 

the Mediterranean to Allied shipping. Only a few convoys seeking to 

supply British forces on the island of Malta ever ventured into the 

Mediterranean, and these frequently took heavy losses.

Moving against French Africa posed for the Allies special problems 

rooted in the nature of the Armistice that had followed French defeat 

in 1940. Under the terms of that Armistice, the Germans had left the 

French empire nominally intact, along with much of the southern half 

of Metropolitan France; in return the French government was pledged 

to drop out of the war. Although an underground resistance movement 

had already begun in France and the Allies were equipping a “Free 

French” force, that part of the regular French Army and Navy left 

intact by the Armistice had sworn allegiance to the Vichy government. 

This pledge had led already to the anomaly of Frenchman fighting 

Frenchman and of the British incurring French enmity by destroying 

part of the fleet of their former ally.

If bloodshed was to be averted in the Allied invasion, French 

sympathies had to be enlisted in advance, but to reveal the plan was to 

risk French rejection of it and German occupation of French Africa. 

Although clandestine negotiations were conducted with a few trusted 

French leaders, these produced no guarantee that the French in North 

Africa would cooperate.

Insignia of the 1st Armored Division, 

the First American Armored Division 

To See Combat

General Alexander
world war II: The war against germany and italy

135

Partly because of this intricate situation, the Allies designated an 

American, Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, to command the invasion 

to capitalize on the relative absence of rancor between French and 

Americans by giving the invasion an American rather than a British 

complexion. American troops were to make up the bulk of the assault 

force, and the Royal Navy was to keep its contribution as inconspicuous 

as possible.

The operation would coincide with an Allied counteroffensive in 

western Egypt, where the British Commander in Chief, Middle East, 

General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, was to attack with the veteran 

British Eighth Army under Lt. Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery against 

Rommel’s German-Italian army. Coming ashore in French Africa, 

General Eisenhower’s combined U.S.-British force was to launch a 

converging attack against Rommel’s rear.

In selecting beaches for the invasion, U.S. planners insisted upon a 

assault on the Atlantic coast of Morocco lest the Germans seal the Strait 

of Gibraltar and cut off support to landings inside the Mediterranean. 

Because both troops and shipping were limited, a landing on the Atlantic 

coast restricted the number and size of potential assaults inside the 

Mediterranean. Although a landing as far east as Tunisia was desirable 

because of vast overland distances (from the Atlantic coast to Tunis 

is more than 1,000 miles), the proximity of Axis aircraft on Sicily and 

Sardinia made that course too perilous.

Making the decision on the side of security, the Allies planned 

simultaneous landings at three points: one in Morocco near the Atlantic 

port of Casablanca and two in Algeria near the ports of Oran and 

Algiers. Once the success of these landings was assured, a convoy 

was to put ashore small contingents of British troops to seize ports in 

eastern Algeria while a ground column headed for Tunisia in a race to 

get there before the Germans could move in.

An air transport plane flies urgently needed supplies over the pyramids of Egypt 

en route to the battle zone.
Map 4

A

T L A

N

T I C

O

C

E

A

N

M E D I T E R R A 

Rhoˆ ne R

15 Aug 44

US & FR

US & BR US & BR

US & BR

12 Nov 42

8 Nov 42

US

8 Nov 42

8 Nov 42

11 Sep 44

0o

30o

38o

C O R S I C A

S A R D I N I A

Mil

Dijon

Cannes

Marseille

Toulon

Casablanca

Gibraltar

Oran

ALGIERS

Gafsa

Kas

Tébessa

Constantine

S W I T Z E R L 

F R A N C E

P O

R

T

U

G

A

L

S P A I N

M O R O C C O

A L G E R I A

T 

S P . M O R O C C O

100 0 100

Miles

200 300

SOUTHERN APPROACHES TO EUROPE
N

E

A

N

S

E A

A

D

R I A

T I C

S

E

A

B L A C K

S E A

Po R

Jan–Apr 45

 Gothic Line

Oct 43–May 44

Winter Line

22 Jan 44

US & BR

9 Sep 43

US 9 Sep 43 BR

US

10 Jul 43

3 Sep 43

BR

BR

BR

10 Jul 43

May 43

Feb 43

Jan 43

Nov 42

20o

38o

30o

C R E T E

S I C I LY

C. Bon

an

Foggia

Salerno Taranto Naples

Anzio

ROME

Palermo

Messina

Cassino

Bizerte

TRIPOLI

Mareth

sserine

TUNIS

Tobruk El Alamein

L A N D

A U S T R I A

R U M A N I A

H U N G A R Y

I T A L Y

B U L G A R I A

A L B A N I A

Y

U

G

O

S

L

A

V I A

G

R

E

E

C

E

T U R K E Y

T U N I S I A

E G Y P T

L I B Y A
American Military History

138

Having been given the assignment to invade 

North Africa only at the end of July 1942, the 

U.S. Army faced enormous difficulties in meeting 

a target date in November. Troops had received 

little training in amphibious warfare, landing 

craft were few and obsolete, and much equipment was inferior to that of the Axis forces. So 

few U.S. troops were available in England that 

troops for the landing near Casablanca had to 

be shipped directly from the United States in 

one of history’s longest sea voyages preceding 

an amphibious assault.

After soundly defeating an Axis attack, 

Montgomery’s Eighth Army on October 23 

auspiciously opened an offensive at El Alamein, 

scoring a victory that was to be a turning point 

in British fortunes. A little over two weeks later, 

before daylight on November 8, the U.S. Navy 

put U.S. Army forces ashore near Casablanca, 

while the Royal Navy landed other U.S. troops 

and contingents of British troops near Oran 

and Algiers. The entire invasion force consisted 

of over 400 warships, 1,000 planes, and some 

107,000 men, including a battalion of paratroopers jumping in the U.S. Army’s first 

airborne attack.

Although the invasion achieved strategic 

surprise, the opposing French in every case but 

one fought back at the beaches. Dissidence among 

various French factions limited the effectiveness 

of some of the opposition, but any resistance at 

all raised the specter of delay that might enable 

the Germans to beat the Allies into Tunisia. Three days passed before the 

French agreed to cease fire and take up arms on the Allied side.

French support at last assured, the Royal Navy put British troops 

ashore close to the Tunisian border while an Allied column began the 

long overland trek. The British troops were too few to do more than 

secure two small Algerian ports, the ground column too late. Over the 

narrow body of water between Sicily and North Africa the Germans 

poured planes, men, and tanks. They met no French resistance. Except 

for barren mountains in the interior, Tunisia was for the moment out 

of Allied reach.

The Tunisia Campaign, November 1942–May 1943

Rommel, recoiling from the defeat at El Alamein and aware of the 

allied landings to his rear in November, withdrew his German-Italian 

army by January 1943 to the Mareth Line, old French fortifications near 

the southern border of Tunisia. There, he confronted Montgomery’s 

Eighth Army while more than 100,000 enemy troops under General 

Juergen von Arnim faced westward against General Eisenhower’s 

Allied force. Although the Italian high command in Italy exercised 

Troop Quarters in the Hold of a Transport
world war II: The war against germany and italy

139

loose control, the Axis nations failed to establish a unified command 

over these two forces.

The Allied plan to defeat Rommel by converging attacks having 

been foiled, General Eisenhower had no choice but to dig in to defend 

in the Tunisian mountains until he could accumulate enough strength 

to attack in conjunction with a renewed strike by Montgomery against 

the Mareth Line. Before this could be accomplished, Rommel on 

February 14 sent strong armored forces through the passes in central 

Tunisia against the U.S. II Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Lloyd R. 

Fredendall. Rommel planned to push through the Kasserine Pass, then 

turn northwestward by way of an Allied supply base at Tébessa to reach 

the coast and trap the Allied units.

In a series of sharp armored actions, Rommel quickly penetrated 

thinly held American positions and broke through the Kasserine 

Pass. Although success appeared within his grasp, the lack of unified 

command interfered. Planning an attack of his own, General von Arnim 

refused to release an armored division needed to continue Rommel’s 

thrust. Concerned that Rommel lacked the strength for a deep envelopment by way of Tébessa, the Italian high command directed a northward turn, a much shallower envelopment.

Sidi Bou Zid and Kasserine Pass

On February 14, 1943, two 

German panzer divisions attacked 

elements of the 1st Armored Division, 

defending the village of Sidi Bou Zid 

at the western end of the strategically important Faid Pass in central 

Tunisia. Two battalions of the 168th 

Infantry were cut off and later forced 

to surrender. The attacking Germans 

continued to advance eastward until 

they encountered the main body of 

the 1st Armored Division at Sbeitla. 

Although delayed by a day’s hard 

fighting, the Germans overcame the 

American defense and continued to 

press on toward the main Allied supply 

depot at Tebessa. The 19th Engineers, 

reinforced by a battalion each from 

the 26th, 39th, and 6th Armored 

Infantries, conducted an uncoordinated 

but stubborn defense of Kasserine Pass against the Africa Corps for two days until forced to retreat. Facing increasingly superior Allied forces, the Germans retreated from Kasserine on February 23. General Fredendall’s slow 

counterattack three days later cost him his command; he was replaced by General Patton.

Artillery Firing at Night, Gary Sheadan, n.d.
American Military History

140

The turn played into Allied hands, for the British already had established a blocking position astride the only road leading north. At the 

height of a clash between Rommel’s tanks and the British, four battalions of American artillery arrived after a forced march from Oran. 

On February 22 these guns and a small band of British tanks brought 

the Germans to a halt. Warned by intelligence reports that the British 

Eighth Army was about to attack the Mareth Line, Rommel hurriedly 

pulled back to his starting point.

The Axis offensive defeated, the U.S. II Corps, commanded now by 

Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., after the relief of General Fredendall, 

launched a diversionary attack on March 17 toward the rear of the 

Mareth Line. A few days later Montgomery’s Eighth Army struck the 

line in force. By the end of the first week of April, the two forces had 

joined.

With all their forces now linked under the tactical command of 

General Alexander, the Allies opened a broad offensive that within a 

month captured the ports of Bizerte and Tunis and compressed all 

Axis troops into a small bridgehead covering the Cape Bon peninsula 

at the northeastern tip of Tunisia. The last of some 275,000 Germans 

and Italians surrendered on May 13.

Although the original Allied strategy had been upset by the delay 

imposed by French resistance and the swift German buildup in Tunisia—

resulting in postponement of the launching of the “Second Front” in 

northwest Europe from 1943 to 1944—Allied troops achieved victory 

in six months, impressive in view of their limited numbers and long 

lines of communications. A few days later the first unopposed British 

convoy since 1940 reached beleaguered Malta.

American troops in their first test against German arms had made 

many mistakes. Training, equipment, and leadership had failed in many 

Hill 609—Tunisia, George Biddle, 1943
world war II: The war against germany and italy

141

instances to meet the requirements of the battlefield; but the lessons 

were clear and pointed to nothing that time might not correct. More 

important was the experience gained, both in battle and in logistical 

support. Important too was the fact that the Allied campaign had 

brought a French army back into the war. Most important of all, the 

Allies at last had gained the initiative.

The Sicily Campaign, July–August 1943

The next step after North Africa had already been decided in 

January 1943 at the Casablanca Conference. That step, Operation 

Husky, the invasion of Sicily, followed from the recognition that the 

Allies still were unready for a direct thrust across the English Channel. 

Utilizing troops already available in North Africa, they could make the 

Mediterranean safer for Allied shipping by occupying Sicily, perhaps 

going on to invade Italy and knocking that junior Axis partner out of 

the war.

As planning proceeded for the new operation, General Eisenhower 

(promoted now to four stars) remained as supreme commander; General 

Alexander, heading the 15th Army Group, served as ground commander. 

Alexander controlled Montgomery’s Eighth Army and a newly created 

Seventh U.S. Army under Patton (now a lieutenant general).

How to invade the Vermont-size, three-cornered island posed a 

special problem. The goal was Messina, the gateway to the narrow 

body of water between Sicily and Italy, the enemy’s escape route to 

the Italian mainland. Yet the Strait of Messina was so narrow and well 

fortified that Allied commanders believed the only solution was to land 

George S. Patton, Jr. (1885–1945)

A descendant of Revolutionary and Civil 

War heroes, Patton became the Allies’ foremost 

practitioner of armored warfare in World War 

II. In North Africa, Sicily, and Northwest Europe, 

he won fame for his speed, intuitive sense of 

the mobile battlefield, and sheer audacity. His 

volatile personality—devoutness, profanity, 

sensitivity, loudness, interest in history, belief 

in reincarnation, compassion, and shameless 

self-promotion—has fascinated generations 

of scholars and enthusiasts. But the opening 

scene of the 1970 movie “Patton” (featuring 

George C. Scott in gleaming helmet, stars, and 

riding boots in front of a huge American flag) 

completed his transformation from legend to folk 

hero. Patton Inspecting the Troops in Sicily
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142

elsewhere and march on Messina by way of shallow coastal shelves on 

either side of towering Mount Etna.

Applying the principle of mass, Alexander directed that all landings be made in the southeastern corner of the island, with the British 

on the east coast and the Americans on the southwest. A brigade of 

glider troops was to capture a critical bridge behind British beaches, 

while a regiment of U.S. paratroopers took high ground behind the 

American beaches. After seizing minor ports and close-in airfields, 

Patton’s Seventh Army was to block to the northwest against Axis 

reserves while Montgomery mounted a main effort up the east coast.

Because Sicily was an obvious objective after North Africa, complete 

strategic surprise was hardly possible, but bad weather helped the Allies 

achieve tactical surprise. As a huge armada bearing some 160,000 men 

steamed across the Mediterranean, a mistral (a form of unpredictable 

gale common to the Mediterranean) sprang up, so churning the sea that 

General Eisenhower was for a time tempted to order a delay. While the 

heavy surf swamped some landing craft and made all landings difficult, 

it also put the beach defenders off their guard. Before daylight on July 

10, both British and Americans were ashore in sizable numbers.

As presaged in North Africa, poor performance by Italian units left 

to German reserves the task of repelling the invasion. Although a preattack bombardment by Allied planes and confusion caused by a scattered jump of U.S. paratroopers delayed the German reaction, a panzer 

division mounted a sharp counterattack against American beaches 

before the first day was out. It came dangerously close to pushing some 

American units into the sea before naval gunfire and a few U.S. tanks 

and artillery pieces that had landed drove off the German tanks.

To speed reinforcement, the Allies on two successive nights flew 

in American and British paratroopers. In both instances, antiaircraft 

gunners on ships standing offshore and others on land mistook the 

planes for enemy aircraft and opened fire. Losses were so severe that for 

a time some Allied commanders questioned the wisdom of employing 

this new method of warfare.

When the Germans formed a solid block in front of the British 

along the east coast, the latter took over one of the main routes assigned 

to the Seventh Army, prompting General Patton to expand his army’s 

role. Cutting the island in two with a drive by the II Corps, commanded 

now by Maj. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, Patton also sent a provisional 

corps pushing rapidly through faltering Italian opposition to the port of 

Fratricide at Sicily

On the night of July 11, 1943, scores of Americans died in one of the worst combat accidents of the war. 

Hard-pressed by Axis counterattacks, General Patton decided to reinforce the beachhead with a nighttime parachute drop. Despite efforts to make sure that everyone was informed of the impending operation, when the planes 

arrived someone opened fire. Within minutes virtually every Allied antiaircraft gun ashore and afloat was blazing 

away at the hapless aircraft. Twenty-three of the 144 transport planes were shot down and another thirty-seven 

damaged. The paratroopers suffered 229 casualties. 
world war II: The war against germany and italy

143

Palermo and the northwestern tip of the island. Having accomplished 

this within fourteen days of coming ashore, Patton turned to aid the 

British by attacking toward Messina along a narrow northern coastal 

shelf.

As both Allied armies in early August readied a final assault to gain 

Messina, the enemy began to withdraw to the mainland. Despite the 

Allied command of sea and air, the Germans managed to evacuate 

all their forces, some 40,000 troops. When on August 17, thirty days 

after the invasion, U.S. patrols pushed into Messina, the Germans 

had incurred some 10,000 casualties, the Italians probably more than 

100,000 (mostly prisoners of war). The Allies lost about 20,000.

The American force that fought in Sicily was far more sophisticated than that which had gone into battle in North Africa. New 

landing craft, some capable of bearing tanks, had made getting ashore 

much quicker and surer, and new amphibious trucks called DUKWs 

eased the problem of supply over the beaches. Gone was the Grant 

tank with its side-mounted gun, lacking a wide traverse; in its place was 

the Sherman with a 360-degree power-operated traverse for a turretmounted 75-mm. piece. It was reliable and effective armored weapon. 

Commanders were alert to avoid a mistake often made in North Africa 

of parceling out divisions in small increments, and the men were sure 

of their weapons and their own ability. Some problems of coordination 

with tactical air remained, but these soon would be worked out.

The Surrender of Italy

Even as the Allies had been preparing to invade Sicily, the Italian 

people and their government had become increasingly disenchanted 

with the war. Under the impact of the loss of North Africa, the invasion of Sicily, and a first bombing of Rome, the Italian king forced 

Mussolini to resign as head of the government.

Anxious to find a way out of the war, a new Italian government 

made contact with the Allies through diplomatic channels, which led to 

direct talks with General Eisenhower’s representatives. The Italians, it 

soon developed, were in a quandary: they wanted to pull out of the war, 

yet they were virtual prisoners of German forces in Italy that Hitler, 

sensing the potential for Italian defection, had strongly reinforced. 

Although the Allies had drawn plans for airborne landings to secure 

Rome coincident with an announcement of Italian surrender, the plans 

were canceled in the face of the Italian vacillation and inability to guarantee strong assistance in fighting the Germans. The Italian government nevertheless agreed to surrender, a fact General Eisenhower 

announced on the eve of the principal Allied landing at Salerno.

The Italian Campaign, September 1943–May 1945

Since the Allied governments had decided to pursue after Sicily 

whatever course offered the best chance of knocking Italy from the 

war, an invasion of the mainland logically followed. This plan also 

presented an opportunity to tie down German forces and prevent their 

employment either on the Russian Front or against the eventual Allied 

attack across the English Channel. Occupying Italy would also provide 
American Military History

144

airfields close to Germany and the Balkans and might even induce 

Turkey to join the Allied cause.

How far up the peninsula of Italy the Allies were to land depended 

almost entirely on the range of fighter aircraft based on Sicily, for all 

Allied aircraft carriers were committed to the war in the Pacific, operations in the Indian Ocean, and the battle of the Atlantic. Another 

consideration was a desire to control the Strait of Messina to shorten 

sea supply lines. On September 3 a British force under Montgomery 

crossed the Strait of Messina and landed on the toe of the Italian boot 

against almost no opposition. Following Eisenhower’s announcement 

of Italian surrender, a British fleet steamed brazenly into the harbor of 

Taranto in the arch of the Italian boot to put a British division ashore 

on the docks, while the Fifth U.S. Army under Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark 

staged an assault landing on beaches near Salerno, twenty-five miles 

southeast of Naples.

Reacting in strength against the Salerno invasion, the Germans 

mounted a vigorous counterattack that threatened to split the beachhead and force the Allies to abandon part of it. For four days, the issue 

was in doubt. Quick reinforcement of the ground troops (including a 

regiment of paratroopers jumping into the beachhead), gallant fighting, 

liberal air support, and unstinting naval gunfire at last repulsed the 

German attack. On September 17 the Germans began to withdraw, and 

within two days patrols of the British Eighth Army arrived from the 

south to link the two Allied forces. Two weeks later American troops 

took Naples, thereby gaining an excellent port, while the British seized 

valuable airfields around Foggia on the other side of the peninsula.

Although the Germans seriously considered abandoning southern 

Italy to pull back to a line in the Northern Apennines (a fact the 

Allies learned from Ultra, the interception and decryption of highlevel German radio transmissions by British intelligence), the local 

commander, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, insisted that he could 

hold for a considerable time on successive lines south of Rome. He 

was right. The Allied advance was destined to proceed slowly, partly 

because of the difficulty of offensive warfare in rugged, mountainous 

terrain and partly because the Allies limited their commitment to the 

campaign, not only in troops but also in shipping and the landing craft 

necessary if the enemy’s strong defensive positions were to be broken 

by other than frontal attack.

Ultra

Until the publication in 1974 of F. W. Winterbotham’s The Ultra Secret, even most historians were unaware 

of the degree of success of British efforts to read German messages sent via Enigma machines. The British 

Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park decoded more than 80,000 German messages per 

month from late 1943 until May 1945. Britain, viewing Ultra as its most secret weapon of the war, temporarily 

ceased providing President Roosevelt decoded messages after an Ultra message was carelessly tossed into an 

office trash can in the White House. Ultra provided the Allies an unparalleled view into some of the innermost 

secrets of the German war-fighting machine.
world war II: The war against germany and italy

145

Because the buildup for a cross-channel 

attack—the main effort against Germany—was 

beginning in earnest, the Allies could spare few 

additional troops or ships to pursue the war in Italy. 

Through the fall and winter of 1943–1944, the 

armies would have to do the job in Italy with what 

was at hand, a total of eighteen Allied divisions.

A renewed offensive in October 1943 broke a 

strong German delaying position at the Volturno 

River, twenty miles north of Naples, and carried 

as far as the so-called Winter Line, an imposing 

position anchored on towering peaks around the 

town of Cassino. Casting about for a way to break 

this line, General Eisenhower obtained permission 

to temporarily retain from the buildup in Britain 

enough shipping and landing craft to make an 

amphibious end run. General Clark was to use a 

corps of his Fifth U.S. Army to land on beaches 

near Anzio, some thirty miles south of Rome and 

sixty miles behind the Winter Line. By threatening 

or cutting German lines of communications to the 

Winter Line, the troops at Anzio were to facilitate 

the Allied advance through the line and up the 

valley of the Liri River, the most obvious route to 

Rome.

Provided support by a French corps equipped 

with American arms, General Clark pulled out the 

U.S. VI Corps under Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas to 

make the envelopment. While the VI Corps (which included a British 

division) sailed toward Anzio, the Fifth Army launched a massive attack 

aimed at gaining access to the Liri valley. Although the VI Corps landed 

unopposed at Anzio on January 22, 1944, the attack on the Winter Line 

gained little. As General Lucas waited on the beachhead to build up 

more supplies before striking inland, the Germans reacted.

Rushing reserves to Anzio, Field Marshal Kesselring quickly erected 

a firm perimeter about the Allied beachhead and successfully resisted 

every attempt at breakout. Through February Kesselring launched 

determined attacks to eliminate the beachhead. Only a magnificent 

defense by U.S. and British infantry supported by artillery, tanks, planes, 

and naval gunfire at last repulsed these attacks. However, the attempt to 

break the stalemate had failed.

Through the rest of the winter and early spring, the Fifth and Eighth 

Armies regrouped and built their combined strength to twenty-five divisions, mainly with the addition of troops from France, Great Britain, 

New Zealand, and the British Empire (India). General Eisenhower, 

meanwhile, had relinquished command in the Mediterranean early in 

January to go to Britain to prepare for the coming invasion of France. 

He was succeeded by British Field Marshal Sir Henry M. Wilson.

On May 11 the Fifth and Eighth Armies launched a new, carefully 

synchronized attack to break the Winter Line. Passing through almost 

trackless mountains, French troops under General Clark’s command 

scored a penetration that unhinged the German position. As the 

Soldiers enter the town of Caiazzo after crossing the Volturno River.
American Military History

146

Germans began to fall back, the VI Corps attacked from the Anzio 

beachhead but at Clark’s direction turned north toward Rome, away 

from the enemy’s routes of withdrawal. On June 4 U.S. troops entered 

the “Eternal City.”

With D-Day in Normandy only two days off, the focus of the 

Allied war against Germany shifted to France; with the shift came a 

gradual diminution of Allied strength in Italy. Allied forces nevertheless continued to pursue the principle of the offensive. Reaching a new 

German position in the Northern Apennines, the Gothic Line, they 

started in August a four-month campaign that achieved penetrations; 

but they were unable to break out of the mountains. This period also 

saw a change in command as General Clark became commander of the 

Allied army group and Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott assumed command 

of the Fifth Army.

In the spring of 1945 the Fifth and Eighth Armies penetrated a final 

German defensive line to enter the fertile plains of the Po River valley. 

On May 2 the Germans in Italy surrendered. 

Less generally acclaimed than other phases of 

World War II, the campaign in Italy nevertheless had a vital part in the overall conduct of the 

war. At the crucial time during the Normandy 

landings, Allied troops in Italy were tying down 

perhaps as many as twenty-six German divisions 

that well might have upset the balance in France. 

As a result of this campaign, the Allies obtained 

airfields useful for strategic bombardment of 

Germany and the Balkans; the conquest of the 

peninsula further guaranteed the safety of Allied 

shipping in the Mediterranean.

Cross-Channel Attack

Even as the Allied ground campaign was 

proceeding on the shores of the Mediterranean, 

three other campaigns were under way from the 

British Isles: the campaign of the U.S. and the 

Royal Navies to defeat the German submarine; a 

U.S.-British strategic bombing offensive against 

Germany; and, intricately tied in with the other 

two, a logistical marathon to assemble the men 

and tools necessary for a direct assault.

Most critical of all was the antisubmarine 

campaign, for without success in that the two 

others could progress only feebly at best. The 

turning point in that campaign came in the 

spring of 1943, when the full effect of all the 

various devices used against the U-boat began to 

appear. Despite the subsequent German introduction of an acoustical torpedo that homed on 

the noise of an escort’s propellers and later of 

the schnorkel, a steel tube extending above water 

by means of which the U-boat could charge its African-American troops cross the Arno during 

the drive to the Gothic Line. 
world war II: The war against germany and italy

147

batteries without surfacing, Allied shipping losses continued to decline. 

In the last two years of the war the submarines would sink only oneseventh of the shipping they had in the earlier years.

In the second campaign, the Combined Bomber Offensive the U.S. 

and British chiefs directed at Casablanca, the demands of the war in the 

Pacific and the Mediterranean slowed American participation. Not until 

the summer of 1943 were sufficient U.S. bombers available in Britain to 

make a substantial contribution, and not until February 1944 were U.S. 

airmen at last able to match the thousand-plane raids of the British.

While the Royal Air Force struck by night, bombers of the U.S. 

Army Air Forces hit by day; both directed much of their attention to 

the German aircraft industry in an effort to cripple the German air 

arm before the invasion. Although the raids imposed some delays on 

German production, the most telling effect was the loss of German 

fighter aircraft and trained pilots to oppose the Allied bombers. As time 

for the invasion approached, the German air arm had ceased to represent a real threat to Allied ground operations, and Allied bombers could 

shift their attention to transportation facilities in France in an effort to 

restrict the enemy’s ability to move reserves against the invasion.

The logistical buildup in the British Isles, meanwhile, had been 

progressing at an ever-increasing pace, one of the greatest logistical 

undertakings of all time. The program entailed transporting more than 

1.6 million men across the submarine-infested Atlantic before D-Day 

and providing for their shelter, hospitalization, supply, training, and 

general welfare. Mountains of weapons and equipment, ranging from 

locomotives and big bombers to dental fillings, also had to be shipped.

Planning for the invasion had begun long before as the British, 

standing alone, looked to the day when they might return to the continent. Detailed planning began in 1943, when the Combined Chiefs of 

Staff appointed British Lt. Gen. Frederick E. Morgan as Chief of Staff 

to a Supreme Commander yet to be named. Under Morgan’s direction, 

As time for the invasion 

approached, the German air 

arm had ceased to represent 

a real threat to Allied ground 

operations.

Eisenhower gives the order of the day, “Full Victory—nothing else.”
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148

Omaha Beach

The landing on Omaha Beach of the U.S. 

1st and 29th Infantry Divisions and U.S. Army 

Rangers was the most difficult of the Normandy 

invasion. Seven thousand yards long and 

backed by bluffs that stood up to 170 feet 

in height, the beach ranged from 18 feet in 

width at high tide to 900 at low. Putting those 

advantages to good use, the Germans had 

laid a tangle of underwater obstructions just 

offshore to sink incoming landing craft and had 

dug positions into the cliffs to place any troops 

who landed under deadly cross-fires. Unknown 

to the Americans, the enemy’s highly disciplined 

352d Infantry Division manned many of those 

defenses. The defenses were so effective that 

for a time General Bradley contemplated withdrawing. Even so, brave young Americans slowly fought their way 

across the sand and through the cliffs. By nightfall, first in a trickle and then in a stream, some 34,000 soldiers had 

made their way ashore. 

American soldiers land on the coast of France under heavy fire from the 

Germans, June 6, 1944.

British and American officers drew up plans for several contingencies, 

one of which, Operation Overlord, anticipated a large-scale assault 

against a still-powerful German Army. This plan served as the basis for 

a final plan developed early in 1944 after General Eisenhower, designated as the Supreme Commander, arrived in Britain and established 

his command, Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, or 

SHAEF.

The overall ground commander for the invasion was the former 

head of the British Eighth Army, General Montgomery, who also 

commanded the 21st Army Group, the controlling headquarters for 

the two Allied armies scheduled to make the invasion. The British 

Second Army under Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey was to assault on 

the left, the First U.S. Army under Bradley (promoted now to lieutenant 

general) on the right.

The choice of invasion beaches was sharply limited by numerous 

requirements. They had to be within easy range of fighter aircraft 

based in Britain and close to at least one major port and usable airfields. 

The state of German defenses and the need to fool the enemy into 

thinking that the main invasion was yet to come in another location 

further narrowed the selection, leaving only one logical site: the base 

of the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy, southeast of Cherbourg. To 

facilitate supply until Cherbourg or some other port could be opened, 

two artificial harbors were to be towed from Britain and emplaced off 

the invasion beaches.

Despite a weather forecast of high winds and a rough sea, General 

Eisenhower made a fateful decision to go ahead with the invasion on 
world war II: The war against germany and italy

149

June 6. During the night over 5,000 

ships moved to assigned positions; at 

two o’clock on the morning of the 

sixth the Allies began the operation 

for which the world had long and 

anxiously waited. One British and two 

U.S. airborne divisions (the 82d and 

101st) dropped behind the beaches 

to secure routes of egress for the 

seaborne forces. Following preliminary 

aerial and naval bombardment, the first 

waves of infantry and tanks began to 

touch down at 6:30, just after sunrise. 

A heavy surf made the landings difficult but, as in Sicily, put the defenders 

off their guard.

The assault went well on the 

British beaches, where one Canadian 

and two British divisions landed, and 

also at Utah, westernmost of the 

U.S. beaches, where the 4th Infantry 

Division came ashore. (See Map 5.) The story was different at Omaha

Beach. Although Ultra had pinpointed most of the German divisions 

manning the coastal defenses, it had missed a powerful enemy division that occupied the high bluffs laced with pillboxes overlooking the 

landing beach. When Allied intelligence detected the 352d Division’s 

presence, it was too late to alter the landing plan. Only through improvisation, personal courage, and accurate naval gunfire support were 

the men of two regiments of the 1st Division and one of the 29th at 

last able to work their way up the bluffs to move slowly inland. Some 

50,000 U.S. troops made their way ashore on the two beaches before 

the day was out. American casualties were approximately 6,500, British 

and Canadian 3,000—in both cases lighter than expected.

The German command was slow to react to the invasion, having 

been misled not only by the weather but also by an Allied deception 

plan that continued to lead the enemy to believe that this was only a 

diversionary assault and that the main landings were to come later on the 

Pas de Calais. Only in one instance, against the British who were solidly 

ashore, did the Germans mount a sizable counterattack on D-Day.

Buildup and Breakout

While Ultra monitored the success of the Allied deception plan 

and Allied aircraft and French resistance fighters impeded the movement of those German reserves that did move to Normandy, the Allies 

quickly built up their strength and linked the beachheads. U.S. troops 

then moved against Cherbourg, taking the port after bitter fighting, 

three weeks following the invasion. Other Allied forces had in the 

meantime deepened the beachhead between Caen and the road center 

of St. Lô, so that by the end of June the most forward positions were 

twenty miles from the sea. The Germans still had been able to mount 

no major counterattack.

U.S. Troops Moving Ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day
Map 5

X X X

VII

X X

4

X X

82

X X

101

U T A H

A

M

E

R I C A N 

Merderet R

Douve R Douve R

Taute R

Vire R

Valognes

St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte

Ste. Mère-Eglise

Lessay

Périers

CARENTAN

Coutances

ST. LÔ

Isigny

Grandcam

les-Bains

les Dunes

de Varreville

CHERBOURG

les Pieux

Auderville

Montebourg

Bareur

Quinéville
X X

3 Cdn

X

I

X X X

V

X X X

30

X X X

1 

X

X X

29(-)

X X

50 Br

X X

3 Br

X X

1(+)

X X

6 Br(-)

O M A H A

G O L D

J U N O

S W O R D

F I R S T U S

x x x x

S E C O N D B R

N B E A C H E S

B R I T I S H A N D C A N A D I A N

B E A C H E S

Drôme R

Odon R

Dives R

Caumont

Balleroy Tilly-sur-Seulles

Bully

BAYEUX

mp- 

s

Vierville-sur-Mer

St. Laurent-sur-Mer

Trévières

Collevillesur-Mer

Arromanches- les-Bains Courseullessur-Mer

Lion-sur-Mer

Ouistreham

Cabourg

Troarn

CAEN

Port-en-Bessin

Pointe du Hoc

D-DAY

6 June 1944

Drop Zones

D-Day Phase Line

0 15

Miles

ELEVATION IN METERS

0 50 100 200 and Above
American Military History

152

Commanded by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the enemy 

nevertheless defended tenaciously in terrain ideally suited to the defense. 

This was hedgerow country, where through the centuries French farmers 

had erected high banks of earth around every small field to fence in livestock and protect crops from coastal winds. These banks were thick with 

the roots of shrubs and trees; and in many places, sunken roads screened 

by a canopy of tree branches ran between two hedgerows. Tunneling into 

the hedgerows and using the sunken roads for lines of communication, 

the Germans had turned each field into a small fortress.

For all the slow advance and lack of ports (a gale on June 19 demolished one of the artificial harbors and damaged the other), the Allied 

buildup was swift. By the end of June close to a million men had come 

ashore, along with some 586,000 tons of supplies and 177,000 vehicles. 

General Bradley’s First Army included four corps with two armored 

and eleven infantry divisions. British strength was about the same.

Seeking to end the battle of the hedgerows, the British attempted 

to break into more-open country near Caen, only to be thwarted 

by concentrations of German armor. General Bradley then tried a 

breakout on the right near St. Lô. Behind an intensive aerial bombardment that utilized both tactical aircraft and heavy bombers, the First 

Army attacked on July 25. By the second day American troops had 

opened a big breach in German positions, whereupon armored divisions drove rapidly southward twenty-five miles to Avranches at the 

base of the Cotentin peninsula. While the First Army turned southeastward, the Third U.S. Army under General Patton entered the line to 

swing through Avranches into Brittany in quest of ports.

The arrival of the Third Army signaled a major change in command. 

General Bradley moved up to command the 12th Army Group, composed 

of the First and Third Armies; his former deputy, Lt. Gen. Courtney 

H. Hodges, assumed command of the First Army. Montgomery’s 21st 

Army Group consisted of the British Second Army and a newcomer 

to the front, the First Canadian Army under Lt. Gen. Henry D. G. 

Crerar. General Montgomery continued to function as overall ground 

commander, an arrangement that was to prevail for another five weeks 

until General Eisenhower moved his headquarters to the continent and 

assumed direct command of the armies in the field.

In terms of the preinvasion plan, General Eisenhower intended 

to establish a solid lodgment area in France extending as far east as 

the Seine River to provide room for air and supply bases. Having built 

up strength in this area, he planned then to advance into Germany 

on a broad front. Under the 21st Army Group he would concentrate 

his greatest resources north of the Ardennes region of Belgium along 

the most direct route to the Ruhr industrial region, Germany’s largest 

complex of mines and industry. Bradley’s 12th Army Group, meanwhile, was to make a subsidiary thrust south of the Ardennes to seize 

the Saar industrial region along the Franco-German frontier. A third 

force invading southern France in August was to provide protection on 

Bradley’s right.

The First Army’s breakout from the hedgerows changed that plan, 

for it opened the German armies in France to crushing defeat. When 

the Germans counterattacked toward Avranches to try to cut off leading 

columns of the First and Third Armies, other men of the First Army 

Olive Drab Field Jacket of the 104th Infantry 

Division, 1945
world war II: The war against germany and italy

153

stood firm, setting up an opportunity for exploiting the principle of 

maneuver to the fullest. While the First Canadian Army attacked toward 

Falaise, General Bradley directed mobile columns of both the First 

and Third Armies on a wide encircling maneuver in the direction of 

Argentan, not far from Falaise. This caught the enemy’s counterattacking 

force in a giant pocket. Although the Allies closed the fifteen-mile gap 

between Falaise and Argentan only after many of the Germans escaped, 

more than 60,000 were killed or captured in the pocket. Great masses of 

German guns, tanks, and equipment fell into Allied hands.

While the First Army finished the business at Argentan, Patton’s 

Third Army dashed off again toward the Seine River with two objects: 

eliminating the Seine as a likely new line of German defense and 

making a second, wider envelopment to trap those German troops that 

had escaped from the first pocket. Patton largely accomplished both 

objectives. In the two pockets, the enemy lost large segments of two 

field armies.

Invasion of Southern France

Even as General Eisenhower’s armies were scoring a great victory 

in Normandy, on August 15 the Allies staged another invasion, this 

one in southern France. Operation Dragoon, originally code-named 

Anvil, sought to establish a supplementary line of communications 

through the French Mediterranean ports and to prevent the Germans 

in the south from moving against the main Allied armies in the north. 

It also provided an opportunity for the Allies to bring to bear in France 

the troops from the Mediterranean Theater, including the sizable Free 

French forces in North Africa and Italy. Lack of landing craft had 

precluded launching this invasion at the same time as Overlord.

Under control of the Seventh U.S. Army, commanded now by Lt. 

Gen. Alexander M. Patch, three U.S. divisions, plus an airborne task 

force and French commandos, began landing just after dawn. The 

defending Germans were spread too thin to provide much more than 

token resistance, and by the end of the first day the Seventh Army had 

86,000 men and 12,000 vehicles ashore. The next day French troops 

staged a second landing and moved swiftly to seize the ports of Toulon 

and Marseille.

Faced with entrapment by the spectacular Allied advances in the 

north, the Germans in southern France began to withdraw on August 

17. U.S. and French columns followed closely and on September 11 

established contact with Patton’s Third Army. Under the 6th Army 

Group, commanded by Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, the Seventh Army 

and French forces organized as the 1st French Army passed to General 

Eisenhower’s command.

Pursuit to the Frontier

As Allied columns were breaking loose all over France, men 

and women of the French resistance movement began to battle the 

Germans in the streets of the capital. Although General Eisenhower 

had intended to bypass Paris, hoping to avoid heavy fighting in the city 

and to postpone the necessity of feeding the civilian population, he felt 

Men of the First Army stood 

firm, setting up an opportunity 

for exploiting the principle of 

maneuver to the fullest.
American Military History

154

Red Ball Express

With supply deliveries to the Allied armies 

slowing to a trickle beyond the Seine, and the military 

desperate for a solution, Red Ball’s trucks began 

rolling on August 25, 1944. Four days later the Red 

Ball Express had 132 truck companies, the majority 

being African-American units, operating 5,958 vehicles. 

Working almost around the clock and ignoring blackout 

rules at night, they moved over 12,000 tons of critical 

materiel—especially fuel and ammunition—from St. 

Lô to Chartres. This was the peak of the operation. 

When the Red Ball Express finally suspended activity in 

mid-November, it had averaged 7,000 tons of supplies 

every day and, contrary to initial expectations, was 

operating east of the Seine in support of the advance. 

compelled to send help lest the uprising be defeated. On August 25 a 

column including U.S. and French troops entered the city.

With surviving enemy forces falling back in defeat toward the 

German frontier, General Eisenhower abandoned the original plan of 

holding at the Seine while he opened the Brittany ports and established 

a sound logistical base. Determined to take advantage of the enemy’s 

defeat, he reinforced Montgomery’s 21st Army Group by sending the 

First U.S. Army close alongside the British, thus providing enough 

strength in the northern thrust to assure quick capture of ports along 

the English Channel, particularly the great Belgian port of Antwerp. 

Because the front was fast moving away from Brittany, the channel 

ports were essential. 

Ports posed a special problem: with the stormy weather of fall 

and winter approaching, the Allies could not much longer depend 

upon supply over the invasion beaches; Cherbourg had only a limited 

capacity. Even though Brittany now was far behind the advancing front, 

General Eisenhower still felt a need for the port of Brest. (See Map 

6.) He put those troops of the Third Army that had driven into the 

peninsula under a new headquarters, the Ninth U.S. Army commanded 

by Lt. Gen. William H. Simpson, and set them to the task. When Brest 

fell two weeks later, the port was a shambles. The port problem nevertheless appeared to be solved when on September 4 British troops took 

Antwerp, its wharves and docks intact; but the success proved illusory. 

Antwerp is on an estuary sixty miles from the sea, and German troops 

clung to the banks, denying access to Allied shipping.

The port situation was symptomatic of multitudinous problems 

that had begun to beset the entire Allied logistical apparatus (organized 

much like Pershing’s Services of Supply but called the Communications 

Zone). The armies were going so far and so fast that the supply services 

An MP waves on a convoy of the Red Ball Express near 

Alençon, France.
world war II: The war against germany and italy

155

were unable to keep pace. Although enough supplies were available in 

Normandy, the problem was to get them to forward positions sometimes more than 500 miles beyond the depots. Despite extraordinary 

measures such as establishing a one-way truck route called the Red Ball 

Express, supplies of such essential commodities as gasoline and ammunition began to run short. This was the penalty the Allied armies would 

have to pay for the decision to not to pause at the Seine.

The logistical crisis sparked a difference over strategy between 

Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery. In view of the logistical difficul-

ties, Montgomery insisted that General Patton’s Third Army should halt 

to allow all transportation resources to concentrate behind his troops and 

the First Army. This allocation, he believed, would enable him to make a 

quick strike deep into Germany and impel a German surrender.

Acting on the advice of logistical experts on his staff, Eisenhower 

refused Montgomery’s request. Such a drive could succeed, his staff 

advised, only if all Allied armies had closed up to the Rhine River and 

if Antwerp were open to Allied shipping. The only choice, General 

Eisenhower believed, was to keep pushing all along the line while supplies 

held out, ideally to go so far as to gain bridgeheads over the Rhine.

Obstacles other than supply stood in the way of that goal. Some 

were natural, like the Moselle and Meuse Rivers, the Vosges Mountains 

in Alsace, the wooded hills of the Ardennes, and a dense Huertgen 

Forest facing the First Army near Aachen. Other obstacles were manmade: old French forts around Metz and the French Maginot Line in 

northeastern France, as well as dense fortifications all along the German 

border (the Siegfried Line, or, as the Germans called it, the West Wall). 

By mid-September the First Army had penetrated the West Wall at 

several points but lacked the means to exploit the breaks. Meanwhile, 

Patton’s Third Army was encountering tough resistance in its attempts 

to establish bridgeheads over the Moselle near Metz and Nancy.

Although General Eisenhower assigned first priority to clearing 

the seaward approaches to Antwerp, he sanctioned a Montgomery 

proposal to use Allied airborne troops in a last bold stroke to capitalize 

on German disorganization before logistics should force a halt. While 

the British Second Army launched an attack called Operation 

Garden, 

airborne troops of the recently organized First Allied Airborne Army 

(Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton) were to land in Operation 

Market astride 

three major water obstacles in the Netherlands: the Maas, Waal, and 

Lower Rhine Rivers. Crossing these rivers on bridges to be secured 

by the airborne troops, the Second Army was to drive all the way to 

the Ijssel Meer (Zuider Zee), cutting off Germans farther west and 

putting the British in a position to outflank the West Wall and drive into 

Germany along a relatively open north German plain.

Employing one British and two U.S. airborne divisions, the Allies 

began the airborne attack on September 17. On the first day alone 

approximately 20,000 paratroopers and glider troops landed in the 

largest airborne attack of the war. Although the drops were spectacularly successful and achieved complete surprise, the presence near the 

drop zones of two panzer divisions—which 

Ultra spotted but Allied 

planners discounted—enabled the Germans to react swiftly. Resistance 

to the ground attack also was greater than expected, delaying a quick 

linkup with the airheads. The combined operation gained a salient 
Map 6

Loire R

Seine R

N O R T H

S E A

E N G

L

I S H C H A N N

E

L

6 Jun 44

US & BR

Jun 44

Aug 44

Aug 44

Aug 44

Aug 44

Aug 44

PA S D E

C A L A I S

B

R I T

T

A

N

Y

N O R M A N D Y

F R A N C E

E N G L A N D

B

E

L

G

I

Cherbourg

Brest

Reims

PARIS Argentan

Avranches

Falaise

Caen St. Lô

Le Havre

Amiens

Lille

Antwerp

BRU

Th

Bristol

LONDON

Southampton

0o 

0o 

52o

48o

N O RT H E R N E U R O P E

0 50 100

Miles

Axis of Allied Advance, Date Indicated
Elbe R

Waal R

Maas R

Rhine R

Roer R

Lower Rhine

Weser R

Mulde R

Main R

Danube R

Saar R

Mosel R

Meuse R 

Sep 44

Dec 44

Dec 44

Dec 44

May 45

May 45

May 45

May 45

May 45

Mar 45

Mar 45

Mar 45

Sep 44

Sep 44

Sep 44

R U H R

A R D E N N E S

E I F E L

G E R M A N Y

S W I T Z E R L A N D

C Z E C H O S L O V A K I A

LUXEMBOURG

L I E C H T E N S T E I N

U

M

A U S

T

R

I

A

H

O

L

L

A

N

D

Dijon

Munich

PRAGUE

Torgau

Leipzig

BERLIN

Cologne

Frankfurt

Metz 

p

USSELS Aachen

Liége

St. Vith

Bastogne

Monschau

Remagen

AMSTERDAM

he Hague

10o

10o

52o

48o
American Military History

158

some fifty miles deep into German-held territory but fell short of the 

ambitious objectives, including a bridgehead across the Lower Rhine.

At this point, Montgomery (promoted now to field marshal) 

concentrated on opening Antwerp to Allied shipping, but so determined was German resistance and so difficult the conditions of mud 

and flood in the low-lying countryside that it was well into November 

before the job was finished. The first Allied ship dropped anchor in 

Antwerp only on November 28.

As a result of a cutback in offensive operations and the extraordinary efforts of the supply services, aided by the availability of 

the Mediterranean ports, the logistical situation had been gradually 

improving. In early November resources were sufficient to enable the 

U.S. armies to launch a big offensive aimed at reaching the Rhine; but, 

despite the largest air attack in direct support of ground troops during 

the war (Operation Queen), it turned out to be a slow, arduous fight 

through the natural and artificial obstacles along the frontier. Heavy 

rain and severe cold added to the difficulties. By mid-December the 

First and Ninth Armies had reached the Roer River east of Aachen, 

twenty-three miles inside Germany, and the Third Army had come up 

to the West Wall along the Saar River northeast of Metz; but only the 

Seventh Army and the 1st French Army in Alsace had touched any 

part of the Rhine.

Having taken advantage of the pause imposed by Allied logistical 

problems to create new divisions and rush replacements to the front, 

the Germans in the west had made a remarkable recovery from the 

debacle in France. Just how remarkable was soon to be forcefully 

demonstrated in what had heretofore been a quiet sector held by the 

First Army’s right wing.

It turned out to be a slow, 

arduous fight through the natural 

and artificial obstacles along the 

frontier.

Dismal Weather at Metz, Gary Sheadan, n.d.
world war II: The war against germany and italy

159

The Ardennes Counteroffensive

As early as the preceding August, Adolf 

Hitler had been contemplating a counteroffensive to regain the initiative in the west. 

Over the protests of his generals, who 

thought the plan too ambitious, he ordered 

an attack by twenty-five divisions, carefully 

conserved and secretly assembled, to hit 

thinly manned U.S. positions in the Ardennes 

region of Belgium and Luxembourg, cross 

the Meuse River, then push on northwestward to Antwerp. In taking Antwerp, Hitler 

expected to cut off and destroy the British 

21st Army Group and the First and Ninth 

U.S. Armies and thereby turn around the 

whole course of the war.

Under cover of inclement winter weather, 

Hitler concentrated his forces in the forests 

of the Eifel region, opposite the Ardennes. 

Although in hindsight Ultra and other Allied 

sources of intelligence gave some clues of the 

coming attack, the indicators did not stand 

out enough from other data to allow Allied 

intelligence agencies to forecast the coming offensive. Before daylight on 

December 16, the Germans attacked along a sixty-mile front, taking the 

VIII Corps and the south wing of the V Corps by surprise (See Map 7.) 

In most places, German gains were rapid; the American divisions were 

either inexperienced or seriously depleted from earlier fighting, and all 

were stretched thin. In one instance, two inexperienced regiments of 

the 106th Infantry Division were forced to surrender in the largest mass 

surrender of U.S. troops during the course of the war in Europe.

American Infantrymen of the 290th Regiment Fighting in 

Belgium in January 1945

German Planes Strafe Road in Belgium, Gary Sheadan, n.d.
Map 7

Rhine River

Meuse River

Roer River

Meuse River

Moselle River

XII SS

LXXXI

LXXIV

I SS Pz

II SS Pz

LXVII

LXVI

LVIII Pz

XLVII Pz

LXXXV

LXXX

XXXXX

XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

XXXXX

SIXTH PZ

ARMY

FIFTH PZ

ARMY

FIFTEENTH

ARMY

SEVENTH

ARMY

FIRST

ARMY

G

B

H

B

BR 21 Army Group

12th Army Group

6th Army Group

NINTH

ARMY

FIRST

ARMY

BR SECOND

ARMY

THIRD

ARMY

BR 30

XVIII

XX

XII

III

VII

VII

XVIII

V

VIII

 BR 51ID 5AD

9ID

2ID

99ID

30ID 1ID

82 

7AD

3AD

75ID

84ID 2AD

9AD

101

28ID

4AD

26ID 80ID 10AD

9AD

5ID

4ID

35ID

90ID

95ID

6AD

ABN

ABN

XXXX

XXXXX

XXXXX

7AD 106ID

28ID

XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

16 DEC

22 DEC

21 DEC

20 DEC

20 DEC

16 DEC

16 DEC

20 DEC

19 DEC

17 DEC

F R A N C E

G E R M A N Y

B E L G I U M

N E T H E R L A N D S

DÜSSELDORF

Cologne

BONN

SAARBRÜCKEN

TRIER

Bitburg

AACHEN

LIÈGE

LUXEMBOURG

VERDUN

METZ

Maastricht

Düren

Eupen

Schmidt

Losheim

Prüm

Monschau

Malmédy

Spa

Huy

Namur

Hotten

Dinant

Givet

St. Vith

Houffalize

Bastogne

Marche

Wiltz

Neufchâteau

Sedan

Sarreguemines

ELEVATION IN METERS

0 200 400 and Above

BATTLE OF THE BULGE

ID

ABN

AD

Infantry Division

Airborne Division

Armored Division

Front Line, 16 Dec

Front Line, 20 Dec

Front Line, 25 Dec

Allied Movements

German Attacks

0 30

Miles

16–25 December 1944

THE LAST GERMAN OFFENSIVE
world war II: The war against germany and italy

161

The Germans nevertheless encountered difficulties from the first. Cut off and surrounded, many 

small U.S. units continued to fight. At the northern 

shoulder of the penetration, divisions of the V Corps 

refused to budge from the vicinity of Monschau, 

thereby denying critical roads to the enemy and 

limiting the width of the penetration. At St. Vith, 

American troops held out for six days to block a vital 

road center. To Bastogne in the southwest, where 

an armored detachment served as a blocking force, 

General Eisenhower rushed an airborne division 

that never relinquished that communications center 

even though surrounded. Here, Brig. Gen. Anthony 

C. McAuliffe delivered a terse reply to a German 

demand for surrender: “Nuts!”

Denied important roads and hampered by air 

attacks as the weather cleared, the Germans fell a 

few miles short of even their first objective, the 

Meuse River. The result after more than a month 

of hard fighting that cost the Americans 75,000 

casualties and the Germans close to 100,000 was 

nothing but a big bulge in the lines from which 

the battle drew its popular name.

Faced with a shortage of infantry replacements during the enemy’s counteroffensive, 

General Eisenhower offered African-American 

soldiers in service units an opportunity to volunteer for duty with the infantry. More than 4,500 

responded, many taking reductions in grade in 

order to meet specified requirements. The 6th 

Army Group formed these men into provisional 

companies, while the 12th Army Group employed 

them as an additional platoon in existing rifle 

companies. The excellent record established by 

these volunteers, particularly those serving as platoons, presaged major 

postwar changes in the traditional approach to employing AfricanAmerican troops.

Although the counteroffensive had given the Allied command 

some anxious moments, the gallant stands by isolated units had 

Bastogne

General Eisenhower’s strategy of pursuing offensive operations on a broad front left him with scant 

reserves when the Germans launched their Ardennes offensive on December 16, 1944. Eisenhower ordered 

one of his two reserve divisions, the 101st Airborne Division, to the Belgian crossroads town of Bastogne. Its 

mission was to block the German advance, winning time for Eisenhower to mass forces for a counterattack on 

the German flanks. They held out against four German divisions and inflicted a fatal delay on the enemy. 

The siege ended on December 26, when the U.S. 4th Armored Division broke through the encirclement. 

Pamphlet for Bastogne, Olin Dows, 1945
American Military History

162

The Remagen Bridge

On March 7, 1945, a 9th Armored Division platoon discovered a bridge over the Rhine left standing to 

accommodate retreating German forces. Owing to misplacement of explosives, German engineers failed to 

destroy it as the Americans rushed across. General Eisenhower redirected troops toward Remagen and shifted 

the weight of his offensive from the northern to a central axis. Quick exploitation by U.S. forces resulted in 

rapid encirclement of the Ruhr, eliminating Germany’s heavy industrial heartland, along with a 325,000-man 

army, from the war. 

provided time for the First and Ninth Armies to shift troops against 

the northern flank of the penetration and for the Third Army to hit the 

penetration from the south and drive through to beleaguered Bastogne. 

A rapid shift and change in direction of attack by the Third Army was 

one of the more noteworthy instances during the war of successful 

employment of the principle of maneuver.

By the end of January 1945, U.S. units had retaken all lost ground 

and had thwarted a lesser German attack against the 6th Army Group 

in Alsace. The Germans had expended irreplaceable reserves, and the 

end of the war in Europe was in sight.

The Russian Campaigns

Much of the hope for an early end to the war rested with the 

tremendous successes of Soviet armies in the east. Having stopped the 

invading Germans at the gates of Moscow in late 1941 and at Stalingrad 

in late 1942, the Russians had made great offensive strides westward in 

both 1943 and 1944. Only a few days after D-Day in Normandy, the 

Red Army had launched a massive offensive that by mid-September 

had reached East Prussia and the gates of the Polish capital of Warsaw. 

In January 1945, as U.S. troops eliminated the bulge in the Ardennes, 

the Red Army started a new drive that was to carry to the Oder River, 

only forty miles from Berlin.

Overall, far greater masses of troops had been employed over the 

truly vast distances of the German Eastern Front than in the west. 

Even as late as December 1944, over 3.5 million Germans struggled 

against the Russians along a 700-mile front compared with fewer than 

1 million on the Western Front along a much narrower frontage. Yet 

the Soviet contribution was less disproportionate than would appear, 

for the war in the east was a one-front ground war, whereas the Allies 

in the west were fighting on two ground fronts (Western Europe and 

Italy) and conducting major campaigns in the air and at sea, as well as 

making a large commitment in the war against Japan. At the same time, 

the United States was contributing enormously to the war in Russia 

through Lend-Lease, almost $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps 

and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, enough 

to equip some twenty-odd U.S. armored divisions); 11,400 aircraft; 

and 1.75 million tons of food. While Russian casualties against the 

Germans dwarf American and British losses, it should be clear that 

only the Allies working together won World War II.
world war II: The war against germany and italy

163

The Final Offensive

Soon after the opening of the Soviet January offensive, the 

Western Allies began a new drive to reach and cross the Rhine, the last 

barrier to the industrial heart of Germany. Exhausted by the overambitious effort in the Ardennes and forced to shift divisions to oppose 

the Russians, the Germans had little chance of holding west of the 

Rhine. Although Field Marshal von Rundstedt wanted to conserve his 

remaining strength for a defense of the river, Hitler would authorize 

no withdrawal. Making a strong stand at the Roer River and at places 

where the West Wall remained intact, the Germans imposed some delay 

but paid dearly in the process, losing 250,000 troops that could have 

been used to better advantage on the Rhine.

Falling back behind the river, the Germans had made careful plans 

to destroy all bridges, but something went amiss at the Ludendorff 

railroad bridge in the First Army’s sector at Remagen. On March 7 a 

task force of the 9th Armored Division found the bridge damaged 

but passable. Displaying initiative and courage, a company of infantry 

dashed across. Higher commanders acted promptly to reinforce the 

foothold.

To the south, a division of the Third Army on March 22 made a 

surprise crossing of the Rhine in assault boats. Beginning late the next 

day the 21st Army Group and the Ninth U.S. Army staged a full-dress 

crossing of the lower reaches of the river, complete with an airborne 

attack rivaling in its dimensions Operation Market. The Third Army 

then made two more assault crossings, and during the last few days of 

March both the Seventh Army and the First French Army of the 6th 

Army Group crossed farther upstream. Having expended most of their 

resources west of the river, the Germans were powerless to defeat any 

Allied crossing attempt.

Liberating the Camps

As American troops advanced deeper into Germany, they 

encountered grim evidence of atrocities the Nazi regime had 

committed. In addition to numerous small concentration camps, 

Americans liberated the main camps of Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbürg, 

and Dachau in Germany and Mauthausen in Austria. U.S. Army units 

also freed more than 20,000 prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945. The soldiers of 

thirty-four U.S. divisions involved in liberating these camps confronted 

unspeakable conditions: piles of corpses often lay unburied. The 

surviving inmates resembled skeletons because the Nazi death 

machinery had systematically starved them while forcing them to 

perform hard labor. Many were so weak that they could hardly move. 

Disease was an ever-present danger, and the Allies had to burn down 

many of the camps to prevent the spread of epidemics. Former Concentration Camp Prisoners Headed 

to a Hospital for Medical Attention
American Military History

164

As the month of April 

opened, Allied armies fanned 

out from the Rhine all along the 

line with massive columns of 

armor and motorized infantry. 

Encircling the Ruhr, the First 

and Ninth Armies took 325,000 

prisoners, totally destroying an 

entire German army group. 

Although the Germans managed 

to rally determined resistance at 

isolated points, a cohesive defensive line ceased to exist.

Since the Russians were 

within forty miles of Berlin 

and apparently would reach the 

German capital first—which in 

any case lay within their already 

arranged postwar zone of occupation—General Eisenhower 

decided against sending his 

troops to join a costly battle 

for the city. Instead he put the 

main weight of his offensive 

behind the U.S. armies moving 

through central Germany to 

eliminate a remaining pocket 

of German industry and to 

link with the Russians. The 21st 

Army Group meanwhile sealed 

off the Netherlands and headed 

toward the base of the Jutland peninsula, while the 6th Army Group 

turned southeastward to obviate any effort by the Nazis to make a lastditch stand in the Alps of southern Germany and Austria.

By mid-April Allied armies in the north and center were building 

up along the Elbe and Mulde Rivers, an agreed line of contact with the 

Red Army approaching from the east. First contact came on April 25 

near the town of Torgau, followed by wholesale German surrenders all 

along the front and in Italy.

With Berlin in Soviet hands, Hitler a suicide, and almost every 

corner of Germany overrun, emissaries of the German government 

surrendered on May 7, 1945, at General Eisenhower’s headquarters in 

Reims, France. The next day, May 8, was V-E Day, the official date of 

the end of the war in Europe.

The Situation on V-E Day

As V-E Day came, Allied forces in Western Europe consisted of 

4.5 million men, including 9 armies (5 of them American—1 of which, 

the Fifteenth, saw action only at the last), 23 corps, 91 divisions (61 

of them American), 6 tactical air commands (4 American), and 2 strategic air forces (1 American). The Allies had 28,000 combat aircraft, 

American servicemen celebrate news of the German surrender with civilians 

at Piccadilly Circus, London, May 7, 1945.
world war II: The war against germany and italy

165

of which 14,845 were American; and they had brought into Western 

Europe more than 970,000 vehicles and 18 million tons of supplies. At 

the same time they were achieving final victory in Italy with 18 divisions 

(7 of them American).

The German armed forces and the nation were prostrate, beaten 

to a degree never before seen in modern times. Hardly any organized 

units of the German Army remained except in Norway, Denmark, 

Czechoslovakia, and the Balkans; these would soon capitulate. What 

remained of the air arm was too demoralized even for a final suicidal 

effort, and the residue of the German Navy lay helpless in captured 

northern ports. Through five years of war, the German armed forces 

had lost over 3 million men killed, 263,000 of them in the west, since 

D-Day. The United States lost 135,576 dead in Western Europe; while 

Britain, Canada, France, and other Allies combined incurred after 

D-Day approximately 60,000 military deaths.

Unlike in World War I, when the United States had come late on the 

scene and provided only those forces to swing the balance of power to 

the Allied side, the American contribution to the reconquest of Western 

Europe had been predominant, not just in manpower but as a true arsenal 

of democracy. American factories produced for the British almost three 

times more Lend-Lease materials than for the Russians, including 185,000 

vehicles, 12,000 tanks, and enough planes to equip four tactical air forces 

and for the French all weapons and equipment for 8 divisions and 1 

tactical air force plus partial equipment for 3 more divisions.

Although strategic air power had failed to prove the decisive instrument many had expected, it was a major factor in the Allied victory, as 

was the role of Allied navies; for without control of the sea lanes, there 

could have been no buildup in Britain and no amphibious assaults. 

It was nonetheless true that the application of the power of ground 

armies finally broke the German ability and will to resist.

While the Germans had developed a flying bomb and later a supersonic missile, the weapons with which both sides fought the war were 

in the main much improved versions of those that had been present in 

World War I: the motor vehicle, the airplane, the machine gun, indirectfire artillery, the tank. The difference lay in such accoutrements as 

improved radio communications and in a new sophistication in terms 

of mobility and coordination that provided the means for rapid exploitation that both sides in World War I had lacked.

From North Africa to the Elbe, U.S. Army generalship proved 

remarkably effective. Such field commanders as Bradley, Devers, Clark, 

Hodges, Patton, Simpson, Patch, and numerous corps and division 

commanders could stand beside the best that had ever served the 

nation. Having helped develop Army doctrine during the years between 

the two great wars, these same men put the theories to battlefield test 

with enormous success. Some indication of the magnitude of the 

responsibilities they carried is apparent from the fact that late in the war 

General Bradley as commander of the 12th Army Group had under 

his command 4 field armies, 12 corps, and 48 divisions, more than 1.3 

million men, the largest exclusively American field command in U.S. 

history.

These commanders consistently displayed a steady devotion to 

the principles of war. Despite sometimes seemingly insurmountable 

Having helped develop Army 

doctrine during the years between 

the two great wars, these same 

men put the theories to battlefield 

test with enormous success.
American Military History

166

obstacles of weather, terrain, and enemy concentration, they were generally able to achieve the mass, mobility, and firepower to avoid a stalemate, maintaining the principles of the objective and the offensive and 

exploiting the principle of maneuver to the fullest. On many occasions 

they achieved surprise, most notably in the amphibious assaults and 

at the Rhine. They were themselves taken by surprise twice, in central 

Tunisia and in the Ardennes; yet in both cases they recovered quickly. 

Economy of force was particularly evident in Italy, and simplicity was 

nowhere better demonstrated than in the Normandy landings, despite 

a complexity inherent in the size and diversity of the invasion forces. 

From the first, unity of command abided in every campaign, not just at 

the tactical level but also in the combined staff system that afforded the 

U.S. and Britain a unity of command and purpose never approached on 

the Axis side.

Discussion Questions

1. What mistakes did an inexperienced U.S. Army make in North 

Africa? Should it have played a more subsidiary role to the British until 

it acquired more experience?

2. Did the campaigns in the Mediterranean justify the investment 

in resources?

3. Why did the Allies invade in Normandy rather than another part 

of France or Europe? How did they achieve their breakout in July and 

August 1944?

4. Which was the proper strategy for the Allies in the late summer 

and fall of 1944: Montgomery’s single thrust or Eisenhower’s broad 

front? Defend your answer in light of both 

Market-Garden and the 

Battle of the Bulge.

5. Why did the Allies encounter logistical problems in the fall of 

1944? Should General Eisenhower have done more to consolidate his 

logistics prior to continuing his pursuit of the Germans toward the 

frontier?

6. What factors contributed to the success of American arms in the 

war against Germany and Italy during World War II? In your opinion, 

which ally contributed most to the eventual victory? Which branch of 

the armed services? Explain. Recommen

ded Readings

Ambrose, Stephen E. Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 

101st Airborne from Normandy to Eagle’s Nest. New York: Simon and 

Schuster, 2001.

Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943. 

New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2002.

D’Este, Carlo. Fatal Decision: Anzio and the Battle for Rome. New York: 

HarperCollins, 1991.

———. Patton: A Genius for War. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
world war II: The war against germany and italy

167

Heller, Charles E., and William A. Stofft, eds. America’s First Battles, 

1776–1965. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986. 

MacDonald, Charles B. Company Commander. Short Hills, N.J.: Burford 

Books, 1999.

———. The Mighty Endeavor: American Armed Forces in the European 

Theater during World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 

1969.

———. A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge. 

New York: William Morrow, 1985.

Murray, Williamson, and Allan R. Millett. A War To Be Won: Fighting 

the Second World War. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard 

University Press, 2000. 

Ryan, Cornelius. The Longest Day: June 6, 1944. New York: Simon and 

Schuster, 1994.

Other Readings

Bennett, Ralph.Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy. New York: Morrow, 

1989.

———.

Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign, 1944–45. New 

York: Scribner, 1979.

Blumenson, Martin. Breakout and Pursuit. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1990. 

———. Salerno to Cassino. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2002.

Clarke, Jeffrey J., and Robert R. Smith. Riviera to the Rhine. U.S. Army 

in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1993.

Cole, Hugh M. The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge. U.S. Army in World 

War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1994. 

———. The Lorraine Campaign. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1997.

Fisher, Ernest F., Jr. Cassino to the Alps. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2002.

Garland, Albert N., and Howard M. Smyth. Sicily and the Surrender of 

Italy. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 2002.

Harrison, Gordon. Cross-Channel Attack. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2002. 

Howe, George G. Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West. U.S. 

Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 2002. 

Huston, James A. The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1997, ch. 

30.

MacDonald, Charles B. The Last Offensive. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1990.

———. The Siegfried Line Campaign. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2001. 
American Military History

168

———, and Sidney T. Mathews. Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo, and 

Schmidt. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 2001.

Pogue, Forrest G. The Supreme Command. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1996.

Ruppenthal, Roland P. Logistical Support of the Armies, 2 vols. U.S. Army 

in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1987–1999.
I

n World War II, for the first time, the United States had to fight a 

war on two fronts. The central strategic principle governing allocation of resources to the two fronts provided for concentrating first 

on the defeat of the European Axis. The Americans liberally interpreted this principle, permitting an offensive war against Japan as well 

as against Germany in the years 1943–1945. The U.S. Fleet, expanding 

after its initial setback at Pearl Harbor, provided the main sinews for 

an offensive strategy in the Pacific. The Army devoted at least onethird of its resources to the Pacific war even at the height of war in 

Europe. In short, the United States proved capable, once its resources 

were fully mobilized, of successfully waging offensives on two fronts 

simultaneously, a development the Japanese had not anticipated when 

they launched their attack on Pearl Harbor.

Japan’s Strategy

Japan entered World War II with limited aims and with every intention of fighting a limited war. Its principal objectives were to secure 

the resources of Southeast Asia and much of China and to establish a 

“Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” under Japanese hegemony. 

In 1895 and in 1905 Japan had gained important objectives without 

completely defeating China or Russia, and in 1941 Japan sought to 

achieve its hegemony over East Asia in similar fashion. 

The operational strategy the Japanese adopted to initiate the war, 

however, doomed their hopes of limiting the conflict. Japan believed it 

necessary to destroy or neutralize American striking power in the Pacific 

(the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Far East Air Force 

in the Philippines) to secure its otherwise open strategic flank before 

moving southward and eastward to occupy Malaya, the Netherlands 

Indies, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, the Gilbert Islands, Thailand, 

and Burma. Once in control of these areas, the Japanese intended to 

6

World War II

The War against Japan
American Military History

170

establish a defensive perimeter stretching from the Kurile Islands south 

through Wake, the Marianas, the Carolines, and the Marshalls and 

Gilberts to Rabaul on New Britain. From Rabaul the perimeter would 

extend westward to northwestern New Guinea to encompass the Indies, 

Malaya, Thailand, and Burma. Japan thought that the Allies would wear 

themselves out in fruitless frontal assaults against the perimeter and 

would ultimately settle for a negotiated peace that would leave Japan in 

possession of most of its conquests.

The Japanese were remarkably successful in the execution of 

their offensive plan and by early 1942 had established their intended 

perimeter. But they badly miscalculated the psychological effect of 

their surprise attack at Pearl Harbor that unified a divided people 

and aroused the United States to wage a total, not a limited war. As a 

result, despite the tremendous tactical victory at Pearl Harbor, Japan 

lost in the long run any chance of conducting the war on its own 

terms. The Allies, responding to their defeats, sought no negotiated settlement but immediately began to seek the means to strike 

back. In February and March 1942 small carrier task forces of the 

Pacific Fleet hit the Marshalls, Wake, and Marcus and bombers from 

Australia began to harass the Japanese base at Rabaul. In April Army 

bombers led by Col. James H. Doolittle, 

flying off a naval carrier, 

delivered a hit-and-run raid on Tokyo. Meanwhile, the United States 

began to develop and fortify a line of communications across the 

southern Pacific to Australia and to strengthen the defenses of the 

“down-under” continent itself. These new bases, along with Alaska, 

Hawaii, and India, also strengthened during the period, could become 

the launching points for future counteroffensives. Once the Allies 

became strong enough to threaten the Japanese defensive perimeter 

from several directions, the Japanese would lose the advantage of 

interior lines and with it the strategic initiative. Japan did not have and 

could not produce the means to defend and hold at all points.

Perceiving the danger, the Japanese in a second-phase offensive 

tried to sever the Allied lines of communications to Australia and to 

expand their perimeter in the Pacific. In the spring of 1942 they pushed 

southeast from Rabaul to Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomons and 

seized Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians. But they failed in their main 

effort to take Midway Island, northwest of Hawaii; and in the naval 

battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in May and June, they lost four 

irreplaceable aircraft carriers and the bulk of their best naval pilots 

and planes. Midway was the turning point, for it redressed the naval 

balance in the Pacific and gave the Allies the strategic initiative. The 

Japanese, with the mobility of their carrier striking forces curtailed, had 

to abandon plans to cut the Allied South Pacific lifeline and turned 

instead to strengthening their defensive perimeter, planning to wage a 

protracted war of attrition in the hope of securing a negotiated end to 

the war.

Guadalcanal and Papua: The First Offensives

After Midway, the U.S. Joint Chiefs, responsible for direction of 

the war in the Pacific, almost naturally turned to the elimination of the 

threat to their line of communications in the south as the objective 
world war II: The War Against Japan

171

of the first offensive. In so doing they gave to American strategy in 

the Pacific a twist unanticipated in prewar planning, which had always 

presupposed that the main offensive in any war against Japan would 

be made directly across the Central Pacific from Hawaii toward the 

Philippines. The Joint Chiefs on July 2 directed Allied forces in the 

South and Southwest Pacific Areas to begin a series of operations 

aimed at the ultimate reduction of the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul 

on New Britain Island, thus establishing Allied control of the Bismarck 

Archipelago. 

The campaign would consist of three stages, or tasks. In Task One, 

forces of the South Pacific Area (under Vice Adm. Robert L. Ghormley 

until November 1942 and thereafter under Admiral William F. Halsey) 

would seize base sites in the southern Solomons. Admiral Chester W. 

Nimitz, whose vast Pacific Ocean Areas command included the North, 

Central, and South Pacific Areas as subtheaters, would supervise this 

stage. In Task Two, South Pacific forces would advance up the ladder 

of the Solomons while Southwest Pacific forces under General Douglas 

MacArthur would move up the north coast of New Guinea as far as 

Lae and Salamaua. In Task Three, the forces of the two theaters would 

converge on Rabaul and clear the rest of the Bismarck Archipelago, 

outflanking the Japanese naval base at Truk in the Caroline Islands and 

opening up the route for an assault to retake the Philippines. Tasks Two 

and Three would be executed under the strategic direction of General 

MacArthur. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, reserving to themselves final 

control of the assignment of tasks, allocation of resources, and timing 

of operations, would in effect provide unified command over Nimitz 

and MacArthur.

The offensive began on August 7, 1942, when the 1st Marine 

Division landed on Guadalcanal and nearby islands in the southern 

Solomons. The Japanese, taking full advantage of interior lines from 

their bases at Rabaul and Truk, reacted vigorously. Six times, from 

August to the end of November, they challenged American naval 

superiority in the South Pacific in a series of sharp surface engagements. Air battles occurred almost daily for a month or more after the 

landings. The Japanese sent in strong ground reinforcements, gambling 

Admiral Halsey Admiral Nimitz
American Military History

172

and ultimately losing substantial air and naval resources in the effort to 

hold Guadalcanal. The Americans had to reinforce heavily, deploying 

naval power, planes, soldiers, and marines in the battle at the expense 

of other theaters. Before the island was secured in November, another 

Marine division (the 2d), two Army divisions (the 25th and Americal), 

and one separate regiment, to mention only the major ground combat 

elements, had been thrown into the battle. The last act came in February 

1943, when the 43d Division moved into the Russell Islands, thirty-five 

miles northwest of Guadalcanal. On Guadalcanal and in the Russells, 

American forces then began to construct major air and logistical bases 

for further advances.

A Japanese overland drive toward Port Moresby in New Guinea had 

meanwhile forced General MacArthur to begin an offensive of his own—

the Papua Campaign. During the late summer the Japanese had pushed 

across the towering Owen Stanley Mountains toward Port Moresby from 

the Buna-Gona area on New Guinea’s northeastern coast and by midSeptember were only twenty miles from their objective. Australian ground 

forces drove the Japanese back to the north coast, where they strongly 

entrenched themselves around Buna and Gona. It took two Australian 

divisions, a U.S. Army division (the 32d), and another U.S. Army regiment 

almost four months of bitter fighting to dislodge the Japanese. Casualties 

were high and disease rampant; but as at Guadalcanal, the Allied forces 

learned much about jungle fighting, the importance of air power, and the 

need for thorough logistical preparation. They also discovered that the 

Japanese soldier, though a skillful, stubborn, and fanatic foe, could be 

defeated. The myth of Japanese invincibility was forever laid to rest in the 

jungles of Guadalcanal and Papua.

After Papua and Guadalcanal the tempo of operations in the 

South and Southwest Pacific Areas slowed while General MacArthur 

and Admiral Halsey gathered resources and prepared bases for the 

next phase. The Japanese in turn undertook to reinforce their main 

bases in New Guinea and the northern Solomons. In March 1943 they 

attempted to send a large convoy to Lae in New Guinea. Forewarned 

by signals intelligence, U.S. Army Air Force and Australian land-based 

aircraft repeatedly struck the slow-moving convoy. The four-day 

running air-sea fight became known as the Battle of the Bismarck 

Sea and cost the Japanese some 3,500 soldiers and sailors and much 

valuable shipping. During the following months Rabaul-based planes, 

reinforced by carrier planes flown in from the Carolines, sought unsuccessfully to knock out American air power in the southern Solomons.

Buna-Gona

Japan’s lodgment on the northeastern shore of New Guinea centered on its control of the outposts at Buna 

and Gona. To eliminate this threat, the Americans and Australians had to attack the Japanese frontally across the 

Owen Stanley Mountains and along the coast. Short of artillery ammunition and food, poorly trained and led, and 

suffering heavily from jungle diseases, the soldiers faltered; and the U.S. offensive soon sputtered to a halt. Only 

through dynamic leadership and persistent small-unit actions did the Allies take the two Japanese outposts, at a 

heavy cost. MacArthur determined there would be “No more Bunas!”
world war II: The War Against Japan

173

Search for a Strategy

Meanwhile, in the spring and summer of 1943, a strategy for the 

defeat of Japan began to take shape within Allied councils. The major 

Allied objective was control of the South China Sea and a foothold on 

the coast of China to sever Japanese lines of communications southward and to establish bases from which to subject Japan first to an 

intensive aerial bombardment and naval blockade and then, if necessary, 

an invasion. The first plans for this objective envisioned Allied drives 

from several different directions: by American forces across the Pacific 

(from the south and southwest toward the Philippines and from Hawaii 

across the Central Pacific) and by British and Chinese forces along a 

land line through Burma and China and a sea line from India via the 

Netherlands Indies, Singapore, and the Strait of Malacca into the South 

China Sea. Within the framework of this tentative long-range plan, 

the U.S. Joint Chiefs fitted their existing plans for completion of the 

campaign against Rabaul and a subsequent advance to the Philippines 

and developed a plan for the second drive across the Central Pacific. In 

1942 and 1943 they also pressed the Chinese and British to get a drive 

under way in Burma to reopen the supply line to China in phase with 

their Pacific advances, offering extensive air and logistical support.

The North Pacific line running from Alaska through the Kuriles 

to the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido also beckoned in 

early 1943 as a possible additional avenue of approach to Japan. The 

Joint Chiefs decided, however, that although the Japanese perimeter 

Kiska Raid, Edward Laning, 1943
American Military History

174

should be pushed back in this region, the foggy, cold North Pacific with 

its rock-bound and craggy islands was not a profitable area in which 

to undertake a major offensive. In May 1943 the U.S. 7th Division 

went ashore on Attu and, after three weeks of costly fighting through 

icy muck and over windswept ridges in a cold, almost constant fog, 

destroyed the 3,000-man Japanese garrison. In August a combined 

American-Canadian expedition landed on Kiska, some distance away, 

only to find that the Japanese had evacuated the island three weeks 

earlier. With the Japanese perimeter pushed back to the Kuriles, the 

Allied advance stopped; further operations were limited to nuisance 

air raids against these Japanese-held islands. Ground forces used in the 

attacks on Attu and Kiska were redeployed to the Central Pacific, and 

some of the defensive forces deployed in Alaska were also freed for 

employment elsewhere.

Prospects of an advance through China to the coast faded rapidly 

in 1943. At the Casablanca Conference in January, the Combined Chiefs 

agreed on an ambitious operation, called Anakim, to be launched in the 

fall to retake Burma and reopen the supply line to China. Anakim was to 

include a British amphibious assault on Rangoon and an offensive into 

central Burma, plus an American-sponsored Chinese offensive in the 

north involving convergence of forces operating from China and India. 

Anakim proved too ambitious; even limited offensives in Southeast 

Asia were postponed time and again for lack of adequate resources. 

Armor in Alaska, Edward Laning, 1943
world war II: The War Against Japan

175

By late 1943 the Americans had concluded that their Pacific forces 

would reach the China coast before either British or Chinese forces 

could come in through the back door. At the Sextant Conference in 

late November and early December 1943, the Combined Chiefs agreed 

that the main effort against Japan should be concentrated in the Pacific 

along two lines of advance, with operations in the North Pacific, China, 

and Southeast Asia to be assigned subsidiary roles.

In this strategy the two lines of advance in the Pacific—one across 

the Central Pacific via the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, Carolines, 

and Palaus toward the Philippines or Formosa (Taiwan) and the other 

in the Southwest Pacific via the north coast of New Guinea to the 

Vogelkop and then to the southern Philippines—were viewed as 

mutually supporting. Although the Joint Chiefs several times indicated 

a measure of preference for the Central Pacific as the area of main 

effort, they never established any real priority 

between the two lines, seeking instead to retain a 

flexibility that would permit striking blows along 

either line as opportunity offered. (See Map 8.)

The Central Pacific route promised to force a 

naval showdown with the Japanese and, once the 

Marianas were secured, to provide bases from 

which the U.S. Army Air Forces’ new B–29 

bombers could strike the Japanese home islands. 

The Southwest Pacific route was shorter, if 

existing bases were taken into consideration, and 

offered more opportunity to employ land-based 

air power to full advantage. The target area for 

both drives, in the strategy approved at Sextant, 

was to be the Luzon–Formosa–China coast area. 

Within this triangular area, the natural goal of 

the Southwest Pacific drive was the Philippines; 

but the goal of the Central Pacific drive could be 

either the Philippines or Formosa. As the drives 

along the two lines got under way in earnest in 

1944, the choice between the two became the 

central strategic issue.

Cartwheel: The Encirclement of 

Rabaul

In June 1943 MacArthur and Halsey resumed 

their offensive to reduce the Japanese stronghold 

at Rabaul—a prerequisite to further advances 

along the Southwest Pacific axis toward the 

Philippines. The plan for the campaign provided 

for a carefully phased series of operations in 

each theater, each designed to secure a strategic 

position where air cover could be provided for 

further advances. The first of the series started 

in late June, when MacArthur landed American 

troops on the Woodlark and Kiriwina Islands 

off eastern New Guinea and at Nassau Bay on At an Advanced South Pacific Base, Howard Brodie, 1943
Map 8

S O U T H E A S T A S I A C O M M A N D

C 

S O U T H W E S T P A C I F I C A R E A

May 42

Ju

Aug 42

Jun 42

Aug 42

Jun 

Battle 

F

Battle of Okinawa Apr 45

S O U T H

C H I N A

S E A

I N D I A N

O C E A N

40o

80o 100o

80o 100o 120o 140o 

20o

0o

20o 

120o 140o 

60o

FORMOSA

LUZON

Gu

PALAU

ISLANDS 

 

MINDANAO

B O R N E O

CELEBES S U M A T R A

N E W G U I N 

JAVA

U N I O N O F S O V I E T

S O C I A L I S T R E P U B L I C S

U S S R

T I B E T

N E P A L

B H U T A N

I N D I A

B U R M A

T H A I L A N D

F R E N C H

I N D O C H I N A

M A N C H U R I A

M O N G O L I A

K O R E A

A U S T R A L I A

PA

MALAYA

J

A

P H I L I P P I N E S

N E T H E R L A N D S I N D I E S

SARAWAK

NORTH

BORNEO

C H I N A

Hong Kong

Singapore

0 1600

Miles at the Equator

THE PACIFIC AXES OF ADVANCE

1942–1945

Allied Axis of Advance

Japanese Limit of Control
E N T R A L P A C I F I C A R E A

C E N T R A L P A C I F I C A R E A

C e n t r a l P a c i  c 

A x i s o f A d v a n c e

S o u t h w e s t P a c i  c 

A x i s o f A d v a n c e

N O R T H P A C I F I C A R E A

S O U T H P A C I F I C A R E A

un 42

May 42

Aug 42

Battle of Midway

4 Jun 42

Pearl Harbor Strike

7 Dec 41

Battle of Coral Sea

8 May 42

Jun 42

May 42 Aug 42

n 44 

 of Iwo Jima

Feb 45

P A C I F I C

O C E A N

B E R I N G S E A

C O R A L

S E A

160o

20o

0o

20o

180o 160o

160o 180o 160o

60o

40o

MARIANA

ISLANDS

uam

Truk

CAROLINE

ISLANDS

BISMARCK

ARCHIPELAGO

SOLOMON

ISLANDS

Guadalcanal

N E A

NEW

CALEDONIA

HAWAIIAN

ISLANDS

MIDWAY

ISLANDS

MARSHALL

ISLANDS

Makin

ELLICE

ISLANDS

NEW

HEBRIDES

FIJI

ISLANDS

TONGA ISLANDS

GILBERT

ISLANDS

Tarawa

A L E U T I A N I S L A N D S

Attu

U S S R

APUA

A

P

A

N
American Military History

178

the New Guinea coast and Halsey’s forces made their first landings on 

the New Georgia group in the central Solomons. From these beginnings, the operations proceeded up the ladder of the Solomons, along 

the coast of New Guinea, and across the straits to New Britain Island 

generally as scheduled, despite strong Japanese reaction.

In the Solomons, by early August Army forces under Halsey had 

secured New Georgia with its important Munda airfield; but the campaign 

was not completed until October, when U.S. and New Zealand troops 

occupied Vella Lavella, between New Georgia and Bougainville. At the 

end of October New Zealanders and U.S. marines landed on Treasury 

and Choiseul Islands to secure bases for the assault on Bougainville. 

That assault got under way on November 1, when the marines landed, 

soon followed by the Army’s 37th Division. During each phase of the 

Solomons campaign, the Japanese sought unsuccessfully to contest Allied 

air and naval supremacy, to land reinforcements, and to launch strong 

counterattacks against Allied beachheads, losing in the effort both planes 

and combat ships they could ill afford to spare. Air and naval losses in the 

Solomons crippled the Japanese Fleet for months to come and diverted 

forces otherwise available to contest the successful Central Pacific drive 

that got under way in November. With the repulse of the Japanese 

counterattack on Bougainville, by 

the end of November security of the 

American beachhead on that island 

was assured, permitting the development of a major American air base. 

With the taking of Bougainville, the 

main part of the South Pacific Area’s 

task in Operation Cartwheel was 

completed.

MacArthur’s forces meanwhile 

continued their offensives, with 

Australian troops carrying most of 

the burden in New Guinea. In early 

September the U.S. Army’s 503d 

Parachute Regiment, in the first 

airborne operation of the Pacific war, 

seized an airfield at Nadzab, inland 

from Lae and Salamaua. Amphibious 

assaults by Australian troops cleared 

Lae and Salamaua by mid-September. 

Elements of the U.S. 32d Division 

landed at the western end of the 

Huon peninsula in January 1944 in 

an attempt to trap a large Japanese 

force; but by the time Australian 

and American units had sealed the 

western exits to the peninsula, most 

of the Japanese had escaped northwest to Hansa Bay and Wewak.

In the meantime, MacArthur 

and Halsey had assembled the 

Howard Brodie for Yank Magazine forces to launch a final offensive , 1943
world war II: The War Against Japan

179

toward Rabaul; but the Joint Chiefs decided that the actual seizure 

of that objective would be too costly in terms of men, equipment, 

and time. They preferred to encircle Rabaul, neutralize it by air 

bombardment, and push on to seize an offensive base farther west, 

in the Admiralty Islands. A new series of operations toward these 

ends started in MacArthur’s theater on December 15, 1943, when U.S. 

Army units landed on the south coast of western New Britain; on the 

twenty-sixth the 1st Marine Division landed on the north coast. In 

mid-February 1944 New Zealand troops of the South Pacific Area 

secured an air base site on Green Island, north of Rabaul. On the last 

day of the month MacArthur began landing the 1st Cavalry Division 

(an infantry unit retaining its former designation) on the Admiralties, 

closing the western and northwestern approaches to Rabaul. Marines 

under Halsey seized a final air base site on Emirau, north of Rabaul, 

on March 20; Marine and Army units under MacArthur secured additional positions in western and central New Britain from March to 

May 1944. The major Japanese base at Rabaul, with its 100,000-man 

garrison, was as effectively out of the war as if it had been destroyed. 

In the process of encircling Rabaul, the Allies had also left to wither 

on the vine another important Japanese base at Kavieng on New 

Ireland, north of Rabaul.

In the last phase of the campaign against Rabaul, a pattern developed that came to characterize much of the war in the Southwest and 

Central Pacific. The Allies, taking full advantage of intelligence gleaned 

from deciphering Japanese military and naval radio communications, 

would mount no frontal attacks against strongly entrenched Japanese 

forces if they could avoid it; they would not advance island by island 

across a vast ocean studded with myriad atolls and island groups. Rather, 

they would advance in great bounds, limited only by the range of landbased air cover or the availability of carrier-based air support. The 

Allies would deceive, surprise, and outflank the Japanese; they would 

bypass major strong points and leave them reduced to strategic and 

tactical impotence. The Japanese would be given no chance to recover 

from one strike before they would face another one from a different, 

often unexpected, direction.

Soldiers use flamethrowers to smoke out the enemy on Kwajalein Island.
American Military History

180

The Central Pacific Drive Begins

In the South and Southwest Pacific, the necessity for relying 

primarily on support of land-based aircraft curtailed the length of the 

jumps to the operational radius of fighter planes. The Navy’s limited 

supply of aircraft carriers could not be employed to best advantage 

in the restricted waters around New Guinea and the Solomons. By 

mid-1943, however, new larger and faster carriers of the Essex class 

(27,000 tons) and lighter carriers of the Independence class (11,000 tons) 

were joining the Pacific Fleet. Around these new carriers Admiral Nimitz 

built naval task forces tailored to each particular operation. The task 

forces consisted of a mix of carriers, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, 

submarines, minesweepers, and support craft. In the broad expanses of 

the Central Pacific, these air-carrier task forces could provide both air 

and naval support for far longer leaps forward, while the entire Pacific 

Fleet stood ready to confront the main Japanese Fleet at any time the 

Japanese chose to give battle.

The Central Pacific drive got under way on November 20, when 

Nimitz sent Army and Marine forces to the Gilbert Islands to seize 

bases from which to support subsequent jumps into the Marshalls. 

Troops and supplies for the Gilberts loaded at Hawaii on newly developed assault shipping and sailed more than 2,000 miles to be set ashore 

by specially designed landing craft and amphibian vehicles. Makin, the 

Army objective, fell to the 27th Division after four days of hard fighting. 

Tarawa, where the 2d Marine Division went ashore, proved a bloody 

affair that provided a stiff test for American amphibious doctrine, techniques, and equipment. Naval gunfire vessels and carrier-based aircraft 

provided support during and after the assault.

The advance to the Gilberts disclosed that U.S. forces had not 

entirely mastered certain aspects of amphibious warfare, especially 

naval gunfire support, coordination of air support, and ship-to-shore 

communications. But the Americans learned valuable lessons that, 

added to the earlier experiences of the South and Southwest Pacific 

Areas, established a pattern of island warfare that represented one 

of the major tactical developments of the war. First, air and naval 

forces isolated an objective, softened its defenses, and isolated it from 

outside reinforcement; simultaneously, joint forces would attack or 

feint toward other islands to deceive the Japanese. The approach 

of convoys carrying the ground assault forces to the main objective 

Japanese in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS)

Despite the poor treatment of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, many volunteered to 

serve their country in combat. Thousands also volunteered for potentially more dangerous duty. They enlisted as 

interpreters and translators in the MIS to serve in the Pacific interrogating Japanese prisoners of war and translating captured documents and intercepted transmissions. Had they been captured, there was little doubt of their 

fate. They volunteered nonetheless and served in the forward areas throughout the Pacific war and later in the 

occupation of Japan. 
world war II: The War Against Japan

181

signaled the opening of final, intensive air and naval bombardment 

of the landing beaches. Whenever practicable, small forces occupied 

neighboring islands as sites for land-based artillery. Under cover of 

all these supporting fires, the landing forces moved from ship to 

shore in echelons, or waves, rocket-firing landing craft in the lead and 

amphibian tanks and tractors following to carry the assault troops 

directly onto the beaches and inland. Finally came landing craft 

with more infantry and with tanks, artillery, and supporting troops. 

Supplies followed rapidly as the assault forces secured and expanded 

the beachhead. Amphibious techniques were refined and modified 

to some extent after the Gilberts, but the lessons learned there made 

it unnecessary to effect any radical changes in amphibious doctrine 

throughout the rest of the war.

Preoccupied with the Solomons and New Guinea, the Japanese did 

not react strongly to the loss of the Gilberts; at the end of January 1944 

Nimitz’ Army and Marine forces moved into the eastern and central 

Marshalls to seize Majuro and Kwajalein. The strength employed in 

this operation proved so preponderant and Japanese defenses so weak 

that Nimitz was able to accelerate his next advance by two-and-a-half 

months and on February 17 landed Marine and Army units on Eniwetok 

Atoll in the western Marshalls. Concurrently, he conducted a longawaited carrier strike against Truk in the central Carolines, considered 

Japan’s key naval bastion in the Central Pacific. The raid revealed that 

the Japanese had virtually abandoned Truk as a naval base, obviating its 

capture. Nimitz then drew up plans to invade the Marianas in mid-June 

and move on to the western Carolines and Palaus in mid-September, 

again accelerating the pace of the advance.

Cautiously Moving in on a Japanese Machine-Gun Position
American Military History

182

Acceleration of the Pacific Drive

General MacArthur had also pushed the Southwest Pacific Area’s 

timetable forward. Having landed in the Admiralties a month ahead of 

his original schedule, he proposed to cancel operations against Hansa 

Bay and Wewak on the northeast coast of New Guinea in favor of 

a jump to Hollandia and Aitape on the north-central coast in April, 

two months earlier than previously planned. His operations took full 

advantage of a windfall of deciphered Japanese Army communications 

that revealed not only the enemy’s dispositions along the New Guinea 

coast but his intentions as well. Armed with this awareness, MacArthur 

would then continue northwestward along the coast in a campaign 

to seize successive air base sites until he reached the Vogelkop at the 

eastern end of New Guinea. (See Map 9.) He would then proceed to 

Mindanao, southernmost of the Philippine Islands.

The Joint Chiefs, quickly seizing the fruits of their strategy of 

opportunism, on March 12 rearranged the schedule of major Pacific 

operations. They provided for the assault by MacArthur’s forces on 

Hollandia and Aitape in April with the support of a carrier task force 

from the Pacific Fleet, to be followed by Nimitz’ move into the Marianas 

in June and into the Palaus in September. While Nimitz was employing 

the major units of the Pacific Fleet in these ventures, MacArthur was 

to continue his advance along the New Guinea coast with the forces at 

his disposal. In November he was again to have the support of main 

units of the Pacific Fleet in an assault on Mindanao. Refusing still to 

make a positive choice of what was to follow, the Joint Chiefs directed 

MacArthur to plan for the invasion of Luzon and Nimitz to plan for 

the invasion of Formosa early in 1945.

The March 12 directive served as a blueprint for an accelerated 

drive in the Pacific in the spring and summer of 1944. On April 22 

Army forces under MacArthur landed at weakly held Hollandia and 

Aitape far behind the main Japanese ground forces. At neither place 

was the issue ever in doubt, although during July the Japanese who had 

been bypassed at Wewak launched an abortive counterattack against 

the Aitape perimeter. Protected by land-based aircraft staging from 

Hollandia, MacArthur’s Army units next jumped 125 miles northwest 

on May 17 to seize another lightly defended air base site at Wakde 

Island, landing first on the New Guinea mainland opposite the chief 

objective. A ground campaign of about a month and a half ensued 

against a Japanese division on the mainland; but, without waiting for 

the outcome of the fight, on May 27 other Army troops carried the 

advance northwestward another 180 miles to Biak Island.

At this point the wisdom of conducting twin drives across the 

Pacific became apparent. The Japanese Navy was preparing for a show-

down battle it expected to develop off the Marianas in June. MacArthur’s 

move to Biak put land-based planes in position to keep under surveillance and harass the Japanese Fleet, which was assembling in Philippine 

waters before moving into the Central Pacific. Reckoning an Americancontrolled Biak an unacceptable threat to their flank, the Japanese 

risked major elements of their 

fleet to send strong reinforcements in an 

attempt to drive MacArthur’s exposed forces from the island. They also 

deployed to bases within range of Biak about half their land-based air 
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183

strength from the Marianas, Carolines, and Palaus—planes upon which 

their 

fleet would depend for support during the forthcoming battle off 

the Marianas.

Again alerted by signals intelligence, the U.S. Seventh Fleet parried 

two unsuccessful attempts to reinforce Biak, but the Japanese assembled for a third try enough naval strength to overwhelm local American 

naval units. Just as the formidable force was moving toward Biak, the 

Japanese learned that the U.S. Pacific Fleet was off the Marianas. They 

scrapped the Biak operation, hastily assembled their naval forces, and 

sailed northwestward for the engagement known as the Battle of the 

Philippine Sea. Having lost the chance to surprise the U.S. Navy, handicapped by belated deployment, and deprived of anticipated land-based 

air support, the Japanese suffered another shattering naval defeat. This 

defeat, which assured the success of the invasions of both Biak and 

the Marianas, illustrates well the interdependence of operations in the 

two Pacific areas. It also demonstrated again that the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s 

carrier task forces were the decisive element in the Pacific war.

Army and Marine divisions under Nimitz landed on Saipan in 

the Marianas on June 15, 1944, to begin a bloody three-week battle 

for control of the island. Next, on July 21, Army and Marine units 

invaded Guam, 100 miles south of Saipan; three days later marines 

moved on to Tinian Island. An important turning point of the Pacific 

war, the American seizure of the Marianas brought the Japanese home 

islands within reach of the U.S. Army Air Forces’ new B–29 long-range 

bombers, which in late November began to 

fly missions against the 

Japanese homeland.

At Biak, Japanese resistance delayed the capture of the best airfield 

sites until late June. On July 2 MacArthur’s Army forces moved on to 

Noemfoor Island, ninety miles to the west, in a combined parachuteamphibious operation designed to broaden the base of the Southwest 

Pacific’s air deployment. On July 30 the 6th Division continued on 

to the northwestern tip of New Guinea to secure another air base; 

and on September 15 MacArthur landed the reinforced 31st Division 

on Morotai Island, between New Guinea and Mindanao in the 

Philippines. On the same day Nimitz sent the 1st Marine Division 

ashore on Peleliu in the southern Palaus. On the seventeenth the 81st 

Division from Nimitz’ command landed on Angaur, just south of 

Peleliu. A regimental combat team of the 81st Division secured Ulithi 

Atoll, midway between Peleliu and the Marianas, without opposition 

on September 23.

With these landings the approach to the Philippines was virtually 

completed. The occupation of Morotai proved easy, and the island 

provided airfields for the support of advances into the Philippines and 

Indies. The Pacific Fleet employed Ulithi as a forward anchorage. Hard 

fighting dragged on in the Palaus through November; but as the result 

of another acceleration in the pace of Pacific operations, these islands 

never played the role originally planned for them.

In twin drives, illustrating the principles of maneuver, objective, 

economy of force, surprise, and mass, the Allied forces of the Pacific 

had arrived in mid-September 1944 at the threshold of their strategic 

objective, the Luzon–Formosa–China coast triangle. In seven months 

MacArthur’s forces had leapfrogged forward nearly 1,500 miles from 
Map 9

27 May 17 May 2 Jul

30 Jul

36th DIV

S E C O N D A R E A A R M Y

P R I M A R Y

D E F E

N

S

E

L I N E

P A C I F I C 

A F A F U R A S E A

G e e l v i n k

 S e a

V O G E L K O P

 P E N I N S U L A

Morotai Is

N E W G 

Halmahera Is

Tanimbar Is

Noemfoor Is

Biak Is

Aroe Is

M O L U C C A S

Ceram Is

Wadke Is

Darwin

Hollandia

Sarmi

Sansapor

Manokwari

N E T H E R L A N D S I N D I E S

A U S T R A L I A
22 Apr

22 Apr

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20th DIV

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C O R A L

S E A

O C E A N

B I S M A R C K

 S E A

NEW IRELAND

NEW BRITAIN

G U I N E A

Admiralty Is

Woodlark Is

Kiriwina Is

Goodenough Is

Rabaul

Aitape

Wewak

PORT MORESBY

Buna

Wau

LAE

Salamaua

Finschhafen

Saidor Arawe

Madang

N O R T H E A S T

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Allied Landing

Japanese Movement

0 300

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ELEVATION IN METERS

0 500 2000 4000 and Above

NEW GUINEA OPERATIONS

22 April–30 July 1944
American Military History

186

the Admiralties to Morotai; in ten months Nimitz’ forces had advanced 

over 4,500 miles from Hawaii to the Palaus. The time had now come to 

make a final choice of the main objective in the target area.

The Decision To Invade Luzon

During the summer of 1944, as the battles raged along both lines of 

advance, the strategic debate over the choice of Luzon versus Formosa 

also waxed hot. General MacArthur argued fervently that the proper 

course was to move through the Philippines to Luzon, cutting the 

Japanese lines of communications southward, establishing a base for 

bombardment and invasion of Japan, and fulfilling a solemn national 

obligation to liberate the Philippine people. Admiral Ernest J. King, 

Chief of Naval Operations, just as adamantly insisted that the war 

could be shortened by directing the Pacific advance from the Marianas 

and Palaus toward Formosa, the China coast, and Japan proper, seizing 

only the essential positions in the southern and central Philippines 

necessary to render air support for these advances. 

The arguments for Formosa were cogent enough. Its strategic 

position made it a better island stepping stone to the China coast 

or the Japanese home islands, a position from which Japanese 

communications to the south could be cut more effectively than 

from Luzon, and a closer-in position from which to conduct strategic bombardment. But it also could prove a more difficult position to take, and Nimitz did not have in his theater sufficient Army 

supporting and service troops to sustain a land campaign on the 

island without reinforcement. It might be difficult, too, to mount 

an invasion of Formosa as long as Japanese air and surface forces 

could, from strong positions on Luzon, interfere with the Allied line 

of communications. 

Another strategic consideration involved the real value of a foothold on the China coast. By the early fall of 1944, air base sites in 

east China from which the Allies had hoped to support Pacific opera-

tions and bomb Japan appeared irretrievably lost to the Japanese Ichi-go

offensive. Technology also undercut the argument for air bases in China 

because the extended range of the giant B–29 bombers enabled them to 

attack Tokyo from newly constructed bases in the Marianas. The need 

to seize and develop a port on the China coast for logistics support 

of air operations thus lost much of its urgency, and the argument that 

Formosa was the best stepping stone to China became less compelling. 

Then, too, a successful invasion of either Luzon or Formosa required 

some concentration of forces from the two theaters. It was far easier to 

shift highly mobile naval resources in Nimitz’ theater to the Philippines 

than it was to redeploy Army troops from the Southwest Pacific to 

support Nimitz’ invasion of Formosa and the jump to the China coast 

with which he hoped to follow it.

At the time of the Morotai and Palaus landings, MacArthur’s 

plans for invasion of the Philippines called for a preliminary assault 

in southern Mindanao on November 15, 1944, to secure air bases for 

the support of a larger attack at Leyte, in the east-central Philippines, 

on December 20. He would follow this with a large-scale assault on 

Lingayen Gulf in February 1945. Nimitz meanwhile planned to mount 
world war II: The War Against Japan

187

an invasion of Yap in the Carolines in October 1944 and then would 

prepare to launch his attack on Formosa as soon as the elements of 

the Pacific Fleet required for operations in the southern and central 

Philippines could return. Obviously, the Joint Chiefs had to choose 

between Luzon and Formosa, for the Pacific Fleet would need to 

support either operation.

The course of events went far to dictate the final choice. In midSeptember Admiral Halsey’s carrier task forces providing strategic 

support for the Morotai and Palaus operations struck the central and 

southern Philippines. Halsey found Japanese air strength unexpectedly weak and uncovered few signs of significant ground or naval 

activity. Although signals intelligence revealed strong Japanese forces 

in the Philippines, on the basis of Halsey’s reports MacArthur and 

Nimitz proposed to the Joint Chiefs a move directly to Leyte in 

October, bypassing Mindanao. Nimitz agreed to divert to the Leyte 

invasion the three-division corps then mounting out of Hawaii 

for the assault against Yap. The Joint Chiefs quickly approved the 

new plan, and the decision to invade Leyte two months ahead of 

schedule gave MacArthur’s arguments to move on to Luzon almost 

irresistible force. MacArthur now reported that he could undertake 

the invasion of Luzon in December 1944, whereas all the planners’ 

estimates indicated that resources for an invasion of Formosa—

particularly service troops and shipping—could not be readied 

before February 1945. Nimitz proposed to shift the Central Pacific 

attack northward against Iwo Jima in the Bonins in January and then 

against Okinawa and other islands in the Ryukyus early in March. On 

October 3 Admiral King, bowing to the inevitable, accepted the new 

plans. The Joint Chiefs issued directives to MacArthur for the invasion 

of Luzon on December 20 and to Nimitz for the invasion of Iwo Jima 

and Okinawa early in 1945.

Pacific strategy had been cast into a nearly final mold. In the end, the 

China coast objective disappeared entirely from planning boards. Final 

plans for the defeat of Japan envisaged a gradual tightening of the ring by 

blockade and bombardment from the Marianas, Philippines, and Ryukyus 

with an invasion of the home islands to be mounted from these bases.

The Philippines Campaign

The main assault at Leyte took place on October 20, 1944, as four 

Army divisions landed abreast in the largest amphibious operation yet 

conducted in the Pacific. (See Map 10.) Vice Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid, 

MacArthur’s naval subordinate, controlled the amphibious phases, 

including naval gunfire support and close air support by planes based 

on escort carriers. Ground forces were under Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, 

commanding the U.S. Sixth Army; land-based air forces of the Southwest 

Pacific Area in general support were commanded by Lt. Gen. George 

C. Kenney. MacArthur himself exercised unified command over the 

air, ground, and naval commanders. The fast carrier task forces of the 

Pacific Fleet, providing strategic support, operated under the control 

of Admiral Halsey, who reported to Nimitz, not MacArthur. There 

was no provision for unified naval command, and Halsey’s orders were 

such that he could make his principal mission the destruction of the 
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188

Japanese Fleet rather than the support of MacArthur’s entry into the 

Philippines.

The Japanese had originally planned to make their stand in the 

Philippines on Luzon, but the invasion of Leyte moved them to reconsider. The Fourteenth Area Army Headquarters wanted to fight on Luzon, 

but the Southern Army decided that the entire Philippine archipelago 

would be strategically lost if the U.S. Army secured a foothold in the 

central islands. The Southern Army therefore ordered the Fourteenth Army

to send ground reinforcements to Leyte. Concurrently the Imperial 

General Headquarters in Tokyo launched the Sho (Victory) operation as 

it increased land-based air strength in the Philippines in the hope of 

destroying Allied shipping in Leyte Gulf and maintaining local air superiority and dispatched Japan’s remaining naval strength to Leyte Gulf 

to destroy Kinkaid’s invasion fleet and to block Allied access to the 

Philippines. The ensuing air-naval Battle of Leyte Gulf was the most 

critical moment of the campaign and proved one of the most decisive 

actions of the Pacific war.

Admiral Halsey, without consulting MacArthur or Kinkaid, pulled 

the bulk of his carrier forces northward to intercept some Japanese 

aircraft carriers, a decoy fleet stripped of its aircraft to draw U.S. naval 

power from the fragile beachhead and leave Leyte Gulf open to other 

converging Japanese Fleet units. Kinkaid’s old battleships annihilated 

one Japanese fleet approaching Leyte from the south, but only gallant, 

desperate action by American destroyers and escort carriers turned 

back the Japanese battleships steaming undetected into the gulf from 

the north. The small, lightly armed U.S. ships suffered heavy losses to 

ensure the safety of the landing forces. It had been a close call, clearly 

demonstrating the dangers of divided command. In the end, however, 

the combined operations of Kinkaid’s and Halsey’s forces virtually 

eliminated the Japanese Navy as a factor in the Pacific war.

With the Leyte beaches secure, U.S. Army units proceeded to 

destroy the Japanese ground forces. Miserable weather on Leyte’s east 

coast bogged down the pace of operations, made supply difficult, 

delayed airfield construction, curtailed air support, and permitted the 

Japanese to continue to ship reinforcements to the western port of 

the island. The reinforcement program came to a sudden halt early 

in December, when the 77th Division executed an amphibious envelopment on Leyte’s west coast; by late December the Sixth Army had 

secured the most important sections of the island, those required for 

air and logistical bases. Japanese troops in the mountains of northwestern Leyte continued organized resistance well into the spring of 

1945, occupying the energies of large portions of Lt. Gen. Robert L. 

Eichelberger’s newly formed Eighth Army.

While the fight on Leyte continued, MacArthur’s forces moved on 

to Luzon only slightly behind schedule. The first step of the Luzon 

Campaign was the seizure of an air base in southwestern Mindoro, 

150 miles south of Manila, on December 15; two Army regiments 

accomplished the task with ease. The invasion of Luzon itself started 

on January 9, 1945, when four Army divisions landed along the shores 

of the Lingayen Gulf. Command arrangements were similar to those 

at Leyte, and again fast carrier task forces under Halsey operated in 

general support and not under MacArthur’s control. Within three days, 

The combined operations of 

Kinkaid’s and Halsey’s forces 

virtually eliminated the Japanese 

Navy as a factor in the Pacific 

war.
world war II: The War Against Japan

189

five Army divisions, a separate regimental combat team, two artillery 

groups, an armored group, and supporting service units were ashore 

and had begun a drive down the Central Plains of Luzon toward 

Manila. The Japanese were incapable of naval intervention at Lingayen 

Gulf, and their most significant reaction was to throw a new weapon, 

kamikaze (suicide planes) against Kinkaid’s naval forces for four days.

General Tomoyuki Yamashita, commanding Japanese forces in the 

Philippines, did not intend to defend the Central Plains–Manila Bay 

region, the strategic prize of Luzon. Knowing he would receive no reinforcements and believing the issue in the Philippines had been decided 

at Leyte, he sought only to pin down major elements of MacArthur’s 

forces in the hope of delaying Allied progress toward Japan. For this 

purpose he moved the bulk of his troops into mountain strongholds, 

where they could conduct a protracted, bloody defensive campaign. 

But Japanese naval forces on Luzon, only nominally under Yamashita, 

The Liberation of Manila

The month-long fight for Manila was one of few battles waged in a major city in the Pacific Theater. The 

Japanese naval garrison organized a defense of the city in direct defiance of the Japanese Army commander’s 

orders to evacuate. Because the Americans were eager to preserve the city’s water and power supplies, they 

avoided air strikes and artillery fires, except against known enemy positions. Mounting casualties and intense 

fighting eventually resulted in these restrictions’ being lifted. By February 24 the 37th Infantry Division entered the 

ancient fortress of Intramuros, triggering the breakdown of the entire Japanese defensive effort. On March 3 the 

Commanding General of the XIV Corps reported that all resistance had ceased. Most of Manila had been left in 

ruins.

MacArthur wades ashore during initial landings at Leyte, October 1944.
American Military History

190

Map 10

115o 120o 125o

115o 125o

20o

10o 10o

20o

Apr 45

Jan 45

Mar 45

Mar 45

Apr 45

Feb 45

Dec 44

Jul 45 Apr 45

Apr 45

Mar 45

Jun 45

May 45

Oct 44

Lingayen

Gulf

S U L U S E A

S O U T H

C H I N A

S E A

Sarangani Bay

Brunei Bay

C H I N A

B R I T I S H

N O R T H B O R N E O

L U Z O N

M I N D O R O

S A M A R

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B o h o l

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TA I WA N

( F O R M O SA )

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Davao

THE PHILIPPINES CAMPAIGN

0 100 200 300

Statute Miles

Subic Bay

Corregidor

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B A T A

A

N

0 25

Miles
world war II: The War Against Japan

191

decided to ignore this concept in favor of defending Manila and Manila 

Bay to the death. Thus, when U.S. Army units reached Manila on 

February 3, it took them a month of bitter building-to-building fighting 

to root out the Japanese at the cost of over 1,000 U.S. and over 16,000 

Japanese dead and 100,000 civilian casualties. Meanwhile, operations 

to clear Manila Bay had begun with a minor amphibious landing at 

the southern tip of Bataan on February 15. The next day a combined 

parachute-amphibious assault, involving two Army regiments, initiated 

a battle to seize Corregidor Island. Other forces cleared additional 

islands in Manila Bay and secured the south shore. By mid-March the 

bay was open for Allied shipping, but the Allies would have to do an 

immense salvage and repair job before they could fully exploit Manila’s 

excellent port facilities.

The reinforced 38th Division had landed meanwhile near Subic 

Bay and had cut across the base of the Bataan peninsula to prevent the 

Japanese from holing up on Bataan as had MacArthur’s forces three 

years earlier. The 11th Airborne Division undertook both amphibious 

and parachute landings in southern Luzon to start clearing that region, 

and the 158th Regimental Combat Team made an amphibious assault 

in southeastern Luzon to secure the Bicol peninsula. Turning against 

Yamashita’s mountain strongholds, MacArthur continued to pour reinforcements onto Luzon, and the land campaign there ultimately evolved 

into the largest of the Pacific war. Altogether MacArthur committed 

to Luzon 10 divisions, 2 regiments of another division, and 3 separate regimental combat teams. Filipino guerrillas, many of whom had 

been formed under defiant U.S. officers and men escaping surrender 

in 1942, also played a large role. One guerrilla unit came to substitute for a regularly constituted division, and other guerrilla forces of 

battalion and regiment size supplemented the efforts of the U.S. Army 

units. Moreover, the loyal and willing Filipino population immeasurably 

eased the problems of supply, construction, and civil administration. In 

one instance, the surprise raid to liberate the American POW camp at 

Cabanatuan by U.S. Army Rangers and Alamo Scouts, the support of 

Filipino guerrillas was critical to achieving victory and saving hundreds 

of American lives.

Except for a strong pocket in the mountains of north central 

Luzon, organized Japanese resistance ended by late June 1945. The 

rugged terrain in the north, along with rainy weather, prevented 

Krueger’s Sixth Army from applying its full strength to the reduction 

“We Remained”

In March 1942, under presidential order, General MacArthur escaped from the besieged Philippines to 

Australia, where he vowed, “I shall return.” Two months later U.S. conventional resistance ended in surrender. 

But some Filipinos and Americans disobeyed orders, fled into the jungle, and, aided by friendly natives, 

formed guerrilla bands. From Australia, the Allies sent in supplies and agents by submarine. Thus, when 

MacArthur returned to the Philippines in late 1944 he found a movement able to help with intelligence, 

elimination of bypassed units, and even conventional attacks. In northern Luzon, guerrilla patches bore their 

motto, “We Remained.”
American Military History

192

of this pocket. Eichelberger’s Eighth Army took over responsibility for 

operations on Luzon at the end of June and continued the pressure 

against Yamashita’s force in the last-stand redoubt, but the Japanese 

held out there until the end of the war.

While the Sixth Army was destroying Japanese forces on Luzon, 

Eighth Army ultimately employed five divisions, portions of a sixth 

division, a separate regimental combat team, and strong guerrilla units 

in its campaign to reconquer the southern Philippines. This effort 

began when a regimental combat team of the 41st Division landed 

on Palawan Island on February 28, 1945. Here, engineers built an air 

base from which to help cut Japan’s line of communications to the 

south and to support later advances in the southern Philippines and the 

Indies. On March 10 another regimental combat team of the 41st, later 

reinforced, landed near Zamboanga in southwestern Mindanao; and 

soon thereafter Army units began moving southwest toward Borneo 

along the Sulu Archipelago. In rapid succession Eighth Army units then 

landed on Panay, Cebu, northwestern Negros, Bohol, central Mindanao, 

southeastern Negros, northern Mindanao, and finally at Sarangani Bay 

in southern Mindanao, once intended as the first point of reentry into 

the Philippines. At some locales, bitter fighting raged for a time; but 

the issue was never in doubt and organized Japanese resistance in the 

southern Philippines had largely collapsed by the end of May. Mopping 

up continued to the end of the war, with reorganized and reequipped 

guerrilla forces bearing much of the burden.

The last offensives in the Southwest Pacific Area started on May 

1, when an Australian brigade went ashore on Tarakan Island, Borneo. 

Carried to the beaches by landing craft manned by U.S. Army engineers, the Australians had air support from fields on Morotai and in 

the southern Philippines. On June 10 an Australian division landed 

at Brunei Bay, Borneo. Another Australian division went ashore at 

Balikpapan on July 1 in the final amphibious assault of the war.

Iwo Jima and Okinawa

Slow base development at Leyte had forced MacArthur to delay 

the Luzon invasion from December to January. Nimitz in turn had to 

postpone his target dates for the Iwo Jima and Okinawa operations, 

primarily because the bulk of the naval resources in the Pacific—

fast carrier task forces, escort carrier groups, assault shipping, naval 

gunfire support vessels, and amphibious assault craft—had to shift 

between the two theaters for major operations. The alteration of 

schedules again illustrated the interdependence of the Southwest and 

Central Pacific Areas.

The Iwo Jima assault finally took place on February 19, 1945, with 

the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions supported by minor Army elements 

making the landings. The 3d Marine Division reinforced the assault, and 

an Army regiment ultimately took over as island garrison. The marines 

had to overcome fanatic resistance from firmly entrenched Japanese who 

held what was probably the strongest defensive system the American 

forces encountered during the Pacific war, and it took a month of 

bloody fighting to secure the island. In early March a few crippled B–29s 

made emergency landings on Iwo; by the end of the month an airfield 
world war II: The War Against Japan

193

was fully operational for fighter planes. Later, engineers constructed a 

heavy bomber field and another fighter base on the island.

The invasion of the Ryukyus began on March 26, when the 77th 

Division landed on the Kerama Islands, fifteen miles west of Okinawa, 

to secure a forward naval base, a task traditionally assigned to marines. 

On April 1 the 7th and 86th Divisions and the 2d and 6th Marine 

Divisions executed the assault on the main objective, Okinawa. (See 

Map 11.) Two more Army divisions and a Marine infantry regiment 

later reinforced it. Another amphibious assault took place on April 16, 

when the 77th Division seized Ie Shima, four miles west of Okinawa; 

the final landing in the Ryukyus came on June 26, when a small force 

of marines went ashore on Kume Island, fifty miles west of Okinawa. 

Ground forces at Okinawa were first under the U.S. Tenth Army, Lt. 

Gen. Simon B. Buckner commanding. When General Buckner was 

killed in action on June 18, Marine Lt. Gen. Roy S. Geiger took over 

until General Joseph W. Stilwell, formerly U.S. commander in China 

and Burma, assumed command on the twenty-third.

The Japanese made no attempt to defend the Okinawa beaches but 

instead fell back to prepared cave and tunnel defenses on inland hills. 

Bitterly defending every inch of ground, the Japanese continued organized resistance until late June. Meanwhile, Japanese suicide planes had 

inflicted extensive damage on Nimitz’ naval forces, sinking 34 ships and 

damaging another 268 in an unsuccessful attempt to drive Allied naval 

power from the western Pacific. Skillful small-unit tactics, combined with 

great concentrations of naval, air, and artillery bombardment, turned the 

tide of the ground battle on Okinawa itself. Especially noteworthy was 

the close gunfire support the Navy provided the ground forces and the 

close air support Army, Navy, and Marine aircraft furnished.

Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar

Buckner, Jr. (1886–1945)

Son of a famous Confederate general, Buckner 

was commissioned in the Infantry when he graduated 

from West Point in 1908. In May–June 1943 Buckner 

oversaw the recapture of the Aleutian Islands of Kiska 

and Attu from the Japanese. In 1945 General Buckner 

was given command of the Tenth U.S. Army and 

with it the mission of securing the strategic island of 

Okinawa. Leading from the front, Buckner repeatedly 

exposed himself to danger as he toured the front lines 

to gain a firsthand assessment of the tactical situation. 

While visiting a forward observation post four days 

before the campaign concluded, Buckner was mortally 

wounded by direct fire from a Japanese 47-mm. 

antitank gun. He was the most senior American officer 

to lose his life in the Pacific Theater of Operations.
American Military History

194

Map 11

X X

6 Mar(-)

X X

1 Mar

X X

2 Mar

Demonstration

X X X

III Amph

X X

7

X X

96(-)

X X

77(-)

16 Apr

X X X

XXIV

X X X X

TENTH

SHURI DEFENSES

E A S T

C H I N A

S E A

C H I M U B A Y

NAKAGUSUKA 

BAY

Bishi R

KADENA AFLD 

YONTAN AFLD

YONABARU AFLD

MACHINATO AFLD

NAHA AFLD

Ie Shima

OROKU 

PENINSULA

Keise

 Shima

M O T O B U 

P E N I N S U L A

OKINAWA

Imadomari

Toguchi

Nago

Ishikawa

Taba Hagushi

Yonabaru

Shuri NAHA

Minatoga

Axis of Attack

Aireld

0 10

Miles

ELEVATION IN METERS

0 100 200 300 and Above

TENTH ARMY INVASION OF OKINAWA 

OPERATION ICEBERG

1–16 April 1945
world war II: The War Against Japan

195

The capture of Okinawa and other positions in the Ryukyus gave 

the Allies both air and naval bases within easy striking distance of 

Japan. By early May fighter planes from Okinawa had begun flights over 

Japan; as rapidly as fields became available, bombers, including units 

from the Southwest Pacific Area, came forward to mount attacks to 

prepare for the invasion of the home islands. The forward anchorages 

in the Ryukyus permitted the Pacific Fleet to stay in almost continuous 

action against Japanese targets. The Ryukyus campaign had brought 

Allied forces in the Pacific to Japan’s doorstep.

The American Effort in China, Burma, and India

While American forces in the Pacific under the unified direction 

of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff made spectacular advances, the Allied 

effort in Southeast Asia bogged down in a mire of conflicting national 

purposes. The hopes Americans held in the early stages of the war that 

Chinese manpower and bases would play a vitally important role in the 

defeat of Japan were doomed to disappointment. Americans sought to 

achieve great aims on the Asiatic mainland at small cost, looking to the 

British in India and the Chinese, with their vast reservoirs of manpower, 

to carry the main burden of ground conflict. Neither proved capable 

of exerting the effort the Americans expected of them.

Early in 1942 the United States had sent General Stilwell to the 

Far East to command American forces in China, Burma, and India and 

to serve as Chief of Staff and principal adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, 

the leader of Nationalist China and Allied commander of the China 

Theater. Stilwell’s stated mission was “to assist in improving the efficiency of the Chinese Army.” The Japanese conquest of Burma, cutting 

the last overland supply route to China, frustrated Stilwell’s designs, 

for it left a long and difficult airlift from Assam to Kunming over the 

high peaks of the Himalayas as the only remaining avenue for the flow 

of supplies. The Americans assumed responsibility for the airlift, but 

its development was slow, hampered by a scarcity of transport planes, 

airfields, and trained pilots. Not until late in 1943 did it reach a monthly 

capacity of 10,000 tons, and in the intervening months few supplies 

reached China. The economy of the country continually tottered on 

the brink of collapse; and the Chinese Army, although it was a massive 

force on paper, remained ill organized, ill equipped, poorly led, and 

generally incapable of offensive action.

Stilwell in China

Having served for thirteen years in China between the World Wars as a language officer and military 

attaché, Joseph W. Stilwell (1883–1946) seemed a natural as the American Chief of Staff to Generalissimo 

Chiang Kai-shek. But his caustic demeanor eventually led to his recall from China at Chiang’s request. His 140-mile 

trek by train, truck, jeep, and on foot away from Japanese forces and into India was typical of his leadership 

style—he led from the front. His acerbic wit, candor, and identification with the common infantryman led to his 

well-deserved nickname, Vinegar Joe.
American Military History

196

Stilwell thought that the only solution was to retake Burma and 

reopen the land supply line to China, and this became the position of 

the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. To achieve the goal, Stilwell undertook 

the training and equipping of a Chinese force in India that eventually 

consisted of three divisions and sought to concentrate a much larger force 

in Yunnan Province in China and to give it offensive capability. With these 

two Chinese forces he hoped to form a junction in north Burma, thus 

reestablishing land communications between China and India. Stilwell’s 

scheme became part of the larger plan, Anakim, which the Combined 

Chiefs of Staff had approved at the Casablanca Conference. Neither the 

British nor the Chinese, however, had any real enthusiasm for Anakim, 

and in retrospect it seems clear that its execution in 1943 was beyond the 

capabilities of forces in the theater. Moreover, Chiang was quite dilatory 

in concentrating a force in Yunnan, and the British were more interested 

in southern Burma. Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault, commanding the 

small American air force in China, urged that the supplies flowing by air 

over the Himalayas (the “Hump”) should be used to support an air effort 

in China, rather than to supply Chinese ground forces. Chennault promised amazing results at small cost, and his proposals attracted President 

Franklin D. Roosevelt as well as the British and the Chinese. As an upshot, 

at the Trident Conference in May 1943, the amphibious operation 

against Rangoon was canceled and a new plan for operations emerged 

that stressed Chennault’s air operations and provided for a lesser ground 

offensive in central and northern Burma. Under this concept a new road 

would be built from Ledo in Assam Province, India, to join with the trace 

of the old Burma Road inside China. The Americans assumed responsibility for building the Ledo Road in the rear of Chinese forces advancing 

from India into Burma.

Logistical difficulties in India again delayed the opening of any 

land offensive and kept the airlift well below target figures. Until the 

supply line north from Calcutta to the British and Chinese fronts could 

be improved—this took well over a year—both air and ground operations against the Japanese in Burma were handicapped. In October 

The Burma Road

In early 1942 the Japanese closed 

the Burma Road, 700 miles of dirt highway 

representing China’s last overland link to 

the outside world. While transports flew 

supplies through the Himalayas to China 

and forces under General Stilwell cleared 

northern Burma, American engineers built 

a new route from India through rugged 

jungle terrain to connect with the old road. 

In February 1945 the first convoy passed 

the linkup on the renamed Stilwell Road, 

covering 928 miles from Ledo to Kunming, 

China. 

General Stilwell (seated, left) confers with Maj. Gen. Liao Yau Siang, 

who commanded one of the divisions pushing back the Japanese 

in northern Burma.
world war II: The War Against Japan

197

1943 Chinese troops under Stilwell did start to clear northern Burma, 

and in the spring of 1944 a U.S. Army unit of regiment size, nicknamed 

Merrill’s Marauders, spearheaded new offensives to secure the trace 

for the overland road. But Myitkyina, the key point in the Japanese 

defenses in north Burma, did not fall until August 2; by that time the 

effort in Burma had been relegated to a subsidiary role.

After the 

Sextant Conference in late 1943, in fact, the American 

staff no longer regarded as probable that the overland route to China 

could be opened in time to permit Chinese forces to drive to the coast by 

the time American forces advancing across the Pacific arrived. While the 

Americans insisted on continuing the effort to open the Ledo Road, they 

now gave first priority to an air effort in China in support of the Pacific 

campaigns. The Army Air Forces in May 1944 started to deploy the first 

of its B–29 groups to airfields in eastern China to commence bombing 

of strategic targets in Korea, Manchuria, and Japan. At the same time 

Chennault’s Fourteenth Air Force was directed to stockpile supplies for 

missions in support of Pacific forces as they neared the China coast. 

Again these projects proved to be more than could be supported over the 

Hump, particularly since transports also had to supply the ground effort 

of both British and Chinese forces. Then the Japanese reacted strongly 

to the increased air effort and launched a ground offensive that overran 

most of the existing fields and proposed air base sites in eastern China. 

Both air and ground resources inside China had to be diverted to oppose 

the Japanese advance. The B–29s were removed to India in January 1945 

and two months later were sent to Saipan, where the major strategic 

bombing offensive against Japan was by that time being mounted. The 

air effort in China without the protection of an efficient Chinese Army 

fulfilled few of the goals proclaimed for it.

To meet the crisis in China, President Roosevelt urged Chiang to 

place his U.S.-supported armies under the command of General Stilwell; 

Chiang eventually refused and asked for Stilwell’s recall, which the 

President honored. In September 1944 Maj. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer 

replaced Stilwell as Chief of Staff to Chiang and commander of 

American forces in the China Theater; a separate theater in India and 

Burma was created with Lt. Gen. Dan I. Sultan as its commanding 

general. The command issue was dropped, and the American strategy in 

China became simply trying to realize at least something from previous 

investments without additional commitments.

Ironically enough, it was in this phase, after the Pacific advances 

had outrun those in Southeast Asia, that objects of the 1942 strategy 

were realized, in large part because the Japanese, having failed in their 

1944 offensive against India and hard pressed everywhere, could no 

longer adequately support their forces in Burma and China. British and 

Chinese forces advanced rapidly into Burma in the fall of 1944; and, 

on January 27, 1945, the junction between Chinese forces advancing 

from India and Yunnan finally took place, securing the trace of the 

Ledo Road. To the south, the British completed the conquest of central 

Burma and entered Rangoon overland from the north early in May. 

The land route to China was thus finally secured on all sides, but the 

Americans had already decided that they would develop the Ledo Road 

only as a one-way highway, though they did expand the airlift to the 

point where in July 1945 it carried 74,000 tons of supplies into China.
American Military History

198

With increased American supply 

support, Wedemeyer was able to 

make more progress in equipping and 

training the Chinese Army. Under his 

tutelage the Chinese were able to halt 

the Japanese advance at Chihchiang in 

April 1945. As the Japanese began to 

withdraw to prepare a citadel defense 

of their home islands, Wedemeyer and 

the Chinese laid plans to seize a port on 

the Chinese coast. The war came to an 

end before this operation even started 

and before the training and equipping 

of a Chinese Army was anywhere near 

complete. Chiang’s forces commenced 

the reoccupation of their homeland 

still, for the most part, ill equipped, ill 

organized, and poorly led.

The Japanese Surrender

During the summer of 1945 Allied 

forces in the Pacific had stepped up 

the pace of their air and naval attacks 

against Japan. In June and July carrierbased planes of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and 

U.S. Army Air Forces planes from the 

Marianas, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa struck 

the Japanese home islands continuously. 

During July Pacific Fleet surface units 

bombarded Japan’s east coast, and in 

the same month a British carrier task 

force joined the attack. Planes from 

the Philippines hit Japanese shipping 

in the South China Sea and extended 

their strikes as far as Formosa and other 

targets along the South China coast. 

American submarines redoubled their 

efforts to sweep Japanese shipping from 

the sea and sever the shipping lanes 

from Japan to the Indies and Southeast Asia. Throughout the war, in 

fact, submarines had preyed on Japanese merchant and combat vessels, 

playing a major role in isolating Japan from its conquests and thereby 

drastically reducing Japan’s ability to wage war.

After Germany’s surrender in May the United States embarked upon 

a huge logistical effort to redeploy to the Pacific more than a million 

troops from Europe, the United States, and other inactive theaters. The 

aim was to complete the redeployment in time to launch an invasion of 

Japan on November 1, and the task had to be undertaken in the face 

of competing shipping demands for demobilization of long-service 

troops, British redeployment, and civil relief in Europe. By the time the 

war ended, some 150,000 men had moved from Europe directly to the 

Allied prisoners of war at a camp near Yokohama cheer for 

their rescuers.
world war II: The War Against Japan

199

Pacific; but a larger transfer from the United States across the Pacific 

had scarcely begun. In the Pacific, MacArthur and Nimitz had been 

sparing no effort to expand ports and ready bases to receive the expected 

in

flux and to mount invasion forces. The two commanders were also 

completing plans for the invasion of Japan. In the last stage of the war, 

as all forces converged on Japan, the area unified commands gave way to 

an arrangement that made MacArthur commander of all Army forces in 

the Pacific and Nimitz commander of all Navy forces.

By midsummer of 1945 most responsible leaders in Japan realized that the end was near. In June those favoring a negotiated settlement had come out in the open, and Japan had already dispatched 

peace feelers through the Soviet Union, a country it feared might also 

be about to enter the war in spite of a nonaggression treaty between 

the two nations. As early as the Tehran Conference in late 1943 

Stalin had promised to enter the war against Japan, and all agreed 

at Yalta in February 1945 that the USSR would do so three months 

after the defeat of Germany. At the Potsdam Conference in July, the 

Soviet Union reaffirmed its agreement to declare war on Japan. The 

United States and Britain with China issued the famed Potsdam 

Declaration calling upon Japan to surrender promptly; about the same 

time President Harry S. Truman decided to employ the newly tested 

atomic bomb against Japan in the event of continued Japanese resistance.

Despite the changing climate of opinion in Japan, the still-powerful 

Japanese military blocked negotiations by insisting on fighting a deci-

sive battle of defense of the empire’s home shores. Thus the Japanese 

government announced its intention to ignore the terms of the 

Potsdam Declaration. Accordingly, on August 6 a lone American B–29 

from the Marianas dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On the 

ninth the Soviet Union came into the war and attacked Japanese forces 

in Manchuria and another B–29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. 

The next day Japan sued for peace. With the signing of surrender terms 

aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, the bitter global 

war came to an end.

Retrospect

In winning the Pacific war the Allies had found it unnecessary to 

press home their attacks and destroy the Japanese military forces except 

for the Japanese Fleet. By the end of the war Japan’s Navy had virtually ceased to exist, Japanese industry had been so hammered by air 

bombardment that Japan’s ability to wage war was seriously reduced, 

and U.S. submarine and air actions had cut off sources of raw material. At the time of the surrender Japan still had 2 million men under 

arms in the homeland and was capable of conducting a tenacious 

ground defense; about 5,000 Japanese aircraft were also operational. 

Nevertheless, the Japanese could not have continued the war into the 

spring of 1946. The Japanese Army had concentrated its forces along 

the designated U.S. invasion beaches expecting to bloody the invaders 

in hopes of securing better terms. The fact that an invasion was not 

necessary doubtless spared many American and Japanese lives.

The great arbiter of the Pacific war had been the American industrial 

power that had produced a mighty war machine. Out of this production 
American Military History

200

had come the Pacific Fleet, a potent force that could overcome the 

vast reaches of the Pacific upon which the Japanese had depended so 

heavily as a defensive advantage. The decisive combat element of the 

fleet was the fast carrier task force, which carried the war deep into 

Japanese territory and supported advances far beyond the range of 

land-based aircraft. Land-based air power also played a decisive part. 

When carriers were not available to support offensives, land-based aviation measured the distance of each forward move. Land-based aviation 

proved important as well in providing close support for ground operations, while aerial supply operations and troop movements contributed 

greatly to the success of the Allied campaigns.

Both naval and air forces depended on shore installations, and the 

war in the Pacific demonstrated that even in a predominantly naval/

air theater, ground combat forces are an essential part of the offensive 

team. The Japanese had also depended on far-flung bases, so that much 

of the Allied effort during the war had gone into the seizure or neutralization of Japan’s air and naval strongholds. Thus, the Pacific war was 

in large measure a struggle for bases. However, the U.S. Pacific Fleet, 

in one of the greatest logistical developments of the war, went far in 

the direction of carrying its own bases with it by organizing fleet trains 

MacArthur Reviews Battle, Gary Sheadan, 1944
world war II: The War Against Japan

201

of support vessels that could maintain the fleet at sea over extended 

periods, minimizing some of its basing requirements.

Another important facet of the Pacific war, the development and 

employment of amphibious assault techniques, repeatedly demonstrated the need for unified command. Air, ground, and naval teamwork, supremely important in the struggle against Japan, occasionally 

broke down; but the success of the Allied campaigns illustrates that all 

three elements achieved that cooperation to a large degree. Strategic air 

bombardment in the Pacific, designed to cripple Japan’s industrial capacity, 

did not get under way until much of 1945 had passed. The damage 

in

flicted on Japanese cities, especially by incendiary aerial bombardment, 

was enormous. The effect, as in the case of the bomber offensive against 

Germany, remains contentious; though the bombardment began to bring 

home to the Japanese people that the war was lost. The atomic bombings 

were the capstone of that effort. The submarine played a vital role in 

reducing Japan’s capabilities by taking a huge toll of Japanese shipping 

and by helping to cut Japan off from the resources of Southeast Asia.

In the final analysis Japan lost because the country did not have 

the means to fight a total war against the combination of industrial, 

air, naval, and human resources represented by the United States and 

its Allies. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese 

Fleet at the outbreak of the war, put his finger on the fatal weakness 

of the Japanese concept of the war: “It is not enough that we should 

take Guam and the Philippines, or even Hawaii and San Francisco. We 

should have to march into Washington and sign the treaty in the White 

House.” This the Japanese could never do; because they could not, they 

had to lose the war.

Discussion Questions

1. Why did Japan go to war? How did she plan to win?

2. How successful was Army and Navy cooperation in the Pacific? 

In the Central Pacific? In the Southwest Pacific?

3. Why was the United States so deeply involved in operations in 

Burma? Was this the best use of resources?

4. Would it have made more strategic sense to bypass the Philippines 

and strike Formosa directly before moving against Okinawa? Why or 

why not?

5. Was the Allied dual-thrust strategy the best one to use in the 

Pacific war? Why or why not?

6. Should the United States have resorted to using the atomic bomb 

to force Japan’s surrender? What about the second atomic bomb? 

Justify your answers. 

Recommended Readings

Clayton, James D. The Years of MacArthur, 3 vols. Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin, 1970–1985.

Drea, Edward J. MacArthur’s 

Ultra: Codebreaking and the War against 

Japan, 1942–1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992. 
American Military History

202

Frank, Richard B. DOWNFALL: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. 

New York: Random House, 1999.

Griffith, Thomas E. MacArthur’s Airman: General George C. Kenney and the 

War in the Southwest Pacific. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 

1998.

Heller, Charles E., and William A. Stofft, eds. America’s First Battles, 

1776–1965. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986. 

Leary, William M., ed. We Shall Return! MacArthur’s Commanders and 

the Defeat of Japan, 1942–1945. Lexington: University Press of 

Kentucky, 1988.

Pogue, Forrest C. George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943–1945. 

New York: Viking, 1973.

Prange, Gordon W., et al. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl 

Harbor. New York: Viking, 1991.

Spector, Ronald H. Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan. 

Norwalk, Conn.: Easton Press, 1989.

Tuchman, Barbara W. Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–

1945. New York: Grove Press, 2001.

Other Readings

Crowl, Philip A. Campaign in the Marianas. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995.

Falk, Stanley L. Decision at Leyte. Norwalk, Conn.: Easton Press, 1989.

Miller, John, Jr. Guadalcanal: The First Offensive. U.S. Army in World War 

II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995.

Morison, Samuel E. History of United States Naval Operations in World War 

II, 15 vols. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001–2002, vol. 7.

Perret, Geoffrey. Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur. 

New York: Random House, 1996.

Romanus, Charles F., and Riley Sunderland. Stilwell’s Command Problems. 

U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1987.

Smith, Robert R. Triumph in the Philippines. U.S. Army in World War II. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1991.

Taaffe, Stephen R. MacArthur’s Jungle War: The 1944 New Guinea 

Campaign. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.

Toland, John. The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 

1936–1945. New York: Modern Library, 2003.
The United States did not return to its prewar isolationism after 

World War II. The balance of power in Europe and Asia and 

the safety of ocean distances east and west that made isolation 

possible had vanished: the war upset the balance, and advances in air 

transportation and weaponry surpassed the protection of the oceans. 

There was now little inclination to dispute the essential rightness of the 

position Woodrow Wilson espoused after World War I that the nations 

of the world were interdependent, the peace indivisible. Indeed, in the 

years immediately following World War II, full participation in world 

events became a governing dynamic of American life.

With the end of the war, American hopes for a peaceful future 

focused on the United Nations (UN) formed at San Francisco in 1945. 

The fifty countries signing the UN Charter agreed to employ “effective 

collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the 

peace and for the suppression of acts of aggression,” including the 

use of armed force if necessary. The organization included a bicameral 

legislature: the General Assembly, in which all member nations had 

representation and a smaller Security Council. The latter had authority 

to determine when the peace was threatened, to decide what action 

to take, and to call on member states to furnish military formations. 

Five founding members of the United Nations (the United States, the 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom, China, and 

France) had permanent representation on the Security Council and the 

power of veto over any council action. Since the United Nations’ effectiveness depended largely on the full cooperation of these countries, 

the primary objective of American foreign policy as the postwar era 

opened was to continue and strengthen the solidarity those nations had 

displayed during the war.

U.S. membership in the United Nations implied a responsibility 

to maintain sufficient military power to permit an effective contribution to any UN force that might be necessary. Other than this, it was 

7

Peace Becomes Cold War

1945–1950
American Military History

204

difficult in the immediate aftermath of war 

to foresee national security requirements in 

the changed world and consequently to know 

the proper shape of a military establishment 

to meet them. The immediate task was to 

demobilize a great war machine and at the 

same time maintain occupation troops in 

conquered and liberated territories. Beyond 

this lay the problems of deciding the size and 

composition of the postwar armed forces 

and of establishing the machinery that would 

formulate national security policy and govern 

the military establishment.

Demobilization

The U.S. Army and Navy had separately 

determined during the war their reasonable 

postwar strengths and had produced plans 

for an orderly demobilization. The Navy 

developed a program for 600,000 men, 370 

combat and 5,000 other ships, and 8,000 

aircraft. The Army Air Forces was equally 

specific, setting its sights on becoming a 

separate service with 400,000 members, 70 

combat groups, and a complete organization of supporting units. The Army initially 

established as an overall postwar goal a 

regular and reserve structure capable of 

mobilizing 4 million men within a year of 

any future outbreak of war; later it set the 

strength of the active ground and air forces 

at 1.5 million. Demobilization plans called 

for the release of troops on an individual 

basis with each soldier receiving point credit for length of service, 

combat participation and awards, time spent overseas, and parenthood. The General Staff considered the shipping available to bring 

overseas troops home and the capacity to process discharges in setting 

the number of points required for release. The whole scheme aimed 

at producing a systematic transition to a peacetime military structure.

U.S. veterans of the China-Burma-India campaigns arrive in 

New York on September 27, 1945.

War Crimes Trials (Japan)

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, held in Tokyo after World War II, prosecuted suspected 

Japanese war criminals. Only 28 of the 80 Class A war suspects appeared before the court. Of these individuals, 

4 had been prime ministers and 19 had been military officers. Twenty-five of the 28 were found guilty, 2 others 

died during trial, and 1 was found mentally incompetent. Seven were sentenced to death by hanging, 16 to life in 

prison, and 2 to shorter terms. The emperor was not indicted.
peace becomes cold war, 1945–1950

205

Pressure for faster demobilization from the public, Congress, 

and the troops upset War and Navy Department plans for an orderly 

process. The Army felt the greatest pressure and responded by easing 

the eligibility requirement and releasing half of its 8 million troops by 

the end of 1945. Early in 1946 the Army slowed the return of troops 

from abroad in order to meet its overseas responsibilities. A crescendo 

of protest greeted the decision, including troop demonstrations in 

the Philippines, China, England, France, Germany, Hawaii, and even 

California. The public outcry diminished only after the Army more 

than halved its remaining strength during the first six months of 1946.

President Harry S. Truman, determined to balance the national 

budget, also affected the Army’s manpower. He developed and 

through fiscal year 1950 employed a “remainder method” of calculating military budgets. He subtracted all other expenditures from 

revenues before recommending a military appropriation. The dollar 

ceiling for fiscal year 1947 dictated a new maximum Army strength 

of just over 1 million. To reduce to that level, the Army stopped draft 

calls and released all postwar draftees along with any troops eligible 

for demobilization. By June 30, 1947, the Army was a volunteer body 

of 684,000 ground troops and 306,000 airmen. It was still large for 

a peacetime Army, but losses of capable maintenance specialists 

resulted in a widespread deterioration of equipment. Active Army 

units, understrength and infused with barely trained replacements, 

represented only shadows of the efficient organizations they had 

been at the end of the war. 

War Crimes Trials

(Germany)

In the 1943 Moscow Declaration, 

Allied leaders announced that 

German war criminals would be tried 

where they committed their crimes, 

but that the Allies would prosecute 

the leadership of the Nazi regime 

together. The famous International 

Military Tribunal trials at Nuremberg 

lasted from October 20, 1945, until 

October 1, 1946. Twenty-two defendants, including Hermann Göring, 

Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe

(Air Force), and Rudolf Hess, Deputy 

Führer, stood trial for crimes against 

peace, war crimes, crimes against 

humanity, and conspiracy to commit such crimes. The trials resulted in twelve death sentences, three acquittals, 

and prison terms ranging from a few years to life imprisonment. 

Defendants in the Nuremberg Trials. On the front row are Hermann Goering, 

Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel.
American Military History

206

Unification

While demobilization proceeded, civil and military officials wrestled 

with reorganizing the national security system to cope with a changed 

world. Army reformers, led by General of the Army George C. Marshall, 

Jr., and his successor as Chief of Staff, General of the Army Dwight 

D. Eisenhower, argued for strong centralized control at the national and 

theater levels, using as their model the European Theater of Operations. 

They wanted to preserve the basic World War II command arrangements but also to go substantially beyond them. Navy Secretary James V. 

Forrestal advocated a looser, more decentralized system that would essentially continue World War II practices. The largest group of reformers, 

including President Truman and most members of Congress, desired 

efficiency and its supposed corollary, economy, above all else. Forrestal 

and the Navy prevailed in the three-year debate that culminated in the 

passage of the National Security Act of 1947.

The act created a National Security Council (NSC) and a loosely 

federated National Military Establishment. The latter was not an executive department of the federal government, though a civilian Secretary 

of Defense with cabinet rank headed the organization. Only a minimal 

number of civilians assisted him in coordinating the armed services. 

The Air Force became a separate service equal to the Army and Navy; 

the law designated all three as executive departments. They were led by 

civilian secretaries who lacked cabinet rank but enjoyed direct access to 

the President.

Members of the National Security Council included the Secretary 

of State, the Secretary of Defense, the three service secretaries, and 

heads of other governmental agencies as appointed by the President. 

One of the appointees was the Chairman of the National Security 

Resources Board, an agency established by the act to handle the 

problems of industrial, manpower, and raw material mobilization 

in support of an overall national strategy. In theory, the National 

Security Council was to develop coordinated diplomatic, military, and 

industrial plans; recommend integrated national security policies to 

the President; and guide the execution of those policies the President 

approved. In practice, because of the inherent complexity of the 

responsibility, the council would produce something less than precise 

policy determinations.

The National Military Establishment included the Departments 

of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense. The Secretary of Defense exercised general direction over the 

three departments. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, composed of the military 

chiefs of the three services, became a statutory body in the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense. The chiefs functioned as the principal military advisers to the President, the National Security Council, and the 

Secretary of Defense. They also formulated joint military plans, established unified (multiservice) commands in various areas of the world 

as well as single service (subsequently called specified) commands, 

and gave strategic direction to those commands. By mid-1950 the 

chiefs had established unified commands in the Far East, the Pacific, 

Alaska, the Caribbean, and Europe and a few specified commands, the 

most important of which was the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command 

General Marshall

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

G. Ryan, 1945
peace becomes cold war, 1945–1950

207

(SAC), then the nation’s only atomic strike force. Within each unified 

command, at least theoretically, Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel 

served under commanders of their respective services but came under 

the overall supervision of the Commander in Chief (CINC), whom the 

Joint Chiefs designated from one of the services. In fact, each component commander looked to his own service chief for guidance and only 

secondarily to his unified commander. The unified commander exer-

cised true command authority only over the component commander 

of his own service. All else was subject to negotiation and the impacts 

of prestige and personalities. 

Under the National Security Act, each military service retained 

much of its former autonomy because it was administered within a 

separate department. In 1948 Forrestal, ironically as the first Secretary 

of Defense, negotiated an interservice accord on roles and missions 

that hardened the separation. The Army received primary responsibility 

for conducting operations on land, for supplying antiaircraft units to 

defend the United States against air attack, and for providing occupation and security garrisons overseas. The Navy, besides remaining 

responsible for surface and submarine operations, retained control of 

its sea-based aviation and of the Marine Corps with its organic aviation. 

The new Air Force received jurisdiction over strategic air warfare, air 

transport, and combat air support of the Army.

The signal weakness of the act was not that it left the armed 

forces more federated than unified but that the Secretary of Defense, 

empowered to exercise only general supervision, could do little more 

than encourage cooperation among the departments. Furthermore, 

giving the three service secretaries direct access to the President tended 

to confuse lines of authority. Forrestal’s suicide shortly after stepping 

down as Secretary vividly highlighted these faults, which prompted an 

amendment to the act in 1949 that partially corrected the deficiencies. 

It converted the National Military Establishment into an executive 

department, renamed the Department of Defense. 

The legislation reduced the Departments of the Army, Navy, and 

Air Force to military departments within the Department of Defense 

and added a chairman to preside over the Joint Chiefs without any 

further substantive powers. General of the Army Omar N. Bradley 

became the first chairman. The Secretary of Defense received at least 

some of the appropriate responsibility and authority to make him truly 

the central figure in coordinating the activities of the three services. 

The latter, although reduced in strength, remained formidable. The 

three service secretaries retained authority to administer affairs within 

their respective departments; and the departments remained the principal agencies for administering, training, and supporting their respective forces. The service chiefs in their capacity as members of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff retained primary responsibility for military operations.

Unification also touched officer education, though each service 

continued to maintain schools to meet its own specialized needs. 

Wartime experiences led the Joint Chiefs of Staff to open three 

schools designed to educate officers of all the services and selected 

civilians: the Armed Forces Staff College to train officers in planning 

and conducting joint military operations; the Industrial College of 

the Armed Forces to instruct logisticians in mobilizing the nation’s General Bradley
American Military History

208

resources for war; and the National War College to develop officers 

and civilians for duties connected with the execution of national 

policy at the highest levels.

In May 1950 Congress enacted a new Uniform Code of Military 

Justice applying to all the armed forces. This code, besides prescribing 

uniformity, reduced the severities of military discipline in the interest 

of improving the lot of the individual serviceman. In another troop 

matter, part of a larger effort for civil rights, President Truman directed 

the armed forces to eliminate all segregation of troops by race. The 

Navy and the Air Force abolished their all–African American units by 

June 1950. The Army, with more African-American members than its 

sister services, took some four years longer to desegregate. There was 

also high-level opposition: Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall 

resigned rather than implement President Truman’s order.

Occupation

Throughout the demobilization, about half the Army’s diminishing 

strength remained overseas, the bulk of that involved in the occupation 

of Germany and Japan. The Army also maintained a significant force 

in the southern portion of the former Japanese colony of Korea and 

smaller forces in Austria and the Italian province of Trieste. 

Under a common occupation policy developed principally in 

conferences at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945, the Allied Powers assumed 

joint authority over Germany. American, British, Soviet, and French 

forces occupied separate zones; national matters came before an Allied 

Control Council composed of the commanders of the four occupation 

armies. The Allies similarly divided and governed the German capital, 

Berlin, which lay deep in the Soviet zone.

In the American zone, Army occupation troops proceeded rapidly 

with disarmament, demilitarization, and the eradication of Nazi influence from German life. American officials participated as members of 

the International Military Tribunal that tried 22 major leaders of the 

Nazi party and sentenced 12 to death, imprisoned 7, and acquitted 3. 

The Office of Military Government supervised German civil affairs 

within the American zone, working increasingly through German local, 

state, and zonal agencies, which military government officials staffed 

with politically reliable men. A special U.S. Constabulary, which the 

The Occupation of Berlin

In September 1944 American, British, and Soviet representatives in London agreed to divide Berlin into 

national sectors of occupation (France joined later) and to govern the city jointly. Berlin’s garrison surrendered to the Soviets on May 2, 1945. On July 4 soldiers of the 2d Armored Division entered the American 

sector. The four powers cooperated reasonably well until the summer of 1946, when ideological warfare 

between German political parties, coupled with East-West disagreements, transformed Berlin into the “Front 

City” of the Cold War. The sheer example of West Berlin’s freedom and prosperity constantly subverted 

Communist authority in East Germany.
peace becomes cold war, 1945–1950

209

Army organized as demobilization cut away the strength of units in 

Germany, operated as a mobile police force.

Each of the other occupying powers organized its zone along 

similar lines, but the Allied Control Council could act only by unanimous agreement. It failed to achieve unanimity on such nationwide 

matters as central economic administrative agencies, political parties, 

labor organizations, foreign and internal trade, currency, and land 

reform. Soviet demands and dissents accounted for most of the failures. Each zone inevitably became a self-contained administrative and 

economic unit; two years after the German surrender, the wartime 

Allies had made very little progress toward restoring German national 

life. In January 1947 the British and the Americans began coordinating 

their zonal economic policies. The eventual result, first taking shape in 

September 1949, was a Germany divided between the Federal Republic 

of Germany in the area of the American, British, and French zones 

and a Communist government in the Soviet zone in the east.

The occupation of Japan proceeded along different lines as a 

result of President Truman’s insistence that all of Japan come under 

American control. Largely because the war in the Pacific had been 

primarily an American war, the President secured Allied approval 

to appoint General of the Army Douglas MacArthur as Supreme 

Commander, Allied Powers, for the occupation of Japan. A Far East 

Advisory Commission representing the eleven nations that had fought 

against Japan resided in Washington. A branch of that body, with representatives from the United States, Great Britain, China, and the USSR, 

was located in Tokyo. These provided forums for Allied viewpoints 

on occupation policies, but the real power rested with General 

MacArthur.

Unlike Germany, Japan retained its government, which, under the 

supervision of General MacArthur’s occupation troops, disarmed the 

nation rapidly and without incident. An International Military Tribunal 

similar to the one in Germany tried twenty-five high military and political 

officials, sentencing seven to death. MacArthur encouraged reforms to 

alter the old order of government in which the emperor claimed power 

by divine right and ruled through an oligarchy of military, bureaucratic, 

and economic cliques. By mid-1947 the free election of a new Diet 

(legislature) and a thorough revision of the nation’s constitution began 

the transformation of Japan into a democracy with the emperor’s role 

The U.S. Constabulary

To accomplish its occupational mission in postwar Germany, the Army established a mobile police force, 

the Constabulary, which went into operation in July 1946. In view of small numbers (its strength never 

exceeded 35,000), the Constabulary adopted a tactic of preventing disorder by maintaining visibility 

through frequent patrols. Constabulary soldiers wore a distinctive uniform with a shoulder-strap belt and 

ascot; their training included courses on German government and law. In 1947, in step with improvements in 

the German police, Constabulary units began training as combat reserves, completing this transformation by 

1950. The Constabulary was inactivated at the end of that year. 
American Military History

210

limited to that of a constitutional monarch. The way was thus open for 

the ultimate restoration of Japan’s sovereignty.

West of the Japanese islands, on the peninsula of Korea, the course 

of occupation resembled that in Germany. Soviet forces, following 

their brief campaign against the Japanese in Manchuria, moved into 

Korea from the north in August 1945. U.S. Army forces, departing 

from Okinawa, entered from the south a month later. The 38th Parallel 

of north latitude that crossed the peninsula at its waist became the 

boundary between the forces. The Americans accepted the Japanese 

surrender south of the line and the Soviets above it, releasing Korea 

from forty years of Japanese rule.

According to wartime agreements, the Allies would give Korea full 

independence following a period of military occupation during which 

native leadership was to be regenerated and the country’s economy 

rehabilitated. Lack of agreement among the occupying powers very 

quickly blighted these expectations. While the Americans regarded 

the 38th Parallel as only a temporary boundary between the occupation forces, the Soviets considered it a permanent delineation between 

spheres of influence. This interpretation, as in Germany, ruptured the 

administrative and economic unity of the country.

The Truman administration hoped to remove this obstacle during 

a meeting of foreign ministers at Moscow in December 1945. The 

ministers agreed that a joint U.S.-USSR commission would develop a 

provisional Korean government. A four-power trusteeship composed 

of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China 

would guide the provisional government for a maximum of five years. 

But when the commission met, the Soviet members proved willing 

to reunite Korea only if the Communists dominated the provisional 

government. The Americans refused. The resulting impasse finally 

prompted the United States to lay the whole Korean question before 

the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 1947.

The Rise of a New Opponent

Soviet intransigence, as demonstrated in Germany, in Korea, and in 

other areas, dashed American hopes for Great Power unity. The USSR, 

The Occupation of Korea, September 1945–August 1948

The United States in 1945 decided to occupy the southern half of Korea to prevent the Soviet Union, which 

had attacked Japanese forces in northern Korea, from dominating the peninsula and thus threatening American 

access and influence in Northeast Asia. The American occupation had two objectives: remove the Japanese colonial government and repatriate Japanese military personnel and civilians to Japan and establish a democratic 

and Capitalist regime controlling the entire peninsula that could survive with minimal American economic and 

military assistance. The United States quickly achieved its first objective, but growing Cold War tensions left each 

superpower unwilling to allow its rival to dominate the peninsula. Each settled for a client regime controlling half 

of the peninsula. When the American occupation of southern Korea ended in August 1948, the peninsula was 

divided into competing regimes, each dedicated to destroying the other. 
peace becomes cold war, 1945–1950

211

former British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill warned early in 

1946, had lowered an “Iron Curtain” across the European continent. 

The Soviets quickly drew eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, 

Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania behind that curtain. In Greece, where 

political and economic disorder led to civil war, the rebels received support 

from Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. In the Near East, the Soviets 

kept a grip on Iran by leaving troops there beyond the time specified in 

the wartime arrangement. They also tried to intimidate Turkey into giving 

them special privileges in connection with the strategic Dardanelles. In 

Asia, besides insisting on full control in northern Korea, the USSR had 

turned Manchuria over to the Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong 

and was encouraging him in a renewed effort to wrest power from Chiang 

Kai-shek and the Kuomintang government.

Whatever the impulse behind the Soviet drive—a search for 

national security or a desire to promote Communist world revolution—

the Soviet strategy appeared to be expansion. The Truman administration could see no inherent limits to the outward push. Each Communist 

gain, it seemed, would serve as a springboard from which to try another. 

With a large part of the world still suffering from the ravages of war, 

the possibilities appeared limitless. President Truman responded by 

blocking any extension of Communist influence until popular pressures 

for a better life forced a liberalization of the regime—a policy known 

as containment. But, viewing the industrialized European continent 

as the decisive area, the administration at first limited its containment 

policy to Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East and 

attempted other solutions in East Asia.

China in any case presented a dilemma. On the one hand, American 

military observers doubted that Chiang Kai-shek could defeat the 

Communists with aid short of direct American participation in the civil 

war. President Truman considered such an open-ended commitment 

unacceptable. On the other hand, an attempt by the President’s special 

envoy, General Marshall, following his Army retirement, to negotiate 

an end to the war on terms that would allow Communist participation 

in a Kuomintang-dominated government proved futile. The Truman 

administration consequently adopted the attitude of “letting the dust 

settle.” Part of the basis for this view was a prevalent American belief 

that the Chinese Communist revolt was more Chinese than Communist, 

that its motivation was nationalistic, not imperialistic. Though the dust 

The Greek Civil War

In January1945 British troops suppressed a Greek Communist coup in Athens. The Communists renewed 

guerrilla war in March 1946. Severe financial difficulties forced the British government to terminate its responsibilities in the spring of 1947. The United States intervened with economic and military aid. Lt. Gen. James 

Van Fleet commanded an advisory mission of 250 officers who took operational control of Greek forces. 

Reinvigorated Greek troops went to the offensive in 1948. The war ended in the summer of 1949, when 

Yugoslav Marshal Josip B. Tito split with Stalin and closed Yugoslavia’s borders to the pro-Moscow Greek 

Communists, forcing many to retreat into Albanian exile. 
American Military History

212

appeared to be settling in favor of the Chinese Communists by the end 

of 1948, the administration had some hope that an American-Chinese 

friendship could still be restored. 

Next door in Korea, the United Nations, acting in response to the 

request of the Truman administration, sent a commission to supervise 

free elections throughout the peninsula. But Soviet authorities declared 

the UN project illegal and refused the commission entry above the 38th 

Parallel. The United Nations then sponsored an elected government in 

the southern half of the peninsula, which in August 1948 became the 

Republic of Korea (South Korea). The following month the Soviets 

countered by establishing a Communist government, the Democratic 

People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), above the parallel. Three 

months later they announced the withdrawal of their occupation forces. 

The United States followed suit in mid-1949, leaving only an advisory 

group to help train the South Korean armed forces.

In the main arena in Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the 

Middle East, blunt diplomatic exchanges finally produced a withdrawal 

of Soviet forces from Iran. But it was around America’s economic 

strength that the United States constructed its containment strategy, 

an approach based on the judgment that the American monopoly on 

atomic weapons would deter the USSR from direct military aggression 

in favor of exploiting civil strife in countries prostrated by the war. The 

American strategy focused on providing economic assistance to friends 

and former enemies alike to alleviate the social conditions conducive to 

Communist expansion.

To ease the situations in Turkey and Greece, President Truman in 

1947 obtained $400 million from Congress with which to assist those 

two countries. “I believe,” the President declared, “that it must be the 

American Truce Team with Chinese Communists

Wayne DeWitt Larabee, 1946
peace becomes cold war, 1945–1950

213

policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting 

attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures ... 

that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their 

own way ... that our help should be primarily through economic and 

financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.” This policy, subsequently labeled the Truman Doctrine, 

had only limited application at the time; but the President’s appeal to 

universal principles to justify the program in effect placed the United 

States in the position of opposing Communist expansion in any part 

of the world.

A broader program of economic aid followed. General Marshall, 

who became Secretary of State in January 1947, proposed that the 

United States pursue the economic recovery in Europe as a single task, 

not nation by nation, and that a single program combine the resources 

of European countries with American aid. This Marshall Plan drew an 

immediate response. Sixteen nations, who also considered the needs and 

resources of West Germany, devised a four-year European Recovery 

Program incorporating their resources and requiring some $16 billion 

from the United States. In a last effort to promote Great Power unity, 

the Truman administration invited the USSR to participate. The Soviet 

Union refused and discouraged the initial interest of some countries 

within its sphere of influence. In October the Soviet Union organized 

the Cominform, a committee for coordinating Communist parties 

in Europe to fight the Marshall Plan as “an instrument of American 

imperialism.” More effective opposition came from isolationists in 

Congress, who balked when President Truman first requested approval 

of the program. Only after the Soviets engineered a coup d’etat that 

placed a Communist government in power in Czechoslovakia did 

Congress appropriate funds in April 1948. 

Meanwhile, to protect the western hemisphere against Communist 

intrusion, the Truman administration in September 1947 helped devise 

the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty), the 

first regional arrangement for collective defense under provisions of 

the UN Charter. Eventually signed by all twenty-one American republics, the treaty considered armed aggression against one signatory as an 

attack upon all. Responses, by independent choice of each signatory, 

could range from severance of diplomatic relations to economic sanctions to military counteraction.

In March 1948 a second regional arrangement, the Brussels Treaty, 

drew five nations of Western Europe (Great Britain, France, Belgium, 

the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) into a long-term economic and military alliance. The signatories received encouragement from President 

Truman, who declared before Congress his confidence “that the 

determination of the free countries of Europe to protect themselves 

will be matched by an equal determination on our part to help them.” 

Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, in a notable 

display of bipartisan cooperation, followed with a resolution, which 

the Senate passed in June, authorizing the commitment of American 

military strength to regional alliances such as the Brussels Treaty.

Out of all of this activity grew the real basis of postwar international 

relations: West versus East, anti-Communists against Communists, 

and those nations aligned with the United States confronting those 

The President’s appeal to 

universal principles to justify the 

program in effect placed the 

United States in the position of 

opposing Communist expansion in 

any part of the world.
American Military History

214

assembled under the leadership of the Soviet Union, a Cold War 

between power blocs. Leadership of the Western bloc fell to the United 

States, because it was the only Western power with sufficient resources 

to take the lead in containing Soviet expansion.

The Trends of Military Policy

Although pursued as a program of economic assistance, the 

American policy of containment needed military underpinning. 

Containment first of all was a defensive measure: The USSR had not 

completely demobilized. On the contrary, it was maintaining over 4 

million men under arms, keeping armament industries in high gear, and 

rearming some of its satellites. Containment needed the support of a 

military policy of deterrence, a strategy and force structure possessing 

sufficient strength and balance to discourage any Soviet or Sovietsupported military aggression.

Postwar military policy, however, did not develop as a full response 

to the needs of containment. The traditional and current trend of 

American military thinking focused on mobilization in the event of war, 

not the maintenance of ready forces to prevent war. Army plans for 

manpower mobilization concentrated on instituting Universal Military 

Training (UMT). Technological advances, argued advocates such as 

Brig. Gen. (Ret.) John M. Palmer, had eliminated the grace of time and 

distance that had in the past permitted the nation the opportunity to 

mobilize its untrained citizenry. Modern warfare needed a huge reservoir 

of trained men. Late in 1945 President Truman asked the Congress for 

legislation requiring male citizens to undergo a year of military training 

(not service) upon reaching the age of eighteen or after completing high 

school. Universal Military Training quickly became the subject of wide 

debate. Objections ranged from mild criticism that it was “a system 

in which the American mind finds no pleasure” to its denunciation 

as a “Nazi program.” Regardless of the President’s urgings, studies 

that produced further justification, and various attempts to make the 

program more palatable, Congress with broad public support refused 

to act on the controversial issue for the next five years.

Lacking Universal Military Training, the Army would depend 

almost entirely on the reserve components for reinforcements of 

trained personnel during mobilization. Limited funds also affected 

the strength of the reserve components. Enrollment in the National 

Guard and Reserves of all three services at mid-1950 totaled over 2.5 

million. Owing largely to restricted budgets, members in active training 

numbered fewer than 1 million. The bulk of this active strength rested 

in the Army National Guard and Organized Reserve Corps. The 

National Guard, with 325,000 members, included 27 understrength 

divisions. The active strength of the Organized Reserve Corps, some 

186,000, primarily manned a multitude of small combat support and 

service units, also generally understrength. The Reserve Officers’ 

Training Corps provided a final source of trained strength. In early 

1950 it contained about 219,000 high school and college students.

The fear of another depression constituted the single most important inhibitor to increased military spending by the Truman administration. Moreover, the advent of the atomic bomb appeared to provide 

Olive Drab Field Jacket with Double Brass, 

Used 1947–1949
peace becomes cold war, 1945–1950

215

an economic alternative to large standing armies and navies. President 

Truman in particular considered the American nuclear monopoly as the 

primary deterrent to direct Soviet military action. Determining the size 

of the force meant balancing what the President perceived as a low risk 

of Soviet invasion of Western Europe against the real possibility that 

an unbalanced federal budget required to maintain large conventional 

forces would lead to economic downturn and would fatally undermine 

containment. 

The size of the budget thus limited the size of the armed forces. 

The total strength of active forces gradually decreased from the figure 

reached at the end of demobilization. The Army, Navy, and Marine 

Corps declined in strength, while the Air Force actually grew slightly 

larger. About a third of the Air Force constituted the SAC, the main 

deterrent to Soviet military aggression. Louis A. Johnson, who became 

Secretary of Defense in March 1949, gave full support to a defense 

based primarily on strategic air power, largely because of his dedication 

to economy. Intent on ridding the Department of Defense of what 

he considered “costly war-born spending habits,” Johnson reduced 

defense expenditures below even the restrictive ceilings in President 

Truman’s recommendations. As a result, by mid-1950 the Air Force, 

with 411,000 members, maintained only 48 combat groups. The Navy, 

with 377,000 sailors, had 670 ships in its active 

fleet and 4,300 opera-

tional aircraft. The Marine Corps, 75,000 strong, mustered 2 skeleton 

divisions and 2 air wings. The Army, down to 591,000 members, fielded 

10 weak divisions and 5 regimental combat teams with the constabulary 

in Germany equal to another division.

Everyone recognized that war with the Soviet Union posed immense 

dangers. The joint war plans of the period postulated the possibility of a 

Soviet sweep deep into Western Europe. Initial iterations of these plans 

envisioned that the Western occupation forces would simply withdraw 

from the continent as quickly as possible. Subsequent versions postulated a fighting retreat and possible maintenance of an enclave from 

which to launch a counteroffensive once the United States had mobilized. Only with the advent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) did joint planners seriously consider the defense of Western 

Europe in depth. Toward the midpoint of these efforts, the planners 

added an air-atomic offensive from the Middle East and North Africa 

against the Soviet industrial infrastructure. It would weaken the Soviet 

military capacity for a long war, but it would not provide a close defense 

of Western Europe. 

The strength reductions, mobilization strategy, and heavy reliance 

on the atomic bomb and strategic air power indicated that the idea 

of deterring aggression through balanced ready forces played only a 

limited role in postwar military policy. As of early June 1950 this calculated risk still appeared adequate to the situation.

The Army of 1950

As the Army underwent its drastic postwar reduction, from 8 

million men and 89 divisions in 1945 to 591,000 men and 10 divisions 

in 1950, it also underwent numerous structural changes. At the department level, General Eisenhower in 1946 had approved a reorganization 

President Truman
American Military History

216

that restored the General Staff to its prewar position. The principal 

adjustment involved the elimination of the very powerful Operations 

Division (OPD) from which General Marshall had controlled wartime 

operations. Eisenhower brought back the prewar structure of the 

General Staff with five coequal divisions under new names: Personnel 

and Administration; Intelligence; Organization and Training; Service, 

Supply, and Procurement; and Plans and Operations. He also abolished 

the Headquarters, Army Service Forces, in 1946. The administrative 

and technical services formerly under that headquarters regained their 

prewar status as departmental agencies. In 1948 Eisenhower’s successor, 

General Bradley, redesignated the Army Ground Forces as the Army 

Field Forces and restricted its responsibilities to education, training, 

doctrine, and the service test of new equipment.

These and other organizational changes became a matter of 

statute with the passage of the Army Reorganization Act in 1950. 

The act confirmed the power of the Secretary of the Army to administer departmental affairs and relieved the Army Chief of Staff from 

command of the field forces. Under the Secretary, the Army Chief of 

Staff was responsible for the Army’s readiness and operational plans 

and for worldwide implementation of the approved plans and policies of the department. He had the assistance of general and special 

staffs whose size and composition could be adjusted as requirements 

changed. Below the Chief of Staff, the Chief of Army Field Forces 

was directly responsible for developing tactical doctrine, for controlling 

the Army school system, and for supervising the field training of Army 

units. He exercised these responsibilities through the headquarters 

of the six Continental Army Areas into which the United States was 

divided. 

Under the new act, the Secretary of the Army received the authority 

to determine the number and strength of the Army’s combat arms 

and services. Three combat arms—Infantry, Armor, and Artillery—

received statutory recognition. Armor became a continuation of 

another older arm, now eliminated, the Cavalry. Artillery represented 

a merger of the old Field Artillery, Coast Artillery, and Antiaircraft 

Artillery. The services numbered fourteen and included The Adjutant 

General’s Corps, Army Medical Service, Chaplain’s Corps, Chemical 

Corps, Corps of Engineers, Finance Corps, Inspector General’s Corps, 

Judge Advocate General’s Corps, Military Police Corps, Ordnance 

Corps, Quartermaster Corps, Signal Corps, Transportation Corps, and 

Women’s Army Corps. Army Aviation, designated neither arm nor 

service, existed as a quasi-arm equipped with small fixed-wing craft and 

a very few primitive helicopters.

The Army’s best body of troops at mid-1950 consisted largely of 

World War II veterans, a sizable but diminishing group. The need to 

obtain replacements quickly during demobilization, the distractions and 

relaxed atmosphere of occupation duty, and a postwar training program 

less demanding than that of the war years impeded the combat readiness of newer Army members. Some veterans claimed that the new 

Uniform Code of Military Justice, because it softened military discipline, had blunted the Army’s combat ability even more.

Half the Army’s major combat units were deployed overseas. Of the 

10 divisions, the Far Eastern Command controlled 4 infantry divisions 

The Army Chief of Staff was 

responsible for the Army’s 

readiness and operational 

plans and for worldwide 

implementation of the approved 

plans and policies of the 

department. 
peace becomes cold war, 1945–1950

217

on occupation duty in Japan. The European Command had another 

infantry division in Germany. The remaining 5 (2 airborne, 2 infantry, 

and 1 armored divisions) in the United States constituted a general 

reserve to meet emergencies. All 10 divisions had undergone organizational changes, most of them prompted by the war experience. Under 

new tables of organization and equipment, the firepower and mobility 

of the infantry division received a boost through the addition of a tank 

battalion and an antiaircraft battalion and through a rise in the number 

of pieces in each artillery battery from 4 to 6. At the regimental level, the 

World War II cannon and antitank companies had disappeared; the new 

tables added a tank company and a 4.2-inch mortar company, as well as 

57-mm. and 75-mm. recoilless rifles. The postwar economies, however, 

had forced the Army to skeletonize its combat units. Nine of the 10 divisions were far under their authorized strength. Their infantry regiments 

had only 2 of the normal 3 battalions, and most artillery battalions had 

only 2 of the normal 3 firing batteries. Most lacked organic armor. No 

unit had its wartime complement of weapons, and those weapons on 

hand as well as other equipment were largely worn-out leftovers from 

World War II. None of the combat units, as a result, came anywhere near 

to possessing the punch conceived under the new organizational design.

The Cold War Intensifies

The deterioration in military readiness through mid-1950 proceeded 

in the face of a worsening trend in international events, especially from 

mid-1948 forward. In Germany, in further protest against Western 

attempts to establish a national government and in particular against 

efforts to institute currency reforms in Berlin, the USSR in June 1948 

moved to force the Americans, British, and French out of the capital by 

blockading the road and rail lines through the Soviet occupation zone 

over which troops and supplies from the West reached the Allied sectors 

of the city. Although General Lucius D. Clay, the American military 

governor, preferred to test Soviet resolve with an armed convoy, at the 

The Army and the Berlin Airlift

Russian forces blocked the routes of supply by road, 

rail, and canal from the West to the American and British 

occupation sectors in Berlin. General Clay’s attempt to gain 

approval for a plan to run armored columns down the roads 

and crash through these barricades failed because the British 

and Americans feared it would help precipitate a war. Clay 

came up with the “impossible” idea of supplying Berlin by air. 

Following the first modest food deliveries in June 1948, the 

airlift steadily gained proficiency. When the blockade ended 

in May 1949, the U.S.-U.K. Air Forces had flown in 1.218 

million net metric tons of supplies, chiefly coal and food, to 

Berlin. 

Berliners watch a C–54 land at Tempelhof, Berlin, 1948.
American Military History

218

suggestion of his British counterpart, General Sir Brian Robertson, he 

countered with an airlift. The U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, with some 

help from the British and U.S. Navies, loaded, flew in, and distributed 

food, fuel, and other necessities to keep the Allied sectors of Berlin 

supplied. The success of the airlift and a telling counterblockade, which 

shut off shipments of goods to the Soviet sector from West Germany, 

finally moved the Soviets to lift the blockade in May 1949.

Meanwhile, in April 1949, the United States joined NATO, the 

military alliance growing out of the Brussels Treaty. The United States 

and Canada combined with ten Western European nations so that “an 

armed attack against one or more of them” would “be considered an 

attack against them all,” a provision aimed at discouraging a Soviet march 

on Europe. The signatories agreed to earmark forces for service under 

NATO direction. For the United States’ part, the budgetary restrictions, 

mobilization strategy, and continuing emphasis on air power and the 

bomb handicapped its military commitment to the alliance. The basic 

budget ceiling and Secretary of Defense Johnson’s ardent economy drive 

defeated an effort by some officials to increase the nation’s conventional 

forces. Nevertheless, by joining NATO, the United States pledged that 

it would fight to protect common Allied interests in Europe and thus 

explicitly enlarged containment beyond the economic realm.

Concurrently with negotiations leading to the NATO alliance, the 

National Security Council reviewed all postwar military aid programs, 

some of which stemmed from World War II obligations. By 1949 the 

United States was providing military equipment and training assistance 

to Greece, Turkey, Iran, China, Korea, the Philippines, and the Latin 

American republics. Based on this examination, President Truman 

proposed combining all existing programs and extending eligibility to 

any anti-Communist government. This became the administration’s 

primary means of containing communism outside of Europe. The 

result was the Mutual Defense Assistance Program of October 1949. 

The Department of the Army, executive agent for the program, sent 

each recipient country a military assistance advisory group. Composed 

of Army, Navy, and Air Force sections, each advisory group assisted its 

host government in determining the amount and type of aid needed 

and helped train the armed forces of each country in the use and 

tactical employment of materiel received from the United States.

A new and surprising turn came in the late summer of 1949, when, 

two to three years ahead of Western intelligence estimates, an explosion over Siberia announced the Soviets had an atomic weapon. On the 

heels of the USSR’s achievement, the civil war in China ended in favor 

of the Chinese Communists. Chiang Kai-shek withdrew to the island 

of Taiwan in December 1949. Two months later Communist China and 

the USSR negotiated a treaty of mutual assistance, an ominous event in 

terms of future U.S.-China relations.

The United States’ loss of the atomic monopoly prompted its broad 

review of the entire political and strategic position at top staff levels in 

the National Security Council, Department of State, and Department 

of Defense. A special National Security Council committee at the same 

time considered the specific problem posed by the Soviet achievement. Out of the committee came a decision to intensify research on 

the hydrogen bomb to assure the United States the lead in the field 

Communist China and the USSR 

negotiated a treaty of mutual 

assistance, an ominous event 

in terms of future U.S.-China 

relations.
peace becomes cold war, 1945–1950

219

of nuclear weapons. Out of the broader review, completed in April 

1950, came recommendations known as NSC 68 (the file number of 

the paper) for a large expansion of American military, diplomatic, and 

economic efforts to meet the changed world situation. The planning 

staffs in the Department of Defense began at once to translate the military recommendations into force levels and budgets. There remained 

the question of whether the plans when completed would persuade 

President Truman to lift the ceiling on military appropriations. Events 

in Korea soon resolved the issue.

After the Communist victory in China, the United States applied its 

policy of containment in Asia. In January 1950 Secretary of State Dean 

G. Acheson publicly defined the U.S. “defense line” in Asia as running 

south from the Aleutian Islands to Japan, to the Ryukyu Islands, and 

then to the Philippines. This delineation raised a question about Taiwan 

and Korea, which lay outside the line. Secretary Acheson stated that if 

they were attacked, “the initial reliance must be on the people attacked 

to resist it and then upon the commitments of the entire world under 

the Charter of the United Nations.” A question remained whether the 

Communist bloc would construe his statement as a definite American 

commitment to defend Taiwan and Korea if they came under attack.

The United States had responded to the emergence of a bipolar 

world with a policy of containing the political ambitions of the 

Communist bloc while at the same time deterring general war. In the 

view of senior Army leaders, by mid-1950 the United States had not yet 

backed that policy with a matching military establishment. Discussion Questions

1. Why did the United States demobilize so quickly after World War 

II? What were the consequences? Have there been parallels since?

2. What did unification entail? What are some reasons for greater 

unification of the services, and what are some against?

3. What were the areas of friction between the United States and 

the Soviet Union after World War II? How did they affect the U.S. 

Army?

4. What were the major components of the U.S. policy of containment in Europe? How successful was the effort? Could the new United 

Nations have filled this role?

5. Why were Berlin and Germany so important to the United 

States?

6. Discuss the pros and cons of Universal Military Training. Why 

did the attempt to pass UMT legislation fail? Recommended Readings

Backer, John H. Winds of History: The German Years of Lucius DuBignon 

Clay. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983.

Bradley, Omar, and Clay Blair. A General’s Life: An Autobiography. New 

York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.
American Military History

220

Friedman, Norman. The Fifty Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold 

War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Gaddis, John L. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar 

American National Security Policy. New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1982.

James, D. Clayton. The Years of MacArthur, 3 vols. Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin, 1985, vol. 3.

MacGregor, Morris J., Jr. The Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2001.

Perry, John C. Beneath the Eagle’s Wings: Americans in Occupied Japan. New 

York: Dodd, Mead, 1980.

Pogue, Forrest C. George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945–1959. New York: 

Penguin Books, 1989.

Other Readings

Carafano, James J. Waltzing into the Cold War: The Struggle for Occupied 

Austria. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002.

Clay, Lucius D. Decision in Germany. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 

1970.

Condit, Kenneth W. History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs 

of Staff and National Policy, 1947–1949, 7 vols. Washington, D.C.: 

Office of Joint History, 1996, vol. 2.

Gimbel, John. The American Occupation of Germany: Politics and the Military, 

1945–1949. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968.

Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman 

Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University 

Press, 1992.

Miller, Roger G. To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift, 1948–1949. College 

Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000.

Nelson, Daniel J. A History of U.S. Military Forces in Germany. Boulder, 

Colo.: Westview Press, 1987, ch. 1.

Rearden, Steven L. The Formative Years, 1947–1950: History of the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense. Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office 

of the Secretary of Defense, 1984.

Reid, Escott. Time of Fear and Hope: The Making of the North Atlantic 

Treaty, 1947–1949. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977.

Ross, Steven T. American War Plans, 1945–1950. Portland, Ore.: Frank 

Cass, 1996.

Schaller, Michael. The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold 

War in Asia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Schnabel, James F. History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of 

Staff and National Policy, 1945–1947, 7 vols. Washington, D.C.: 

Office Joint History, 1996, vol. 1.

Ziemke, Earl F. The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2003, chs. 

17–24.
The North Korean invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, in 

a narrow sense was only an escalation of a continuing civil war 

among Koreans that began with Japan’s defeat in 1945. In a larger 

sense, the invasion marked the eruption of the Cold War between the 

United States and the USSR into open hostilities because each of the 

Great Powers backed one of the competing Korean governments. The 

war that followed would devastate Korea, lead to a large expansion 

of the U.S. armed forces and America’s military presence around the 

world, and frustrate many on both sides by ending in an armistice that 

left the peninsula still divided.

The Great Powers’ connection to Korea dated back to the decision in August 1945 by the United States and the USSR to dismantle 

the Japanese colonial system there by dividing the peninsula into two 

occupation zones. In December 1945 the United States and the USSR 

agreed to form a joint commission from among American and Soviet 

personnel in Korea that would recommend, after consultation with 

various Korean groups, the form of a government for Korea. Almost 

all Koreans in 1945 desired an independent Korea, but there were many 

competing visions of how to organize a new government. Between 

September 1945 and August 1948, the United States became entangled 

in this complex and violent Korean struggle that occurred in the context 

of increasing tensions between the United States and the USSR. Many 

Korean political groups in 1945 had Socialist or Leftist orientations 

or were openly Communist. Americans, both in the occupation force 

and in Washington, feared that these groups would create a Korea 

unfriendly to American interests, a fear intensified by reports coming 

out of the northern occupation zone that the Soviets were sponsoring 

a Communist revolution there led by Kim Il Sung. 

By the summer of 1947 Kim Il Sung had crushed opposition to 

his rule in the north. In the south, violence had destroyed the political 

center and driven the Leftists and Communists underground or into 

8

The Korean War

1950–1953
American Military History

222

the hills to begin preparations for a guerrilla war against the Rightist 

groups that the U.S. military government had favored. Soviet intransigence in negotiations over Korea’s future and the political violence 

in the South, which had erupted into rebellion against the Syngman 

Rhee regime in April 1948, led the United States to propose a United 

Nations Temporary Commission on Korea and an end to the American 

occupation of South Korea. The United Nations accepted the proposal 

to supervise efforts to create a unified Korea through a national election; but Kim Il Sung refused to cooperate, and thus the elections for 

a new Korean legislature in May 1948 took place only in the U.S. zone. 

Dominated by Rightist parties, the new legislature elected Rhee president of the republic in July 1948; on August 15 he was inaugurated, 

bringing an end to the U.S. occupation in southern Korea but not to the 

guerrilla war in the south. In the north, the Soviets had withdrawn all 

but advisers and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), 

headed by Kim, was established in September 1948.

The Decision for War 

The Western bloc was surprised by North Korea’s decision to 

invade South Korea. American intelligence reports had documented 

the DPRK’s military buildup, and by June 1950 the CIA had concluded 

that the DPRK could invade South Korea. Analysis of these reports by 

American civilian and military intelligence agencies was colored by the 

greater attention given to other areas of the world, previous false alarms 

of impending invasion, North Korean security measures, and the judgment that the DPRK was a firmly controlled satellite of the Soviet 

Union. This interpretation held that the DPRK could not destroy the 

Republic of Korea (ROK) government without Soviet assistance and 

that the Soviets would not provide such assistance, fearing it would 

spark a general war with the United States. Instead, American intelligence judged that the DPRK would continue its efforts to destabilize 

Kim Il Sung

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Dr. Syngman Rhee 

at a Ceremony, 1948
the korean war, 1950–1953

223

the ROK, a conclusion reinforced by the National Assembly elections 

in May 1950 that highlighted widespread dissatisfaction with the Rhee 

government in South Korea. 

The DPRK, while dependent on Soviet military and economic aid, 

was not a client state completely controlled by the Soviet Union; the 

initiative for the invasion came from Kim Il Sung, who was committed 

to unifying the country under his rule. Kim petitioned Stalin several 

times in 1949 for permission to invade South Korea. In late January 

1950 Stalin finally gave his assent and dispatched large amounts of 

military aid and Soviet advisers to prepare the invasion. Stalin finally 

approved Kim’s request because the United States had withdrawn its 

last ground combat unit from South Korea in June 1949 and Kim 

promised that the Korean People’s Army (KPA) could conquer the South 

before the United States could intervene decisively. Another consideration was that the United States had indicated that Korea was not 

needed for “strategic purposes,” a euphemism for bases from which 

to fight the Soviet Union in World War III. The chances of a direct 

confrontation with the United States thus appeared small. 

Kim in June 1950 had good reason to be confident of a quick victory. 

A force of 135,000, about half of whom were veterans of the Soviet 

Army or the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the KPA had 8 full divisions, 

each including a regiment of artillery; 2 divisions at half strength; 2 separate regiments; an armored brigade with 120 Soviet T–34/85 medium 

tanks; and 5 border constabulary brigades. In support of the KPA were 

180 Soviet aircraft, mostly fighters and attack bombers, and a few naval 

patrol craft. Soviet advisers prepared an invasion plan that called for tankled combined-arms forces to advance 15–20 kilometers per day, occupying Seoul within three days and completing the operation in 22–27 

days. Stalin, however, would not permit the Soviet advisers to accompany 

the KPA once it crossed into South Korea. 

The ROK Army of 95,000 men was far less fit for war. Raised 

as a constabulary during the American occupation and assisted by the 

U.S. Military Advisory Group to the Republic of Korea (KMAG), the 

ROK Army had since April 1948 been fighting a bitter war against 

guerrillas who received support from the DPRK. In 1948 and 1949 

the ROK Army also fought battles in up to regimental strength with 

North Korean border constabulary units, with each side making incursions into the other’s territory. These operations had interfered with 

effective training for conventional operations, and in June 1950 three 

of the eight ROK divisions were dispersed for counterguerrilla duties 

or small-unit training. The ROK Army was a light infantry force: its 

artillery totaled eighty-nine light 105-mm. howitzers outranged by KPA

artillery, and it had neither tanks nor any antitank weapons effective 

against the T–34/85s. The ROK Navy matched its North Korean 

counterpart, but the ROK Air Force had only a few trainers and liaison 

aircraft. U.S. equipment, war-worn when furnished to South Korean 

forces, had deteriorated further, and supplies on hand could sustain 

combat operations no longer than fifteen days.

The North Korean main attack was on the western side of the 

peninsula; the KPA quickly crushed South Korean defenses at the 38th 

Parallel and entered Seoul on June 28. (See Map 12.) A secondary attack 

down the peninsula’s center encountered stiff resistance in rugged 
American Military History

224

terrain; the KPA had more success on the east coast in keeping pace 

with the main drive. ROK units in the Seoul area withdrew in disorder 

and abandoned most of their equipment because the bridges over the 

Han River at the south edge of the city were prematurely demolished. 

North Korean units in the west halted brie

fly after capturing Seoul to 

bring tanks and artillery across the Han River. 

In Washington, a fourteen-hour time difference made it June 24 

when the North Koreans crossed the parallel, and the first report of the 

invasion arrived that night. The next day, at a meeting the United States 

requested, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an 

immediate cessation of hostilities and a withdrawal of North Korean 

forces to the 38th Parallel. The USSR did not exercise its veto power 

against the resolution because the Soviet delegate had been boycotting 

the council since January 1950 in protest of the United Nation’s decision not to recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC), recently 

victorious in the Chinese Civil War, as China’s legitimate government.

On the night of the twenty-fifth, after meetings between officials of 

the State and Defense Departments and then between President Harry 

S. Truman and his key advisers, the President directed General of the 

Army Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of Far East Command 

(FEC), to supply ROK forces with ammunition and equipment, evacuate 

American dependents from Korea, and survey conditions on the peninsula to determine how best to further assist the republic. The President 

also ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet from its current location in Philippine 

and Ryukyu waters to Japan. On the twenty-sixth, in a broad interpretation 

of a UN Security Council request for “every assistance” in supporting 

the June 25 resolution, President Truman authorized General MacArthur 

to use air and naval strength against North Korean targets below the 38th 

Parallel. The President also redirected the bulk of the Seventh Fleet to 

Taiwan; by standing between the Chinese Communists on the mainland 

and the Nationalists on the island it could discourage either one from 

attacking the other and thus prevent a widening of hostilities. 

When it became clear in Washington on June 27 that North Korea 

would ignore the UN demands, the Security Council, again at the urging 

of the United States, asked member states to furnish military assistance 

to help South Korea repel the invasion. President Truman immediately broadened the range of U.S. air and naval operations to include 

North Korea and authorized the use of U.S. Army troops to protect 

Pusan, Korea’s major port at the southeastern tip of the peninsula. 

MacArthur meanwhile had 

flown to Korea and, after witnessing failing 

ROK Army efforts in defenses south of the Han River, recommended 

to Washington that a U.S. Army regimental combat team (RCT) be 

committed immediately to support the ROK Army in the area south of 

Seoul. He also proposed building up the American presence in Korea 

to a two-division force for a counteroffensive. President Truman on 

June 30 approved MacArthur’s request to dispatch an RCT and then 

later that same day directed him to use all forces available to him. 

Thus the United Nations for the first time since its founding 

reacted to aggression with a decision to use armed force. The United 

States would accept the largest share of the obligation in Korea but, 

still deeply tired of war, would do so reluctantly. President Truman 

later described his decision to enter the war as the hardest of his days 
Map 12

15 Sep 1950

25 Jan 1951

25 Jun 1951

25 Nov 1950 C H I N A

K O R E A

Kimp’o Ad

3 8 o P A R A L L E L

Changjin (Chosin)

Reservoir

Pujon (Fusen)

Reservoir

TSUSHIMA

AN-TUNG

Sinuiju

Sinanju

Ch’osan

Yudam-ni

Hungnam

Hamhung

Iwon

Wonsan

Kosong

Ch’orwon

Ch’unch’on

Yangyang

P’YONGYANG

Kaesong

Inch’on

Suwon

Osan

Wonju

SEOUL Samch’ok

P’ohang-dong

PUSAN

TAEGU

Taejon

Mokp’o

Hyesanjin

Ch’ongjin

Yalu River

Yalu R

Ch’ongch’on R

Y E L L O W

S E A

S E A

O F

J A PA N

Y E L L O W

S E A

Taedong R

Han R

Naktong R

Kum R

THE KOREAN CONFLICT

1950–1951

United Nations Line, Date Indicated

0

0 80 Miles

80 Kilometers
American Military History

226

in office. A Communist Korea would pose a major threat to Japan 

and thus the U.S. position in Asia. Also, American leaders believed 

that the Soviets had ordered the DPRK to attack to test the Western 

bloc’s resolve. They feared that if South Korea fell, the USSR would 

be encouraged to attack other countries in this manner and other 

countries would doubt America’s commitment to defend them from 

Communist aggression. The American people, conditioned by World 

War II to battle on a grand scale to complete victory, would experience 

a deepening frustration over the Korean conflict, brought on in the 

beginning by embarrassing reversals on the battlefield. 

South to the Naktong 

Ground forces available to MacArthur included the 1st Cavalry 

Division and the 7th, 24th, and 25th Infantry Divisions, all under the 

Eighth U.S. Army in Japan, and the 29th Regimental Combat Team 

on Okinawa. While MacArthur in 1949 had relieved Eighth Army of 

most occupation duties in order to concentrate on combat training, 

the postwar economies had left its units inadequately prepared for 

battle. The divisions’ maneuverability and firepower were sharply 

reduced by a shortage of organic units, by a general understrength 

among existing units, and by the worn condition of weapons and 

equipment. Some weapons and ammunition, medium tanks and 

antitank ammunition in particular, could scarcely be found in the 

Far East. MacArthur’s air arm, the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), was 

organized principally for air defense; much of its strength consisted 

of short-range jet interceptors that had to fly from bases in Japan. 

Propeller-driven F–51s stored in Japan and more of these World 

War II planes rushed from the United States would prove crucial 

in meeting close air support needs during the war’s early months, 

because they could fly many sorties each day from Korean airfields. 

Naval Forces Far East, MacArthur’s sea arm, controlled only five 

combat ships and a skeleton amphibious force, although reinforcement 

was near in the Seventh Fleet. 

When MacArthur received permission to commit ground units, the main 

North Korean force already had crossed 

the Han River. By July 3 a westward 

enemy attack had captured a major 

airfield at Kimpo and the West Sea port 

of Inch’on. Troops attacking south 

moved into the town of Suwon, twentyfive miles below Seoul, on the fourth. 

During July MacArthur and Lt. 

Gen. Walton H. Walker, Eighth Army’s 

commander, disregarded the principle 

of mass and committed units piecemeal 

to trade space for time as the speed of 

the North Korean drive threatened to 

outpace the Far East Command’s ability 

Infantrymen Observing Enemy Positions along the Naktong River to deploy American units from Japan. 
the korean war, 1950–1953

227

Where to open a delaying action was clear, for there were few good 

roads in the profusion of mountains making up the Korean peninsula. The best of these below Seoul, running on a gentle diagonal line 

through Suwon, Osan, Taejon, and Taegu to the port of Pusan in the 

southeast, was the obvious main axis of North Korean advance. Which 

unit to use was also clear: the 24th Infantry Division was stationed 

nearest the ports in southern Japan. On July 1 General Walker directed 

Maj. Gen. William F. Dean, the 24th’s commander, to move immediately by air two rifle companies, reinforced with heavy mortars and 

recoilless rifles, to Korea, with the remainder of his division to follow 

as fast as available air and sea transport could move it. The two reinforced companies, joined by a field artillery battery that had moved by 

sea, moved into positions astride the main road near Osan, ten miles 

below Suwon, by dawn on July 5. Some Americans believed that the 

arrival of this 540-man force on the battlefield—designated Task Force 

Smith for its commander, Lt. Col. Charles B. Smith—from the Army 

that had defeated far stronger opponents five years earlier would so awe 

the KPA that it would withdraw. 

Around 8:00 a.m. on a rainy July 5, a North Korean division 

supported by tanks attacked the Americans. Task Force Smith lacked 

antitank mines, the fire of its recoilless rifles and 2.36-inch rocket 

launchers failed to penetrate the T–34 armor, and the artillery battery 

quickly fired its six antitank rounds. The North Korean tanks did not 

stop to support an infantry assault; the task force inflicted numerous 

casualties on the KPA infantry, but it was too small to prevent a North 

Korean double envelopment. After Colonel Smith ordered a withdrawal, discipline broke down and the task force fell back in disarray 

with over 180 casualties and the loss of all equipment save small arms. 

Another casualty was American morale as word of the defeat reached 

other units of the 24th Infantry Division then moving into delaying 

positions below Osan. 

The next three delaying actions by the 24th Infantry Division had 

similar results. In each case a North Korean force used armor and 

infantry assaults against the front of the American position, accompanied by an infantry double envelopment that established roadblocks 

William F. Dean (1899–1981)

Commander of an infantry division in World War II, Dean served 

as the last military governor of South Korea in 1947–1948 and took 

command of the 24th Infantry Division in 1949. On July 20, when a 

much larger North Korean tank-infantry force overran elements of 

the division at Taejon, Dean took to the streets to hunt tanks and then 

led a group of soldiers out of the town. Becoming separated from the 

group, he evaded capture until August 25. Dean successfully resisted 

all attempts to force him to make statements that supported the enemy 

and was released in September 1953. For his actions in Taejon, Dean 

General Dean studies the map of Korea. received the Medal of Honor.
American Military History

228

behind the American position. This tactic often resulted in American 

units’ withdrawing in disarray, with the loss of weapons and equipment, to the next delaying position. The heavy losses and relative ease 

with which the KPA broke through American positions, together with 

the physical strain of delay operations in the Korean summer and the 

poor performance of a number of unit commanders, sapped American 

morale. By July 15 the 24th Infantry Division had been forced back 

sixty miles to Taejon, where it initially took position along the Kum 

River above the town. South Korean units, some just remnants and 

others still in good order, also fell back on either flank of the 24th. 

Fifty-three UN members meanwhile signified support of the 

Security Council’s June 27 action, and twenty-nine of these made 

specific offers of assistance. Ground, air, and naval forces eventually 

sent to assist South Korea would represent twenty UN members and 

one nonmember nation. The United States, Great Britain, Australia, 

New Zealand, Canada, Turkey, Greece, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, 

the Netherlands, Thailand, the Philippines, Colombia, and Ethiopia 

would furnish ground combat troops. India, Sweden, Norway, 

Denmark, and Italy (the non–United Nations country) would furnish 

medical units. Air forces would arrive from the United States, Australia, 

and the Union of South Africa; naval forces would come from the 

United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. 

The wide response to the council’s call pointed out the need for a 

unified command. Acknowledging the United States as the major contributor, the UN Security Council on July 7 asked it to form a command into 

which all forces would be integrated and to appoint a commander. In the 

evolving command structure, President Truman became executive agent 

for the UN Security Council. The National Security Council, Department 

of State, and Joint Chiefs of Staff participated in developing the grand 

concepts of operations in Korea. In the strictly military channel, the 

Joint Chiefs issued instructions through the Army member to the unified 

75-mm. Recoilless Rifle in Action
the korean war, 1950–1953

229

command in the field, designated the United Nations Command (UNC) 

under the command of General MacArthur. 

MacArthur superimposed the headquarters of his new command 

over that of his existing Far East Command. Air and naval units from 

other countries joined the Far East Air Forces and Naval Forces Far 

East, respectively. MacArthur assigned command of ground troops in 

Korea to the Eighth Army, and General Walker established his headquarters at Taegu on July 15, assuming command of all American 

ground troops on the peninsula and, at the request of President Rhee, 

of the ROK Army. When ground forces from other nations reached 

Korea, they too were assigned to Eighth Army. 

Between July 14 and 18, MacArthur moved the 25th Infantry and 

1st Cavalry Divisions to Korea after cannibalizing the 7th Infantry 

Division to strengthen them. By then the battle for Taejon had opened. 

New 3.5-inch rocket launchers hurriedly airlifted from the United 

States proved effective against T–34 tanks, but three worn-out infantry 

battalions and the remnants of the 24th Infantry Division’s 105-mm. 

howitzer battalions could not delay for long after two KPA divisions 

established bridgeheads over the Kum River and encircled the town. 

The 24th withdrew from Taejon and was relieved by the 1st Cavalry 

Division. In eighteen days the 24th had disrupted the timetable of the 

KPA’s main attack but at the cost of over 30 percent of its men and 

most of its equipment.

After taking Taejon, the main North Korean force split, one division moving south to the coast then turning east along the lower coastline. The remainder of the force continued southeast beyond Taejon 

toward Taegu. Southward advances by the secondary attack forces 

in the central and eastern sectors matched the main thrust, all clearly 

aimed to converge on Pusan. North Korean supply lines grew long in 

the advance and less and less tenable under heavy UNC air attacks, as 

FEAF quickly achieved air superiority and UNC warships wiped out 

North Korean naval opposition and clamped a tight blockade on the 

Korean coast. These achievements and the arrival of two battalions of 

the 29th RCT from Okinawa notwithstanding, American and South 

Korean troops steadily gave way. American casualties now passed 6,000, 

and South Korean losses had reached 70,000.

Having run out of space to trade for time, Walker at the end of July 

ordered a stand along a 140-mile line arching from the Korean Strait to 

the Sea of Japan west and north of Pusan. His three understrength U.S. 

divisions occupied the western arc, basing their position on the Naktong 

River. South Korean forces, which KMAG advisers had reorganized 

into five divisions, defended the northern segment. A long line and few 

troops kept positions thin in this Pusan Perimeter. But replacements 

and additional units now entering or on the way to Korea would help 

relieve the problem, and fair interior lines of communications radiating 

from Pusan allowed Walker to move troops and supplies with facility. 

A motorized combined-arms force, the KPA had followed the few 

good roads south from the 38th Parallel; the delaying actions that ROK 

and American units fought along these roads during July, while dispiriting for the defenders in their immediate results, had robbed Kim Il 

Sung of his expected quick victory. These actions had also cost the KPA

some 58,000 trained men and many tanks. Raising brigades to division 
American Military History

230

status and conscripting large numbers of recruits (many from overrun 

regions of South Korea), the KPA over the next month and a half 

committed thirteen infantry divisions and an armored division against 

Walker’s perimeter. But the additional strength failed to compensate 

for the loss of trained men and tanks suffered in the advance to the 

Naktong.

While air strikes against KPA supply lines significantly reduced the 

combat power it could mass against the UN perimeter, Eighth Army’s 

defense hinged on a shuttling of scarce reserves to block a gap, reinforce a position, or counterattack wherever the threat appeared greatest 

at a given moment. The North Koreans shifted their main attack to 

various points of the perimeter, seeking a decisive breakthrough, 

but General Walker made effective use of intelligence provided by 

intercepts of KPA communications to prevent serious enemy penetrations and inflict telling losses that steadily drew off North Korean 

offensive power. His own strength, meanwhile, was on the rise. By 

mid-September he had over 500 medium tanks. Replacements, many 

of them recalled Army reservists, arrived. Additional units came 

in: the 5th Regimental Combat Team from Hawaii, the 2d Infantry 

Division and 1st Provisional Marine Brigade from the United States, 

and a two-battalion British infantry brigade from Hong Kong. For the 

1st Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions, infantry battalions 

and artillery batteries hastily assembled in the United States arrived to 

bring these divisions to their full complement of subordinate units. 

Bomber and fighter squadrons also arrived to strengthen the FEAF. 

U.S. Military

Advisory Group to the

Republic of

Korea (KMAG)

U.S. Army advisers had worked 

with the ROK Army since its organization in 1946 as the Korean National 

Constabulary. With the withdrawal of 

U.S. forces from Korea in 1949, KMAG 

was activated to continue this work. 

KMAG used the counterpart system, 

pairing American officers with Korean 

commanders down to the battalion level 

and with key staff officers. During the 

war, much of KMAG’s effort necessarily 

went into providing advisers for units in 

combat; but it also supervised the training of the many new units the ROK Army organized. From its activation, KMAG’s authorized strength never kept pace with the size of the ROK Army, forcing it to leave some 

positions empty and after July 1951 to use U.S. units to help train new ROK units.

Instructing ROK Trainees on the Browning Automatic Rifle
the korean war, 1950–1953

231

Thus, as the KPA lost irreplaceable men and equipment, UNC forces 

acquired an offensive capability. 

North to the Parallel 

General MacArthur at the entry of U.S. forces into Korea had 

perceived that the deeper the North Koreans drove, the more vulnerable they would become to a turning movement delivered by an 

amphibious assault. He began work on plans for such a blow almost at 

the start of hostilities, favoring Inch’on, the West Sea port halfway up 

the west coast, as the landing site. Just twenty-five miles east lay Seoul, 

where Korea’s main roads and rail lines converged. A force landing at 

Inch’on would have to move inland only a short distance to cut North 

Korean supply routes, and the recapture of the capital city could also 

have a helpful psychological impact. Combined with a general northward advance by the Eighth Army, a landing at Inch’on could produce 

decisive results. Enemy troops retiring before the Eighth Army would 

be cut off by the amphibious force behind them or be forced to make a 

slow and difficult withdrawal through the mountains farther east. 

Though pressed to meet Eighth Army troop requirements, 

MacArthur was able to shape a two-division landing force. He formed 

the headquarters of the X Corps from members of his own staff, 

naming his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, as corps 

commander. He rebuilt the 7th Infantry Division by giving it high 

priority on replacements from the United States and by assigning it 

8,600 South Korean recruits, most of them poorly trained. The latter 

measure was part of a larger program, the Korean Augmentation to the 

United States Army (KATUSA). The KATUSA program began when 

the U.S. Army could not supply Eighth Army with all the replacements 

it required. KATUSAs, usually newly conscripted South Koreans, were 

assigned mostly to American infantry units. At the same time Almond 

acquired from the United States the greater part of the 1st Marine 

Division, which he planned to fill out with the Marine brigade currently 

in the Pusan Perimeter. The X Corps, with these two divisions, the 

ROK 17th Infantry, and two ROK Marine Corps battalions, was to 

make its landing as a separate force, not as part of the Eighth Army. 

Many judged the Inch’on plan dangerous. Naval officers consid-

ered the extreme Yellow Sea tides and narrow channel approaches 

to Inch’on, easily blocked by mines, as big risks to shipping. Marine 

officers saw danger in landing in the middle of a built-up area and in 

having to scale high sea walls to get ashore. The Joint Chiefs of Staff 

(JCS) anticipated serious consequences if the Inch’on plan failed, since 

MacArthur would be committing his last major units. The General 

Reserve in the United States was nearly exhausted by September 1: 

the 187th Airborne RCT and the 3d Infantry Division would arrive 

in Japan in mid-September, but the 3d would need time to recover 

after being stripped to provide men for Eighth Army, leaving the 82d 

Airborne Division the only uncommitted major unit. The Army had 

begun a substantial expansion, activating new Regular units and mobilizing National Guard and Organized Reserve Corps units; but this 

increase would not yield combat ready units until 1951. In light of the 

uncertainties, MacArthur’s decision was a remarkable gamble; but if 

General Almond
American Military History

232

results are what count, his action was one 

of exemplary boldness. The 1st Marine 

Division swept into Inch’on on September 

15 against light resistance. Although opposition stiffened, X Corps steadily pushed 

inland over the next two weeks. One arm 

struck south and seized Suwon, while the 

remainder of the corps cleared Kimpo 

Airfield, crossed the Han, and fought 

through Seoul. MacArthur, with dramatic 

ceremony, returned the capital city to 

President Rhee on September 29. 

General Walker meanwhile attacked 

out of the Pusan Perimeter on September 

16. His forces gained ground slowly at first; 

but on September 23, after the portent of 

Almond’s envelopment and Walker’s frontal 

attack became clear, the North Korean forces 

broke. The Eighth Army, by then organized 

as 4 corps, 2 U.S. and 2 ROK, rolled forward 

in pursuit, linking with the X Corps on 

September 26. About 30,000 North Korean troops escaped above the 38th 

Parallel through the eastern mountains. Several thousand more bypassed in 

the pursuit hid in the mountains of South Korea to fight as guerrillas. But 

by the end of September the Korean People’s Army ceased to exist as an 

organized force anywhere in the Southern republic.

North to the Yalu

In 1950 President Truman frequently described the American-led 

effort in Korea as a police action, a euphemism for the war that 

produced both criticism and amusement. But the President’s term was 

an honest reach for perspective. Determined to halt the aggression, 

he was equally determined to limit hostilities to the peninsula and to 

avoid taking steps that would prompt Soviet or Chinese participation. 

By Western estimates, Europe with its highly developed industrial 

resources, not Asia, held the high place on the Communist schedule of 

expansion; hence, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance needed the deterrent strength that otherwise would be drawn off 

by a heavier involvement in the Far East. Indeed, Truman and many of 

his advisers, believing that Kim Il Sung was Stalin’s puppet, suspected 

that Stalin had ordered the DPRK to attack in order to weaken the 

West’s defenses elsewhere. To counter that possibility and to reassure 

America’s allies, Truman in July had ordered a massive expansion of the 

U.S. armed forces, an enormous increase in nuclear weapons production, and a great increase in military aid to other nations. To reinforce 

NATO, the President in September announced a major buildup of 

American forces in Europe. For the Army, this meant dispatching four 

divisions and other units to Germany during 1951, where they joined 

the 1st Infantry Division to form the Seventh Army. 

On this and other bases, a case could be made for halting 

MacArthur’s forces at the 38th Parallel. In reestablishing the old border, 

The Inch’on Landing
the korean war, 1950–1953

233

the UNC had met the UN call for 

assistance in repelling the attack on 

South Korea. In an early statement, 

Secretary of State Dean Acheson 

had said the United Nations was 

intervening “solely for the purpose 

of restoring the Republic of Korea 

to its status prior to the invasion 

from the north.” A halt, furthermore, would be consistent with the 

U.S. policy of containment. 

There were, on the other hand, 

substantial military reasons to carry 

the war into North Korea. Failure 

to destroy the 30,000 North Korean 

troops who had escaped above the 

parallel and an estimated 30,000 

more in northern training camps 

could leave South Korea in little 

better position than before the start 

of hostilities. Complete military 

victory, by all appearances within easy grasp, also would achieve the 

longstanding U.S. and UN objective of reunifying Korea. Against these 

incentives had to be balanced muted warnings against a UNC entry into 

North Korea from both Communist China and the USSR in August 

and September. But these were counted as attempts to discourage 

the UNC, not as genuine threats to enter the war. President Truman 

decided to order the Eighth Army into North Korea.

On September 27, the JCS sent MacArthur instructions for future 

operations. The directive authorized him to cross the 38th Parallel in 

pursuit of his military objective, the destruction of the North Korean 

armed forces. Once he had achieved that objective, he was to occupy 

North Korea and await action by the United Nations on the unification 

of Korea. To avoid escalation of the conflict, MacArthur could not 

enter North Korea if major Chinese or Soviet forces entered North 

Korea before his forces did or if the USSR or the PRC announced it 

intended to enter. As a further safeguard, MacArthur was to use only 

Korean forces in the extreme northern territory abutting the Yalu 

River boundary with Manchuria and that in the far northeast along the 

Tumen River boundary with the USSR. Ten days later the UN General 

Assembly voted for the restoration of peace and security throughout 

Korea, thereby approving the UNC’s entry into North Korea. 

There were two options for the invasion of North Korea. General 

MacArthur considered the best option keeping the X Corps separate 

from the Eighth Army and withdrawing it through Inch’on and Pusan to 

conduct an amphibious assault at Wonsan, North Korea’s major seaport 

on the east coast, while the Eighth Army advanced on P’yongyang, 

the DPRK’s capital. Both forces would then move to the Yalu. This 

option reflected MacArthur’s conclusion that an amphibious attack on 

Wonsan would allow the X Corps to operate without burdening the 

Eighth Army’s logistical system and would trap thousands of retreating 

KPA troops and that he could coordinate both forces from Japan. 

The 38th Parallel in the Kaesong Area
American Military History

234

Another factor was that MacArthur had been favorably impressed by 

General Almond’s performance. 

General Walker, who did not have as close a relationship with 

MacArthur as did General Almond, considered the best option the 

assignment of the X Corps to the Eighth Army. The X Corps already 

was in position to continue the attack toward P’yongyang, and other divisions could drive east across the peninsula to Wonsan, linking up with 

the ROK I Corps moving up the east coast. The Eighth Army would 

then advance north to the Yalu. This option, Eighth Army planners 

concluded, made the best use of the limited UNC logistical capabilities 

and maintained the momentum of the UNC’s advance, since the Eighth 

Army’s I Corps would have to pause before advancing on P’yongang. 

Walker, however, never formally presented this option to MacArthur, 

and the October 2 UNC order to advance used MacArthur’s concept. 

President Rhee, impatient to unify his country, had already directed 

the ROK I Corps on the east coast to advance; it crossed the parallel 

on October 1 and captured Wonsan on the tenth. The ROK II Corps at 

nearly the same time opened an advance through central North Korea. 

On October 7 the I Corps moved north, and on October 19 it entered 

P’yongyang. Five days later the corps had advanced to the Ch’ongch’on 

River within fifty miles of the Manchurian border. The ROK II Corps 

veered northwest to come alongside. To the east, past the unoccupied 

spine of the axial Taebaek Mountains, the ROK I Corps by October 24 

moved above Wonsan, entering Iwon on the coast and approaching the 

huge Changjin Reservoir. Meanwhile, the X Corps had boarded ships at 

Pusan and Inch’on, in the process greatly impeding the 

flow of supplies 

to Eighth Army, and sailed for Wonsan. Although the ROK I Corps 

had captured the port earlier, the X Corps had to wait until October 26 

to begin landing in order to allow UNC naval forces to clear the heavily 

mined coastal waters. 

Despite this setback, the outlook for the UNC in the last week of 

October was distinctly optimistic. The KPA had collapsed as an effective 

military force. Despite further warnings emanating from Communist 

China, American civilian and military leaders concluded that Chinese 

intervention was very unlikely, and that if the PRC did dispatch units of 

the People’s Liberation Army to Korea, UNC air power would destroy 

them. After meeting with MacArthur at Wake Island on October 15, 

President Truman revised his instructions to MacArthur only to the 

extent that if Chinese forces should appear in Korea, MacArthur 

should continue his advance if he believed his forces had a reasonable 

chance of success. 

In hopes of ending operations before the onset of winter, 

MacArthur on October 24 ordered his ground commanders to advance 

to the northern border as rapidly as possible and with all forces available. In the west, the Eighth Army sent several columns toward the 

Yalu, each free to advance as fast and/or as far as possible without 

regard for the progress of the others. General Almond, adding the 

ROK I Corps to his command upon landing, proceeded to clear northeastern Korea. The ROK I Corps advanced up the coast, closing to 

within sixty-five miles of the Soviet border by November 21, while the 

1st Marine and the 7th Infantry Divisions moved through the mountains toward the Yalu and the Changjin Reservoir. In the United States, 
the korean war, 1950–1953

235

a leading newspaper expressed the prevailing optimism with the editorial comment that “Except for unexpected developments ... we can 

now be easy in our minds as to the military outcome.” 

Unexpected developments soon occurred. Mao Zedong had 

decided to intervene and dispatched an expeditionary force, called the 

Chinese People’s Volunteer Force (CPVF), across the Yalu. Highly skilled in 

camouflage, hundreds of Chinese units had moved into North Korea 

without detection. In the Eighth Army zone, the first Chinese soldier 

was discovered among captives taken on October 25 by the I Corps’ 1st 

ROK Division and units of the ROK II Corps. The Chinese attacked 

both of Eighth Army’s corps, inflicting especially heavy losses on ROK 

units and on a regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division when it came 

forward at Unsan to cover the withdrawal of the 1st ROK Division. 

General Walker ordered the I Corps and the ROK II Corps to fall 

back on the Ch’ongch’on River to regroup and ordered the IX Corps 

forward to the Ch’ongch’on. Once that corps had arrived, Walker 

planned to resume the advance in accordance with MacArthur’s orders. 

The Chinese forces continued to attack until November 6, when they 

abruptly broke contact. In the X Corps zone, the Chinese stopped a 

ROK column on the mountain road leading to the Changjin Reservoir. 

American marines relieved the South Koreans and by November 6 

pushed through the resistance to within a few miles of the reservoir, 

whereupon the Chinese also broke contact. 

At first it appeared that individual Chinese soldiers, possibly volunteers, had reinforced the North Koreans. The estimate rose higher by 

November 24, but interrogation of captives did not convince Far East 

Command that there had been a large Chinese commitment. Aerial 

observation of the Yalu and the ground below the river did not detect 

signs of such a commitment, and the voluntary withdrawal from contact 

on November 6 seemed no logical part of a full Chinese effort. (In 

fact, the Chinese withdrew because they had achieved their first objectives, forcing the UNC advance to pause and evaluating UNC units’ 

performance.) Some commanders, notably Generals Walker, Almond, 

and Paik Sun Yup, the 1st ROK Division commander, did believe that 

the Chinese had intervened in strength. General MacArthur, however, 

concluded that the PRC would not mount a full-scale offensive. 

Confident that UNC air power and American artillery would destroy 

any Chinese expeditionary force, he ordered the advance to the Yalu 

resumed.

In northeastern Korea, the X Corps, now strengthened by the 

arrival of the 3d Infantry Division, resumed its advance on November 

11. In the west, General Walker requested a delay until November 24; 

Eighth Army’s supply lines were still inadequate, and he wanted the IX 

Corps to complete its move. The Chinese were waiting to catch Eighth 

Army as it left its defensive positions along the Ch’ongch’on; on the 

night of November 25, one day after the Eighth Army resumed its 

advance, the Chinese launched a massive offensive to eject UNC forces 

from North Korea. Strong CPVF attacks hit the Eighth Army’s IX and 

ROK II Corps, collapsing the ROK II Corps on the army’s right flank. 

On the twenty-seventh the attacks engulfed the leftmost forces of the 

X Corps at the Changjin Reservoir, and by the next day the UNC position in North Korea began to crumble.

 “Except for unexpected 

developments ... we can now 

be easy in our minds as to the 

military outcome.” 
American Military History

236

“We face an entirely new war,” MacArthur notified Washington 

on November 28. On the following day he instructed General Walker 

to make whatever withdrawals were necessary to escape being enveloped by Chinese pushing hard and deep through the hole left by ROK 

II Corps’ collapse and ordered the X Corps to pull into a beachhead 

around the east coast port of Hungnam, north of Wonsan. 

The entirely new war also featured Soviet Mig–15 jet interceptors 

flown by Soviet pilots from bases in Manchuria protected by Soviet antiaircraft units. To counter this new threat, the U.S. Air Force hurriedly 

dispatched its premier jet fighter, the F–86, to Korea. Stalin, fearing that 

the evidence provided by the body of a Soviet pilot would force the U.S. 

government to strike directly at the USSR, limited his air units to operations over Communist-controlled territory. The Soviets trained Chinese 

and Korean units in the Mig–15, but 

FEAF defeated attempts later in the 

war to stage these units in North Korea 

by bombing their airfields. Although 

the UNC had abundant evidence 

of Soviet participation in air operations, the U.S. government refused 

throughout the war to make it public 

out of the same fear of provoking 

pressure from the American public to 

escalate the war. Both sides, fearing 

escalation would lead to World War III, 

did not launch air attacks on logistical 

bases in Manchuria and Japan.

The New War 

Eighth Army’s withdrawal from 

the Ch’ongch’on led to one of the 

greatest ordeals ever suffered by a U.S. 

division. Chinese forces established a 

strong roadblock below the town of 

Task Force MacLean/Faith

On November 25, 1950, General Almond ordered the 7th Infantry Division to move one RCT to the east side 

of the Changjin Reservoir to cover the advance of the 1st Marine Division to the Yalu. Consisting of little more than 

two weak infantry battalions and an artillery battalion, this force was initially known as Task Force MacLean after 

its commander, Col. Allan D. MacLean. When the Chinese attacked the X Corps on the night of November 27–28, 

the task force held on the east side of the reservoir for four days. On December 1 Lt. Col. Don C. Faith, Jr., who 

had taken command after the capture of Colonel MacLean, ordered a breakout to the south. Low on ammunition, 

worn down by extreme cold and bitter fighting, and burdened with many wounded, the task force was stopped at 

a Chinese roadblock and destroyed. About 1,000 of the soldiers were killed, taken prisoner, or declared missing, 

including Colonel Faith, who received a posthumous Medal of Honor. Their ordeal was not in vain, and their 

sacrifice helped save the 1st Marine Division.

Convoy from Wonsan to Hamhung, Robert Weldy Baer, 1950
the korean war, 1950–1953

237

Kunu-ri and took positions on the hills along the road on which the 

2d Infantry Division was moving. Already weakened by several days of 

combat in bitter cold weather, on November 30 most of the division 

literally had to run a gauntlet of fire that tore units apart. Emerging 

from the gauntlet with about one-third of its men dead, wounded, or 

missing and most of its equipment lost, the division staggered back 

into South Korea to refit.

General Walker initially believed that he could hold a line based 

on P’yongyang, but he quickly concluded that the Chinese would be 

able to outflank such a line and pin down the Eighth Army. This 

conclusion, as well as his concern that his still inadequate supply lines 

would negate Eighth Army’s firepower advantage, led him to abandon 

P’yongyang and withdraw to positions north of Seoul. There, he 

hoped, shorter supply lines, better defensive terrain, and the arrival 

of the X Corps from northeastern Korea would allow Eighth Army 

to repeat against the Chinese the strategy that had defeated the KPA. 

The light infantry Chinese force could not keep up with the motorized Eighth Army, and the latter withdrew into South Korea without 

opposition.

In the X Corps’ withdrawal to Hungnam, the center and rightmost units experienced little difficulty. But the 1st Marine Division and 

the remnants of the 7th Infantry Division task force at the Changjin 

Reservoir encountered Chinese positions overlooking the mountain 

road leading to the sea. Marine Maj. Gen. O. P. Smith skillfully led a 

withdrawal that reached the coast on December 11. General MacArthur 

briefly visualized the X Corps beachhead at Hungnam as a “geographic 

threat” that could deter Chinese to the west from deepening their 

advance. Later, with prompting from the Joint Chiefs, he ordered the 

X Corps to withdraw by sea and proceed to Pusan, where it would join 

Eighth Army, ending its independent status. Almond started the evacuation on the eleventh, contracting the Hungnam perimeter as he loaded 

troops and materiel aboard ships in the harbor. With little interference 

from enemy forces, which had suffered heavy casualties from American 

firepower and the extreme cold, he completed the evacuation and set 

sail for Pusan on Christmas Eve. 

Walton H. Walker (1880–1950)

A highly regarded corps commander in World War II, Walker 

took command of Eighth Army in 1948 and supervised its shift from 

an occupation force to one focused on readiness. He skillfully used 

Eighth Army’s slender reserves to counter breakthroughs on the Pusan 

Perimeter, frequently flying at low altitude to reconnoiter the front line. 

The defeat in North Korea and the withdrawal into South Korea gravely 

damaged Eighth Army’s morale, but Walker had little opportunity to 

reverse this damage before he died in a vehicle accident on December 

23, 1950. He was promoted posthumously to the rank of four-star 

general.
American Military History

238

The day before General Walker was killed in a motor vehicle 

accident while traveling north from Seoul toward the front. Lt. Gen. 

Matthew B. Ridgway flew from Washington to assume command of 

the Eighth Army. After conferring in Tokyo with MacArthur, who 

instructed Ridgway to hold a position as far north as possible but in 

any case to maintain the Eighth Army intact, the new army commander 

reached Korea on the twenty-sixth. 

Ridgway himself wanted at least to hold the Eighth Army in its positions north of Seoul and to attack if possible. But his initial inspection 

of the front raised serious doubts. Deeply unsatisfied with the caliber 

of Eighth Army’s senior leadership, he began arrangements to remove 

those officers who failed to meet his standards. The sudden reversal of 

fortune in combat, the long retreat without significant enemy contact, 

and the bitter winter weather for which most troops did not have the 

proper clothing and equipment had so worn down Eighth Army’s 

morale that Ridgway judged it temporarily incapable of mounting effective 

large-scale offensive actions. He also 

discovered much of the defense line 

to be thin and weak. The Chinese had 

finally caught up with Eighth Army 

and appeared to be massing in the 

west for a push on Seoul, and twelve 

reconstituted North Korean divisions 

seemed to be concentrating for an 

attack in the central region. From all 

available evidence, New Year’s Day 

seemed a logical date for the enemy’s 

opening assault. 

To strengthen the line, Ridgway 

committed the 2d Infantry Division 

to the central sector where positions 

were weakest, even though that unit 

had not fully recovered from losses 

in the Kunu-ri gauntlet, and pressed 

General Almond to quicken the preparation of the X Corps whose forces 

needed refitting before moving to the 

front. Realizing that time probably 

was against him, he also ordered his 

western units to organize a bridgehead 

above Seoul, one deep enough to 

protect the Han River bridges, from 

which to cover a withdrawal below 

the city should an enemy offensive 

compel a general retirement. 

Enemy forces opened attacks 

on New Year’s Eve, directing their 

major effort toward Seoul. When the 

offensive gained momentum, Ridgway 

ordered his western forces back to the 

Withdrawal from Kot’o-ri, 1950, Henrietta Snowden, 2000 Seoul bridgehead and pulled the rest 
the korean war, 1950–1953

239

of the Eighth Army to positions roughly on line to the east. After 

strong Chinese units assaulted the bridgehead, he withdrew to a line 

forty miles below Seoul. In the west, the last troops pulled out of Seoul 

on January 4, 1951, demolishing the Han bridges on the way out as the 

Chinese entered the city from the north. 

Only light Chinese forces pushed south of the city, and enemy 

attacks in the west diminished. In central and eastern Korea, North 

Korean forces pushed forward; but the 1st Marine Division cut off 

and then destroyed them. This pause highlighted a major Communist 

operational weakness: the enemy’s logistical system, short of mechanical transport and with lengthening supply lines under FEAF attack, 

permitted him to undertake offensive operations for no more than a 

week or two before he had to pause for replacements and supplies. 

Ridgway used this pause to continue his rehabilitation of Eighth 

Army’s aggressive spirit and to introduce a new operational concept. 

Gaining territory would be incidental to in

flicting maximum casualties 

on the enemy at minimum cost to UNC units. On the attack or on the 

defense, Ridgway insisted that his units always maintain contact with the 

enemy and use every available source of firepower—infantry, armor, 

artillery, and air—against them. Ridgway expected that the tremendous 

losses these “meat grinder” tactics would in

flict on Communist units 

would at least greatly assist the advance of the Eighth Army to the 38th 

Parallel and at best convince the enemy to end the war. In mid-January 

the Eighth Army began RCT-size probes forward of UNC lines to 

gather intelligence and in

flict losses on the enemy with meat grinder 

tactics. These probes, carefully planned to ensure success, had a further 

objective: to restore the Eighth Army’s confidence and aggressiveness. 

These operations met all their goals, and Ridgway grew confident that 

the Eighth Army would hold. On January 25 the I and IX Corps began 

a slow advance forward by phase lines to prevent units from being cut Matthew B. Ridgway

(1895–1993)

A well-respected commander of an airborne division and a 

corps during World War II, General Ridgway in 1950 was the 

Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration and played a 

key role in mobilizing the service for war. His success in reviving 

the Eighth Army in 1951 led to his selection to replace MacArthur 

as Commander in Chief of the Far East Command. Promoted to 

four-star general in May 1951, Ridgway in 1952 succeeded 

Eisenhower as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. 

Eisenhower selected Ridgway in 1953 to be the Army’s Chief of 

Staff, but the general strenuously argued against the President’s 

New Look strategy. Because of this disagreement, Eisenhower 

did not reappoint him to a second term as Chief of Staff and 

Ridgway retired in 1955.
American Military History

240

off, and on January 30 Ridgway ordered the rest of Eighth Army to 

advance in a similar manner.

Where Ridgway grew more confident, MacArthur was far less opti-

mistic. Earlier, in acknowledging the Chinese intervention, he had notified Washington that the Chinese could drive the UNC out of Korea 

unless he received major reinforcement. At the time, however, there 

were no major reinforcements available; the Army was still rebuilding 

the General Reserve and had ordered more National Guard and Reserve 

units mobilized, but these efforts could not produce ready units until 

mid-1951. The massive military buildup begun earlier in 1950, in any 

case, had not been ordered with commitment in Korea in mind. The 

main concern in Washington was the possibility that the Chinese entry 

into Korea was only one part of a USSR move toward global war, a 

concern great enough to lead President Truman to declare a state of 

national emergency on December 16. Washington officials in any event 

considered Korea no place to become involved in a major war. For all 

these reasons, the Joint Chiefs of Staff notified MacArthur that a major 

buildup of UNC forces was out of the question. MacArthur was to stay 

in Korea if he could; but should the Chinese drive UNC forces back on 

Pusan, the Joint Chiefs would order a withdrawal to Japan. 

Contrary to the reasoning in Washington, MacArthur meanwhile 

proposed four retaliatory measures against the Chinese: blockade 

the China coast, destroy China’s war industries through naval and air 

attacks, reinforce the troops in Korea with Chinese Nationalist forces, 

and allow diversionary operations by Nationalist troops against the 

China mainland. These proposals for escalation received serious study 

in Washington but were eventually discarded in favor of sustaining the 

policy that confined the fighting to Korea. 

Interchanges between Washington and Tokyo next centered on 

the timing of a withdrawal from Korea. MacArthur believed that 

Washington should establish all the criteria of an evacuation, whereas 

Washington wanted MacArthur first to provide the military guidelines 

on timing. The whole issue was finally settled after General J. Lawton 

Collins, Army Chief of Staff, visited Korea, saw that the Eighth Army 

was improving under Ridgway’s leadership, and became as confident as 

Ridgway that the Chinese would be unable to drive the Eighth Army 

off the peninsula.

The Eighth Army continued its cautious northward advance in 

early February and retook Inch’on; but there were growing indications 

of Chinese preparations for another offensive in the center of the 

peninsula. That offensive began on the night of February 11–12, and 

Chinese attacks quickly crushed the X Corps’ ROK 8th Division and 

badly damaged two other ROK divisions in the corps. Because ROK 

divisions had little artillery, X Corps had attached, via cumbersome 

command and control arrangements, U.S. artillery support forces to 

these divisions. The unwieldy arrangements prevented the 8th ROK 

Division support force’s receiving timely permission to withdraw; 

most of this artillery force, taken from the 2d Infantry Division, was 

destroyed. The X Corps fell back on the key road junction of Wonju. 

There, American and South Korean units applied Ridgway’s new operational concept, shredding repeated Chinese attacks on the town. On 

the X Corps western 

flank, the 2d Infantry Division’s 23d RCT, with an 
the korean war, 1950–1953

241

attached French battalion, had dug in at Chip’yong-ni, another key road 

junction. Cut off from the rest of Eighth Army, the force defeated 

attacks by six CPVF regiments. 

For Ridgway, the defeat of the Communists’ February offensive 

showed that his operational concept was a success and, more importantly, that his army had recovered its spirit. He ordered the Eighth 

Army to continue the advance. The Communists offered only light 

resistance as they withdrew, and on March 14 the I Corps liberated 

Seoul. Between March 27 and 31, the Eighth Army closed in on the 

38th Parallel. From there, it advanced, again with little resistance to a 

line, designated Kansas, which followed the Imjin River in the west and 

the east to the coast near Yangyang. Most of the Eighth Army began 

digging in on Line Kansas in preparation for the Chinese offensive 

expected sometime later in the spring. Ridgway sent elements of the 

I and IX Corps toward the Iron Triangle in central Korea. This area, 

20–30 miles above the 38th Parallel and bounded by P’yongyang in 

the north and Ch’orwon and Kumwha in the south, was in the gap 

Taking a Village at Night, Robert Weldy Baer, 1951
American Military History

242

between northern and southern ranges of the Taebaek Mountains and 

connected the eastern and western halves of the Communist front. 

Key road and rail links ran through this area, and it had become a vital 

logistical area for the CPVF and the KPA. 

In Washington, President Truman and his military and civilian 

advisers had been considering the possibility that, with the Eighth 

Army’s northward advance and the heavy casualties it had inflicted on 

the enemy, the Communists might be willing to open negotiations. The 

United Nations’ call to eject the invaders from South Korea had again 

been achieved; and both in Washington and in other capitals, there was 

growing sentiment that this achievement was sufficient and that unification of Korea should be negotiated after the war. On March 20 the 

Joint Chiefs notified MacArthur that a presidential announcement was 

being drafted that would indicate a willingness to negotiate with the 

Chinese and the North Koreans to make “satisfactory arrangements for 

concluding the fighting.” They asked for MacArthur’s recommendations 

on what latitude he required for operating north of the 38th Parallel. 

Before the President could make his announcement, MacArthur 

on March 24 issued his own offer to enemy commanders to discuss an 

end to the fighting, but it was an offer that placed the UNC in the role 

of victor and indeed sounded like an ultimatum. “The enemy ... must 

by now be painfully aware,” MacArthur said in part, “that a decision of 

the United Nations to depart from its tolerant effort to contain the war 

to the area of Korea, through an expansion of our military operations 

to its coastal areas and interior bases, would doom Red China to the 

risk of imminent military collapse.” President Truman considered the 

statement at cross-purposes with the one he would have issued and so 

canceled his own, hoping the enemy might sue for an armistice if kept 

under pressure.

While President Truman after this episode considered relieving MacArthur, he had yet to make a final decision when the next incident 

occurred. On April 5 Joseph W. Martin, Republican leader in the House 

of Representatives, rose and read MacArthur’s response to a request 

for comment on an address Martin had made suggesting the use of 

Nationalist Chinese forces to open a second front. In that response, 

MacArthur said he believed in “meeting force with maximum counterforce” and that the use of Nationalist Chinese forces fitted that belief. 

Convinced, also, that “if we lose this war to Communism in Asia the 

fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would 

avoid war.” He added that there could be “no substitute for victory” 

in Korea. 

President Truman could not accept MacArthur’s open disagreement with and effort to change national policy. Concluding that 

MacArthur was “unable to give his wholehearted support to the policies of the United States government and of the United Nations in 

matters pertaining to his official duties,” President Truman recalled 

MacArthur on April 11 and named General Ridgway his successor. 

MacArthur returned to the United States to receive the acclaim of 

a nation shocked by the relief of one of its greatest military heroes. 

Before the Congress and the public, he defended his own views against 

those of the Truman administration. The controversy was to endure for 

many months, but in the end the nation accepted the fact that whatever 

MacArthur returned to the United 

States to receive the acclaim of 

a nation shocked by the relief 

of one of its greatest military 

heroes.
the korean war, 1950–1953

243

the merit of MacArthur’s arguments the President as Commander in 

Chief had cause to relieve him. 

Lt. Gen. James A. Van Fleet, commander of the Second Army 

in the United States, was selected to succeed Ridgway as commander 

of the Eighth Army. On April 14 General Ridgway turned over the 

Eighth Army to General Van Fleet and left for Tokyo to take up 

his new duties. The drive toward the Iron Triangle had continued 

during this time; however, there were increasing indications that the 

Communists were nearly ready to launch another offensive. On April 

22 twenty-one Chinese and nine North Korean divisions launched 

strong attacks in western and central Korea and lighter attacks in 

the east, with the major effort aimed against the I Corps defending 

the approaches to Seoul. The ROK 6th Division, on the IX Corps 

left 

flank, immediately collapsed, which threatened the I Corps with 

envelopment. This threat and the sheer weight of the Chinese forces 

targeting Seoul forced the I and IX Corps to withdraw, in good order 

and inflicting severe casualties on the Chinese as they moved, through 

successive delaying positions to previously established defenses a few 

miles north of Seoul. There, the UNC’s terrific firepower advantage 

and the weaknesses of the Chinese logistical system halted the enemy 

advance. When enemy forces withdrew to reorganize, Van Fleet laid 

plans for a return to Line 

Kansas but then postponed the countermove when his intelligence sources indicated he had stopped only 

the first effort of the enemy offensive. Instead, he directed his senior 

commanders to fortify positions and prepare to fire artillery at up to 

five times the standard U.S. Army daily rate of fire, a measure that 

came to be called the Van Fleet Day of Fire.

The Communists renewed their offensive after darkness on May 

15. Van Fleet had expected the major assault again to be directed 

against Seoul, but enemy forces this time drove hardest in the east James A. Van Fleet

(1892–1992)

One of the outstanding combat leaders of World War II, General 

Van Fleet in 1948–1950 headed the American advisory effort in 

Greece, transforming the Greek Army into an effective force that won 

the civil war there. Following Eighth Army’s victories in the spring of 

1951, he several times proposed a major offensive into North Korea to 

bring the war to an end. Promoted to four-star general in July 1951, 

Van Fleet established a close relationship with the ROK Army and was 

instrumental in improving its performance. After the apparent death of 

his son, an Air Force pilot declared missing in action over North Korea, 

Van Fleet relinquished command of Eighth Army in February 1953. 

After retiring the next month, Van Fleet sharply criticized the decision 

not to seek a decisive military victory.
American Military History

244

central region against the X Corps and the ROK III Corps. Two of 

the X Corps’ ROK divisions quickly gave way under Chinese assaults, 

and KPA and CPVF attacks to the east of the X Corps shattered the 

ROK III Corps by May 18. While Van Fleet shifted units from the west, 

the X Corps’ 2d Infantry Division bent its line back and denied the 

Chinese a decisive breakthrough. Applications of the Van Fleet Day of 

Fire destroyed entire CPVF and KPA units, and by May 20 the Eighth 

Army had defeated the offensive. Determined to destroy the enemy’s 

remaining major units, Van Fleet immediately ordered a counterattack. 

These units, however, had already begun withdrawing; this head start, 

monsoon rains, and mountainous terrain prevented the Eighth Army 

from catching them. By May 31 the Eighth Army was just short of 

Line Kansas. The next day Van Fleet sent part of his force toward Line 

Wyoming, whose seizure would give him control of the lower portion 

of the Iron Triangle. The Eighth Army occupied both Line Kansas and 

the Wyoming bulge by mid-June. 

Since the Kansas-Wyoming Line followed ground suitable for a 

strong defense, the Joint Chiefs directed that the Eighth Army hold 

that line and wait for a bid for armistice negotiations from the Chinese 

and North Koreans, who should have realized by this time that their 

committed forces lacked the ability to conquer South Korea. In line 

with this decision, Van Fleet began to fortify his positions. Enemy 

forces meanwhile used the respite from attack to recoup heavy losses 

and to develop defenses opposite the Eighth Army. The fighting lapsed 

into patrolling and small local clashes. 

The Static War 

After back-channel coordination through George W. Kennan, a 

prominent American diplomat on leave from the State Department, 

Jacob Malik, the Soviet delegate to the United Nations, on June 23, 

1951, announced in New York during a broadcast of a UN radio 

program that the USSR believed the war in Korea could be settled by 

negotiations. “Discussions,” he said, “should be started between the 

belligerents for a cease-fire and an armistice.” When the PRC endorsed 

Malik’s proposal over Beijing radio, President Truman authorized 

General Ridgway to arrange armistice talks with his enemy counterpart. 

Pork Chop Hill

A company-size position established in 1952 as part of the UN outpost line, this outpost’s nickname came from 

its shape on the map. Pork Chop became emblematic of the combat actions fought during the war’s final eighteen 

months. The Chinese launched three major attacks in 1953 to take the outpost; and the third attack, starting on 

July 6, was the heaviest. The 7th Infantry Division rotated five infantry battalions in five days through the position 

to hold it with the assistance of tremendous amounts of artillery fire. With the Chinese apparently determined to 

take the outpost at whatever cost and an armistice imminent, General Taylor ordered Pork Chop Hill abandoned. 

Through a clever ruse, the 7th Infantry Division removed its troops during the day on July 11 without any casualties.
the korean war, 1950–1953

245

Through an exchange of radio messages, both sides agreed to open 

negotiations on July 10 at the town of Kaesong, in territory the 

Communists controlled. 

At the first armistice conference the two delegations agreed that 

hostilities would continue until an armistice agreement was signed. By July 

26 the two delegations fixed the points to be settled in order to achieve 

an armistice. But China, while having forced the United States to negotiate, remained both very conscious of its relative military weakness and 

contemptuous of Western resolve. Seeking to sustain its newly won image 

as a major power, it feared that concessions at the negotiations would 

undermine that image. On the night of August 22–23 the Communists 

claimed that a UNC plane had attacked the conference site, impeded any 

investigation of the alleged attack, and then broke off negotiations.

Meanwhile, in late July General Van Fleet had decided to mount 

a series of attacks to seize positions three to seven miles above the 

Kansas-Wyoming Line. These attacks had three objectives: keep the 

Communists off balance, probe Communist positions, and maintain an aggressive spirit in Eighth Army. From August to September 

the X Corps and ROK I Corps in east central Korea fought bloody 

battles against tenacious KPA defenders to take objectives such as 

the Punchbowl, Bloody Ridge, and Heartbreak Ridge. In west central 

Korea, the I and IX Corps attacked in October to seize new positions 

and had to defeat a tenacious CPVF defense to take their objectives. 

Van Fleet proposed a follow-on offensive, but the heavy casualties 

UNC units had taken in the recent limited attacks dissuaded Ridgway; 

he first postponed and then canceled the operation.

Armistice negotiations resumed on October 25, this time at 

Panmunjom, a tiny village southeast of Kaesong. Hope for an early 

armistice grew on November 27: the two delegations agreed that a line 

of demarcation for an armistice would be the existing line of contact, 

provided the belligerents reached an armistice within thirty days. Hence, 

while both sides awaited the outcome of negotiations, fighting during 

the remainder of 1951 tapered off to patrol clashes, raids, and small 

battles for possession of outposts in No Man’s Land. On November 

12 Ridgway had directed Van Fleet to assume an “active defense”; the 

Eighth Army was to establish 

an outpost line forward 

of its current main line of 

resistance, fortify both lines, 

patrol aggressively, and use its 

firepower to inflict maximum 

casualties on the enemy. Van 

Fleet could counterattack to 

retake lost positions but could 

not mount any further multidivision operations without 

Ridgway’s permission. 

Discord over several issues, including the exchange 

of prisoners of war, prevented 

an armistice within the stipulated thirty days. The prisoner 

During the Panmunjom cease-fire talks, Col. James Murray, Jr., USMC, and 

Col. Chang Chun San, KPA, initial maps showing the north and south boundaries 

of the demarcation zone.
American Military History

246

of war quarrel heightened in January 1952, after UNC delegates proposed 

to give captives a choice in repatriation after the armistice. Thousands of 

Korean prisoners held by the UNC were actually South Koreans impressed 

into the KPA in 1950, and thousands of Chinese prisoners were former 

Nationalist soldiers impressed into the People’s Liberation Army after the 

Chinese Civil War. Most of these men had no desire to return to the DPRK 

or the PRC, and their refusal to do so would be a dramatic propaganda 

victory for the Western bloc. American leaders, recalling Stalin’s brutal 

treatment of Soviet soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans and returned 

to the USSR by the United States after World War II, also believed that 

voluntary repatriation was the moral course. The Communist delegates 

protested vigorously that this was a violation of the Geneva Conventions 

of 1949. The resulting impasse deadlocked the negotiations until 1953. 

The Communists opened another front on the prisoner issue on 

May 7, 1952. Communists held in the UNC prison camp on Koje-do, 

on orders smuggled to them from North Korea, lured the U.S. camp 

commander to a compound gate and dragged him inside. The strategy, 

which became clear in subsequent prisoner demands, was to trade the 

officer’s life and release for UNC admissions of inhumane treatment 

of captives, including alleged cruelties during previous screenings of 

prisoners in which a large number of prisoners refused repatriation. 

The obvious objective was to discredit the voluntary repatriation stand 

the UNC delegation had taken at Panmunjom. Although a new camp 

commander secured his predecessor’s release, in the process he signed 

a damaging statement including an admission that “there have been 

instances of bloodshed where many prisoners of war have been killed 

and wounded by U.N. Forces.” (There had been numerous violent incidents in the poorly designed and poorly run camp, and the Communists 

exploited the statement widely at Panmunjom and elsewhere for its 

propaganda value.) 

Amid the Koje-do trouble, General Ridgway left Tokyo to replace 

General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower as the NATO Supreme 

Commander. Ridgway’s replacement was General Mark W. Clark, 

Chief, Army Field Forces. Clark became the new commander in the 

Far East, with one less responsibility than MacArthur and Ridgway had 

carried. On April 28, 1952, a peace treaty with Japan had gone into 

effect, restoring Japan’s sovereignty and thus ending the occupation. 

Koje-do

In January 1951 the Eighth Army established a prison camp on Koje-do, an island off the southern coast of 

Korea. By May 1952 the camp held approximately 170,000 prisoners of war and civilian internees in poorly 

designed facilities, and it had been assigned a disproportionately high percentage of low-quality U.S. and ROK 

personnel. Eighth Army paid little attention to the camp even after a number of riots between Communist and antiCommunist prisoners and clashes between Communist prisoners and guards. After General Boatner reestablished 

control over the camp in June 1952, General Clark relieved the Eighth Army of responsibility for prisoners of war 

and most of those held on Koje-do were moved to new, better-designed camps.
the korean war, 1950–1953

247

Faced immediately with the Koje-do affair, General Clark repudiated 

the prison camp commander’s statement and placed Brig. Gen. Haydon 

L. Boatner, one of the U.S. Army’s old China hands, in charge of the 

camp. Clark ordered Boatner to move the prisoners into smaller, more 

manageable compounds and to institute other measures that would 

eliminate the likelihood of another uprising. General Boatner, in a 

carefully planned series of actions using tanks and infantry, crushed 

Communist resistance at the camp and completed the task in June.

In the United States, the growing unpopularity of the war made 

limiting casualties a key objective for Eighth Army. General Van Fleet 

successfully argued for a major expansion of the ROK Army, and he 

devoted much attention to strengthening the ROK Army’s greatest 

weaknesses during the war’s first year: inadequate training and poor 

leadership. While the number of U.S. divisions in Korea did not drop 

until after the war, the growing number of ROK divisions, and their 

higher quality, allowed the Eighth Army to gradually turn over more 

of its front to ROK units and keep U.S. divisions in reserve for longer 

periods. Because even limited attacks had produced high casualties in 

relation to the ground gained, the Eighth Army restricted subordinate 

commanders’ freedom to attack. Since it could not pressure the enemy 

with ground attacks, the UNC turned to an “air pressure” campaign, 

striking at targets across North Korea. 

The Far East Air Forces also mounted a renewed interdiction 

campaign against Communist supply lines, but the effort failed to prevent 

the CPVF and the KPA from receiving large amounts of artillery from 

the USSR. At the start of 1952 the Communist forces had 71 artillery 

battalions with an estimated 852 guns at the front and an additional 

361 battalions and 3,500 guns just to their rear to defend against UN 

breakthroughs. By October 1952 they had something around 131 artillery 

battalions with 1,300 guns at the front and another 383 battalions and 

4,000 guns just behind. The Communists used these weapons and their 

willingness to suffer, according to Western standards, exorbitant casualties to exert tremendous pressure on the UNC. From July to December 

1952 CPVF and KPA units assaulted UNC outposts using their own 

version of meat grinder tactics. The resulting battles, at hills UNC troops 

gave nicknames such as Old Baldy, the Hook, White Horse, and Reno, 

were small in scale compared to the war’s first year. The intensity of the 

combat for soldiers, however, rivaled that of World War I, with terrific 

artillery bombardments and hand-to-hand fighting in trenches. Between 

these assaults, both sides harassed each other with artillery fire and sent 

out patrols to contest the area between the opposing lines.

As this war of posts continued, the U.S. Army in 1952 was an 

institution in crisis. The opening of negotiations had erased the crisis 

atmosphere of 1950 and early 1951, and traditional fears about the 

dangers to the American economy from high military spending reasserted themselves. President Truman and the Congress cut military 

spending and allocated a greater share of the defense budget to the Air 

Force to expand the nuclear deterrent force. These cuts, along with the 

decisions to institute an individual rotation policy in Korea and not to 

hold draftees and mobilized guardsmen and reservists for the duration 

of the war, left the Army unable to support all its commitments. The 

service gave first priority in personnel to supporting the Eighth Army 

General Clark
American Military History

248

and second priority to supporting the Seventh Army in Germany, but 

commanders in both armies complained of serious declines in their 

units’ proficiency. In the Continental United States, the manpower crisis 

crippled the Army’s contribution to building an air defense system, 

nearly destroyed the service’s training system, and by the end of 1952 

had once again ruined the General Reserve (of its seven divisions, only 

the 82d Airborne was ready for use). 

While the manpower crisis had negative effects on units, it did 

force the Army finally to comply with President Truman’s 1948 order 

to end racial segregation. With only a partial mobilization for war and 

high casualties in Korea, racial segregation began to break down in the 

Eighth Army during 1950 as some commanders accepted any replacements they could obtain. In 1951 the Army began a racial integration 

program for units in Korea and extended it to the rest of the service 

later in the war.

In November the American people elected Dwight D. Eisenhower 

as the next President. A major issue in the campaign had been the war 

in Korea; and in a pledge to “go to Korea,’’ Eisenhower implied that if 

elected he would attempt to end the war quickly. Consequently, when 

Model 1951 Pile Cap

A foot-weary soldier demonstrates the versatility of the standard 

U.S. Army helmet.
the korean war, 1950–1953

249

the President-elect in early December fulfilled his promise to visit 

Korea, there was indeed some expectation of a dramatic change in the 

conduct of the war. In October General Clark had proposed a plan 

to obtain a military victory; it required extensive reinforcements for 

the UNC, a ground offensive supported by amphibious and airborne 

operations, air and naval attacks on targets in China, and possible use 

of nuclear weapons. But it quickly became clear that Eisenhower, like 

President Truman, considered the costs of such an operation unacceptable and that he also preferred to seek an honorable armistice.

A UNC proposal in February 1953 that the two sides exchange sick 

and wounded prisoners initially brought no Communist response, but 

on March 5 Stalin died. The Soviet Politburo wanted an end to the high 

costs of supplying the Chinese and North Koreans; and without Soviet 

supplies and air power, the CPVF and the KPA would become vulnerable to a UNC offensive. On March 28 the Communists favorably 

replied to the February proposal and also suggested that this exchange 

perhaps could “lead to the smooth settlement of the entire question 

of prisoners of war.” With that, the armistice conference resumed in 

April. An exchange of sick and wounded prisoners was carried out that 

same month, and on June 4 the Communist negotiators conceded on 

the issue of voluntary repatriation of prisoners. 

During the spring of 1953 the Eighth Army fought some of 

the bloodiest battles of the outpost war as the CPVF and the KPA

launched attacks to maintain pressure on the UNC and to take attention away from the concessions made at Panmunjom. UNC units 

grimly defended some positions, but Lt. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, who 

had succeeded Van Fleet as the Eighth Army’s commander in February, 

ordered others abandoned when it appeared that the enemy was willing 

to pay any price to take them. Concerned over the steep increase in 

American casualties and aware that an armistice was imminent, Taylor 

decided that the costs of holding such outposts outweighed any tactical 

benefits. The enemy paid particular attention to ROK units, and on 

June 10 the CPVF attacked the five ROK divisions in the Kumsong 

salient in east central Korea. Outnumbered, the ROK forces were 

pushed back an average of three kilometers across the salient before 

the CPVF broke off the attack, but their performance demonstrated a 

great improvement over that of ROK units under comparable conditions in the spring of 1951. 

The UNC also sought to pressure its opponent, by bombing irrigation dams in North Korea but found ROK President Rhee as great a 

problem when on June 18 he ordered the release of over 25,000 Korean 

prisoners, many of them Southerners impressed into the KPA, who had 

refused repatriation. Rhee had long opposed any armistice that left the 

peninsula divided and had made threats to remove ROK forces from 

UNC control. He also feared that with an armistice the ROK would 

lose the support and protection of the United States, especially if the 

United States withdrew all its ground forces. In the end Rhee backed 

down when the U.S. government suggested that it would sign a mutual 

defense treaty with the ROK and provide it with significant economic 

and military assistance. 

Furious over the release of the prisoners, the Communists decided 

to teach Rhee a lesson before concluding the armistice negotiations. 
American Military History

250

On July 13 the CPVF attacked the Kumsong salient in greater 

strength than in June. Shattering one division, the attack forced the 

ROK units to withdraw south of the Kumsong River. Again the ROK 

units’ performance showed that this army had greatly improved since 

1951. General Taylor on July 16 ordered the ROK II Corps, with U.S. 

air and artillery support, to counterattack; but he halted the operation 

on July 20 short of the original line since by that date the armistice 

delegations had come to a new accord and needed only to work out 

a few small details. Taylor’s order to halt ended the last major battle 

of the war. 

After a week of dealing with administrative matters, each chief 

delegate signed the military armistice at Panmunjom at 10:00 

a.m. on 

July 27; later that day General Clark and the enemy commanders affixed 

their signatures to the agreement. As stipulated in the agreement, all 

fighting stopped twelve hours after the first signing, at 10:00 

p.m., July 

27, 1953. Thirty-seven months of fighting had exacted a high toll. 

South Korea had lost over 187,000 soldiers dead, an estimated 30,000 

missing, and about 429,000 wounded. South Korea’s civilians also had 

suffered greatly: estimates of the dead and missing range from 500,000 

to 1 million. Up to 1.5 million North Korean soldiers and civilians died 

in the war. Estimates for Chinese dead and missing range from 600,000 

to 800,000. Non-American members of the UNC forces lost a total 

of 3,063 dead and missing and a further 11,817 wounded. American 

losses from hostile action totaled 137,025: 33,741 killed and 103,284 

wounded. Another 2,835 died from nonhostile causes. Of the dead, the 

remains of over 8,000 have yet to be recovered. The U.S. Army bore the 

brunt of American losses: 27,731 killed; 2,125 dead from nonhostile 

causes; and 77,596 wounded. Of the Army’s dead, the remains of over 

6,000 have yet to be recovered. 

The Aftermath

By the terms of the armistice, the line of demarcation between 

North and South Korea closely approximated the front line as it existed 

at the final hour and represented a relatively small adjustment of the 

prewar division. (Map 13) Within three days of the signing of the armistice, each opposing force withdrew two kilometers from this line to 

establish a demilitarized zone. The armistice provisions forbade either 

force to bring additional troops or new weapons into Korea, although 

replacement one for one and in kind was permissible. To oversee the 

enforcement of all armistice terms and to negotiate resolution of any 

violations, the armistice established a Military Armistice Commission 

composed of an equal number of officers from the UN Command, 

China, South Korea, and North Korea. This body was assisted by the 

Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission whose members came from 

Sweden, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Representatives of 

those same countries, with India furnishing an umpire and custodial 

forces, formed the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission to handle 

the disposition of prisoners refusing repatriation. Finally, a provision of 

the armistice recommended that the belligerent governments convene 

a political conference to negotiate a final political settlement of the 

whole Korean question. 
the korean war, 1950–1953

251

By September 6 all prisoners wishing to be repatriated had been 

exchanged. From the UNC returnees came full details of brutally harsh 

treatment—murder, torture, and starvation—in enemy prison camps 

and of an extensive Communist political indoctrination program 

designed to produce prisoner collaboration. Several hundred U.S. 

Map 13

X X X

I

X X X

IX

X X X

X

X X X

ROK I

X X X

ROK II

Chugpyong

Reservoir

Han R

Han R

Hwach'on

Reservoir

S E A

O F

J A P A N

Imjin River

Imjin River

Pukhan River

XXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

Ch’orwon

Yonch'on

Tangduch'on-ni

Sibyon-ni

Kaesong

Panmunjom

P’yonggang

Kumhwa

Chodo-ri

Hwach'on

Han'gye-ri

Inje

Kangnung

Taep'o-ri

Hongch'on

Hoengsong

Chip’yong-ni

Yangp'yong

Ich’on Yoju Suwon

Ch'onan

Yongdungp'o

INCH'ON

Masan-ni

Uijongbu

SEOUL

Munsan-ni

Wonju

Wonch’on

Ansong

P’yongt’aek

Chech’on

Yongwol

Ch'unch'on

Ch’ungju

Kosong

Yangyang

38o PARALLEL

Kimp’o Ad

Dam

1952–1953

THE STABILIZED FRONT

0 30

0 30 Kilometers

Miles

United Nations Front Line, 27 Jul 1953

ELEVATION IN METERS

0 100 500 1000 and Above
American Military History

252

returnees were investigated on charges of collaborating with the enemy, 

but few were convicted. 

The transfer of nonrepatriates to the Neutral Nations Repatriation 

Commission came next. In the drawn-out procedure that followed, 

few of the prisoners changed their minds as officials from both sides 

attempted to convince former members of their respective commands 

that they should return home. Of twenty-three Americans who at 

first refused repatriation, two decided to return. On February 1, 1954, 

the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission dissolved itself after 

releasing the last of the nonrepatriates as civilians free to choose their 

own destinations. 

The main scene then shifted to Geneva, Switzerland, where the 

political conference recommended in the armistice agreement convened 

on April 26. There was a complete impasse from the beginning: the 

representatives of UNC member nations wanted to reunify Korea 

through UN-supervised elections; the Communist delegation refused 

to recognize the United Nations’ authority to deal with the matter. The 

conference on Korea closed June 15. Leaving Korea divided essentially 

along the prewar line, the Geneva impasse merely reestablished the 

prewar confrontation between the two Korean governments. However, 

the ROK now had a military vastly increased in size and ability and 

the United States had promised the ROK huge amounts of economic 

and military aid. Later in 1954 the United States would sign a mutual 

defense treaty with the ROK; and the Eighth Army, although reduced 

to two U.S. divisions, would remain in Korea.

The war’s impact reached far beyond Korea. Despite criticism of 

the armistice by those who agreed with General MacArthur that there 

was no substitute for victory, the UNC had upheld the principle of 

suppressing armed aggression. True, the Security Council had been able 

to enlist forces under the UN banner in June 1950 only in the absence 

of the USSR veto. Nevertheless, the UNC success strengthened the 

possibility of keeping or restoring peace through the UN machinery, at 

the General Assembly. 

For China, the war brought several benefits. It had maintained 

in the DPRK a buffer state on its sensitive northern border. Soviet 

assistance, especially in improving the Chinese army and air force, gave 

China a more powerful military posture at war’s end than when it had 

intervened. Its performance in Korea, despite vast losses, won China 

respect as a nation to be reckoned with, not only in Asian but also in 

world affairs. 

For the United States, the war brought a major change in its 

containment strategy against the USSR. Instead of relying principally 

on economic and political tools backed by a small nuclear deterrent 

force, containment’s emphasis shifted during the war to military means. 

While Eisenhower did reduce military spending after the war, the 

U.S. armed forces remained much larger than they had been in 1950, 

possessed many more and increasingly powerful nuclear weapons, and 

were ensured a steady supply of manpower through the retention of 

conscription. The American military, after the humiliating and bloody 

defeats of the war’s first six months, shifted its focus from preparing 

for a World War II–type mobilization to maintaining forces ready 

for immediate use. This larger military, eager to put the frustrations 

The U.S. armed forces remained 

much larger than they had 

been in 1950, possessed many 

more and increasingly powerful 

nuclear weapons, and were 

ensured a steady supply of 

manpower through the retention 

of conscription. 
the korean war, 1950–1953

253

of the Korean War behind it, now was widely dispersed around the 

world, including Indochina, where American advisers assisted the new 

Republic of Vietnam.

Discussion Questions

1. To what degree was the Korean War a civil war? How did the 

United States and Russia view it?

2. How did the relationships between the two Korean governments 

and their allies affect the origins and course of the war?

3. How did American war aims change in 1950 and 1951, and what 

were the effects of these changes?

4. Should President Truman have decided to seek a decisive military victory in mid-1951 by again invading North Korea, and should 

President Eisenhower have approved General Clark’s plan for a major 

offensive in 1953? What are the good and bad points about waging 

limited war? 

5. How did the use of intelligence affect the course of the war?

6. Why was there no armistice in 1951? Why did it take two more 

years of fighting to end the war? Recommen

ded Readings

Appleman, Roy E. East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950. 

College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987.

Blair, Clay. The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953. Annapolis: 

Naval Institute Press, 2003.

Fehrenbach, T. R. This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness. New 

York: Macmillan, 1963.

Marshall, S. L. A. Pork Chop Hill: The American Fighting Man in Action, 

Korea, Spring 1953. New York: Berkley Books, 2000.

Stueck, William W. The Korean War: An International History. Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1995.

Other Readings

Appleman, Roy E. Disaster in Korea: The Chinese Confront MacArthur. 

College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1989.

———. Ridgway Duels for Korea. College Station: Texas A&M University 

Press, 1990.

———. South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu. U.S. Army in the Korean 

War. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2000.

Bowers, William T., William M. Hammond, and George L. MacGarrigle. 

Black Soldier, White Army: The 24th Infantry Regiment in Korea. U.S. 

Army in the Korean War. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1996.

Crane, Conrad C. American Airpower Strategy in Korea,1950–1953. 

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Evanhoe, Ed. Darkmoon: Eighth Army Special Operations in the Korean War. 

Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995.
American Military History

254

Flint, Roy K., “Task Force Smith and the 24th Division: Delay and 

Withdrawal, 5–19 July 1950,” in America’s First Battles, 1776–1965, 

ed. Charles E. Heller and William A. Stofft. Lawrence: University 

Press of Kansas, 1986.

Gugeler, Russell A. Combat Actions in Korea. Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 1987.

Hamburger, Kenneth E. Leadership in the Crucible: The Korean War 

Battles of Twin Tunnels and Chipyong-ni. College Station: Texas A&M 

University Press, 2003. 

Hermes, Walter G. Truce Tent and Fighting Front. U.S. Army in the Korean 

War. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2000.

James, D. Clayton. Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea, 

1950–1953. New York: Free Press, 1993.

Mahoney, Kevin. Formidable Enemies: The North Korean and Chinese Soldier 

in the Korean War. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 2001.

Marshall, S. L. A. The River and the Gauntlet: Defeat of the Eighth Army 

by the Chinese Communist Forces, November, 1950, in the Battle of the 

Chongchon River, Korea. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1982.

Robertson, William G. Counterattack on the Naktong, 1950. Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College, 1985.

Schnabel, James F. Policy and Direction: The First Year. U.S. Army in the 

Korean War. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1990.

Tucker, Spencer, ed. Encyclopedia of the Korean War: A Political, Social, and 

Military History. New York: Checkmark Books, 2002.

Westover, John G. Combat Support in Korea: The United States Army in the 

Korean Conflict. Washington, D.C.: Combat Forces Press, 1955.
Although the Korean War ended in stalemate, it had shown 

clearly that the United States was the only nation strong enough 

to offer determined resistance to Communist expansion. In the 

past the nation had turned to its military only when threatened. From 

1953 onward, however, it would have little choice but to use its armed 

forces as an open and indispensable element in its conduct of foreign 

affairs. Confronting opponents who regarded war as a logical and 

necessary extension of politics, the United States would turn their own 

tactics against them by backing its diplomats with the threat of force. 

The American people accepted the new approach with remarkable 

composure. In so doing, they revealed a willingness to shoulder not 

only the huge costs but also the heavy moral obligations that leadership 

of the free world necessarily entailed.

Massive Retaliation and the New Look

With the end of hostilities, the Eisenhower administration had 

to provide for the nation’s defense by determining a strategy for 

the future and by configuring military forces to carry it out. Torn 

between pressures from worldwide commitments and a desire to cut 

back on defense spending, the administration devised a policy that 

laid major emphasis upon air power and America’s nuclear superiority. “The basic decision,” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles 

observed, “was to depend primarily upon a great capacity to retaliate, 

instantly, by means and at places of our choosing.” This would allow 

the Department of Defense to mold the armed forces into a shape 

that best suited official policy without having to prepare for every 

threat the Communists might pose. 

9

The Army of the Cold War

From the “New Look” to

Flexible Response
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256

With the new emphasis on massive retaliation, the armed forces 

took on a New Look as the 1950s progressed. The Air Force increased 

the size of its strategic bombing forces, spending huge sums on new 

bombers and missiles. The Navy concentrated on developing a new 

submarine-launched nuclear missile known as the Polaris, and the 

Army sought to perfect tactical nuclear weapons to support the soldier 

on the battlefield. Since the military budget divided along service rather 

than functional lines, the annual allocation of funds almost inevitably 

provoked bitter infighting.

Over time, the Air Force’s share of the budget became so large 

that it diminished the capacity of the United States to wage a conventional war. As it did, opposition to massive retaliation mounted. The 

Army’s Chief of Staff, General Matthew B. Ridgway, was particularly 

pointed in his criticism. As Soviet nuclear capabilities grew, he noted 

in June 1955, nuclear parity between the two sides would ensure that 

neither had an advantage. When that parity occurred, the Soviets could 

gain the edge by provoking confrontations so limited in size that they 

could never justly resort to nuclear weapons. Armed with “leftovers” 

from the budget process, America’s conventional forces would lack the 

means to respond. A balanced force was necessary, Ridgway implied, 

one that could cope with either a general or a limited war.

Ridgway’s successor, General Maxwell D. Taylor, supported his 

plea, as did many prominent academics. Change, however, came only at 

the end of the decade, when the Soviet Union’s parity with the United 

States was no longer in dispute. At that point, supporters of the nuclear 

option had little choice but to concede that a general war would result 

in mutual self-destruction and that massive retaliation should be only 

a last resort.

The NATO Buildup

While the word battles raged, a major American buildup had taken 

place in Europe. Concerned that the Soviet Union might yet launch an 

offensive on the continent, the United States had increased its forces 

there from one to five divisions and had strengthened NATO’s ground, 

air, and naval forces. In response, the alliance had adopted a “forward 

defense” strategy that contemplated a defense of West Germany as far 

east of the Rhine as possible.

The conclusion of the Korean War, the death of Stalin, and the 

launch of a Soviet peace initiative a short while later led to a release 

of international tensions and a slowing of the NATO buildup. This 

allowed the United States and its allies to shift their attention to their 

need for improved communications and to the construction of roads, 

airfields, and logistical depots. As those efforts proceeded, the United 

States began to press for German rearmament. Despite strong opposition from the Communist bloc, the Western allies agreed to the idea in 

1954, approving the formation of a twelve-division German army. 

The United States also moved to remedy a growing imbalance 

between Communist and NATO ground forces by fitting tactical nuclear 

warheads to artillery shells and missiles. As the weapons came on line, 

the alliance based its planning on an assumption that they would form 

the foundation of its response to a Soviet attack. Cracks appeared in 
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

257

NATO’s common front, however, when the United States declined to 

share its exclusive control of the devices through consultation with its 

allies. In the end, the French and British decided to lessen their dependence upon their ally by developing nuclear weapons of their own.

Continental Defense

The Soviet Union was hardly idle. Responding to NATO’s efforts, 

it strengthened its defenses by arming its ground forces with tactical 

nuclear weapons, developing hydrogen bombs and an intercontinental 

jet bomber to deliver them, and pushing ahead with production of 

long-range missiles. By 1955, as a result, the race between the two sides 

had produced such huge nuclear arsenals that both became concerned. 

Meeting at a conference in Geneva, American and Soviet representatives agreed that a full-scale nuclear war could lead only to mutual 

suicide. From then on, an understanding between the sides grew that 

neither would use nuclear weapons unless its own survival was at stake. 

If tensions eased on the strategic level, competition continued 

unabated on every other. Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev set the 

mood. Avowing in early 1956 that the East and West could coexist as 

competitors, he insisted nonetheless that peaceful coexistence hardly 

meant acquiescence. The Soviet Union would continue its struggle 

with Capitalist imperialism through “wars of national liberation” and 

by other means less destructive than full-scale war. 

Under the circumstances, the United States took no chances. 

Cooperating with the Canadian government, it began construction in 

1957 of a distant early warning (DEW) radar network. Designed to 

provide advance word of a Soviet air or missile attack from the north, 

the system consisted of a line of radar stations that ran across Alaska and 

northern Canada. Radar outposts in the Aleutian Islands supplemented 

it, along with stations in central and southern Canada, radar towers and 

picket boats in the Atlantic, and circling early warning aircraft. 

Answering to the Air Force, which served as executive agent for 

the Secretary of Defense, the Continental Air Defense Command had 

responsibility for America’s overall air defenses. The Army contributed 

ground antiaircraft defenses in support of the command’s interceptor 

aircraft and developed the nation’s first antiaircraft missile, the Ajax. 

Homeland Defense during the Cold War

By the end of the Korean War, the Army was deeply involved in activities intended to defend the United 

States against direct Soviet attack or Soviet-directed subversion. The Army built gun positions around major U.S. 

cities that were soon replaced by Nike Ajax and then Nike Hercules surface-to-air missiles that would intercept 

Soviet bombers. At the height of the Cold War in the late 1950s, the Army had deployed 145 Nike Hercules 

batteries. A second Army homeland defense function was to support the U.S. civil defense efforts as it had during 

World War II. The Army laid plans for assuming martial law to maintain order in the wake of a nuclear attack. 

Also, the Army Corps of Engineers participated in the National Fallout Shelter Survey for the Office of Civil 

Defense that identified shelter space for the entire population. 
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258

Later, it fitted more sophisticated members of the Nike family with 

nuclear warheads and developed the Hawk missile to defend against 

low-flying aircraft. By the 1960s, the service had also situated antiaircraft missile sites on the outskirts of many American cities to protect 

vital defense areas.

The Missile Era

Throughout the period, the United States had keyed its efforts to 

the strategic bomber; but to be on the safe side, it had also pushed 

development of offensive missiles. To that end the Army produced the 

Jupiter and the Air Force the Thor, both intermediate-range ballistic 

missiles that could strike targets at a distance of 1,500 miles. The Air 

Force was also working on Atlas and Titan, intercontinental ballistic 

missiles (ICBMs) with a reach of 5,000 miles. A jurisdictional dispute 

between the Army and the Air Force prompted by the roles and missions 

agreement led the Secretary of Defense in 1957 to give the Air Force 

charge of all land-based ballistic missiles. Although the Army retained 

control over development and testing of the Jupiter missile, tensions 

with the Soviet Union soon eased, lessening the sense of urgency that 

had propelled the program to that point. 

The lull lasted only until October 1957, when the Russians 

launched Sputnik, the first earth satellite. The feat came as a shock 

to the United States, which lacked the sort of high-thrust rocket the 

Russians had used. To sustain public morale, the United States boosted 

several small American satellites into orbit with existing ballistic missile 

motors. Considerable time would elapse, however, before the nation 

would produce a rocket engine equal to that of the Russians.

Since every new weapon evoked a counterweapon, the Army took 

responsibility for developing an anti-ICBM system. A running debate 

quickly broke out, however, over whether any missile could protect the 

United States from a saturation attack by ICBMs. More talk centered on 

whether the United States needed to maintain airfields and missile sites 

overseas within striking range of the Soviet Union and Communist 

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977)

With the defeat of Germany imminent, von Braun and his rocket 

research team decided to surrender rather than stay in hiding and wait for 

capture. A close relative rode his bike down an unpaved road and led the 

U.S. Army’s spy catchers (the Counter Intelligence Corps) to the German 

rocket team. Dr. Braun’s work under Army auspices was instrumental in 

creating the Redstone, Jupiter, and Pershing missile systems. America’s first 

satellite, the Explorer I, and America’s first man in space, Navy Commander 

Alan B. Shepard, Jr., were launched into space on modified Redstone 

missiles. Von Braun ended his Army affiliation in 1960, when he went to 

work for the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

259

China. The costs of maintaining 

these facilities and the troops to man 

them seemed questionable since 

long-range missiles launched from 

the Continental United States or from 

submarines promised to fill that role. 

In the end, the debate led nowhere. 

Although the new alternatives had 

potential, they would take years to 

test and put into operation.

Challenges and Responses

The nuclear threat overshadowed 

developments in other areas during 

the fifties. Although the United 

States sought to avoid involvement in 

limited war, for example, challenges 

arose continually that required it to 

supply military or economic aid or 

to dispatch combat forces. American 

commitments ßto provide advisory 

groups and military missions around 

the world thus multiplied throughout 

the period, despite drives in Congress 

and the Executive Branch to cut costs.

The nation did, nevertheless, 

have its limits. It had little choice but 

to maintain two Army divisions south 

of the demilitarized zone in Korea 

and to provide substantial military 

assistance to South Korea’s armed 

forces. It drew the line, however, 

when France sought American 

support for its effort to reclaim its 

empire in Indochina. Confronted 

by French threats of noncooperation with NATO, the United States 

compromised by providing military 

supplies, equipment, and economic 

aid. Lacking support from its other allies, however, it declined to 

commit American troops or bombers.

Although the United States was clearly reluctant to become 

embroiled in Asia so soon after the Korean War, it could hardly fail 

to recognize that the region was under threat. Following the Geneva 

Conference of 1954, which set up two Vietnams, the nation attempted to 

take up the slack by sponsoring the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization 

(SEATO), a collective defense arrangement. The pact called for 

mutual help and consultation to resist overt aggression or other threats 

to internal security. Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the 

Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States were 

its initial signatories.

Pershing Missile in Winter, Wayne Duncan, 1960
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260

Troubles nonetheless proliferated in both Asia and Southeast Asia 

as the 1950s lengthened. A prime point of contention stood in the 

Strait of Taiwan, where Chinese Communist forces were bombarding 

Nationalist Chinese positions on two tiny offshore islands, Quemoy 

and Matsu. Since loss of the two might have opened the way for an 

invasion of Taiwan, Congress issued a joint resolution in 1955 empowering the President to act immediately if the Communists moved to 

seize either. The shelling tapered off after that; but it picked up again 

in the summer of 1958, when the Communists again began to shell the 

islands. In response, the United States provided warships to convoy 

supply vessels and armed Nationalist Chinese aircraft with missiles. 

A U.S. composite Air Strike Force also took up station on Taiwan to 

strengthen Nationalist defenses against a Communist invasion. The 

Communists ended the crisis by reducing their fire shortly thereafter, 

but Quemoy and Matsu would remain a bone of contention between 

the United States and China for years to come.

Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, pressure from the Communists eased 

but hardly ceased. Instead, attention shifted to the small state of Laos 

to the west of Vietnam, where a Communist movement, the Pathet 

Lao, had taken control of several provinces bordering North Vietnam 

and China. The nation’s non-Communist government had signed 

a peaceful coexistence agreement with the group in 1956, but open 

warfare broke out again in 1959. Neither side gained the upper hand in 

the fighting that followed, despite U.S. assistance to the government’s 

25,000-man army and substantial military aid to the Pathet Lao from 

the Communist bloc. With concern growing that the struggle might 

lead to a direct East-West confrontation, suggestions arose that the 

Great Powers should convene a conference to neutralize the country. 

By then, however, the Eisenhower administration was giving way to a 

new government headed by PresidentElect John F. Kennedy. The likelihood 

of an agreement seemed remote until 

Kennedy could settle in.

If the tensions in the Far East 

were the products of Cold War competition, others arising in the Middle 

East were attributable to nationalism 

and Arab hostility to the Jewish state 

of Israel. Although the United States 

took a standoff approach to the 

region’s intermittent crises, President 

Dwight D. Eisenhower understood 

that America had deep interests in the 

area. As a result, in January 1957 he 

requested and obtained a joint resolution from Congress that pledged 

American military assistance to Middle 

Eastern nations subject to Communist 

aggression. Empowering the President 

to use the armed forces if necessary, 

the legislation became known as the 

President Eisenhower meets with Secretary of State Dulles. Eisenhower Doctrine.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

261

American action came in 1958, when factions favoring Egyptian 

leader Gamal Abdel Nasser became active in Lebanon, Jordan, and 

Iraq. When rebellion followed in Lebanon and killers assassinated the 

King of Iraq to establish a republic under pro-Nasser leadership, the 

President of Lebanon and the King of Jordan requested U.S. assistance. 

Within twenty-four hours, naval units from the U.S. Sixth Fleet took up 

station off Lebanon and a battalion of marines landed near the nation’s 

capital, Beirut. Additional marines arrived two days later, and the Army 

began to move airborne, tank, and combat engineer troops into the 

country to stabilize the situation. By early August U.S. forces in Lebanon 

totaled more than 5,800 marines and 8,500 soldiers. A U.S. composite 

Air Strike Force had moved into Turkey to back them, and a British 

airborne contingent had positioned itself in Jordan. Those efforts had 

the desired effect. By October tensions had subsided enough for the 

United States to withdraw its forces. In their place, it gave Lebanon 

and Jordan special assistance to build up their defenses and to prevent 

additional outbreaks. Shortly after that, it concluded separate defense 

treaties with Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. When those three countries and 

Great Britain formed the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) along 

NATO lines the following year, the United States declined membership. However, it participated in the association’s economic, military, 

and antisubversion committees and sent representatives to its meetings.

Closer to home, the United States chose not to intervene in a 

revolution on the island of Cuba in 1958, but it kept careful tabs on 

the movement’s leader, Fidel Castro, and his followers. When they 

succeeded in overthrowing the government of President Fulgencio 

Batista, the United States initially recognized their new regime, but 

Cuban-American relations deteriorated quickly when Castro aligned his 

nation with the Communist camp. American military and economic 

assistance to Cuba ceased in 1960, but Castro replaced it with arms and 

other aid from the Soviet Union and Communist China. The United 

States responded by cutting off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 

January 1961.

The Military Budget

With U.S. forces and assistance either on call or committed around 

the world, it appeared that the United States was more likely to become 

involved in local wars than in a general conflagration. American military 

budgets, however, had emphasized deterrence of nuclear conflict over 

preparations for lower-level contingencies and limited conventional 

wars.

It was hardly surprising that President Eisenhower would seek 

to cut defense spending following the high cost of the Korean War. 

His decision to rely more heavily upon strategic air power than on 

ground units, however, created imbalances both in the military budget 

and in the distribution of forces. In 1953, for example, the Army had 

more than 1.5 million men: 20 combat divisions (8 in the Far East, 5 

in Europe, and 7 in the United States). The service’s budget came to 

nearly $13 billion, 38 percent of the total allocated to the military for 

the 1954 fiscal year. Over the next four years the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

trimmed more than 600,000 men from the armed services. Although 

Cuban-American relations 

deteriorated quickly when 

Castro aligned his nation with the 

Communist camp.
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262

the Air Force and Navy experienced reductions, most of the cuts 

came from the ground forces. By 1958, as a result, the Army had 

shrunk to 15 divisions and fewer than 900,000 men. Two reducedstrength divisions remained in Korea, one in Hawaii. The totals for 

Europe and the United States remained the same, but several stateside 

divisions were operating at reduced strength. Funds obligated to the 

Army for fiscal year 1959 had fallen to about $9 billion, some 22 

percent of the total military budget. Despite these economies, the 

defense budget climbed from $34 billion in 1954 to more than $41 

billion in 1959. Much of the expense was attributable to the high-tech 

air and missile systems necessary to deter and defend against nuclear 

attack. Not only were these weapons costly to obtain, they sometimes 

became obsolescent overnight as newer, better models came on line. 

In addition, the personnel necessary to maintain them not only came 

at high cost, they also required expensive, on-the-job training to keep 

abreast of trends.

Defense Reorganization

Perennial disputes between the services over strategy, force levels, 

and funds fostered neither the unity nor the flexibility that the United 

States required of its armed services during the period. Seeking a 

remedy, President Eisenhower decided to lessen the autonomy of the 

military departments, to strengthen the authority of the Secretary of 

Defense, and to provide a more direct chain of command from the 

Commander in Chief downward. Congress approved the reorganization in August 1958. 

Sweeping changes followed. The new arrangement abolished the 

system that made the military departments executive agents for operations in the field. Instead, most of the nation’s active combat forces 

came under unified commands that answered to the President and the 

Secretary of Defense through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As part of his 

enlarged role, the Secretary of Defense received greater freedom to 

transfer functions within the services. In doing so, he was to have the 

assistance of a new Directorate of Research and Development that 

would oversee all military research and development programs.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff meanwhile received leave to shift many 

of their routine duties to subordinates by delegating more authority to 

their vice chiefs. The Joint Staff that answered to them grew in size as 

a result. Because of service sensitivities, however, it received specific 

instructions to avoid organizing or operating as an overall general staff.

The military services, for their part, had already reorganized 

internally to improve efficiency and to adjust to the changes required 

by the threat of nuclear war. By 1955, for example, in an attempt to 

reduce the number of commands reporting directly to the Chief of 

Staff, the Army had replaced its Army Field Forces Command with a 

new Continental Army Command (CONARC). The new organization 

took responsibility for the six U.S. armies and the Military District of 

Washington along with certain other units, activities, and installations. 

It had charge of training the Active Army and Reserves, preparing 

the future Army and its equipment, and planning and conducting the 

ground defenses of the United States.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

263

Those functions continued under the new system. The Army and 

the other military services kept their roles in training, equipping, and 

organizing combat forces. The difference was that the units transferred 

to unified commands when war threatened. Answering to the Secretary 

of Defense, the services also developed the weapons and equipment 

the troops would need. If the unified commands had control of the 

units assigned to them, moreover, the services retained command of 

everyone else and provided logistical support to all their personnel 

whether attached to unified commands or not.

A Dual-Capability Army

The need to adjust to the nuclear threat had a deep impact on the 

Army. Old ways of organizing for combat seemed inadequate to meet 

a nuclear attack, yet historical precedents were lacking when it came 

to devising new ones. The vast destructive power of nuclear weapons 

argued that armies could no longer mass to launch offensives or to hold 

along a solid front. An enemy could sweep aside all opposition with 

atomic bombs.

One recourse was to establish a checkerboard pattern with mobile, 

well-armed units occupying alternate squares. Those forces could 

concentrate quickly to carry out their missions and just as rapidly disperse 

when a nuclear counterattack threatened. The key to success would lie 

in well-trained troops armed with high-power weapons and equipped 

with fast, reliable ground and air transport. Sharpening the edge, 

commanders would have at their disposal first-class communications, 

dependable intelligence on enemy dispositions and intentions, and an 

efficient logistical system.

Following that pattern, the Army replaced its old triangular infantry 

and airborne divisions with units composed of five self-contained 

battle groups capable of independent action. Manned by 13,500 men 

rather than the usual 17,000, these “pentomic” divisions would have 

the support of artillery and missile units armed with both conventional 

and nuclear warheads. Longer-range missiles in the hands of the missile 

commands would also be available. The seven divisions stationed in the 

United States would back these forces as a strategic reserve. In 1957 

The Pentomic Division

After Korea the Army faced declining manpower levels and intense competition for limited funds, combined 

with the twin threats of brushfire conflicts in remote theaters and general war on a nuclear battlefield. These 

challenges led to a new divisional design. The pentomic division replaced the triangular division with five “battle 

groups,” intermediate in size between regiments and battalions, which theoretically increased survivability and 

responsiveness while reducing overhead. The new division also integrated new technology, particularly tactical 

nuclear weapons, for greater combat power and strategic mobility. These features turned out to be problematic: 

the battle group organization made the pentomic division difficult to control and supply, and many of the technological innovations turned out to be immature. As a result, the pentomic division itself was soon superseded. 
American Military History

264

four of these reserve units (two airborne and two infantry) became 

the Strategic Army Corps (STRAC), which stood in high readiness for 

quick deployment in case of an emergency. The other three served both 

as reinforcements and as a training base for an Army expansion should 

a prolonged crisis or a full-scale war develop. The Army’s regular divisions completed the changeover by 1958. National Guard and Reserve 

units took until 1960.

Scientists, engineers, and designers combined to produce a steady 

stream of new weapons and equipment for the nuclear Army. From 

improved ri

fles and mortars at the company level to powerful rockets 

and artillery in the support commands, the firepower of America’s 

combat forces grew. New families of surface-to-surface and surface-toair missiles also emerged, as did larger and heavier weapons designed 

to be air transportable.

A program to improve air and ground transportation led to the 

development of the M113 armored personnel carrier. Equipped with 

light but sturdy aluminum armor, the vehicle could both protect the 

troops and move them rapidly to the scene of action. Dual-capability 

amphibious vehicles that could travel on rough terrain and swim across 

rivers and swamps also came into being. They freed fighting units from 

total dependence on roads. The diesel-powered M60 battle tank became 

operational in 1960. Mounting a 105-mm. main gun, it weighed more 

than fifty-two tons and had a cruising range of 300 miles.

Perhaps the most dramatic efforts to increase the Army’s mobility 

occurred in the field of aviation. To secure both firepower and maneu-

verability, the service pushed development of helicopters and low-speed 

fixed-wing aircraft. The helicopter had already proved itself in Korea by 

moving troops and supplies and evacuating casualties. Some of the new 

fixed-wing planes were designed for short takeoffs and landings that 

would increase the Army’s ability to deliver heavy payloads to forward 

areas. Experiments also began on vertical takeoff and landing aircraft 

that would combine the helicopter’s small footprint with the speed of 

fixed-wing planes.

As the Army’s mobility and firepower increased, so did the need for 

good communications. With rapidly moving pentomic units operating 

independently over large areas, light but reliable radio equipment was 

essential. Dramatic technological breakthroughs in the miniaturization 

of component parts spurred by the space program provided the solutions the service needed. With tiny transistors replacing bulky tubes, 

radio equipment became lighter, smaller, and more reliable. Easily 

transportable by individual soldiers, in small vehicles, or in light aircraft, 

it eased command and control problems that had always accompanied 

quick-developing military maneuvers.

The improvement of tactical communications was only one benefit 

of the technological revolution. Ponderous early computers began to 

give way to smaller versions that could process, store, and recall more 

information more swiftly than ever before. From the coordination of 

weapons fire to the storage and retrieval of personnel and logistical 

information, these computers assumed many functions at all levels of 

the Army.

They became particularly valuable where the storage and retrieval 

of intelligence were concerned. Indeed, the need to secure the data 
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

265

necessary to feed the machines required the development of new families of surveillance equipment. More sophisticated radar and sonar sets 

emerged. So did infrared, acoustic, and seismic devices to aid ground 

and air surveillance; highly accurate cameras; and side-looking radar 

that could detect enemy concentrations by day and night under all 

weather conditions.

Once operations had gotten under way, the Army would have to 

supply the troops on the battlefield. Since nuclear wars would probably be short, its planners expected to rely upon stockpiled munitions 

rather than wait for American industry to gear up. This meant that they 

would have to establish depots both at home and abroad. The effort 

to move supplies from those facilities to the troops would pose problems, but modern technology seemed to hold the answers. Processing 

requisitions in computers, logisticians would use fast naval vessels, air 

transport, and cross-country vehicles to deliver at least the minimum 

essential requirements to the points where they were needed most.

As with the logisticians, the Army’s personnel specialists soon 

decided that forces in being would have to fight future conflicts. In 

earlier wars, the service had used the draft to mobilize and train civilians for up to two years before committing them to war. This would no 

longer be possible. The war would be over before anyone would arrive 

to fight it. Well-trained forces on hand or in ready reserve would have 

to do the fighting.

Given the Army’s growing inventory of complex weapons and 

equipment, recruiters had to try to retain the most capable of its officers 

and enlisted men. Administrators with scientific or engineering backgrounds and well-schooled technicians had to be on hand to operate and 

maintain the sophisticated systems the service was developing. And if 

it were going to allocate funds for long and expensive training courses, 

it needed to ensure that the graduates would remain in uniform long 

enough to pay off the investment. Since those individuals would be 

qualified to fill well-paid positions in private industry, it would have to 

compete with attractive civilian offers to maintain its technological edge.

Fortunately for the Army, the advantages of a military career 

were many. The twenty-year retirement option was a strong inducement for soldiers who had already served ten years or more learning 

their specialty. Free family medical care, post exchange and commissary privileges, and the Army’s extensive recreational and educational 

facilities also figured in. It also mattered that military service had gained 

prestige because of the many civilians who had served in World War II 

and Korea. The Army was no longer as isolated from American society 

it had been.

In one respect, however, a military career had become less inviting. 

Military pay had failed to keep pace with civilian salaries. In response, 

Congress in 1958 voted to increase service members’ salaries, to 

improve retirement benefits, and to authorize proficiency pay for highly 

skilled personnel.

The Reserve Forces

Although the Army made significant gains in retaining key 

personnel, it could not depend upon voluntary enlistments to fill its 

Military service had gained 

prestige because of the many 

civilians who had served in World 

War II and Korea.
American Military History

266

need for manpower. In an emergency it could fall back upon its Ready 

and Standby Reserves, but neither force was available on a day-to-day 

basis. The Ready Reserve became available only when the President 

declared an emergency and only in numbers authorized by Congress. 

The Standby Reserve became liable for service only in a war or emergency declared by Congress itself. For all other needs, the Army had 

to rely on the draft, which Congress had enacted during the Korean 

War. It obligated all physically and mentally qualified males between the 

ages of eighteen and twenty-six to eight years of combined active and 

reserve military service. 

There were several ways an eligible male could fulfill his obligation. 

By spending five of his eight years on active duty or in a combination 

of active duty and membership in the Ready Reserve, he could transfer 

to the Standby Reserve for his final three years. As an alternative, he 

might join the National Guard at the age of eighteen. By rendering 

satisfactory service for ten years, he would avoid active duty unless the 

President or Congress called his unit into federal service. A college 

student could meanwhile enroll in a Reserve Officer Training Corps 

(ROTC) course. This would allow him to spend two or three years on 

active duty and the remainder of his eight years as a reserve officer.

The system had many weaknesses. No one had to serve in the 

Army except those who were drafted, and Selective Service quotas 

dwindled rapidly after the end of the Korean War. Similarly, the armed 

services found it impossible to accommodate all ROTC graduates for 

their required active duty. The obligation of those individuals to remain 

in the Reserve, moreover, carried no requirement for them to enlist 

in a reserve unit or to participate in continued training. Complicating 

matters, since the National Guard required no prior preparation for 

enlistees, Guard units had to spend most of their time drilling recruits. 

Although the Reserve seemed strong enough on paper, most of its 

units were unprepared for rapid mobilization in an emergency.

Seeking remedies, Congress passed new legislation in 1955 that 

reduced the term of obligatory service for reserve enlistees to six years 

and imposed a requirement for active participation in reserve training 

on those with an unexpired obligation. It also authorized voluntary 

enlistment in the Reserve of up to 250,000 young men. These youths 

would serve six months on active duty followed by seven years in the 

Reserve. Under the new law, the President could call up to a million 

ready reservists to active duty in an emergency he alone proclaimed. He 

could also recall selected members of the Standby Reserve in case of a 

Congress-declared national emergency.

Whatever the efforts of Congress, in a period of restricted funding 

and irregular enlistments, many reserve units fell below authorized 

strength. Responding, the Army concentrated on filling out units it 

planned to mobilize in the early stages of a conflict. The cure, however, 

may have been as bad as the ailment. To find enough troops, the service 

often had no choice but to assign men to units without regard to military specialty. This created imbalances that bore heavily on the ability of 

some units to deploy. That members of the Ready Reserve Mobilization 

Reinforcement Pool, which contained individuals never assigned to organized units, failed to keep their parent organizations informed of changes 

in address or reserve status only made matters worse. 

Under the new law, the President 

could call up to a million ready 

reservists to active duty in an 

emergency he alone proclaimed. 
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

267

Although budget cuts forced the Active Army to lower its 

manpower ceiling, the Army continued its efforts to strengthen 

the Reserve. To that end, the Reserve Forces Act of 1955 provided 

for a total Ready Reserve of 2.9 million by 1970. The Army’s share 

came to about 1.5 million men in 1957—more than 1 million in the 

Army Reserve and more than 440,000 in the National Guard. Paid 

drill strengths came to 305,000 and 422,000 men, respectively. The 

number of Army Reserve divisions fell from 25 to 10 in the reorganization, but manning levels for those forces increased substantially to 

give the units a higher readiness capability. The number of National 

Guard divisions rose from 26 to 27. Those changes aside, since the 

Reserve could never support 37 divisions on a paid drill strength of 

only 727,000, the ability of those forces to attain combat readiness 

remained open to serious question.

Convinced that the United States was spending about $80 million 

a year to sustain reserve units that were of little or no military value, 

President Eisenhower tried to cut paid drill strength during the late 1950s. 

With reserve units scattered in congressional districts across the country, 

however, Congress was loath to do anything of the sort. Instead, it voted 

a mandatory 700,000 figure in 1959 to force the administration to seek 

congressional approval before introducing further reductions.

The Changing Face of the Cold War

When President Kennedy assumed office in the opening days of 

1961, the prospects for peace were hardly encouraging. The leader 

of the Soviet Union, Chairman Nikita Khrushchev, had been cool to 

the United States since the spring of 1960, when a Soviet missile had 

shot down an American U–2 intelligence-gathering aircraft in Russian 

airspace. Although the possibility of a general nuclear war had receded 

by the time Kennedy took office, Soviet support for wars of national 

liberation had increased.

Kennedy was willing to renew the quest for peace, but he was well 

aware that the effort might be long and success elusive. In that light, 

he was determined to give the American armed forces the sort of flexibility that would back the nation’s diplomacy with a credible military 

threat. “Any potential aggressor contemplating an attack on any part 

of the free world with any kind of weapons, conventional or nuclear,” 

he informed Congress, “must know that our response will be suitable, 

selective, swift, and effective.”

Kennedy’s deemphasis of massive retaliation and his stress on the 

need for ready, nonnuclear forces as a deterrent to limited war came 

none too soon. By 1961 the tight bipolar system that had developed 

between the United States and the Soviet Union following World War 

II was breaking down. Russia’s ally in the east, Communist China, had 

become impatient with Soviet conservatism and strongly opposed to 

peaceful coexistence. To the west, Fidel Castro was pursuing his own 

program of intrigue and subversion in Latin America. Complicating 

matters further, groups favoring the Soviet, the Chinese, or the Cuban 

brand of communism were emerging in many countries.

Disunion was also mounting within the Western alliance. With the 

success of the Marshall Plan and the return of economic prosperity 
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268

to Western Europe during the fifties, 

France, West Germany, and other nations 

had become creditor countries less and 

less dependent on the United States. The 

efforts of French President Charles de 

Gaulle to rekindle his nation’s former glory 

by playing an increasingly independent 

role in international affairs had meanwhile 

produced growing discord within NATO.

Outside of Soviet and American 

circles, the presence of a third force in 

the world had also become apparent. 

Most of Europe’s former colonial possessions in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa 

had received their independence during 

the fifteen years following World War II. 

Since these new nations contained about 

one-third of the world’s population and a 

large portion of its raw materials, particularly oil, both sides courted them. Many 

suffered, however, from basic political 

and economic failings that made them 

apt candidates for Communist subversion 

and wars of national liberation. The great 

battleground of the sixties would be in 

“the lands of the rising peoples,” Kennedy 

avowed, and it would involve a conflict “for 

minds and souls as well as lives and territory.” As revolts to end injustice, tyranny, 

and exploitation broke out, he said, the 

Communists would inevitably supply arms, agitators, and technicians 

to capture the rebel movements. The United States could hardly stand 

by passively and allow them free rein.

With half the world still in the balance; insurgent movements 

blooming in areas as diverse as Laos, Vietnam, the Congo, and Algeria; 

and the threat of revolutionary outbreaks hanging over other countries in South America, Africa, and Asia, it was perhaps ironic that 

President Kennedy’s first brush with the Communists would result 

from American support for an insurgent group.

Cuba and Berlin

The United States had severed diplomatic relations with Cuba 

during the closing days of the Eisenhower administration, but the 

presence of a Communist satellite so close to the American mainland 

remained a constant source of irritation. In April 1961 a band of U.S.-

sponsored Cuban exiles moved to remedy that problem by launching an 

invasion of the island at the Bay of Pigs. When the Cuban people failed 

to rally in support of the attack, the operation collapsed, damaging 

American prestige and emboldening the Russians. Khrushchev seized 

the moment to drop dark hints that he was ready to employ Russian 

missiles in support of his Communist ally if that became necessary. 

After World War II, Marshall Plan aid to a devastated West Germany enabled that 

country to surpass its prewar industrial production.
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269

The timing of the fiasco was particularly unfortunate. President Kennedy 

was scheduled to meet with Premier 

Khrushchev in Vienna during June to 

discuss Berlin, where the growing prosperity of the Western zone contrasted 

sharply with the poverty and drabness 

of the Soviet sector. In that sense West 

Berlin had become as great an irritation 

to the Communists as Cuba was to the 

United States. In 1958 Khrushchev had 

threatened to conclude a separate treaty 

with East Germany unless Western forces 

withdrew from the city within six months. 

This would have given the Germans sovereignty over the transportation corridors 

into the area and would have allowed the 

Soviets to abandon the obligation they 

had assumed in 1945 to guarantee Western 

access to the city. Though Khrushchev later backed off from this threat 

and even showed signs of a conciliatory attitude, he returned to the 

issue at the Vienna meeting. Unless the West accepted the Soviet position, he informed Kennedy, he would move on his own to resolve the 

Berlin impasse.

If Khrushchev hoped to intimidate the new President in the wake 

of the Cuban setback, his threat had the opposite effect. Rather than 

concede another victory to the Communists, Kennedy requested and 

received additional defense funds from Congress and authority to call 

as many as 250,000 members of the Ready Reserve to active duty. The 

President refrained at that time from declaring a national emergency, 

but he was determined to strengthen America’s conventional forces in 

case Soviet pressure on Berlin required some sort of armed response.

Tensions mounted during August, when thousands of refugees 

crossed from East to West Berlin and the Communists responded 

by constructing a high wall around their sector to block further 

departures. With pressure 

rising, Kennedy decided in 

September to increase the 

size of the American force 

by adding ground, air, and 

naval units. He also called 

a number of reservists and 

reserve units to active duty 

to strengthen continental 

U.S. forces. By October, as 

a result, the Army’s regular 

troop strength had grown 

by more than 80,000 and 

almost 120,000 troops, including two National Guard 

divisions, had returned to 

active duty. 

Khrushchev and Kennedy meet in June 1961.

Checkpoint Charlie Warning Sign
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270

When the Soviets realized that 

the United States might call their 

bluff, they pulled back. The wall 

remained, but threats and other pressures diminished. In the same way, 

Kennedy’s Reserve callup had ended 

by mid-1962 but the increase in the 

regular force remained.

The Soviets’ next move was less 

direct but more dangerous than the Berlin 

threat. After the Bay of Pigs invasion, 

Khrushchev had dispatched military 

advisers and equipment to Cuba to bolster 

the Castro government and to repel future 

attacks. In the summer of 1962 rumors 

began to rise in the United States that the 

Soviets were installing offensive weapons: 

not only medium-range bombers but also 

medium-range ballistic missiles.

It took until mid-October to obtain 

photographic evidence of the missiles’ 

presence in Cuba, but then Kennedy 

took quick steps to have the weapons 

removed. Warning Khrushchev that the United States would mount 

a nuclear response if Cuban missiles struck American soil, he put 

the Strategic Air Command’s heavy bombers on fifteen-minute alert. 

Fighter squadrons and antiaircraft missile batteries meanwhile deployed 

to Florida and other states near Cuba. Submarines armed with Polaris 

missiles also took up station at sea within range of the Soviet Union.

On October 22 Kennedy announced that he would seek the 

endorsement of the Organization of American States (OAS) for 

quarantine on all offensive military equipment in transit to Cuba. He 

added that he would tighten surveillance of the island and reinforce the 

U.S. naval base at Guantanamo on the island’s western tip. With OAS 

approval, the quarantine went into effect two days later. Meanwhile, the 

armed forces removed all dependents from Guantanamo and marines 

East Berlin policemen make repairs after an East German citizen rammed the wall with 

an armored car to escape to West Germany.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

In response to the discovery of Russian medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) in Cuba on October 15, 

1962, the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions were alerted for immediate movement to southern Florida. The 1st 

Armored Division from Fort Hood, Texas, augmented by the 2/69th Armor from Fort Benning, Georgia, deployed 

to Camp Stewart, Georgia, in preparation for movement by ship. Third Army also established staging areas at 

five Air Force bases. Three Hawk/Nike Hercules Air Defense (AD) Missile Battalions and one Automatic Weapons 

AD Battalion were sent to protect the staging bases; while twelve support units, ranging in size from detachment to 

battalion, also deployed to Florida to provide logistical support. After the end of the crisis in late October, all U.S. 

Army forces deployed to Florida and Georgia were ordered to return to their home stations.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

271

arrived by air and sea to defend the base. As those steps continued, the 

Army began to move some 30,000 troops, including the 1st Armored 

Division, and more than 100,000 tons of supplies and equipment into 

the southeastern states to meet the emergency. The Navy’s Second 

Fleet started to enforce the quarantine on October 25. Hundreds of Air 

Force and Navy planes also spread out over the Atlantic and Caribbean 

to locate and track ships that might be carrying offensive weapons to 

Cuba. With activity continuing at the Russians’ missile construction 

sites in Cuba, the world seemed on the brink of nuclear war.

As the crisis mounted, negotiations proceeded between Kennedy 

and Khrushchev. On October 28, after quietly negotiating an “understanding” that the United States would soon remove some obsolete 

Jupiter missiles from Turkey, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its 

offensive weapons from Cuba. Over the next three weeks it gradually did so, dismantling the missile sites and loading both missile 

systems and technicians on ships. Negotiations for the removal of the 

Russian bombers ended in November. They shipped out for home in 

early December. In turn, the United States ended the quarantine on 

November 20. The troops the Army deployed had all returned to base 

by Christmas, but many U.S. air units remained behind to ensure that 

the missile sites remained inactive.

Detente in Europe

The aftermath of the crises in Berlin and Cuba produced several 

unexpected developments. Apparently convinced that further confrontations might be unwise, the Soviet Union adopted a more conciliatory 

attitude in its propaganda and suggested that at long last it might be 

willing to conclude a nuclear test ban treaty. Under the provisions of the 

accord that followed in the fall of 1963, the Soviet Union, the United 

Kingdom, and the United States agreed to refrain from conducting 

nuclear test explosions underwater, in the atmosphere, or in space. 

Only underground explosions would be permissible, but no radioactive 

material from such tests was ever to reach the surface. Although France 

weakened the treaty by declining to either ratify or adhere to it, the pact 

still marked a major breakthrough in what had been a long history of 

fruitless negotiation over nuclear weapons.

One possible explanation for the Soviet willingness to cooperate 

with the West in the sixties may have been the growing independence 

of Communist China. The Chinese had never embraced the idea 

of peaceful coexistence with Capitalist countries and had criticized 

Moscow as too soft on the West. As the Sino-Soviet rift had widened, 

the Soviet Union seemed to adopt a less threatening stance in Europe, 

although no direct correlation could be proven.

The shift had far-reaching effects on the system of alliances the United 

States had designed to guard Western Europe against Soviet aggression. 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization had centered its defenses on 

the American strategic deterrent. With the growth of the Soviet Union’s 

ability to devastate the United States with nuclear weapons, the credibility 

of America’s determination to defend Western Europe came into serious 

question. The reinforcement of U.S. conventional forces in Europe at 

the time of the Berlin crisis served to demonstrate American good faith. 

With the growth of the Soviet 

Union’s ability to devastate 

the United States with nuclear 

weapons, the credibility of 

America’s determination to 

defend Western Europe came 

into serious question.
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272

In 1963 the United States assigned three Polaris submarines to 

the U.S. European Command and suggested that NATO consider the 

launch of a multilateral naval force. The idea stood until 1965, when 

it became clear that President de Gaulle intended to disengage France 

militarily from NATO. The French cut their ties gradually, participating 

less and less in the alliance’s military exercises while increasing the size 

of their own nuclear strike force. De Gaulle served notice in 1966 that 

although France had no intention of abandoning the alliance, French 

forces would withdraw from NATO command during the year and all 

NATO troops would have to depart French territory. Conditions had 

changed in Europe since 1949, he explained. The threat to the West 

from the Soviet Union had diminished.

De Gaulle’s decision marked a major setback for NATO in that the 

alliance’s main headquarters was in Paris and many elaborate lines of 

communication supporting its forces ran through France. When representations to the French proved fruitless, the exodus of NATO troops 

got under way. By early 1967 the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers 

Europe (SHAPE), had moved to Belgium; the U.S. European Command 

had shifted its headquarters to Germany; and the Allied Command 

Central Europe had transferred to the Netherlands. Supplies and equipment went to bases in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, and 

the Netherlands.

Changes within the alliance had been slow. Although the idea of 

massive retaliation no longer held sway except as a last resort, it was not 

until 1967 that the United States officially adopted a strategy of flexible 

response. In late 1969 the United States and the Soviet Union opened 

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to explore ways to stop the nuclear arms 

race and to begin the task of disarmament. Progress was slow because of 

many technical points that had to be settled, but it was a start.

Meanwhile, despite considerable congressional and public opposition, the United States proceeded with plans to deploy a ballistic 

missile defense system. Known as Safeguard, the program envisioned 

a phased installation of missiles, radars, and computers at key sites 

across the country by the mid-1970s. Although the proposed system 

provided at best a thin line of defense, the United States declined 

to halt construction until the Strategic Arms Limitation talks had 

produced an agreement.

A Growing Commitment to Underdeveloped Areas

The American policy of containment met its most serious challenge in Southeast Asia, where Communist efforts to take control of 

Laos and South Vietnam had gained momentum. Using to advantage the political instability of those countries, the Communists had 

gradually brought large segments of both under control. Efforts by 

local governments to regain control through military operations had 

proven unsuccessful despite the presence of both American advisers 

and arms. Indeed, the United States soon discovered that the effort 

to keep Laos and South Vietnam from falling into the Communist 

camp was even more complicated than it seemed. By the early 1960s, 

following decades of French rule, many Indochinese leaders were 

willing to accept American assistance but were plainly unenthusiastic 

Although the idea of massive 

retaliation no longer held sway 

except as a last resort, it was not 

until 1967 that the United States 

officially adopted a strategy of 

flexible response.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

273

about launching political and economic reforms that might diminish 

their own power.

Laos was a case in point. Until 1961 the United States had supported 

the nation’s pro-West military leaders with aid and advice; but all efforts 

to unify the country by force had failed, and three different factions 

controlled segments of the country. With conditions growing worse, 

President Kennedy sought to avoid a Communist takeover by pushing 

for a neutralized Laos. In July 1962 fourteen nations signed a declaration confirming the independence and neutrality of the country, which 

was to be ruled by a coalition government. Laos in turn pledged to 

refrain from military alliances and to clear all foreign troops from its 

territory. By the end of 1962, as a result, more than 600 American 

advisers and technicians officially had left the country, although covert 

advisers remained.

By that time, with Communist troops maneuvering in Laos near 

the Thai border, the United States was also becoming concerned 

about Thailand, which was part of the Southeast Asia Treaty 

Organization. To deter Communist expansion into the country, it 

set up a joint task force at the request of the Thai government, 

dispatched a reinforced battalion of marines to Thailand, and 

followed up with a battle group from the 25th Infantry Division. 

Army signal, engineer, transportation, and service troops provided 

support for those forces and training and advice to the Thais. The 

quick response so strengthened the Thai government’s position that 

the Communist threat abated, enabling first the Marine and then 

the Army troops to withdraw. The service support forces stayed 

on, however, in order to maintain training and support programs. 

As the war in Vietnam intensified, the roads, airfields, depots, and 

communications they built became extremely important to the 

evolving American effort in that country.

Trouble in the Caribbean

Although Europe and Asia remained critical to America’s pursuit 

of its containment policy, U.S. interest in the Caribbean increased 

sharply after Cuba embraced communism. As a result, in April 1965, 

when a military counterrevolution followed a military revolt to oust a 

civilian junta in the Dominican Republic, the United States kept close 

tabs on the situation.

When the country’s capital city, Santo Domingo, became a bloody 

battleground and diplomacy failed to restore peace, Kennedy’s successor, 

President Lyndon B. Johnson, decided to send in first the marines and 

then portions of the Army’s 82d Airborne Division. He justified the 

operation as an effort to restore order while protecting the lives of 

American nationals, but he also wanted to ensure that Communists 

would have no chance to gain another foothold in the region. By the 

end of the first week in May all nine battalions of the airborne division and four battalions of marines were in country, with Army Special 

Forces units spread throughout the countryside. Including supporting 

forces, the total number of Americans soon reached 23,000. 

The 82d landed to the east of Santo Domingo while the marines 

consolidated a hold on the western portion of the city. Since the rebel 
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274

forces held the southern part of town, the American commander, Lt. 

Gen. Bruce Palmer, Jr., decided to drive a wedge between the warring 

factions by linking up the two parts of his command. In the operation 

that followed, using the night as cover, the 82d’s troops established a 

secure corridor across the city with remarkable ease and speed. Joining 

up with the marines, they rendered further heavy fighting impossible 

by creating a buffer between the two sides. With combat out of the 

question, the belligerents began a series of negotiations that lasted until 

September.

The intervention became the subject of spirited discussion around 

the world. Despite unfavorable public reactions in some Latin American 

countries, the Organization of American States asked its members to 

send troops to the Dominican Republic to help restore order. Brazil, 

Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay did so, 

joining the United States in forming the first inter-American peace-

keeping force ever established in the western hemisphere. To emphasize the international nature of the effort, Palmer ceded all command 

of the operation to Lt. Gen. Hugo Panasco Alvim of Brazil, stepping 

aside to become Alvim’s deputy even though American troops constituted the largest contingent of the force. U.S. troop withdrawals began 

almost immediately after the Latin American units arrived.

The adoption of a provisional government by both sides in early 

September relieved much of the problem in the Dominican Republic. 

By the end of 1965, as a result, all but three battalions of the 82d 

had returned to the United States. Tensions eased further in mid-1966, 

when free elections occurred. The last elements of the peacekeeping 

force departed shortly thereafter in September. In all, the intervention 

had lasted sixteen months.

Civil Rights and Civil Disturbances

Within the United States itself, meanwhile, tensions growing out of 

the efforts of African Americans to achieve equal rights had forced the 

federal government to intervene in civil disturbances on a scale not seen 

since the nineteenth century. The first and most dramatic instance came 

in September 1957. Responding to rioting in Little Rock, Arkansas, that 

had followed a court order admitting nine African American students 

to the city’s Central High School, President Eisenhower federalized the 

Arkansas National Guard and called in a battle group from the 101st 

Airborne. The troops dispersed a mob that gathered at the school, 

stabilizing the situation. It was one of the few times in American history 

that a Chief Executive had used either Regular Army or National Guard 

forces despite the opposition of a state’s governor.

Other instances of the sort followed during the Kennedy and 

Johnson administrations. In September 1962, for example, the governor 

of Mississippi attempted to block the court-ordered registration of an 

African American, James H. Meredith, at the University of Mississippi 

in Oxford. President Kennedy sought at first to enforce the law by 

calling in federal marshals, but when they proved incapable of restoring 

order, he deployed troops: eventually some 20,000 regulars and 10,000 

federalized Mississippi National Guardsmen. Most stood in reserve, 

but 12,000 took up station near the university. With the military in firm 
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

275

control, the tension eased. Most of the troops went home within a 

short while, but federal forces nevertheless maintained a presence in 

the area throughout the remainder of the school year. 

The year that followed provided little respite. Bombings and other 

racially motivated incidents in Birmingham, Alabama, forced President 

Kennedy to send regular troops into the city during May. Later in 1963 

integration crises in the public schools of several Alabama cities and at 

the University of Alabama led him to federalize the Alabama National 

Guard.

Racial disturbances continued to occur throughout the country 

over the next several years. Particularly serious outbreaks occurred in 

Rochester, New York, during 1964 and in the Watts area of Los Angeles 

during 1965. Also that year President Johnson employed both regulars 

and guardsmen to protect civil rights advocates attempting to march from 

Domestic Disorders

Beginning in the 1950s with civil rights disturbances due to desegregation in the schools and with antiwar riots 

in the 1960s, the Army gradually increased its efforts in monitoring and controlling domestic disturbances. Troops 

were involved in desegregation struggles and the preservation of domestic disorder in Little Rock, Arkansas; 

Oxford, Mississippi; Chicago, Illinois; and other locations throughout the fifties and sixties. When the National 

Guard, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and local law enforcement proved unable to provide the necessary 

security, the Army established a command post in the Pentagon and an elaborate communications system and 

employed numerous intelligence officers to provide information to President Johnson and his national security team. 

Accused of spying on civilians, the Army ended its domestic intelligence collection efforts in the mid-1970s.

Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division escort students to class at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.
American Military History

276

Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Other disturbances followed in 1966 

in Cleveland, Ohio; San Francisco, California; and Chicago and Cicero, 

Illinois. As if that were not enough, the violence increased sharply in 

1967, with more than fifty cities reporting disorders during the first nine 

months of the year. These ranged from minor disturbances to extremely 

serious outbreaks in Newark, New Jersey, and Detroit, Michigan. The 

outbreak in Detroit was so destructive that the governor of Michigan 

not only used the National Guard, he also requested and obtained federal 

troops. In the end, the task force commander at Detroit had more than 

10,000 guardsmen and 5,000 regulars at his call. He deployed nearly 

10,000 of them before the crisis ended.

Since disorders were occurring with greater frequency, President 

Johnson appointed a National Advisory Commission on Civil 

Disorders on July 28, 1967, to determine the problem’s causes and to 

seek possible cures. Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois chaired it. The 

Kerner Commission, as it became known, concluded early in 1968 that 

“our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black and one white—

separate and unequal.” Concluding in that light that more riots were 

inevitable and that the National Guard was itself racially imbalanced, 

the Army strengthened its troop-training programs and began advance 

planning to control possible future disturbances.

The planning proved all to the good in April 1968, when the 

assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee, 

produced waves of rioting, looting, and arson in cities across the 

country. The states were able to use their National Guard units to 

subdue the rioters in most places. The federal government, however, 

deployed some 40,000 federalized guardsmen and regular troops in 

Washington, Baltimore, and Chicago.

In the wake of the riots, on April 22 the Army established the 

Directorate for Civil Disturbance Planning and Operations in the 

Office of the Chief of Staff. This unit provided command facilities for 

the service when it operated as agent for the Department of Defense 

in civil disturbances. It became the Directorate of Military Support in 

September 1970.

Although the years immediately following 1968 produced no great 

racial outpourings, they did see a number of antiwar demonstrations that 

required the callup of both federal and National Guard troops. Massive 

antiwar protests had begun even before 1968. In October 1967, for 

example, a large demonstration took place at the Pentagon. In preparation, the government assembled a force that included 236 federal marshals 

and some 10,000 troops. Massive antiwar protests likewise occurred in 

Washington, D.C., in November 1969 and May 1970, but these were 

generally peaceful. Although federal troops stood by in the national 

capital region, none deployed. Student protests against a U.S. incursion 

into Cambodia in 1970, however, led to tragedy at Kent State University 

in Ohio. Panicked National Guardsmen fired on antiwar demonstrators, 

killing four bystanders and wounding a dozen others.

An extended series of antiwar rallies in the nation’s capital during 

April and May 1971 proved to be of particular significance. On May 

1, following a peaceful demonstration by Vietnam veterans, youthful 

protesters attempted to keep federal workers from reaching their jobs 

by snarling Washington’s traffic. Anticipating the move, the government 
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277

deployed some 3,000 marines and 8,600 troops of the Regular Army 

along with 2,000 National Guardsmen who had been sworn in as 

special policemen. The force kept traffic moving. 

Secretary McNamara and the New Management System

The role of the armed forces in civil disturbances received much 

attention during the Kennedy and early Johnson administrations. 

Important changes, however, were also occurring in much less publicized areas of military affairs. The period put an end, for example, to 

the primacy of the manned bomber as the nation’s main nuclear deterrent. Following trends already begun during the Eisenhower administration, President Kennedy and his Secretary of Defense, Robert S. 

McNamara, replaced some of the big aircraft with nuclear missiles. As 

for the Army, the growth of the Vietnam War brought a reaffirmation that in conventional and limited conflicts ground forces remained 

supreme. By 1961, as a result, the decline of the Army that had begun 

during the Eisenhower years ceased. The force began to grow in size, 

as did its share of the defense budget.

Within the Department of Defense itself, Secretary McNamara 

began to make heavy use of the extensive authority the holders of his 

office had received under the reorganization act of 1958. The guidelines he received from President Kennedy were simple: Operating the 

nation’s armed forces at the lowest possible cost, he was to develop 

the force structure necessary to meet American military requirements 

without regard to arbitrary or predetermined budget ceilings.

In accord with McNamara’s idea of centralized planning, the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, assisted by the services, continued to draw up 

the military plans and force requirements they deemed necessary to 

support U.S. national security interests. The forces were now separated 

according to function—strategic retaliation, general purpose, reserves, 

etc.—with each going into what planners called a program package. 

When McNamara received these packages, he weighed each against the 

goal it sought to achieve, correlated the costs and effectiveness of the 

weapon systems involved, and inserted the approved packages in the 

annual budget that he sent to the President and Congress. To improve 

long-range planning, he also drew up and annually reviewed a five-year 

projection of all forces, weapon systems, and activities that fell within 

the scope of his authority.

Initially, the Kennedy administration had three basic defense goals: 

to strengthen strategic forces, to build up conventional forces so they 

could respond flexibly to lesser challenges, and to improve the overall 

effectiveness and efficiency of the nation’s defenses. To attain the first 

objective, McNamara supported a nuclear triad that included strategic 

bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles in steel-reinforced concrete 

silos, and Polaris nuclear submarines. If one of the three went down in 

a Soviet attack, the other two could retaliate.

The second goal gained quick impetus from the Berlin Crisis of 

1961, when the Army’s strength alone rose from 860,000 troops to 

more than 1.06 million. Navy and Air Force conventional units also 

made modest gains. The government released the National Guard 

units it had called up for the crisis in mid-1962, but it authorized the 

Secretary McNamara
American Military History

278

Army to reactivate two regular divisions, bringing the total to sixteen. 

The service also received leave to maintain a permanent strength of 

970,000 men. The presence of the new troops allowed many units to 

fill out their ranks. The Army’s budget also rose from $10.1 billion to 

$12.4 billion in fiscal years 1961 and 1962. Almost half of that increase 

went for the purchase of such new weapons and equipment as vehicles, 

aircraft, and missiles.

Seeking greater efficiency at reduced cost, McNamara instituted 

changes in organization and procedure that made use of the latest 

management techniques and computer systems. In that way, he directed 

that the Defense Department’s intelligence operations should be 

centralized and coordinated through one office, which would prepare 

his intelligence estimates. Following that plan, the Defense Intelligence 

Agency came into being in 1961. 

McNamara also gradually centralized many activities each service 

formerly administered separately. Since a great number of supply items 

were in common use, for example, he established the Defense Supply 

Agency in 1961 to centralize their procurement and distribution. The 

organization took charge of the Defense Traffic Management Service, 

some five commodity management systems, and a number of functions involving cataloging and inventory control. The broad range of 

activities that fell under its supervision included the wholesale purchase 

and distribution of food, medical supplies, petroleum products, automotive parts, and construction materials.

Tied in closely with the new agency came the launch of a five-year 

cost reduction program. Designed to cut overhead and procurement 

expenses, it had three main goals: to buy only what was needed with no 

frills, to purchase at the lowest sound price after competitive bidding 

when at all possible, and to decrease operating costs. Centralized 

purchasing at competitive prices soon became the norm. With it came 

the consolidation of formerly redundant supply installations, tighter 

inventory controls through the use of computers, and the elimination 

of duplication through the standardization of items.

The effects of the 1958 reorganization were most noticeable in the 

decision-making process. By maintaining close watch over budgets and 

finances, manpower, logistics, research, and engineering, McNamara 

tightened civilian control over the services and carried unification 

much farther than had any of his predecessors. His creation of the U.S. 

Strike Command in 1961 was a case in point. By combining the Army’s 

Strategic Army Corps with the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command, the 

new organization had combat-ready air and ground forces available that 

could deploy quickly to meet contingencies. The Army and Air Force 

components of the new command remained under their own services 

until an emergency arose. Then they passed to the operational control 

of the command itself.

Army Reorganization

In view of the changes occurring in the Defense Department, it was 

hardly surprising in 1961 that Secretary McNamara would also direct a 

thorough review of the Army’s makeup and procedures. A broad reorganization plan resulted. Approved by the President in early 1962, it 

By maintaining close watch 

over budgets and finances, 

manpower, logistics, research, 

and engineering, McNamara 

tightened civilian control over the 

services and carried unification 

much farther than had any of his 

predecessors.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

279

called for major shifts in the tasks performed by the Army Staff and the 

agency’s technical services. The Army Staff became primarily responsible 

for planning and policy, while the execution of decisions fell squarely 

upon field commands. In an effort to centralize personnel, training, 

and research and development while integrating supply operations, the 

new system abolished most of the technical services. The offices of the 

Chief Chemical Officer, the Chief of Ordnance, and the Quartermaster 

General disappeared completely. The Chief Signal Officer and the Chief 

of Transportation continued to perform their duties, but as special 

staff officers rather than as chiefs of services. Chief Signal Officer 

later regained a place on the General Staff when he became Assistant 

Chief of Staff for Communications-Electronics in 1967. The Chief 

of Transportation’s activities, however, were absorbed in 1964 by the 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics. For a time, the Chief of Engineers 

retained his special status only with respect to civil functions. His military 

functions came under the general supervision of the Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Logistics. That changed in 1969, when the office again achieved 

independent status. Among the technical services, only the Office of the 

Surgeon General emerged unscathed from the reorganization.

As for the administrative services, the Adjutant General and the 

Chief of Finance also lost their independent status and became special 

staff officers. Later, in 1967, the functions of the Office of the Chief 

of Finance transferred to the Office of the Comptroller of the Army. 

Meanwhile, a new Office of Personnel Operations came into being on 

the special staff level to provide central control for assignments and 

the career development of all Army personnel. Although many of the 

most important Quartermaster functions went to the Defense Supply 

Agency, a new Chief of Support Services assumed control of graves 

registration and burials, commissaries, clothing and laundry facilities, 

and other operations of the sort.

Most of the operating functions released by the Army Staff and 

the technical services went to the U.S. Continental Army Command 

and to two new commands: the U.S. Army Materiel Command and 

the U.S. Army Combat Developments Command. The Continental 

Army Command became responsible for almost all the Army’s schools 

and for the training of all individuals and units in the United States. 

It relinquished control over the development, testing, production, 

procurement, storage, maintenance, and distribution of supplies and 

equipment to the Army Materiel Command, which set up subordinate 

commands to handle those functions. The Combat Developments 

Command meanwhile assumed responsibility for answering questions on the Army’s organization and equipment and how it was to 

fight in the field. It developed organizational and operational doctrine, 

produced materiel objectives and qualitative requirements, conducted 

war games and field experiments, and did cost effectiveness studies.

The new commands became operational in the summer of 1962. 

Over the next year other major changes affecting staff responsibilities followed. In January 1963 an Office of Reserve Components came 

into being to exercise general supervision over all plans, policies, and 

programs concerning National Guard and Reserve forces. The responsibility of the Chief, National Guard Bureau, to advise the Chief of 

Staff on National Guard affairs and to serve as the link between the 
American Military History

280

Army and the state adjutants general did not change. The Chief of 

the Army Reserve, however, lost control over the ROTC program. It 

transferred to the Office of Reserve Components in February and to 

the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel in 1966.

Since the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations (DCSOPS) 

was heavily involved in planning for joint operations, the Army created 

in 1963 an Assistant Chief of Staff for Force Development to ensure 

that its own concerns received adequate attention. The Deputy Chief 

of Staff for Military Operations continued its role in the joint arena 

and retained responsibility for strategic planning and the employment 

of combat-ready Army troops. Under its guidance, however, and 

within the limits set by manpower and budget considerations, the new 

office assumed responsibility for preparing the Army’s force plans and 

structures. 

Neither the new Assistant Chief of Staff for Force Development 

nor the Army Comptroller had sufficient authority either to manage the 

Army’s resources or to integrate the service’s proliferating automatic 

data processing systems. Gradually, responsibility for coordinating 

these functions fell to the General Staff ’s secretariat, which became 

almost a “super staff.” To remedy the problem, the Army established 

the Office of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff in February 1967. 

Headed by a lieutenant general, the new agency provided centralized 

control for resource management programs, management information 

systems, force planning, and weapon system analysis. 

Tactical Readjustment for Flexible Response

A major overhaul of the Army’s tactical organization accompanied 

the reorganization of the service’s staff. Experience had demonstrated 

that the pentomic division lacked staying power and that it needed more 

troops to conduct sustained combat operations. The Army addressed 

those issues in 1961 by revising its divisional structure to ensure greater 

flexibility and a better balance between mobility and firepower.

Under the Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD) 

concept it developed, the Army formed four types of divisions: infantry, 

armor, airborne, and mechanized. Each contained a base and three 

brigade headquarters. The base contained a headquarters company, a 

military police company, a reconnaissance squadron, division artillery, 

and a battalion each of supply and transportation, engineer, signal, 

medical, and maintenance troops. The size and composition of the 

remainder of the force could vary with the mission it received. Although 

a standard ROAD division would normally contain eight infantry and 

two mechanized battalions, if the need arose and the terrain permitted, 

it could shuffle the composition of its brigades to reduce its infantry 

component and to add armored and mechanized units. When operating 

in swamps, jungles, or other hostile environments, however, it could 

just as easily replace its mechanized units with infantry battalions. 

The Army tested the idea in 1962 by reactivating its 1st Armored 

and 5th Infantry (Mechanized) Divisions. When the idea worked, 

beginning in 1963, it set to work to convert its remaining fourteen 

divisions and to reorganize the National Guard and Army Reserve. It 

completed the process in mid-1964.

Experience had demonstrated 

that the pentomic division lacked 

staying power and that it needed 

more troops to conduct sustained 

combat operations.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

281

By then, it was hard at work on another tactical innovation. Seeking 

to improve mobility, an Army board in 1962 had compared the cost and 

efficiency of air and ground vehicles. Concluding that air transportation had much to commend it, the group recommended that the service 

consider forming new air combat and transport units. The idea that an 

air assault division employing air-transportable weapons and aircraftmounted rockets might replace artillery raised delicate questions about 

the Air Force and Army missions, but Secretary McNamara decided to 

give it a thorough test.

Organized in February 1963, the 11th Air Assault Division went 

through two years of testing. By the spring of 1965, the Army deemed 

it ready for a test in combat and decided to send it to Vietnam, where 

the war was heating up. To that end, the service inactivated the 11th and 

transferred its personnel and equipment to the 1st Cavalry Division, 

which relinquished its mission in Korea to the 2d Infantry Division and 

moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. Renamed the 1st Cavalry Division 

(Airmobile), the reorganized unit had an authorized strength of 15,787 

men, 428 helicopters, and 1,600 road vehicles (half the number of an 

infantry division). Though the total of rifles and automatic weapons in 

the unit remained the same as in an infantry division, the force’s directsupport artillery moved by helicopter rather than truck or armored 

vehicle. In the same way, it employed an aerial rocket artillery battalion 

rather than the normal tube artillery. In all, the division’s total weight 

came to just 10,000 tons, less than a third of what a normal infantry 

division deployed.

The development of the air assault division was part of a longterm effort by the Army to improve its aviation capabilities. Although 

Army–Air Force agreements and decisions at the Defense Department 

level during the 1950s had restricted the size and weight of Army 

aircraft and had limited the areas in which they could operate, the 

service possessed more than 5,500 aircraft in its inventory by 1960. 

Close to half of them were helicopters. The versatility of the rotarywing aircraft made them ideal for observation and reconnaissance, 

medical evacuation, and command and control missions. Under the 

Army’s agreements with the Air Force, all these activities were permissible on the battlefield. When the service moved to provide itself with 

armed helicopters as it had with the 1st Cavalry Division, however, it 

inevitably raised questions with the Air Force, which considered the 

provision of airborne fire support its own function.

The Howze Board

In 1962 the U.S. Army Tactical Mobility Requirements Board, better known by the name of its president, Lt. 

Gen. Hamilton Howze, proposed forming an air assault division. Capitalizing on the unique mobility conferred by 

the new generation of turbine-powered helicopters, the new division would contain enough helicopters to lift one of 

its three brigades at one time. The 11th Air Assault Division successfully tested the concept at Fort Benning in 1963 

and 1964. Redesignated as the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), it proved itself in combat in Vietnam during the 

Ia Drang Valley campaign of November 1965. 
American Military History

282

The two services reassessed and reapportioned their role and 

mission assignments in 1966. The Army ceded its larger transport 

aircraft to the Air Force but kept control of its helicopters because 

of their demonstrated value to ground combat operations. Although 

its inventory of fixed-wing aircraft declined slightly over the years that 

followed, because of the war the number of its helicopters soared from 

about 2,700 in 1966 to over 9,500 in mid-1971.

The war also accelerated the development of many new and 

improved Army aircraft models. Among them were the Huey Cobra, 

a gunship that could carry various combinations of rockets, machine 

guns, and 7.62-mm. miniguns; the Cayuse, an observation helicopter; 

and the Cheyenne, the first helicopter specifically designed to provide 

fire support to ground troops. Advances also occurred in support 

systems, equipment design, communications, command and control, 

and intelligence gathering. Drawing everything together was a rapidly 

expanding complex of computer networks that improved coordination 

of everything the Army did, from personnel management to the operation of elaborate logistical systems in the field.

Though the soldier’s professional skills required continual resharpening, battlefield proficiency was only part of the Army’s task. Military 

victories might gain real estate; but as the war in Vietnam showed, they 

were of little consequence in counterinsurgency environments unless 

the victors won the support of local populations. The main goal in 

conflicts such as the one in Vietnam was less to destroy the enemy than 

to convince the target area’s common people that their government had 

their best interests in mind. With that goal in hand, victory would be 

permanent. Without it, nothing was sure because the enemy retained 

his base within the population.

Civic action and counterinsurgency operations were nothing new to 

the U.S. Army. They had figured large in the opening of the American 

West and in the pacification of the Philippines following the SpanishAmerican War. During the occupations of Germany and Japan after 

World War II, indeed, economic assistance and political and educational 

reorientation programs had simplified the problem of reconstituting 

civil authority. In underdeveloped countries, however, the task was 

usually much more difficult because communications were poor and 

the bonds between central authorities and rural groups were seldom 

strong. The Army needed specially trained military units capable of 

operating independently and working with indigenous people at the 

lowest level of their society.

Though the Army had trained small units in psychological warfare 

and counterinsurgency operations during the fifties, President Kennedy’s 

interest in the program gave the effort a significant boost. The U.S. 

Army Special Forces expanded sharply after he became President: from 

1,500 to 9,000 men in 1961 alone. Even more important, new emphasis 

in Army schools and camps provided all soldiers with basic instruction 

in counterinsurgency techniques.

The Special Forces helped train local forces to fight guerrillas, 

teaching them skills that would help strengthen their nations internally. 

Each Special Forces Group was oriented toward a specific geographic 

area and received language training to facilitate its operations in the 

field. The groups were augmented with whatever aviation, engineer, 

Drawing everything together 

was a rapidly expanding 

complex of computer networks 

that improved coordination of 

everything the Army did, from 

personnel management to the 

operation of elaborate logistical 

systems in the field.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

283

medical, civil affairs, intelligence, communications, psychological 

warfare, military police, or other elements they needed to complete 

particular assignments. If necessary, individual members of the teams 

also received training in other skills to increase their versatility. Overall, 

by working on a person-to-person basis, the Special Forces strove to 

improve the good image of a government’s armed forces to foster 

cooperative attitudes among that nation’s rural people.

Reserve forces also received special warfare training so they could 

remain current with counterinsurgency doctrine and the most up-todate means for neutralizing internal aggression and subversion. One 

phase of this training—crowd and riot control tactics—became of 

particular importance during the period because of a growing threat of 

civil disturbance within the United States itself.

The Reserve Forces and the Draft

Concerned over the expenditure of defense funds for Reserves 

that were long on numbers but short on readiness, in 1962 Secretary 

McNamara announced a plan to reorganize the Army National Guard 

and to lower the paid drill strength of the Army Reserve. Opposition 

from Congress and many state officials led him to delay the move until 

the following year. When he finally acted, however, he not only realigned 

reserve forces, he also eliminated four National Guard divisions, four 

Army Reserve divisions, and hundreds of smaller units.

At the end of 1964 McNamara proposed a far more drastic 

reorganization to bring the Reserves into balance with the nation’s 

contingency war planning. Contending that the National Guard–Army 

Reserve management system was redundant, he suggested that the 

Army could trim paid drill strength from 700,000 to 550,000 by consolidating units. He proposed to eliminate fifteen National Guard and six 

Army Reserve divisions for which there was no military requirement. 

All remaining units would come under the National Guard. The Army 

Reserve would carry only individuals.

A storm of protest rose from Congress, the states, and reserve associations. With the debate continuing, McNamara sought to carry out at 

least part of his reorganization by inactivating Army Reserve units that 

had no role in contingency war plans. Despite strong congressional opposition, he managed by the end of 1965 to eliminate all six Army Reserve 

combat divisions and a total of 751 company- and detachment-size 

units. In the end, during the fall of 1967, Congress and the Department 

of Defense agreed on a compromise plan that achieved McNamara’s 

basic objectives. Under the new structure, the Army Reserve retained 

all its training and support units but only three combat brigades. Its 

paid drill strength fell from 300,000 to 260,000. Army National Guard 

strength continued at 400,000 men. While the number of its separate 

brigades rose from 7 to 18, however, the total of its divisions fell from 

23 to 8. All the units in the Guard and Reserve were to run at 93 percent 

or better of their wartime strength, and each was to have a full supply 

of whatever equipment, spare parts, and technical support it needed.

To obtain the troops necessary to fill out the Reserve, Congress 

revised the Reserve Forces Act of 1955 in September 1963. The new 

law provided for direct enlistment—an optional feature of the 1955 
American Military History

284

act—and reduced the term of obligated service from eight to six 

years. The length of the initial tour ranged from four to seven months, 

depending upon the particular military specialty a recruit was entering 

and how much training it required.

As McNamara’s reorganization continued, the Army revised the 

ROTC program to improve the flow of qualified officers into both the 

Active Army and the Army Reserve. Beginning in 1964, it strengthened the four-year program at colleges and universities by providing 

for scholarships. It also added a two-year program for students who 

had been unable to complete the first two years of ROTC but who 

had undergone the six weeks of field training necessary for entrance 

into the advanced course, which covered the final two years of college. 

Beginning in 1966, Congress also authorized the military departments 

to establish junior ROTC programs at qualified public and private 

secondary schools. 

Although most newly commissioned National Guard officers 

were products of state-run officer candidate schools, the ROTC was 

the primary source of new officers for both the Regular Army and 

the Army Reserve between 1965 and 1970. Cutbacks in Active Army 

officer requirements from 1971 on led to the release of most ROTC 

graduates from their agreement to perform a two-year stint on active 

duty. Instead, following three to six months’ training, they were released 

to the Army National Guard or the Army Reserve.

The Army buildup for the war in Vietnam created pressure for 

a reserve callup to fill in for the regular troops and draftees going 

overseas. President Johnson declined to make the move, however, 

preferring to avoid the discussion of the war and its goals that would 

have accompanied the callup. Instead, the Army established a Selected 

Reserve Force in August 1965 to provide for the quick response to 

emergencies that the Regular Army had always supplied. It contained 

over 150,000 men—about 119,000 National Guardsmen and 31,000 

Army Reservists—and consisted of three divisions and six separate 

brigades with combat and service support elements. All were to maintain 100 percent strength, received extra training, and had priority in 

equipment allocation. The Army abolished the force in September 

1969, when the United States began to draw down in Vietnam.

By mid-April 1968 a budding democratic revolution in Sovietdominated Czechoslovakia, Communist provocations in Korea, and 

the Tet offensive in Vietnam had increased world tensions to such a 

level that President Johnson finally decided to mobilize a portion of 

the Army’s Ready Reserve. He specified, however, that the deploy-

ment was to last for no more than twenty-four months, and he kept as 

small as possible the number of men involved: some 19,874. Of the 76 

Army National Guard and Army Reserve units mobilized, 43 went to 

Vietnam and 33 to the Strategic Army Forces. As with earlier mobilizations, peacetime failures to attain training objectives and shortages of 

equipment prevented many of the units from meeting readiness objectives upon activation. Even so, the effort succeeded where it mattered 

most, in providing temporary augmentation for the strategic reserve 

and deploying troops to Vietnam much sooner than would have been 

possible with new recruits. The callup ended in December 1969, when 

the last of the units involved returned to reserve status. 
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

285

Only a three-month lull intervened, however, before President 

Johnson’s successor, President Richard M. Nixon, decided he had no 

choice but to call upon the Reserves and National Guard again. On 

March 18, 1970, New York City mail carriers began an unauthorized 

work stoppage that threatened to halt essential postal services. Nixon 

declared a national emergency on the twenty-third, paving the way for a 

partial mobilization the next day. This time, more than 18,000 National 

Guard and Army Reserve members saw service, working with other 

regular and reserve forces to get the mail through. The postal workers 

soon returned to work, and by April 3 the last of the reservists had 

returned to civilian status.

The phase-down of U.S. military operations in Vietnam and 

accompanying cutbacks in active-force levels caused the nation to 

place renewed reliance on its reserve forces. As early as November 

1968 Congress had passed the reserve forces “Bill of Rights.” The 

act gave the service secretaries responsibility for developing reserve 

forces capable of attaining peacetime training goals and of meeting 

mobilization readiness objectives. The act also established positions 

for Assistant Secretaries for Manpower and Reserve Affairs within 

each of the military departments and gave statutory status to the 

position of Chief of the Army Reserve.

By mid-1971 the Defense Department was planning for yet another 

reorganization of the Reserves to bring them into line with organizational concepts developed during the Vietnam War. Since the President 

had declined to call up the reserve forces in the early stages of the 

conflict, the main burden of meeting the Army’s need for manpower in 

Vietnam had fallen upon the Selective Service. The increased draft calls 

and voluntary enlistments that followed had swelled the Army from 

970,000 troops in mid-1965 to over 1.5 million in 1968. 

The approach might not have mattered in a popular war. As the 

conflict in Vietnam lengthened, however, and opposition to it grew, 

reliance upon the Selective Service to meet the Army’s requirements 

for manpower drew criticism from both Congress and the public. That 

the Army could never have absorbed all the men available for service 

at the time figured little in the debate. The nub of the matter was that 

the system seemed unfair because it selected some for service while 

exempting others. Playing to the trend, Nixon promised to end the draft 

during his campaign for President in 1968. True to his word, in late 

1969 he introduced a lottery system that eliminated most deferments 

but limited the period of eligibility to one year. It was a poor but necessary compromise. Elimination of the draft in favor of an all-volunteer 

Army in the midst of an ongoing war seemed impossible.

Problems and Prospects

Since the Army was drawn from the American people and reflected 

their society, it had to deal with the same social problems that confronted 

the nation as the war lengthened. The polarization of opinion over 

the war in Vietnam, increasing drug abuse by America’s young, and 

mounting racial tensions within the United States all took their toll.

The widespread opposition to the war in Vietnam that swept 

college campuses in the late sixties made its way into the Army, where 

Since the President had declined 

to call up the reserve forces in 

the early stages of the conflict, 

the main burden of meeting the 

Army’s need for manpower in 

Vietnam had fallen upon the 

Selective Service. 
American Military History

286

some soldiers participated in demonstrations, formed protest groups, 

or circulated antiwar literature. While soldier dissent was hardly new to 

the American military, the dissidence generated by the Vietnam War 

was more explicit than ever before. Even so—if instances of indiscipline proliferated in Vietnam and a scattering of highly publicized 

combat refusals occurred—the vast majority of the troops did their 

duty commendably and without demur.

Increasing drug abuse by young people in the United States also 

caused problems for the Army, particularly since many recruits had 

already been exposed to drugs before entering the service. The low 

cost and easy availability of narcotics in Vietnam complicated matters, 

as did the loose enforcement procedures of local Vietnamese authorities, who often were themselves involved in the drug trade. The situation became so bad by the end of American involvement in the war 

that medics were evacuating more soldiers for drug problems than for 

wounds. The Army conducted massive drug information campaigns 

to warn potential abusers of the dangers. In an attempt to identify 

and treat heavy abusers before they returned home, it also initiated a 

program of urine testing in 1971 for all soldiers leaving South Vietnam. 

Those who failed became subject to immediate detoxification then 

received followup treatment on arrival in the United States. Those 

efforts notwithstanding, the problem continued for years, receding only 

gradually as those prone to drug abuse left the Army and a new force 

of carefully screened volunteers took their place.

Racial discrimination was another pressing problem that plagued 

the nation and the Army as the conflict in Vietnam lengthened. The 

service had desegregated during the Korean War, insisting that all 

soldiers receive equal treatment regardless of their race. Over the years 

that followed, despite the bitter civil rights struggle of the sixties, it 

opened up recreational facilities to all soldiers and made considerable progress in securing adequate off-post housing for its African 

Americans. Commanders took pride in that record. By the time of the 

Vietnam War, most felt confident that they had at least their portion of 

the problem under control.

The war proved them mistaken. Many of the soldiers who joined 

the Army during the period came from racially prejudiced backgrounds 

and maintained their beliefs. Racial divisions tended to disappear in 

combat because of the common danger and the need to work together 

for survival. In the rear, however, race relations were sometimes just 

as uneasy and disjointed as they were in many American cities. One 

African-American chaplain commented that the troops would “go out 

on missions and the racism would drop.... and they’d come back to 

the compound and kill each other. I didn’t understand it.” It took some 

time for Army commanders to recognize that they had a problem; but 

once they did, they worked hard to build the confidence of African 

Americans in the fairness of the service’s promotion and judicial 

systems and to foster better communication between the groups. In 

the end, however, as with drugs, the Army had a race problem because 

America had a race problem. Long-term solutions depended upon the 

success of national efforts to achieve racial equality.

The Army faced many challenges in the fifties and sixties, not the 

least of which was the search for a mission that would garner sufficient 

It took some time for Army 

commanders to recognize that 

they had a problem; but once 

they did, they worked hard to 

build the confidence of African 

Americans in the fairness of the 

service’s promotion and judicial 

systems and to foster better 

communication.
The Army of the Cold War: From the “New Look” to Flexible Response

287

resources to maintain a core of well-trained ground forces ready for a 

variety of missions. The Army found it difficult to compete with the 

new glamour of the Air Force and the Navy with their strategic deterrence missions. At the close of the Korean War, the American urge to 

avoid all future ground combat and rely, again, upon “cost-effective” 

strategic forces with their alluring prospects of “push button” war, 

had been too seductive a picture for a succession of budget-conscious 

administrations. “More bang for the buck” and the overarching strategic deterrence mission drove the budget and the outlook of much 

of the political and military establishments and had led them down 

numerous blind alleys of poorly conceived reorganizations and abortive technologies. Yet the greatest threat to maintaining the credibility 

of U.S. deterrence in the 1960s was to come not from the arms race or 

from competing strategic forces, but in the jungles of Southeast Asia, 

in the small country of South Vietnam. 

Discussion Questions

1. What was the New Look? How new do you think it really was?

2. How much defense spending do you think was justified during 

the Cold War? Which programs were cost-effective?

3. Why did the Army adopt the pentomic organization? Why did it 

later drop the approach? What had changed?

4. What were the similarities and differences between the Cold 

War in the late 1940s and the one that prevailed during the late 1950s? 

Compare and contrast how the United States responded to the challenges that arose during the two periods.

5. What was flexible response? What practical consequences did 

the strategy have for the Army? How did this differ from massive retaliation? How did the flexible response help or hinder deterrence?

6. What roles did the Kennedy and Johnson administrations envision for the reserve components? How did Johnson’s approach to the 

Vietnam War affect them?

Recommended Readings

Cole, Alice C., et al., eds. Documents on Establishment and Organization, 

1944–1978. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

Historical Office, 1978. 

Gavin, James M. War and Peace in the Space Age. New York: Harper, 1958. 

Hewes, James E., Jr. From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and 

Administration, 1900–1963. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1983, chs. 8–10.

Kinnard, Douglas. The Certain Trumpet, Maxwell Taylor & the American 

Experience in Vietnam. New York: Brassey’s, 1991, Preface, chs. 1–4.

Kissinger, Henry A. Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. Boulder, Colo.: 

Westview Press, 1984, chs. 2, 12.

McNamara, Robert S. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. 

New York: Times Books, 1995, chs. 1–4.
American Military History

288

Osgood, Robert E. Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy. 

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957, chs. 1, 9, 10.

Palmer, Bruce, Jr. Intervention in the Caribbean: The Dominican Crisis of 

1965. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989.

Ridgway, Matthew B. Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway. 

Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974, chs. 30–38.

Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support, The Early Years, 1941–1960. U.S. 

Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1985.

Taylor, Maxwell D. The Uncertain Trumpet. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood 

Press, 1974, chs. 3, 4, 8.

Wilson, John. Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and 

Separate Brigades. Army Lineage Series. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 1998, chs. 9–11.

Yates, Lawrence A. Power Pack: U.S. Intervention in the Dominican Republic, 

1965–1966. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College, Combat Studies Institute, 1988.

Other Readings

Acheson, Dean. Power and Diplomacy. Cambridge: Harvard University 

Press, 1958.

Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life, John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New 

York: Little Brown and Co., 2003.

Doubler, Michael D. Civilian in Peace, Soldier in War: The Army National 

Guard, 1636–2000. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003.

Gaddis, John L. Strategies of Containment: a Critical Appraisal of Postwar 

American National Security Policy. New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1982.

———. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford 

University Press, 1997.

Howze, Hamilton. A Cavalryman’s Story: Memoirs of a Twentieth-Century 

Army General. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 

1996.

Kahn, Herman. On Thermonuclear War. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood 

Press, 1978.

Kaplan, Lawrence. The Long Entanglement: NATO’s First Fifty Years. 

Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999.

Kinnard, Douglas. President Eisenhower and Strategy Management, A Study in 

Defense Politics. New York: Pergamom-Brassey’s, 1989.

Millis, Walter. Arms and Men: A Study in American Military History. New 

Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1981, ch. 7.

Shapley, Deborah. Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert 

McNamara. New York: Little, Brown, 1993.
The Vietnam War was complex in its origins and followed France’s 

failure to suppress nationalist forces in Indochina as it struggled 

to restore its colonial dominion after World War II. Led by Ho 

Chi Minh, a Communist-dominated revolutionary movement, the Viet 

Minh, waged a political and military struggle for Vietnamese independence that frustrated the efforts of the French and resulted ultimately 

in their ouster from the region.

The U.S. Army’s first encounters with Ho Chi Minh were brief and 

generally sympathetic. During World War II, Ho’s anti-Japanese resistance fighters helped to rescue downed American pilots and furnished 

information on Japanese forces in Indochina. U.S. Army officers stood 

at Ho’s side in August 1945 as he basked in the short-lived satisfaction 

of declaring Vietnam’s independence. Five years later, however, in an 

international climate tense with ideological and military confrontation 

between Communist and non-Communist powers, Army advisers of 

the newly formed U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), 

Indochina, were aiding France against the Viet Minh. With combat 

raging in Korea and mainland China having recently fallen to the 

Communists, the war in Indochina now appeared to Americans as 

one more pressure point to be contained on a wide arc of Communist 

expansion in Asia. By underwriting French military efforts in Southeast 

Asia, the United States enabled France to sustain its economic recovery 

and to contribute, through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO), to the collective defense of Western Europe.

Provided with aircraft, artillery, tanks, vehicles, weapons, and other 

equipment and supplies, a small portion of which they distributed to 

an anti-Communist Vietnamese army they had organized, the French 

did not fail for want of equipment. Instead, they put American aid 

10

The U.S. Army in Vietnam

Background, Buildup, and

Operations, 1950–1967
American Military History

290

at the service of a flawed strategy that sought to defeat the elusive 

Viet Minh in set-piece battles but neglected to cultivate the loyalty and 

support of the Vietnamese people. Too few in number to provide more 

than a veneer of security in most rural areas, the French were unable 

to suppress the guerrillas or to prevent the underground Communist 

shadow government from reappearing whenever French forces left one 

area to fight elsewhere.

The French fought the last and most famous of the set-piece 

battles in Indochina at Dien Bien Phu. Located near the Laotian 

border in a rugged valley in remote northwestern Vietnam, Dien 

Bien Phu was far from the coast and depended almost entirely on 

air resupply. The French, expecting the Viet Minh to invade Laos, 

occupied Dien Bien Phu in November 1953 to force a battle. They 

established their positions in a valley surrounded by high ground 

that the Viet Minh quickly fortified. While bombarding the besieged 

garrison with artillery and mortars, the attackers tunneled closer to 

the French positions. Supply aircraft that successfully ran the gauntlet 

of intense antiaircraft fire risked destruction on the ground from Viet 

Minh artillery. Eventually, supplies and ammunition could be delivered to the defenders only by parachute drop. As the situation became 

critical, France asked the United States to intervene. Believing that the 

French position was untenable and that even massive American air 

attacks using small nuclear bombs would be futile, General Matthew 

B. Ridgway, the Army Chief of Staff, helped to convince President 

Dwight D. Eisenhower not to aid them. Ridgway also opposed the 

use of U.S. ground forces, arguing that such an effort would severely 

strain the Army and possibly lead to a wider war in Asia.

Dien Bien Phu surrendered on May 7, 1954, just as peace negotiations were about to start in Geneva. On July 20 France and the Viet 

Minh agreed to end hostilities and to divide Vietnam temporarily into 

two zones at the 17th Parallel. (Map 14) In the North, the Viet Minh 

established a Communist government with its capital at Hanoi. French 

forces withdrew to the South; hundreds of thousands of civilians, most 

of whom were Roman Catholics, accompanied them. The question of 

unification was left to be decided by an election scheduled for 1956.

The Emergence of South Vietnam

As the Viet Minh consolidated control in the North, Ngo Dinh 

Diem, a Roman Catholic of mandarin background, sought to assert 

his authority over the chaotic conditions in South Vietnam in hopes 

of establishing an anti-Communist state. A one-time minister in 

the French colonial administration, Diem enjoyed a reputation for 

honesty. He had resigned his office in 1933 and had taken no part in 

the tumultuous events that swept over Vietnam after World War II. 

Diem returned to Saigon in the summer of 1954 as premier with no 

political following except his family and a few Americans. His authority 

was challenged, first by the independent Hoa Hao and Cao Dai reli-

gious sects and then by the Binh Xuyen, an organization of gangsters 

that controlled Saigon’s gambling dens and brothels and had strong 

influence with the police. Rallying an army, Diem defeated the sects 

and gained their grudging allegiance. Remnants of their forces 

fled to 
Map 14

IV CTZ

I CTZ

III CTZ

II CTZ

Ho Chi Minh

Trail

Tonle Sap

G U L F

O F

T O N K I N

G U L F

O F

T H A I L A N D

S O U T H

C H I N A

S E A

Red River

Black River

Mekong River

Mekong

R

H A I N A N

Con Son

Phu Quoc

DEMARCATION LINE

B U R M A

N O R T H

V I E T N A M

C H I N A

C H I N A

T H A I L A N D

L A O S

C A M B O D I A

S O U T H

V I E T N A M

Lao Cai

Lang Son

HANOI

Haiphong

Dien Bien Phu

Luang Prabang

Vinh

Dong Hoi

VIENTIANE

Udon Thani

(Udorn)

Savannakhet

Quang Tri

Hue

Da Nang

Paksé

Nakhon Ratchasima

(Korat)

BANGKOK

Kratie

Pleiku

Kontum

Qui Nhon

Da Lat

Ban Me Thuot

Loc Ninh

Snuol

PHNOM PENH

Sihanoukville

Svay Rieng

Can Tho

SAIGON

INDOCHINA

1961

0 150

Miles
American Military History

292

the jungle to continue their resistance; some at a later date became the 

nucleus of Communist guerrilla units.

Diem was also challenged by members of his own army, where 

French influence persisted among the highest-ranking officers. But 

he weathered the threat of an army coup, dispelling American doubts 

about his ability to survive in the jungle of Vietnamese politics. For the 

next few years, the American commitment to defend South Vietnam’s 

independence was synonymous with support for Diem. Americans 

now provided advice and support to the Army of the Republic of 

Vietnam; at Diem’s request, they replaced French advisers throughout 

his nation’s military establishment.

As the American role in South Vietnam was growing, U.S. defense 

policy was undergoing review. Officials in the Eisenhower administration 

believed that wars like those in Korea and Vietnam were too costly and 

ought to be avoided in the future. “Never again” was the rallying cry of 

those who opposed sending U.S. ground forces to fight a conventional 

war in Asia. Instead, the Eisenhower administration relied on the threat 

or use of massive nuclear retaliation to deter or, if necessary, to defeat the 

armies of the Soviet Union or Communist China. Ground forces were 

relegated to a minor role, and mobilization was regarded as an unnecessary luxury. In consequence, the Army’s share of the defense budget 

declined, the modernization of its forces was delayed, and its strength 

was reduced by 40 percent: from 1,404,598 in 1954 to 861,964 in 1956.

General Ridgway and his successor, General Maxwell D. Taylor, 

opposed the Eisenhower administration’s new strategy. Both advocated 

balanced forces to enable the United States to cope realistically with a 

variety of military contingencies. The events of the late 1950s appeared 

to support their demand for flexibility. The United States intervened 

in Lebanon in 1958 to restore political stability there. That same year 

an American military show of force in the Straits of Taiwan helped 

to dampen tensions between Communist China and the Nationalist 

Chinese government on Taiwan. Both contingencies underlined the 

importance of avoiding any fixed concept of war.

Ngo Dinh Diem

(1901–1963)

Diem, a Catholic from the imperial city of Hue in 

central Vietnam, knew when he became leader of South 

Vietnam in 1954 that his base of support was thin in 

that mostly Buddhist country. He therefore entrusted 

close family members, most notably his shrewd and 

secretive brother Ngo Dinh Nhu and Nhu’s beautiful and 

outspoken wife Madame Nhu, to run the most important 

parts of the government while he used a combination of 

political favors and strong-arm tactics to keep his rivals 

weak and divided. For Diem, the Viet Cong were but 

one of many dangers to his regime. President Diem meets with village elders.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

293

Advocates of the flexible-response doctrine foresaw a meaningful role for the Army as part of a more credible deterrent and 

as a means of intervening, when necessary, in limited and small 

wars. They wished to strengthen both conventional and unconventional forces, to improve strategic and tactical mobility, and to maintain troops and equipment at forward bases close to likely areas of 

conflict. They placed a premium on highly responsive command and 

control to allow a close meshing of military actions with political 

goals. The same reformers were deeply interested in the conduct of 

brushfire wars, especially among the underdeveloped nations. In the 

so-called Third World, competing Cold War ideologies and festering 

nationalistic, religious, and social conflicts interacted with the disruptive forces of modernization to create the preconditions for open 

hostilities. Southeast Asia was one of several such areas the Army 

identified. Here, the United States’ central concern was the threat of 

North Vietnamese and perhaps Chinese aggression against South 

Vietnam and other non-Communist states.

The United States took the lead in forming a regional defense pact, 

the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, signaling its commitment 

to contain Communist encroachment in the region. Meanwhile, the 

342 American advisers of MAAG, Vietnam (which replaced MAAG, 

Indochina, in 1955), trained and organized Diem’s fledgling army to 

resist an invasion from the North. Three MAAG chiefs—Lt. Gens. 

John W. O’Daniel, Samuel T. Williams, and Lionel C. McGarr—reorganized South Vietnam’s light mobile infantry groups into infantry 

divisions compatible in design and mission with U.S. defense plans. 

The South Vietnamese Army, with a strength of about 150,000, was 

equipped with standard U.S. Army equipment and given the mission 

of delaying the advance of any invasion force until the arrival of 

American reinforcements. The residual influence of the army’s earlier 

French training, however, lingered in both leadership and tactics. The 

South Vietnamese had little or no practical experience in administration and the higher staff functions from which the French had 

excluded them.

The MAAG’s training and reorganization work was often interrupted by Diem’s using his army to conduct pacification campaigns to 

root out stay-behind Viet Minh cadre. Hence responsibility for most 

internal security was transferred to poorly trained and ill-equipped 

paramilitary forces, the Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps, which 

numbered about 75,000. For the most part, the Viet Minh in the South 

avoided armed action and subscribed to a political action program in 

anticipation of Vietnam-wide elections in 1956, as stipulated by the 

Geneva Accords. But Diem, supported by the United States, refused 

to hold elections, claiming that undemocratic conditions in the North 

precluded a fair contest. (Some observers thought Ho Chi Minh 

sufficiently popular in the South to defeat Diem.) Buoyed by his own 

election as President in 1955 and by the adulation of his American 

supporters, Diem’s political strength rose to its apex. While making 

some political and economic reforms, he pressed hard his attacks on 

political opponents and former Viet Minh, many of whom were not 

Communists at all but patriots who had joined the movement to fight 

for Vietnamese independence.
American Military History

294

By 1957 Diem’s harsh measures had so weakened the Viet Minh 

that Communist leaders in the South feared for the movement’s survival 

there. The Southerners urged their colleagues in the North to sanction 

a new armed struggle in South Vietnam. For self-protection, some Viet 

Minh had fled to secret bases to hide and form small units. Others 

joined renegade elements of the former sect armies. From bases in the 

mangrove swamps of the Mekong Delta, in the Plain of Reeds near 

the Cambodian border, and in the jungle of War Zones C and D north 

of Saigon, the Communists began to rebuild their armed forces, to 

reestablish an underground political network, and to carry out propaganda, harassment, and terrorist activities to advance their goals and 

undermine the people’s faith in their government’s ability to protect 

them. As reforms faltered and Diem became more dictatorial, the ranks 

of the rebels swelled with the politically disaffected.

The Rise of the Viet Cong

The insurgents, now called the Viet Cong, had by 1959 organized 

several companies and a few battalions, the majority in the Mekong 

Delta and the provinces around Saigon. As Viet Cong military strength 

increased, attacks against the paramilitary forces, and occasionally 

against the South Vietnamese Army, became more frequent. The guerrillas conducted many to seize equipment, arms, and ammunition but 

flaunted all their successes as evidence of the government’s inability 

to protect its citizens. Political agitation and military activity also 

quickened in the Central Highlands, where Viet Cong agents recruited 

among the Montagnard tribes. In 1959, after assessing conditions in 

the South, the leaders in Hanoi agreed to resume the armed struggle, 

giving it equal weight with political efforts to undermine Diem and 

reunify Vietnam. To attract the growing number of anti-Communists 

opposed to Diem, as well as to provide a democratic facade for administering the party’s policies in areas controlled by the Viet Cong, North 

Vietnam in December 1960 created the National Liberation Front of 

South Vietnam. The revival of guerrilla warfare in the South found the 

advisory group, the South Vietnamese Army, and Diem’s government 

Ho Chi Minh

(1890–1969)

All his adult life Nguyen Tat Thanh, who used the pseudonym Ho Chi 

Minh, was a devoted Nationalist. Settling in Paris following World War I, Ho 

gained renown as the author of a petition to the Allies gathered at Versailles 

demanding independence for all countries under colonial rule. (The petition 

was ignored.) Over the next decade Ho’s ideology evolved through travels in 

China and the USSR, and in 1930 he helped form the Indochina Communist 

Party. Following World War II, Ho became the first president of a provisional Communist government in Vietnam and fought to expel the French. He 

succeeded in 1954, only to have international politics divide Vietnam in two.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

295

ill prepared to wage an effective campaign. In their efforts to train and 

strengthen Diem’s army, U.S. advisers had concentrated on meeting 

the threat of a conventional North Vietnamese invasion. The South 

Vietnamese Army’s earlier antiguerrilla campaigns, while seemingly 

successful, had confronted only a weak and dormant insurgency. The 

Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps, which bore the brunt of the Viet 

Cong’s attacks, were not under the MAAG’s purview and proved unable 

to cope with the audacious Viet Cong. Diem’s regime, while stressing 

military activities, neglected political, social, and economic reforms. 

American officials disagreed over the seriousness of the guerrilla threat, 

the priority to be accorded political or military measures, and the need 

for special counterguerrilla training for the South Vietnamese Army. 

Only a handful of the MAAG’s advisers had personal experience in 

counterinsurgency warfare.

Yet the U.S. Army was no stranger to such conflict. Americans 

had fought insurgents in the Philippines at the turn of the century, 

conducted a guerrilla campaign in Burma during World War II, helped 

the Greek and Philippine governments to subdue Communist insurgencies after the war, and studied the French failure in Indochina and 

the British success in Malaya. However, the Army did not yet have a 

comprehensive doctrine for dealing with insurgency. For the most part, 

insurgent warfare was still equated with the World War II–type of guerrilla or partisan struggles behind enemy lines in support of conventional operations. Only beginning to emerge was an appreciation of the 

political and social dimensions of insurgency and its role in the larger 

framework of revolutionary war. Insurgency meant above all a contest 

for political legitimacy and power—a struggle between contending 

political cultures over the organization of society. Most Army advisers 

and Special Forces went to South Vietnam in the early 1960s poorly 

prepared to wage such a struggle. A victory for counterinsurgency in 

South Vietnam would require Diem’s government not only to outfight 

the guerrillas but also to compete successfully with their efforts to organize the population in support of the government’s cause.

The Viet Cong thrived on their access to and control of the people, 

who formed the most important part of their support base. The population provided both economic and manpower resources to sustain and 

expand the insurgency; the people of the villages served the guerrillas 

as their first line of resistance against government intrusion into their 

“liberated zones” and bases. By comparison with their political effort, 

Vo Nguyen Giap (1912– )

Known for his organizational skills and a mercurial temper, Giap trained a Communist guerrilla army for 

Ho Chi Minh during World War II and went on to become General and Commander of the People’s Army of 

Vietnam (1946–1972) and the Minister of National Defense (1946–1980). Chief military architect of the 

Viet Minh victory over the French in the First Indochina War (1946–1954), Giap gained lasting notoriety for 

capturing the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. During the war against the United States, Giap 

advocated guerrilla tactics, putting him at odds with Politburo members who pushed for a more conventional 

struggle.
American Military History

296

the strictly military aims of the Viet Cong were secondary. The insurgents’ goal was not necessarily to destroy government forces—although 

they did so when they could isolate and defeat weaker elements—but 

to extend their influence over the population. By mobilizing the population, the Viet Cong compensated for their numerical and material 

disadvantages. A rule of thumb that ten soldiers were needed to defeat 

one guerrilla reflected the insurgents’ political support rather than their 

military superiority. For the Saigon government, the task of isolating 

the Viet Cong from the population was difficult under any circumstances and impossible to achieve by force alone.

Viet Cong military forces ran the gamut from hamlet and village guerrillas, farmers by day and fighters by night, to full-time professional soldiers. 

Organized into squads and platoons, part-time guerrillas had several 

military functions. They gathered intelligence, passing it on to district or 

provincial authorities. They proselytized, propagandized, recruited, and 

provided security for local cadres. They reconnoitered the battlefield, 

served as porters and guides, created diversions, evacuated wounded, and 

retrieved weapons. Their very presence and watchfulness in a hamlet or 

village inhibited the population from aiding the government.

By contrast, the local and main-force Viet Cong units consisted of 

full-time soldiers, most often recruited from the area where the unit operated. Forming companies and battalions, local forces were attached to a 

village, district, or provincial headquarters. Often 

they formed the protective shield behind which 

a Communist Party cadre established its political 

infrastructure and organized new guerrilla elements 

at the hamlet and village levels. As the link between 

guerrilla and main-force units, a local force served 

as a reaction force for the former and as a pool 

of replacements and reinforcements for the latter. 

Having limited offensive capability, local forces 

usually attacked poorly defended, isolated outposts 

or weaker paramilitary forces, often at night and by 

ambush. Main-force units were organized as battalions, regiments, and, as the insurgency matured, 

divisions. Subordinate to provincial, regional, and 

higher commands, such units were the strongest, 

most mobile, and most offensive minded of the 

Viet Cong forces; their mission often was to attack 

and defeat a specific South Vietnamese unit.

Missions were assigned and approved by a 

political officer who in most cases was superior to 

the unit’s military commander. Party cells in every 

unit inculcated and reinforced policy, military 

discipline, and unit cohesion. Among the insurgents, war was always the servant of policy.

As the Viet Cong’s control over the population increased, their military forces grew in 

number and size. Squads and platoons became 

companies, companies formed battalions, and 

battalions were organized into regiments. This 

Guerrillas Sorting Grain process of creating and enlarging units continued 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

297

as long as the Viet Cong had a base of support among the population. 

After 1959, however, infiltrators from the North also became important. Hanoi activated a special military transportation unit to control 

overland infiltration along a complex of roads and trails from North 

Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia. This infiltration network was 

to be called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. A special naval unit conducted 

sea infiltration. At first, the infiltrators were Southern-born Viet Minh 

soldiers who had regrouped in the North after the French Indochina 

War. Each year until 1964, thousands returned south to join or to form 

Viet Cong units, usually in the areas where they had originated. Such 

men served as experienced military or political cadres, as technicians, 

or as rank-and-file combatants wherever local recruitment was difficult.

When the pool of about 80,000 so-called regroupees ran dry, Hanoi 

began sending native North Vietnamese soldiers as individual replacements and reinforcements. In 1964 the Communists started to introduce entire North Vietnamese Army units into the South. Among the 

infiltrators were senior cadres, who manned the expanding Viet Cong 

command system—regional headquarters, interprovincial commands, 

and the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the supreme military 

and political headquarters. As the Southern branch of the Vietnamese 

Communist Party, COSVN was directly subordinate to the Central 

Committee in Hanoi. Its senior commanders were high-ranking officers 

of North Vietnam’s Army. To equip the growing number of Viet Cong 

forces in the South, the insurgents continued to rely heavily on arms 

and supplies captured from South Vietnamese forces. But, increasingly, 

large numbers of weapons, ammunition, and other equipment arrived 

from the North, nearly all supplied by the Sino-Soviet bloc.

From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959, the 

Viet Cong’s ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964. The 

number of infiltrators alone during that period was estimated at 41,000. 

The growth of the insurgency reflected not only North Vietnam’s skill 

in infiltrating men and weapons but also South Vietnam’s inability to 

control its porous borders, Diem’s failure to develop a credible pacification program to reduce Viet Cong influence in the countryside, and 

the South Vietnamese Army’s difficulties in reducing long-standing 

Viet Cong bases and secret zones. Such areas facilitated infiltration and 

served as staging areas for operations: they contained training camps, 

hospitals, depots, workshops, and command centers. Many bases were 

in remote areas the South Vietnamese Army seldom visited, such as the 

U Minh Forest or the Plain of Reeds. But others existed in the heart 

of populated areas, in the liberated zones. There, Viet Cong forces, 

dispersed among hamlets and villages, drew support from the local 

economy. From such centers the Viet Cong expanded their influence 

into adjacent areas that were nominally under the South Vietnamese 

government’s control.

A New American President Takes Charge

Soon after John F. Kennedy became President in 1961, he sharply 

increased military and economic aid to South Vietnam to help Diem 

defeat the growing insurgency. For Kennedy, insurgencies (or “wars of 

national liberation” in the parlance of Communist leaders) challenged 

To equip the growing number 

of Viet Cong forces in the 

South, the insurgents continued 

to rely heavily on arms and 

supplies captured from South 

Vietnamese forces.
American Military History

298

international security every bit as seriously as nuclear war. The administration’s approach to both extremes of conflict rested on the precepts 

of the flexible response. Regarded as a form of “sub-limited,” or small 

war, insurgency was treated largely as a military problem—conventional 

war writ small—and hence susceptible to resolution by timely and 

appropriate military action. Kennedy’s success in applying calculated 

military pressures to compel the Soviet Union to remove its offensive 

missiles from Cuba in 1962 reinforced the administration’s disposition 

to deal with other international crises, including the conflict in Vietnam, 

in a similar manner.

Kennedy’s policy, though commendable in its degree of flexibility, 

also had limitations. Long-term strategic planning typically yielded 

to short-term crisis management. Planners tended to assume that all 

belligerents were rational and that the foe subscribed as they did to 

the seductive logic of the flexible response. Hoping to give the South 

Vietnamese a margin for success, Kennedy periodically authorized 

additional military aid and support between 1961 and November 1963, 

when he was assassinated. But the absence of a coherent operational 

strategy for the conduct of counterinsurgency and chronic military and 

political shortcomings on the part of the South Vietnamese nullified 

potential benefits.

The U.S. Army played a major role in Kennedy’s “beef up” of 

the American advisory and support efforts in South Vietnam. In turn, 

that role was made possible in large measure by Kennedy’s determination to increase the strength and capabilities of Army forces for both 

conventional and unconventional operations. Between 1961 and 1964, 

the Army’s strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly 1 million men 

and the number of combat divisions grew from eleven to sixteen. These 

increases were backed up by an ambitious program to modernize Army 

equipment and, by stockpiling supplies and equipment at forward bases, 

to increase the deployability and readiness of Army combat forces. The 

buildup, however, did not prevent the callup of 120,000 reservists to 

active duty in the summer of 1961, a few months after Kennedy assumed 

office. Facing renewed Soviet threats to force the Western Powers out 

of Berlin, Kennedy mobilized the Army to reinforce NATO, if need be. 

But the mobilization revealed serious shortcomings in Reserve readiness 

and produced a swell of criticism and complaints from Congress and 

reservists alike. Although Kennedy sought to remedy the exposed deficiencies and set in motion plans to reorganize the Reserves, the unhappy 

experience of the Berlin Crisis was fresh in the minds of national leaders 

when they faced the prospect of war in Vietnam a few years later.

Facing trouble spots in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, 

Kennedy took a keen interest in the U.S. Army Special Forces, formed 

in 1952 to prepare to lead guerrilla wars against the Soviet Union in 

Eastern Europe. He believed their skills in unconventional warfare also 

made them well suited to countering insurgency. During his first year in 

office, he increased the strength of the Special Forces from about 1,500 

to 9,000 and authorized them to wear distinctive headgear: the green 

beret. In the same year he greatly enlarged their role in South Vietnam. 

First under the auspices of the Central Intelligence Agency and then 

under a military commander, the Special Forces organized the highland 

tribes into the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) and in time 

Planners tended to assume that 

all belligerents were rational and 

that the foe subscribed as they 

did to the seductive logic of the 

flexible response. 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

299

sought to recruit other ethnic groups and sects in the South as well. To 

this scheme, underwritten almost entirely by the United States, Diem 

gave only tepid support. Indeed, the civilian irregulars drew strength 

from groups traditionally hostile to the South Vietnamese government. 

Treated with disdain by the lowland Vietnamese, the Montagnards 

developed close, trusting relations with their Army advisers. Special 

Forces detachment commanders frequently were the real leaders of 

CIDG units. This strong, mutual bond of loyalty between adviser 

and highlander benefited operations, but some tribal leaders sought 

to exploit the special relationship to advance Montagnard political 

autonomy. On occasion, Special Forces advisers found themselves in 

the awkward position of mediating between militant Montagnards 

and South Vietnamese officials who were suspicious and wary of the 

Americans’ sympathy for the highlanders.

Through a village self-defense and development program, the 

Special Forces aimed initially to create a military and political buffer to 

the growing Viet Cong influence in the 

Central Highlands. Within a few years, 

approximately 60,000 highlanders 

had enlisted in the CIDG program. 

As their participation increased, so 

too did the range of Special Forces 

activities. In addition to village defense 

programs, the Green Berets sponsored 

offensive guerrilla activities and border 

surveillance and control measures. 

To detect and impede the Viet Cong, 

the Special Forces established camps 

astride infiltration corridors and near 

enemy base areas, especially along the 

Cambodian and Laotian borders. But 

the camps themselves were vulnerable 

to enemy attack and, despite their presence, infiltration continued. At times, 

border control diverted tribal units 

from village defense, the original heart 

of the CIDG program.

Special Forces troops lead a Montagnard commando team on a 

mission in I Corps.

Valor in Vietnam, John Witt, 1965
American Military History

300

By 1965, as the military situation in the highlands worsened, many 

CIDG units had changed their character and begun to engage in quasiconventional military operations. In some instances, irregulars under the 

leadership of Army Special Forces stood up to crack enemy regiments, 

offering much of the military resistance to enemy efforts to dominate the 

highlands. Yet the Special Forces—despite their efforts in South Vietnam 

and in Laos, where their teams helped to train and advise anti-Communist Laotian forces in the early 1960s—did not provide an antidote to 

the virulent insurgency in Vietnam. Longstanding animosities between 

Montagnard and Vietnamese prevented close, continuing, cooperation 

between the South Vietnamese Army and the irregulars. Long on promises but short on action to improve the lot of the Montagnards, successive South Vietnamese regimes failed to win the loyalty of the tribesmen. 

And the Special Forces usually operated in areas remote from the main 

Viet Cong threat to the heavily populated and economically important 

Mekong Delta and coastal regions of the country.

Besides the Special Forces, the Army’s most important contribution to the fight was the helicopter. Neither President Kennedy nor the 

Army anticipated the rapid growth of aviation in South Vietnam when 

the first helicopter transportation companies arrived in December 

1961. Within three years, however, each of South Vietnam’s divisions and corps was supported by Army helicopters, with the faster, 

more reliable, and versatile UH–1 

Iroquois, or Huey, replacing the 

older H–21 Shawnee. In addition 

to transporting men and supplies, 

helicopters were used to reconnoiter, to evacuate wounded, and 

to provide command and control. 

The Vietnam conflict became the 

crucible in which Army airmobile 

and air-assault tactics evolved. As 

armament was added first machine 

gun–wielding door-gunners, and 

later rockets and miniguns, armed 

helicopters began to protect troop 

carriers against antiaircraft fire, to 

suppress enemy fire around landing 

zones during air assaults, and to 

deliver fire support to troops on 

the ground.

Army fixed-wing aircraft also 

flourished. Equipped with a variety 

of detection devices, the OV–1 

Mohawk conducted day and night 

surveillance of Viet Cong bases and 

trails. The CV–2 Caribou, which 

the Air Force later called the C–7, 

with its sturdy frame and ability to 

land and take off on short, unimproved airfields, proved ideal to An H–21 helicopter lifts South Vietnamese troops into battle near Saigon. supply remote camps.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

301

Army aviation revived old disagreements with the Air Force over the 

roles and missions of the two services and the adequacy of Air Force close 

air support. The expansion of the Army’s own “air force” nevertheless 

continued, abetted by the Kennedy administration’s interest in extending 

airmobility to all types of land warfare, from counterinsurgency to the 

nuclear battlefield. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara himself 

encouraged the Army to test an experimental air-assault division. During 

1963 and 1964, the Army demonstrated that helicopters could successfully replace ground vehicles for mobility and provide fire support in 

lieu of ground artillery. The result was the creation in 1965 of the 1st 

Cavalry Division (Airmobile), the first such unit in the Army. In South 

Vietnam, the helicopter’s effect on organization and operations was as 

sweeping as the influence of mechanized forces in World War II. Many 

of the operational concepts of airmobility, rooted in cavalry doctrine and 

operations, were pioneered by helicopter units between 1961 and 1964 

and later adopted by the new airmobile division and by all Army combat 

units that fought in South Vietnam.

In addition to Army Special Forces and helicopters, Kennedy greatly 

expanded the entire American advisory effort. Advisers were placed at 

the sector (provincial) level and were permanently assigned to infantry 

battalions and certain lower-echelon combat units; additional intelligence 

advisers went to South Vietnam. The Army made wide use of temporary 

training teams in psychological warfare, civic action, engineering, and a 

variety of logistical functions. With the expansion of the advisory and 

support efforts came demands for better communications, intelligence, 

and medical, logistical, and administrative support, all of which the Army 

provided from its active forces, drawing upon skilled men and units from 

U.S.-based forces. The result was a slow, steady erosion of its capacity to 

meet worldwide contingency obligations. But if Vietnam depleted the 

Army, it also provided certain advantages. The war was a laboratory in 

which to test and evaluate new equipment 

and techniques applicable to counterinsurgency—among others, the use of chemical 

defoliants and herbicides, both to remove 

the jungle canopy that gave cover to the 

guerrillas and to destroy their crops. As 

the activities of all the services expanded, 

U.S. military strength in South Vietnam 

increased from under 700 at the start of 

1960 to almost 24,000 by the end of 1964. 

Of these, 15,000 were Army, including a 

little over 2,000 Army advisers.

Changes in American command 

arrangements attested to the growing 

commitment. In February 1962 the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff established the 

U.S. Military Assistance Command, 

Vietnam (MACV), in Saigon as the 

senior American military headquarters in South Vietnam and appointed 

General Paul D. Harkins as commander 

(COMUSMACV). Harkins reported to U.S. Adviser Planning Operations with South Vietnamese Troops
American Military History

302

the Commander in Chief, Pacific, in Hawaii but because of highlevel interest in South Vietnam enjoyed special access to military and 

civilian leaders in Washington as well. Soon MACV moved into the 

advisory effort hitherto directed by the Military Assistance Advisory 

Group. To simplify the advisory chain of command, the latter was 

disestablished in May 1964 and MACV took direct control. As the 

senior Army commander in South Vietnam, the MACV commander 

also commanded Army support units; for day-to-day operations, 

however, control of such units was vested in the corps and division 

senior advisers. For administrative and logistical support Army units 

looked to the U.S. Army Support Group, Vietnam (later the U.S. Army 

Support Command, Vietnam), established in mid-1962.

Though command arrangements worked tolerably well, complaints 

were heard in and out of the Army. Some officials pressed for a separate 

Army component commander with responsibility both for operations 

and for logistical support—an arrangement the other services enjoyed 

in South Vietnam. Airmen tended to believe that an Army command 

already existed, disguised as MACV. They believed that General Harkins, 

though a joint commander, favored the Army in the bitter interservice 

rivalry over the roles and missions of aviation in South Vietnam. Some 

critics thought his span of control excessive, for Harkins’ responsibility 

extended to Thailand, where Army combat units had deployed in 1962, 

aiming to overawe Communist forces in neighboring Laos. The Army 

undertook several logistical projects in Thailand, and Army engineers, 

signalmen, and other support forces remained there after combat forces 

withdrew in the fall of 1962.

While the Americans strengthened their position in South Vietnam 

and Thailand, the Communists tightened their grip in Laos. Agreements 

signed in Geneva in 1962 required all foreign military forces to leave 

that small, land-locked nation. American advisers, including hundreds 

of Special Forces, departed. But North Vietnam did not honor the 

agreements. Its army, together with Laotian Communist forces, consolidated its hold on areas adjacent to both North and South Vietnam 

through which passed the network of jungle roads called the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail. As a result, it became easier to move supplies south to 

support the Viet Cong in the face of the new dangers embodied in U.S. 

advisers, weapons, and tactics.

Counterinsurgency Falters

At first the enhanced mobility and firepower afforded the South 

Vietnamese Army by helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and close 

air support surprised and overwhelmed the Viet Cong. The South 

Vietnamese government’s forces reacted more quickly to insurgent 

attacks and penetrated many Viet Cong areas. Even more threatening 

to the insurgents was Diem’s strategic hamlet program launched in late 

1961. Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, an ardent sponsor of the 

program, hoped to create thousands of new, fortified villages, often 

by moving peasants from their existing homes. Hamlet construction 

and defense were the responsibility of the new residents, with paramilitary and South Vietnamese Army forces providing initial security 

while the peasants were recruited and organized. As security improved, 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

303

Diem and Nhu hoped to enact social, economic, and political reforms 

that when fully carried out would constitute the central government’s 

revolutionary response to Viet Cong promises of social and economic 

betterment. If successful, the program might destroy the insurgency 

by separating and protecting the rural population from the Viet Cong, 

threatening the rebellion’s base of support.

By early 1963, however, the Viet Cong had learned to cope with the 

South Vietnamese Army’s new weapons and more aggressive tactics 

and had begun a campaign to eliminate the strategic hamlets. The insurgents became adept at countering helicopters and slow-flying aircraft 

and learned the vulnerabilities of armored personnel carriers. In addition, their excellent intelligence, combined with the predictability of the 

South Vietnamese Army’s tactics and pattern of operations, enabled the 

Viet Cong to evade or ambush government forces. The new weapons 

the United States had provided the South Vietnamese did not compensate for the stifling influence of poor leadership, dubious tactics, and 

inexperience. The much publicized defeat of government forces at the 

Mekong Delta village of Ap Bac in January 1963 demonstrated both 

the Viet Cong’s skill in countering the South Vietnamese Army’s new 

capabilities and the latter’s inherent weaknesses. Faulty intelligence, 

poorly planned and executed fire support, and overcautious leadership 

contributed to the outcome. But Ap Bac’s significance transcended a 

single battle. The defeat was a portent of things to come. Now able to 

challenge regular army units of equal strength in quasi-conventional 

battles, the Viet Cong were moving into a more intense stage of revolutionary war.

As the Viet Cong became stronger and bolder, the South Vietnamese 

Army became more cautious and less offensive minded. Government 

forces became reluctant to respond to Viet Cong depredations in the 

countryside, avoided night operations, and resorted to ponderous 

sweeps against vague military objectives, rarely making contact with their 

enemies. Meanwhile, the Viet Cong concentrated on destroying strategic 

hamlets, showing that they considered the settlements, rather than the 

South Vietnamese Army, the greater danger to the insurgency. Poorly 

defended hamlets and outposts were overrun or subverted by enemy 

agents who infiltrated with peasants arriving from the countryside.

The Viet Cong’s campaign profited from the government’s failures. 

The government built too many hamlets to defend and scattered them 

Strategic Hamlets

The program of fortifying villages to separate the peasants from the insurgents emulated a model the British 

used successfully in Malaya in the 1950s. In addition to impairing the Viet Cong’s control of the countryside, Diem 

saw the hamlets as a way to solicit more American aid and to control his own population, which outside of the 

Catholic minority had little enthusiasm for his regime. The program affected nearly one-third of South Vietnam’s 

14,000 hamlets; but when the government abandoned it in early 1964, only a small percentage of the hamlets 

remained in friendly hands. Diem’s over-ambitious program created too many such hamlets, widely scattered and 

often indefensible, thus dooming the initiative to failure. 
American Military History

304

around the countryside, often outside of range for mutual support. 

Hamlet militia varied from those who were poorly trained and armed to 

those who were not trained or armed at all. Fearing that weapons given 

to the militia would fall to the Viet Cong, local officials often with-

held arms. Forced relocation, use of forced peasant labor to construct 

hamlets, and tardy payment of compensation for relocation were but a 

few reasons why peasants turned against the program. Few meaningful 

reforms took place. Accurate information on the program’s true condition and on the decline in rural security was hidden from Diem by 

officials eager to please him with reports of progress. False statistics 

and reports misled U.S. officials, too, about the progress of the coun-

terinsurgency effort.

If the decline in rural security was not always apparent to Americans, 

the lack of enlightened political leadership on the part of Diem was all 

too obvious. Diem habitually interfered in military matters: bypassing 

the chain of command to order operations, forbidding commanders to 

take casualties, and appointing military leaders on the basis of political 

loyalty rather than competence. Many military and civilian appointees, 

especially province and district chiefs, were dishonest and put career 

and fortune above the national interest. When Buddhist opposition to 

certain policies erupted into violent antigovernment demonstrations 

in 1963, Diem’s uncompromising stance and use of military force to 

suppress the demonstrators caused some generals to decide that the 

President was a liability in the fight against the Viet Cong. On November 

1, with American encouragement, a group of reform-minded generals 

ousted Diem, who was subsequently murdered along with his brother.

Political turmoil followed the coup. Emboldened, the insurgents 

stepped up operations and increased their control over many rural areas. 

North Vietnam’s leaders decided to intensify the armed struggle, aiming to 

demoralize the South Vietnamese Army and further undermine political 

authority in the South. As Viet Cong military activity quickened, regular 

North Vietnamese Army units began to train for possible intervention in 

the war. Men and equipment continued to 

flow down the Ho Chi Minh 

Trail, with North Vietnamese conscripts replacing the dwindling pool of 

Southerners who had belonged to the Viet Minh.

Setting the Stage for Confrontation

The critical state of rural security that came to light after Diem’s 

death again prompted the United States to expand its military aid 

to Saigon. General Harkins and his successor, General William C. 

Westmoreland, urgently strove to revitalize pacification and counterin-

surgency. Army advisers helped their Vietnamese counterparts to revise 

national and provincial pacification plans. They retained the concept 

of fortified hamlets as the heart of a new national counterinsurgency 

program but corrected the old abuses, at least in theory. To help implement the program, Army advisers were assigned to the subsector 

(district) level for the first time, becoming more intimately involved 

in local pacification efforts and in paramilitary operations. Additional 

advisers were assigned to units and training centers, especially those 

of the Regional and Popular Forces (formerly called the Civil Guard 

and Self-Defense Corps). All Army activities, from aviation support 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

305

to Special Forces, were strengthened in a concerted effort to undo the 

effects of years of Diem’s mismanagement.

At the same time, American officials in Washington, Hawaii, and 

Saigon began to explore ways to increase military pressure against 

North Vietnam. In 1964 the South Vietnamese launched covert raids 

under MACV’s auspices. Some military leaders, however, believed that 

only direct air strikes against North Vietnam would induce a change in 

Hanoi’s policies by demonstrating American determination to defend 

South Vietnam’s independence. Air strike plans ranged from immediate 

massive bombardment of military and industrial targets to gradually 

intensifying attacks spanning several months.

The interest in using air power reflected lingering sentiment in the 

United States against once again involving American ground forces 

in a land war on the Asian continent. Many of President Lyndon B. 

Johnson’s advisers—among them General Maxwell D. Taylor, who was 

appointed Ambassador to South Vietnam in mid-1964—believed that a 

carefully calibrated air campaign would be the most effective means of 

exerting pressure against the North and, at the same time, the method 

least likely to provoke China’s intervention. Taylor deemed conventional 

U.S. Army ground forces ill suited to engage in day-to-day counterinsurgency operations against the Viet Cong in hamlets and villages. Ground 

forces might, however, be used to protect vital air bases in the South 

and to repel any North Vietnamese attack across the demilitarized zone 

that separated North from South Vietnam. Together, a more vigorous 

counterinsurgency effort in the South and military pressure against the 

North might buy time for the South Vietnamese government to put 

William C. Westmoreland (1914–2005)

General William Westmoreland, a West 

Point graduate and highly experienced officer 

who had served in World War II and Korea, was 

forced to fight the war in Vietnam under severe 

limitations. Without the authority to attack North 

Vietnam, or even the enemy base areas in Laos and 

Cambodia, he relied instead on attrition to wear 

the enemy down. Confronted by two interrelated 

threats—Communist main-force units and guerrillas—

Westmoreland chose to emphasize the main-force 

war, which he considered the more immediate threat. 

He believed that mobility and firepower could 

prevent a war of attrition from turning into a stalemate and that by 1967 the North Vietnamese would 

reach a “crossover point,” after which they would 

be unable to reinforce the war in the South. After 

Vietnam, General Westmoreland served as Chief of 

Staff of the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1972. General Westmoreland (center) answers questions from the media. 

Ambassador Maxwell Taylor is on the left.
American Military History

306

its political house in order, boost flagging military and civilian morale, 

and strengthen its military position in the event of a negotiated peace. 

Taylor and Westmoreland, the senior U.S. officials in South Vietnam, 

agreed that North Vietnam was unlikely to change its course unless 

convinced that it could not succeed in the South. Both recognized that 

air strikes were neither a panacea nor a substitute for military efforts in 

the South.

As each side undertook more provocative military actions, the 

likelihood of a direct military confrontation between North Vietnam 

and the United States increased. The crisis came in early August 1964 

in the international waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. North Vietnamese 

patrol boats attacked U.S. naval vessels surveying North Vietnam’s 

coastal defenses. The Americans promptly launched retaliatory air 

strikes. At the request of President Johnson, Congress overwhelmingly 

passed the Southeast Asia Resolution, the so-called Gulf of Tonkin 

Resolution, authorizing all actions necessary to protect American forces 

and to provide for the defense of the nation’s allies in Southeast Asia. 

Considered by some in the administration as the equivalent of a declaration of war, this broad grant of authority encouraged Johnson to 

expand American military efforts within South Vietnam, against North 

Vietnam, and in Southeast Asia at large.

By late 1964 each side was poised to increase its stake in the war. 

Regular North Vietnamese Army units had begun moving south and 

stood at the Laotian frontier, on the threshold of crossing into South 

Vietnam’s Central Highlands. U.S. air and naval forces stood ready to 

renew their attacks. On February 7, 1965, Communist forces attacked 

an American compound in Pleiku in the Central Highlands and a few 

days later bombed American quarters in Qui Nhon. The United States 

promptly bombed military targets in the North. A few weeks later, 

President Johnson approved Operation 

RollingThunder, a campaign 

of sustained, direct air strikes of progressively increasing strength 

against military and industrial targets in North Vietnam. Signs of 

intensifying conflict appeared in South Vietnam as well. Strengthening 

forces at all echelons, from village guerrillas to main-force regiments, 

the Viet Cong quickened military activity in late 1964 and in the first 

half of 1965. At Binh Gia, a village forty miles east of Saigon in Phuoc 

Tuy Province, a multiregimental Viet Cong force fought and defeated 

several South Vietnamese battalions.

By the summer of 1965 the Viet Cong, strengthened by several 

recently infiltrated North Vietnamese Army regiments, had gained the 

upper hand over government forces in some areas of South Vietnam. 

With U.S. close air support and the aid of Army helicopter gunships, 

South Vietnamese forces repelled many enemy attacks but suffered 

heavy casualties. Elsewhere, highland camps and border outposts had 

to be abandoned. South Vietnamese Army losses from battle deaths 

and desertions amounted to nearly a battalion a week. The government in Saigon was hard pressed to find men to replenish these heavy 

losses and completely unable to match the growth of Communist 

forces from local recruitment and infiltration. Some American officials 

doubted whether the South Vietnamese could hold out until 

Rolling

T

hunder created pressures sufficiently strong to convince North 

Vietnam’s leaders to reduce the level of combat in the South. General 

President Johnson
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

307

Westmoreland and others believed that U.S. ground forces were needed 

to stave off an irrevocable shift of the military and political balance in 

favor of the enemy.

For a variety of diplomatic, political, and military reasons, President 

Johnson approached with great caution any commitment of large 

ground combat forces to South Vietnam. Yet preparations had been 

under way for some time. In early March 1965, a few days after Rolling

Thunder began, American marines went ashore in South Vietnam to 

protect the large airfield at Da Nang—a defensive security mission. 

Even as they landed, General Harold K. Johnson, Chief of Staff of 

the Army, was in South Vietnam to assess the situation. Upon returning 

to Washington, he recommended a substantial increase in American 

military assistance, including several combat divisions. He wanted U.S. 

forces either to interdict the Laotian panhandle to stop infiltration or to 

counter a growing enemy threat in the central and northern provinces.

But President Johnson sanctioned only the dispatch of additional 

marines to increase security at Da Nang and to secure other coastal 

enclaves. He also authorized the Army to begin deploying nearly 20,000 

logistical troops, the main body of the 1st Logistical Command, to 

Southeast Asia. (Westmoreland had requested such a command in late 

1964.) At the same time, the President modified the marines’ mission 

to allow them to conduct offensive operations close to their bases. A 

few weeks later, to protect American bases in the vicinity of Saigon, 

President Johnson approved sending the first Army combat unit, the 

173d Airborne Brigade (Separate), to South Vietnam. Arriving from 

Okinawa in early May, the brigade moved quickly to secure the air base 

at Bien Hoa, just northeast of Saigon. With its arrival, U.S. military 

strength in South Vietnam passed 50,000. Despite added numbers and 

expanded missions, American ground forces had yet to engage the 

enemy in full-scale combat.

Indeed, the question of how best to use large numbers of American 

ground forces was still unresolved on the eve of their deployment. 

Focusing on population security and pacification, some planners saw 

U.S. combat forces concentrating their efforts in coastal enclaves and 

around key urban centers and bases. Under this plan, such forces would 

provide a security shield behind which the Vietnamese could expand 

the pacification zone; when required, American combat units would 

venture beyond their enclaves as mobile reaction forces.

This concept, largely defensive in nature, reflected the pattern the 

first Army combat units to enter South Vietnam had established. But 

the mobility and offensive firepower of U.S. ground units suggested 

their use in remote, sparsely populated regions to seek out and 

engage main-force enemy units as they infiltrated into South Vietnam 

or emerged from their secret bases. While secure coastal logistical 

enclaves and base camps still would be required, the weight of the 

military effort would be focused on the destruction of enemy military units. Yet even in this alternative, American units would serve 

indirectly as a shield for pacification activities in the more heavily 

populated lowlands and Mekong Delta. A third proposal had particular appeal to General Johnson. He wished to employ U.S. and allied 

ground forces across the Laotian panhandle to interdict enemy infiltration into South Vietnam. Here was a more direct and effective way 
American Military History

308

to stop infiltration than the use of air power. Encumbered by military 

and political problems, the idea was periodically revived but always 

rejected. The pattern of deployment that actually developed in South 

Vietnam was a compromise between the first two concepts.

For any type of operations, secure logistical enclaves at deepwater 

ports (Cam Ranh Bay, Nha Trang, and Qui Nhon, for example) were a 

military necessity. In such areas, combat units arrived and bases developed for regional logistical complexes to support the troops. As the 

administration neared a decision on combat deployment, the Army 

began to identify and ready units for movement overseas and to prepare 

mobilization plans for Selected Reserve forces. The dispatch of Army 

units to the Dominican Republic in May 1965 to forestall a Leftist takeover necessitated only minor adjustments to the buildup plans. The 

episode nevertheless showed how unexpected demands elsewhere in 

the world could deplete the strategic reserve, and it underscored the 

importance of mobilization if the Army was to meet worldwide contingencies and supply trained combat units to Westmoreland as well.

The prospect of deploying American ground forces also revived 

discussions of allied command arrangements. For a time Westmoreland 

considered placing South Vietnamese and American forces under a 

single commander, an arrangement similar to that of U.S. and South 

Korean forces during the Korean War. In the face of South Vietnamese 

opposition, however, Westmoreland dropped the idea. Arrangements 

with other allies varied. Americans in South Vietnam were joined by 

combat units from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Thailand 

and by noncombat elements from several other nations. Westmoreland 

entered into separate agreements with each commander in turn; the 

compacts ensured close cooperation with MACV but fell short of 

giving Westmoreland command over the allied forces.

While diversity marked these arrangements, Westmoreland strove 

for unity within the American buildup. As forces began to deploy to 

South Vietnam, the Army sought to elevate the newly established U.S. 

Army, Vietnam (USARV), to a full-fledged Army component command 

with responsibility for combat operations. But Westmoreland successfully warded off the challenge to his dual role as unified commander 

of MACV and its Army component. For the remainder of the war, 

USARV performed solely in a logistical and administrative capacity; 

unlike MACV’s air and naval component commands, the Army component did not exercise operational control over combat forces, Special 

Forces, or field advisers. However, through its logistical, engineer, 

signal, medical, military police, and aviation commands established in 

the course of the buildup, USARV commanded and managed a support 

base of unprecedented size and scope.

Despite this victory, unity of command over the ground war in 

South Vietnam eluded Westmoreland, as did overall control of U.S. 

military operations in support of the war. Most air and naval operations outside of South Vietnam, including Rolling Thunder, were 

carried out by the Commander in Chief, Pacific, and his air and naval 

commanders from his headquarters thousands of miles away in Hawaii. 

This patchwork of command arrangements contributed to the lack of 

a unified strategy, the fragmentation of operations, and the pursuit 

of parochial service interests to the detriment of the war effort. No 

 Americans in South Vietnam 

were joined by combat units from 

Australia, New Zealand, South 

Korea, and Thailand and by 

noncombat elements from several 

other nations. 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

309

single American commander had complete authority or responsibility 

to fashion an overall strategy or to coordinate all military aspects of 

the war in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, Westmoreland labored under 

a variety of political and operational constraints on the use of the 

combat forces he did command. Like the Korean War, the struggle 

in South Vietnam was complicated by enemy sanctuaries and by 

geographical and political restrictions on allied operations. Ground 

forces were barred from operating across South Vietnam’s borders in 

Cambodia, Laos, or North Vietnam, although the border areas of those 

countries were vital to the enemy’s war effort. These factors narrowed 

Westmoreland’s freedom of action and detracted from his efforts to 

make effective use of American military power.

Groundwork for Combat: Buildup and Strategy

On July 28, 1965, President Johnson announced plans to deploy 

additional combat units and to increase American military strength 

in South Vietnam to 175,000 by year’s end. The Army already was 

preparing hundreds of units for duty in Southeast Asia, among them 

the newly activated 1st Cavalry Division. Other combat units (the 1st 

Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, and all three brigades of the 1st 

Infantry Division) were either ready to go or already on their way to 

Vietnam. Together with hundreds of support and logistical units, these 

combat units constituted the first phase of the buildup during the 

summer and fall of 1965.

At the same time Johnson decided not to mobilize any reserve 

units. The President’s decision profoundly affected the manner in 

which the Army supported and sustained the buildup. To meet the call 

for additional combat forces, to obtain manpower to enlarge its training 

base, and to maintain a pool for rotation and replacement of soldiers 

in South Vietnam, the Army had to increase its active strength over 

the next three years by nearly 1.5 million men. Necessarily, it relied on 

larger draft calls and voluntary enlistments, supplementing them with 

heavy drawdowns of experienced soldiers from units in Europe and 

South Korea and extensions of some tours of duty to retain specialists, 

technicians, and cadres who could train recruits or round out deploying 

units. Combat units assigned to the strategic reserve were used to meet 

a large portion of MACV’s force requirements, and reservists were not 

available to replace them. Mobilization could have eased the additional 

burden of providing officers and noncommissioned officers to man 

the Army’s growing training bases. As matters stood, requirements for 

experienced cadres competed with the demands for seasoned leaders in 

units deploying to South Vietnam.

The personnel turbulence caused by competing demands for the 

Army’s limited manpower was intensified by a one-year tour of duty 

in South Vietnam. Large numbers of men were needed to sustain the 

rotational base, often necessitating the quick return to Vietnam of men 

with critical skills. The heightening demand for leaders led to accelerated training programs and the lowering of standards for NCOs and 

junior officers. Moreover, the one-year tour deprived units in South 

Vietnam of experienced leadership. In time, the infusion of lessseasoned NCOs and officers contributed to a host of morale problems 
American Military History

310

that afflicted some Army units. At a deeper level, the administration’s 

decision against calling the reserves to active duty sent the wrong signal 

to friends and enemies alike, implying that the nation lacked the resolution to support an effort of the magnitude needed to achieve American 

objectives in South Vietnam.

Hence the Army began to organize additional combat units. Three 

light infantry brigades were activated, and the 9th Infantry Division 

was reactivated. In the meantime the 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions 

were alerted for deployment to South Vietnam. With the exception of 

a brigade of the 25th, all the combat units activated and alerted during 

the second half of 1965 deployed to South Vietnam during 1966 and 

1967. By the end of 1965, U.S. military strength in South Vietnam had 

reached 184,000; a year later it stood at 385,000; and by the end of 

1967 it approached 490,000. Army personnel accounted for nearly twothirds of the total. Of the Army’s eighteen divisions, by the end of 

1967 seven were serving in South Vietnam.

Facing a deteriorating military situation, in the summer of 1965 

Westmoreland planned to use his combat units to blunt the enemy’s 

spring-summer offensive. As units arrived in the country, he moved 

them into a defensive arc around Saigon and secured bridgeheads 

for the arrival of subsequent units. His initial aim was defensive: to 

stop losing the war and to build a structure that could support a later 

transition to an offensive campaign. As additional troops poured in, 

Westmoreland planned to seek out and defeat major enemy forces. 

Throughout both phases the South Vietnamese, relieved of major 

combat tasks, were to refurbish their forces and conduct an aggressive 

pacification program behind the American shield. In a third and final 

stage, as enemy main-force units were driven into their secret zones 

and bases, Westmoreland hoped to achieve victory by destroying 

those sanctuaries and shifting the weight of the military effort to 

pacification, thereby at last subduing the Viet Cong throughout rural 

South Vietnam.

The fulfillment of this concept rested not only on the success 

of American efforts to find and defeat enemy forces, but also on the 

success of the South Vietnamese government’s pacification program. 

In June 1965 the last in a series of coups that followed Diem’s overthrow brought in a military junta headed by Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van 

Thieu as Chief of State and Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky as 

Prime Minister. The new government provided the political stability 

requisite for successful pacification. Success hinged also on the ability 

of the U.S. air campaign against the North to reduce the infiltration of 

men and materiel, dampening the intensity of combat in the South and 

inducing Communist leaders in Hanoi to alter their long-term strategic 

goals. Should any strand of this threefold strategy—the campaign 

against Communist forces in the South, the South Vietnamese 

government’s pacification program, and the air war in the North—

falter, Westmoreland’s prospects would become poorer. Yet he was 

directly responsible for only one element, the U.S. military effort in 

the South. To a lesser degree, through American advice and assistance to the South Vietnamese forces, he also influenced the South 

Vietnamese government’s efforts to suppress the Viet Cong and to 

carry out pacification.

Success hinged also on the 

ability of the U.S. air campaign 

against the North to reduce the 

infiltration of men and materiel, 

dampening the intensity of 

combat in the South and inducing 

Communist leaders in Hanoi to 

alter their long-term strategic 

goals.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

311

The Highlands, 1965

Spearheaded by at least three North 

Vietnamese Army regiments, Communist forces 

mounted a strong offensive in South Vietnam’s 

Central Highlands during the summer of 1965. 

Overrunning border camps and besieging some 

district towns, the enemy seemed poised to cut the 

nation in two. To meet the danger, Westmoreland 

proposed to introduce the newly organized Army 

airmobile division, the 1st Cavalry Division, with 

its large contingent of helicopters, directly into 

the highlands. Some of his superiors in Hawaii 

and Washington opposed this plan, preferring 

to secure coastal bases. Though Westmoreland 

contended that enclave security made poor use 

of U.S. mobility and offensive firepower, he was 

hard pressed to overcome the fear of an American 

Dien Bien Phu if a unit in the highlands should be 

isolated and cut off from the sea.

Despite a sparse population and limited 

economic resources, the highlands were strategically important. Around the key highland towns 

(Kontum, Pleiku, Ban Me Thuot, and Da Lat), the 

South Vietnamese and their advisers had created 

enclaves. Allied forces protected the few roads 

that traversed the highlands, screened the border, 

and reinforced outposts and Montagnard settlements from which the irregulars and Army Special 

Forces sought to detect enemy cross-border 

movements and to strengthen tribal resistance to 

the Communists. Such border posts and tribal camps, rather than major 

towns, most often were the object of enemy attacks. Combined with 

road interdiction, such attacks enabled the Communists to disperse the 

limited number of defenders and to discourage the maintenance of 

outposts.

Such actions served a larger strategic objective. The enemy planned 

to develop the highlands into a major base area from which to mount 

or support operations in other areas. The Communist-dominated 

highlands would be a strategic fulcrum, enabling the enemy to shift 

the weight of his operations to any part of South Vietnam. The 

highlands were also a potential killing zone where Communist forces 

could mass. American units arriving there were going to be confronted 

immediately. 

Commanded by Maj. Gen. Harry W. O. Kinnard, the 1st Cavalry 

Division (Airmobile) moved with its more than 450 helicopters into this 

hornet’s nest in September 1965. It established its main base at An Khe, a 

government stronghold on Highway 19, halfway between the coastal port 

of Qui Nhon and the highland city of Pleiku. The location was strategic: 

at An Khe, the division could help to keep open the vital east-west road 

from the coast to the highlands and could pivot between the highlands 

and the coastal districts, where the Viet Cong had made deep inroads. 

Dropping in on Charlie, Michael R. Crook, 1967
American Military History

312

One month later the division received its baptism of fire. The North 

Vietnamese Army attacked a Special Forces camp at Plei Me; when it was 

repulsed, Westmoreland directed the division to launch an offensive to 

locate and destroy enemy regiments that had been identified in the vicinity 

of the camp. The result was the Battle of the Ia Drang, named for a small 

river that flowed through the valley, the area of operations. (Map 15) For 

thirty-five days the division pursued and fought the North Vietnamese 

32d, 33d, and 66th People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) Regiments, until the 

enemy, suffering heavy casualties, returned to his bases in Cambodia.

Map 15

509

6C

6C

509

14B

509

14B

567

19

19

19

14

14

14

19

X X

1

X X

1

I I I

S VIET

Prek Drang

Ia Drang

Ia Drang

LZ ALBANY

LZ X-RAY

DUC CO

PLEI ME

Special Forces Camp

NEW PLEI DJERENG

Special Forces Camp

Special Forces Camp

CHU GOUNGOT

CHU PONG MASSIF

Plei Ya Te

Plei Beng

Plei Toun Breng

Thanh An

PLEIKU

C A M B O D I A

S O U T H V I E T N A M

November 1965

BATTLE OF THE IA DRANG

ELEVATION IN METERS

0 200 500 800 and Above

Troop Movement

Air Assault

Engagement

Enemy Retreat

0 5

0 5

Miles

Kilometers
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

313

With scout platoons of its air cavalry squadron covering front 

and flanks, each battalion of the division’s 1st Brigade established 

company bases from which patrols searched for enemy forces. For 

several days neither ground patrols nor aeroscouts found any trace, 

but on November 4 the scouts spotted a regimental aid station several 

miles west of Plei Me. Quick-reacting aerorifle platoons converged 

on the site. Hovering above, the airborne scouts detected an enemy 

battalion nearby and attacked from UH–1B Huey gunships with aerial 

rockets and machine guns. Operating beyond the range of their ground 

artillery, Army units engaged the enemy in an intense firefight, killing 

ninety-nine, capturing the aid station, and seizing many documents.

The search for the main body of the enemy continued for the next 

few days, with Army units concentrating their efforts in the vicinity of 

the Chu Pong Massif, a mountain range and likely enemy base near the 

Cambodian border. Communist forces were given little rest, as patrols 

harried and ambushed them. 

The heaviest fighting was yet to come. As the division began the 

second stage of its campaign, enemy forces began to move out of the 

Chu Pong base. Units of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division’s 3d Brigade, 

which took over from the 1st Brigade, advanced to establish artillery bases and landing zones at the base of the mountain. Landing 

Zone X-Ray was one of several U.S. positions vulnerable to attack by 

the enemy forces that occupied the surrounding high ground. Here 

on November 14 began fighting that pitted three battalions against 

elements of two North Vietnamese regiments. Withstanding repeated 

mortar attacks and infantry assaults, the Americans used every means 

of firepower available to them—the division’s own gunships, massive 

artillery bombardment, hundreds of strafing and bombing attacks 

by tactical aircraft, earth-shaking bombs dropped by B–52 bombers 

from Guam, and, perhaps most important, the individual soldier’s M16 

rifle—to turn back a determined enemy. The Communists lost more 

than 600 dead, the Americans 79.

Although badly hurt, the enemy did not leave the Ia Drang Valley. 

Elements of the 33d and 66th PAVN Regiments, moving east toward Plei 

Me, encountered the U.S. 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, a few miles north 

of X-Ray at Landing Zone Albany, on November 17. The fight that 

resulted was a bloody reminder of the North Vietnamese mastery of the 

ambush, as the Communists quickly snared four U.S. companies in their 

net. As the trapped units struggled for survival, nearly all semblance of 

organized combat disappeared in the confusion and mayhem. Neither 

reinforcements nor effective firepower could be brought in. At times 

combat was reduced to valiant efforts by individuals and small units 

to avert annihilation. When the fighting ended that night, almost 70 

percent of the Americans were casualties and almost one of every three 

soldiers in the battalion had been killed.

Despite the horrific casualties from the ambush near Landing 

Zone Albany, the Battle of the Ia Drang was lauded as the first 

major American triumph of the Vietnam War. The airmobile division, 

committed to combat less than a month after it arrived in country, 

relentlessly pursued the enemy over difficult terrain and defeated crack 

North Vietnamese Army units. In part, its achievements underlined the 

flexibility that Army divisions had gained in the early 1960s under the 
American Military History

314

Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD) concept. Replacing 

the flawed pentomic division with its five lightly armed battle groups, 

the ROAD division, organized around three brigades, facilitated the 

creation of brigade and battalion task forces tailored to respond and 

fight in a variety of military situations. The newly organized division 

reflected the Army’s embrace of the concept of flexible response and 

proved eminently suitable for operations in Vietnam. The helicopter 

was given great credit as well. Nearly every aspect of the division’s 

operations was enhanced by its airmobile capacity. During the battle, 

artillery units were moved sixty-seven times by helicopter. Intelligence, 

medical, and all manner of logistical support benefited as well from the 

speed and flexibility helicopters provided. Despite the fluidity of the 

tactical situation, airmobile command and control procedures enabled 

the division to move and keep track of its units over a large area and 

to accommodate the frequent and rapid changes in command arrangements as units moved from one headquarters to another.

Yet for all the advantages the division accrued from airmobility, 

its performance was not without blemish. Though the conduct of 

division-size airmobile operations proved tactically sound, two major 

engagements stemmed from the enemy’s initiative in attacking vulnerable American units. On several occasions massive air and artillery 

support provided the margin of victory, if not survival. Above all, the 

division’s logistical self-sufficiency fell short of expectations. It could 

support only one brigade in combat at a time, for prolonged and intense 

operations consumed more fuel and ammunition than the division’s 

helicopters and fixed-wing Caribou aircraft could supply. Air Force 

tactical airlift became necessary for resupply. Moreover, in addition 

to combat losses and damage, the division’s helicopters suffered from 

heavy use and from the heat, humidity, and dust of Vietnam, taxing 

its maintenance capacity. Human attrition was also high: hundreds of 

soldiers, the equivalent of almost a battalion, fell victim to a resistant 

strain of malaria peculiar to Vietnam’s highlands.

Westmoreland’s satisfaction in blunting the enemy’s offensive was 

tempered by concern that enemy forces might reenter South Vietnam 

and resume their offensive while the airmobile division recuperated 

at the end of November and during most of December. He thus 

requested immediate reinforcements from the Army’s 25th Infantry 

Division, based in Hawaii and scheduled to deploy to South Vietnam in 

the spring of 1966. By the end of 1965, the division’s 3d Brigade had 

been airlifted to the highlands and, within a month of its arrival, had 

joined elements of the 1st Cavalry Division to launch a series of operations to screen the border. Army units did not detect any major enemy 

forces trying to cross from Cambodia into South Vietnam. Each operation, however, killed hundreds of enemy soldiers and refined airmobile techniques, as Army units learned to cope with the vast territorial 

expanse and difficult terrain of the highlands.

Defending Saigon, 1965–1967

Centered on the defense of Saigon, Westmoreland’s concept of 

operations in the III Corps area had a clarity of design and purpose that 

was not always apparent elsewhere in South Vietnam. (Map 16) Nearly 

Replacing the flawed pentomic 

division with its five lightly 

armed battle groups, the ROAD 

division, organized around three 

brigades, facilitated the creation 

of brigade and battalion task 

forces tailored to respond and 

fight in a variety of military 

situations. 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

315

Map 16

two years would pass before U.S. forces could maintain a security belt 

around the capital and at the same time attack the enemy’s bases. But 

Westmoreland’s ultimate aims and the difficulties he would encounter 

were foreshadowed by the initial combat operations in the summer and 

fall of 1965.

The newly arrived 173d Airborne Brigade, joined by a newly 

arrived Australian infantry unit, began operations in June in War Zone 

D, a longtime enemy base north of Saigon. Though diverted several 

times to other tasks, the brigade gained experience in conducting 

1

1

15

1

20

14

14

13

4

4

22

IV CTZ

II CTZ

 CAPITAL MILITARY DISTRICT

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

Saigon River

W A R Z O N E C

W A R Z O N E D

IRON TRIANGLE

PHUOC TUY

BINH TUY BINH

THUAN

LONG KHANH

PHUOC LONG

BINH DUONG

HAU NGHIA

LONG AN

GO CONG

KIEN HOA

KIEN TUONG

DINH TUONG

GIA DINH

TAY NINH

BIEN HOA

QUANG DUC

LAM DONG BINH LONG

An Loc

Loc Ninh

Tay Ninh

Cu Chi

Bien Hoa

Bearcat

Xuan Loc

Long Binh

Tan An

SAIGON

My Tho

Ba Ria

Vung Tau

Ham Tan

Gia Nghia

Bao Loc

Phan Thiet

C A M B O D I A

1965–1967

III CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary
American Military History

316

heliborne assaults and accustomed itself to the rigors of jungle operations. It also established a pattern of operations that was to grow all too 

familiar. Airmobile assaults, often in the wake of B–52 air strikes, were 

followed by extensive patrolling, episodic contact with the Viet Cong, 

and withdrawal after a few days’ stay in the enemy’s territory. In early 

November the airborne soldiers uncovered evidence of the enemy’s 

recent and hasty departure: abandoned camps, recently vacated tunnels, 

and caches of food and supplies. However, the Viet Cong, by observing 

the brigade, began to formulate plans for dealing with the Americans.

On November 8, moving deeper into War Zone D, the brigade 

encountered significant resistance. A Viet Cong battalion attacked and 

forced the Americans into a tight defensive perimeter. Close-quarters 

combat ensued as the enemy tried to “hug,” or stay close to, American 

units to prevent the delivery of supporting air and artillery fire. Unable 

to prepare a landing zone to receive reinforcements or to evacuate casualties, the beleaguered Americans withstood repeated enemy assaults. 

During the afternoon the Viet Cong ceased their attack and withdrew. 

Next morning, when reinforcements arrived, the brigade pursued the 

enemy, finding evidence that he had suffered heavy casualties. Such 

operations inflicted losses but failed either to destroy the enemy’s base 

or to prevent him from returning to it later on.

Like the airborne brigade, the 1st Infantry Division initially divided 

its efforts. In addition to securing its base camps north of Saigon, the 

division helped South Vietnamese forces clear an area west of the 

capital in the vicinity of Cu Chi in 

Hau Nghia Province. Reacting to 

reports of enemy troop concentrations, units of the division launched 

a series of operations in the fall of 

1965 and early 1966 that entailed 

quick forays into the Ho Bo and Boi 

Loi woods, the Michelin Rubber 

Plantation, the Rung Sat swamp, 

and War Zones C and D. 

But the defense of Saigon was 

the first duty of the 1st Infantry 

Division (“Big Red One”) as well 

as of the 25th Infantry Division, 

which arrived in the winter of 1966. 

The 1st Infantry Division took up 

a position protecting the northern 

approaches, blocking Highway 

13 from the Cambodian border. 

The 25th guarded the western 

approaches, chiefly Highway 1 and 

the Saigon River. The two brigades 

of the 25th Division served also as 

a buffer between Saigon and the 

enemy’s base areas in Tay Ninh 

Province. Westmoreland hoped, 

however, that the 25th Division 

An Air Force B–52 bombards an enemy base in III Corps. would loosen the insurgents’ 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

317

tenacious hold on Hau Nghia as well. 

Here, American soldiers found to their 

amazement that the division’s camp at 

Cu Chi had been constructed atop an 

extensive Viet Cong tunnel complex. 

Extending over an area of several 

miles, this subterranean network, one 

of several in the region, contained 

hospitals, command centers, and 

storage sites. The complex, though 

partially destroyed by Army “tunnel 

rats,” was never completely eliminated 

and remained usable by the enemy 

for the duration of the war. The 25th 

Infantry Division worked closely with 

South Vietnamese Army and paramilitary forces throughout 1966 and 

1967 to foster pacification in Hau 

Nghia and to secure its own base. But 

suppressing insurgency in Hau Nghia 

proved as difficult as eradicating the 

tunnels at Cu Chi.

As the number of Army combat 

units in Vietnam grew larger, 

Westmoreland established two corpssize commands, I Field Force in the II Corps area and II Field Force 

in the III Corps area. Reporting directly to the MACV commander, 

the field force commander was the senior Army tactical commander in 

his area and the senior U.S. adviser to South Vietnamese Army forces 

there. Working closely with his South Vietnamese counterpart, he coordinated South Vietnamese and American operations by establishing 

territorial priorities for combat and pacification efforts. Through his 

deputy senior adviser, a position established in 1967, the field force 

commander kept abreast both of the activities of U.S. sector (province) and subsector (district) advisers and of the progress of the South 

Vietnamese government’s pacification efforts. The I Corps had a similar 

arrangement, where the commander of the III Marine Amphibious 

Force was the equivalent of a field force commander. Only in IV Corps, 

in the Mekong Delta where few American combat units served, did 

Westmoreland choose not to establish a corps-size command. There, 

the senior U.S. adviser served as COMUSMACV’s representative; he 

commanded Army advisory and support units but no combat units.

Although Army commanders in III Corps were eager to seek 

out and engage enemy main-force units in their strongholds along 

the Cambodian border, operations at first were devoted to base and 

area security and to clearing and rehabilitating roads. The 1st Infantry 

Division’s first major encounter with the Viet Cong occurred in 

November 1965, as division elements carried out a routine road security 

operation along Highway 13 in the vicinity of the village of Bau Bang. 

Trapping convoys along Highway 13 had long been a profitable Viet 

Cong tactic. On this occasion, ambushed by a large, well-entrenched 

enemy force, division troops reacted aggressively and mounted a 

Troops of the 1st Infantry Division flush the Viet Cong from a tunnel near Saigon.
American Military History

318

successful counterattack. But the road was by no means secured; close 

to enemy bases, the Cambodian border, and Saigon, Highway 13 would 

be the site of several major battles for the rest of the war.

Roads were a major concern of U.S. commanders. In some operations, infantrymen provided security as Army engineers improved 

neglected routes. Defoliants and the Rome plow—a bulldozer modified 

with a sharp front blade—removed from the sides of important highways the jungle growth that provided cover for Viet Cong ambushes. 

Road-clearing operations also contributed to pacification by providing 

peasants with secure access to local markets. In III Corps, with its 

important road network radiating from Saigon, ground mobility was as 

essential as airmobility for the conduct of military operations. Without 

as many helicopters as the airmobile division had, the 1st and 25th 

Infantry Divisions, like all Army units in South Vietnam, strained the 

resources of their own aviation support units and of other Army aviation units providing area support to optimize the airmobile capacity 

for each operation. Nevertheless, on many occasions the Army found 

itself road bound.

Road and convoy security was also the original justification for introducing Army mechanized and armor units into South Vietnam in late 

1965. At first Westmoreland was reluctant to bring heavy mechanized 

equipment into South Vietnam, for it seemed ill suited either to counterinsurgency operations or to operations during the monsoon season, 

when all but a few roads were impassable. Armor advocates pressed 

Westmoreland to reconsider his policy. After a successful mechanized 

operation near Cu Chi in the spring of 1966, Westmoreland reversed 

his original policy and requested deployment of the 11th Armored 

Cavalry Regiment (ACR), with its full complement of M48A3 Patton 

tanks, to Vietnam. The regiment set up its base near Xuan Loc, northeast of Saigon.

Route security was only the first step in carving out a larger role 

for Army mechanized forces. Facing an enemy who employed no 

armor, American mechanized units, often in conjunction with airmobile assaults, acted both as blocking or holding forces and as assault 

or reaction forces, where terrain permitted. Jungle bashing, as offensive mechanized and armor operations were sometimes called, had its 

uses but also its limitations. The intimidating presence of tanks and 

armored personnel carriers was often nullified by their cumbersomeness and noise, which alerted the enemy to an impending attack. The 

Viet Cong also took countermeasures to immobilize tracked vehicles. 

Crude tank traps, locally manufactured mines (often made of plastic to 

thwart discovery by metal detectors), and well-aimed rocket or recoilless 

rifle rounds could disable a tank or a personnel carrier. Together with 

the dust and tropical humidity, such weapons placed a heavy burden 

on Army maintenance units. Yet mechanized units brought the allies 

enhanced mobility and firepower and often were essential to counter 

ambushes or destroy an enemy force protected by bunkers.

As Army strength increased in III Corps, Westmoreland encouraged his units to operate farther afield. In early 1966 intelligence reports 

indicated that enemy strength and activity were increasing in many of 

his base areas. In two operations during the early spring of 1966, units 

of the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions discovered Viet Cong training 

The intimidating presence of 

tanks and armored personnel 

carriers was often nullified by 

their cumbersomeness and noise, 

which alerted the enemy to an 

impending attack. 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

319

camps and supply dumps, some of the sites honeycombed with tunnels. 

But they failed to engage major enemy forces. As Army units made the 

deepest penetration of War Zone C since 1961, all signs pointed to the 

foe’s hasty withdrawal into Cambodia.

Then in May 1966 an ominous buildup of enemy forces, among 

them North Vietnamese Army regiments that had infiltrated south, 

was detected in Phuoc Long and Binh Long Provinces in northern 

III Corps. U.S. commanders viewed the buildup as a portent of the 

enemy’s spring offensive, plans for which included an attack on the 

district town of Loc Ninh and on a nearby Special Forces camp. The 

1st Division under Maj. Gen. William E. DePuy responded, sending 

a brigade to secure Highway 13. But the threat to Loc Ninh heightened in early June, when regiments of the Viet Cong 9th People’s 

Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF) Division took up positions around the 

town. The arrival of American reinforcements apparently prevented 

an assault. About a week later, however, an enemy regiment was 

spotted in fortified positions in a rubber plantation adjacent to 

Loc Ninh. Battered by massive air and artillery strikes, the regiment was dislodged and its position overrun. Americans recorded 

other successes: trapping Viet Cong ambushers in a counterambush, 

securing Loc Ninh, and spoiling the enemy’s spring offensive. The 

enemy continued to underestimate the mobility and firepower that 

U.S. commanders could bring to bear.

By the summer of 1966 Westmoreland had stopped the losing 

trend of a year earlier and could begin the second phase of his general 

campaign strategy. This entailed aggressive operations to search out 

and destroy enemy main-force units in addition to continued efforts to 

improve security in the populated areas of III Corps. For Operation 

Attleboro he sent the 196th Light Infantry Brigade and the 3d Brigade, 

4th Infantry Division, to Tay Ninh Province to bolster the security of 

the province seat and search for enemy supplies. Westmoreland’s challenge prompted COSVN to send the 9th PLAF Division on a countersweep, the enemy’s term for operations to counter allied search and 

destroy tactics. Moving deeper into the countryside, the recently arrived 

and inexperienced 196th Light Infantry Brigade sparred with the Viet 

Cong. Then an intense battle erupted as elements of the brigade were 

isolated and surprised by a large enemy force. 

Operation Attleboro quickly grew to a multidivision struggle 

as American commanders sought to maintain contact with the Viet 

Cong and to aid their own surrounded forces. Within a matter of days, 

elements of the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions, the 173d Airborne 

Brigade, and the 11th ACR had converged on Tay Ninh Province. 

Control of Attleboro passed in turn from the 25th to the 1st Infantry 

Division and finally to Lt. Gen. Jonathan O. Seaman’s II Field Force, 

making it the first Army operation in South Vietnam to be controlled by 

a corps-size headquarters. With over 22,000 U.S. troops participating, 

the battle had become the largest of the war. Yet combat occurred 

most often at the platoon and company levels, frequently at night. As 

the number of American troops increased, the 9th PLAF Division shied 

away, withdrawing across the Cambodian border. Then Army forces 

departed, leaving to the Special Forces the task of detecting the enemy’s 

inevitable return.
American Military History

320

As the threat to Tay Ninh Province abated, Westmoreland turned 

his attention to the enemy’s secret zones near Saigon, among them the 

so-called Iron Triangle in Binh Duong Province. Harboring the headquarters of Military Region 4, the Communist command that directed 

military and terrorist activity in and around the capital, this stronghold 

had gone undisturbed for several years. Westmoreland hoped to find the 

command center, disrupt Viet Cong activity in the capital region, and 

allow South Vietnamese forces to accelerate pacification and uproot 

the stubborn Viet Cong political organization that flourished in many 

villages and hamlets.

Operation Cedar Falls began on January 8, 1967, with the objectives of destroying the Military Region 4 headquarters, interdicting the 

movement of enemy forces into the major war zones in III Corps, 

and defeating Viet Cong units encamped there. Like Attleboro before 

it, Cedar Falls tapped the manpower and resources of nearly every 

major Army unit in the corps area. A series of preliminary maneuvers 

brought Army units into position. Several air assaults sealed off the 

Iron Triangle, exploiting the natural barriers of the rivers that formed 

two of its boundaries. Then American units began a series of sweeps 

to push the enemy toward the blocking forces. At the village of Ben 

Suc, long under the sway of the insurgents, sixty helicopters carrying 

Lt. Col. Alexander M. Haig’s 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, 1st Infantry 

Division, descended into seven landing zones in less than a minute. Ben 

Suc was surrounded, its entire population evacuated, and the village and 

its tunnel complex destroyed. But insurgent forces had fled before the 

heliborne assault. As Cedar Falls progressed, U.S. troops destroyed 

hundreds of enemy fortifications, captured large quantities of supplies 

and food, and evacuated other hamlets. Contact with the enemy was 

fleeting. Most of the Viet Cong, including the high-level cadre of the 

regional command, had escaped, sometimes infiltrating through allied 

lines.

By the time Army units left the Iron Triangle, MACV had already 

received reports that Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army regiments 

were returning to War Zone C in 

preparation for a spring offensive. 

This time Westmoreland hoped 

to prevent Communist forces’ 

escaping into Cambodia, as they 

had in Attleboro. From forward 

field positions established during 

earlier operations, elements of the 

1st and 25th Infantry Divisions, the 

196th Light Infantry Brigade, and 

the 11th ACR launched Junction

City, moving rapidly to establish a 

cordon around the war zone and 

to begin a new sweep of the base 

area. As airmobile and mechanized 

units moved into positions on the 

morning of February 22, elements 

of the 173d Airborne Brigade 

made the only parachute drop of 

A battery of 105-mm. howitzers from the 25th Infantry Division uses high-angle fire in the 

western highlands.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

321

the Vietnam War—and the first combat airborne assault since the 

Korean War—to establish a blocking position near the Cambodian 

border. Then other U.S. units entered the horseshoe-shaped area of 

operations through its open end.

Despite the emphasis on speed and surprise, Army units did not 

encounter many enemy troops at the outset. As the operation entered 

its second phase, however, American forces concentrated their efforts in 

the eastern portion of War Zone C, close to Highway 13. Here, several 

violent battles erupted as Communist forces tried to isolate and defeat 

individual units and possibly also to screen the retreat of their comrades 

into Cambodia. On March 20 a mechanized unit of the 9th Infantry 

Division was attacked and nearly overrun along Highway 13 near the 

battered village of Bau Bang. The combined firepower of armored 

cavalry, supporting artillery, and close air support finally caused the 

enemy to break contact. The next day, at Firebase Gold, in the vicinity 

of Suoi Tre, an infantry and an artillery battalion of the 25th Infantry 

Division engaged the 272d PLAF Regiment. Behind an intense, walking 

mortar barrage, enemy troops breached Gold’s defensive perimeter and 

rushed into the base. Man-to-man combat ensued. Disaster was averted 

when Army artillerymen lowered their howitzers and fired beehive artillery rounds containing hundreds of dart-like projectiles directly into 

the oncoming enemy. The last major encounter with enemy troops 

during Junction City occurred on April 1, when elements of two Viet 

Cong regiments, the 271st and the 70th (the latter directly subordinate 

to COSVN) attacked a battalion of the 1st Infantry Division in a night 

defensive position deep in War Zone C, near the Cambodian border. The 

lopsided casualties—over 600 enemy killed in contrast to 17 Americans—

forcefully illustrated once again the U.S. ability to call in overwhelmingly 

superior fire support by artillery, armed helicopters, and tactical aircraft.

In the wake of Junction City, MACV’s attention reverted to 

the still-critical security conditions around Saigon. The 1st Infantry 

Division returned to War Zone D to search for the 271st PLAF Regiment 

and to disrupt the insurgents’ lines of communications between War 

Zones C and D. Despite two major contacts, the main body of the 

regiment eluded its American pursuers. Army units again returned to 

the Iron Triangle between April and July 1967, after enemy forces were 

detected in their old stronghold. Supplies and documents were found 

in quantities even larger than those discovered in Cedar Falls. Once 

again, however, encounters with the Communists were fleeting. The 

enemy’s reappearance in the Iron Triangle and War Zone D, combined 

with rocket and mortar attacks on U.S. bases around Saigon, heightened Westmoreland’s concern about the security of the capital. When 

the 1st Infantry Division’s base at Phuoc Vinh and Bien Hoa Air Base 

were attacked in mid-1967, the division mounted counterattacks. Other 

operations swept the jungles and villages of Bien Hoa Province and 

sought once again to support pacification in Hau Nghia Province.

These actions highlighted a basic problem. The large, multidivision operations into the enemy’s war zones produced some benefits 

for the pacification campaign. By keeping enemy main-force units at 

bay, Westmoreland impeded their access to heavily populated areas 

and prevented them from reinforcing Viet Cong provincial and 

district forces. Yet when American units were shifted to the interior, 
American Military History

322

the local Viet Cong units gained a 

measure of relief. Westmoreland 

faced a strategic dilemma: he 

could not afford to keep substantial forces away from their bases 

for more than a few months at a 

time without jeopardizing local 

security. Unless he received additional forces, Westmoreland would 

always be torn between two operational imperatives. By the summer 

of 1967 MACV’s likelihood of 

receiving more combat troops, 

beyond those scheduled to deploy 

during the latter half of the year 

and in early 1968, had become 

remote. In Washington, the administration turned down his request 

for an additional 200,000 men.

Meanwhile, the 9th Infantry 

Division and the 199th Light 

Infantry Brigade arrived in South 

Vietnam. Westmoreland stationed 

the brigade at Bien Hoa, where it 

embarked on Fairfax, a year-long 

operation in which it worked closely with a South Vietnamese ranger 

group to improve security in Gia Dinh Province, which surrounded 

the capital. Units of the brigade paired off with South Vietnamese 

rangers and, working closely with paramilitary and police forces, 

sought to uproot the very active Viet Cong local forces and destroy the 

enemy’s political underground. Typical activities included ambushes by 

combined forces; cordon and search operations in villages and hamlets, 

often in conjunction with the Vietnamese police; psychological and 

civic-action operations; surprise roadblocks to search for contraband 

and Viet Cong supporters; and training programs to develop proficient 

military and local self-defense capabilities.

Likewise, the 9th Infantry Division set up bases east and south 

of Saigon. One brigade deployed to Camp Bearcat east of Saigon; 

another set up camp at Tan An in Long An Province, southwest of 

the capital. The latter brigade sought to secure portions of Highway 

4, an important north-south artery connecting Saigon with the ricerich lower delta. Farther south, the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, 

established its base at Dong Tam in Dinh Tuong Province in IV Corps. 

(Map 17) Located in the midst of rice paddies and swamps, Dong Tam 

was created by Army engineers with sand dredged from the My Tho 

River. From this 600-acre base, the brigade began a series of riverine 

operations unique to the Army’s experience in South Vietnam.

To patrol and fight in the inundated marshlands and rice paddies 

and along the numerous canals and waterways crossing the Mekong 

Delta, the Army modernized the concept of riverine warfare 

employed by Union forces on the Mississippi River during the Civil 

War and by the French during the Indochina War. The Mobile Riverine 

Men of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade and a South Vietnamese ranger carry out a pacification mission near Saigon.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

323

Force utilized a joint Army-Navy task force controlled by a ground 

commander. In contrast to amphibious operations, where control 

reverts to the ground commander only after the force is ashore, 

riverine warfare was an extension of land combat, with infantry units 

traveling by boats rather than by trucks or tracked vehicles. Aided 

by a Navy river-support squadron and river-assault squadron, infantrymen were housed on barracks ships and supported by gunships or 

Map 17

1

4

4

4

4

4

BAC LIEU

CHUONG THIEN

KIEN GIANG

AN GIANG

SA DEC 

KIEN PHONG 

KIEN TUONG

DINH TUONG

HAU NGHIA

LONG AN

KIEN HOA

GO CONG

GIA DINH

BIEN

HOA

CHAU DOC

BA XUYEN

VINH BINH

VINH LONG

PHONG DINH

AN XUYEN

III CTZ

Song Hau Giang (Mekong)

Song Co Chien (Mekong)

Song My Tho (Mekong)

Song Vam Co Dong

Song Vam CoTay

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

GULF

OF

THAILAND

Ca Mau

Bac Lieu

Vinh Loi

Soc Trang

Cao Lanh

Can Tho

Sa Dec

Binh Duc Dong Tam

Ben Tre

SAIGON

Long Xuyen

Chau Doc

Rach Gia

C A M B O D I A

1965–1967

IV CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 30

0 30

Miles

Kilometers
American Military History

324

fire support boats called monitors. Howitzers and mortars mounted 

on barges provided artillery support. The 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry 

Division, began operations against the Cam Son Secret Zone, approximately ten miles west of Dong Tam, in May 1967.

Meanwhile, the war of main-force units along the borders waxed and 

waned in relation to seasonal weather cycles, which affected the enemy’s 

pattern of logistical activity, his ability to infiltrate men and supplies from 

North Vietnam, and his penchant for meticulous preparation of the 

battlefield. By the fall of 1967 enemy activity had increased again in the 

base areas, and sizable forces began appearing along South Vietnam’s 

border from the demilitarized zone to III Corps. By year’s end, American 

forces had returned to War Zone C to screen the Cambodian border 

to prevent Communist forces from reentering South Vietnam. Units of 

the 25th Infantry Division that had been conducting operations in the 

vicinity of Saigon moved to the border. Elements of the 1st Infantry 

Division had resumed road-clearing operations along Highway 13, but 

the division soon faced another major enemy effort to capture Loc Ninh. 

On October 29 Viet Cong units assaulted the CIDG camp and the district 

command post, breaching the defense perimeter. Intense air and artillery 

fire prevented its complete loss. Within a few hours, South Vietnamese 

and U.S. reinforcements reached Loc Ninh, their arrival made possible by 

the enemy’s failure to capture the local airstrip.

When the buildup at Loc Ninh ended, four Army battalions were 

positioned within the town and between the town and the Cambodian 

border. During the next two days allied units warded off repeated 

enemy attacks as Communist forces desperately tried to score a victory. 

Tactical air support and artillery fire prevented the enemy from massing, 

though he outnumbered allied forces by about ten to one. At the end 

of a ten-day battle, over 800 enemy were left on the battlefield, while 

allied deaths numbered 50. Some 452 close air support sorties, 8 B–52 

bomber strikes, and 30,125 rounds of artillery had been directed at the 

enemy. 

II Corps Battles, 1966–1967

Despite the relative calm that followed the Ia Drang fighting 

in late 1965, the North Vietnamese left no doubt of their intent to 

continue infiltration and to challenge American forces in II Corps. In 

March 1966 enemy forces overran the Special Forces camp at A Shau 

on the remote western border of I Corps. (Map 18) The loss of the 

camp had long-term consequences, enabling the enemy to make the 

A Shau Valley a major logistical base and staging area for forces infil-

trating into the piedmont and coastal areas. The loss also highlighted 

certain differences between operational concepts of the Army and the 

marines. Concentrating their efforts in the coastal districts of I Corps 

and lacking the more extensive helicopter support Army units enjoyed, 

the marines avoided operations in the highlands. On the other hand, 

Army commanders in II Corps sought to engage the enemy as close to 

the border as possible and were quick to respond to threats to Special 

Forces camps in the highlands. Operations near the border were essential to Westmoreland’s efforts to keep main-force enemy units as far as 

possible from the population and to wear them down.
Map 18

1

1

14

14

9

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

II CTZ

QUANG TRI

THUA THIEN

QUANG NAM

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

Gio Linh

Quang Tri

Con Thien Dong Ha

Khe Sanh

A Shau

Hue

Hoi An

Tam Ky

Chu Lai

Quang Ngai

Que Son

Da Nang

Ba To

DEMARCATION LINE

Cu Lao Cham

Cu Lao Re

N O R T H V I E T N A M

L A O S

CAMBODIA

1965–1967

I CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary
American Military History

326

For Hanoi’s strategists, however, a reciprocal relation existed 

between highlands and coastal regions. Here, as in the south, the enemy 

directed his efforts to preserving his own influence among the population near the coast, from which he derived considerable support. At 

the same time he maintained a constant military threat in the highlands 

to divert allied forces from pacification efforts. In its broad outlines, 

Hanoi’s strategy to cope with U.S. forces was the same employed by the 

Viet Minh against the French and by Communist forces in 1964 and 

1965 against the South Vietnamese Army. Whether it would be equally 

successful remained to be seen.

The airmobile division spent the better part of the next two years 

fighting Viet Cong and North Vietnamese units in the coastal plain and 

piedmont valleys of Binh Dinh Province. (Map 19) Here the enemy had 

deep roots, especially in the piedmont’s craggy hills and jungle-covered 

uplands, where local and main-force Viet Cong units had long flourished by exacting food, taxes, and recruits from the lowland population 

through a well-entrenched shadow government. Pacification efforts 

were almost dead. Starting in early 1966, the 1st Cavalry Division, 

now under the command of Maj. Gen. John Norton, embarked on a 

series of operations against the 2d PLAF, 12th PAVN, and 22d PAVN 

Regiments of the 3d PAVN Division. For the most part the 1st Cavalry 

Division operated in the Bong Son plain and the adjacent hills, from 

which enemy units reinforced the hamlet and the village guerrillas 

who gathered taxes, food, and recruits. As in the highlands, the division exploited its airmobility, using helicopters to establish positions 

in the upper reaches of the valleys. The division sought to flush the 

enemy from his hiding places and 

drive him toward the coast, where 

American, South Vietnamese, and 

South Korean forces held blocking 

positions. When trapped, the enemy 

was attacked by ground, naval, and 

air fire. The scheme was a new 

version of an old tactical concept, 

the “hammer and anvil,” with 

the coastal plain and the natural 

barrier formed by the South China 

Sea forming the anvil, or killing 

zone. Collectively the operations 

became known as the Binh Dinh 

Pacification Campaign.

For forty-two days elements 

of the airmobile division scoured 

the An Lao and Kim Son Valleys, 

pursuing enemy units that had 

been surprised and routed from 

the Bong Son plain. Meanwhile, 

Marine forces in neighboring 

Quang Ngai Province in southern 

I Corps sought to bar the enemy’s 

escape routes to the north. The 

enemy took heavy casualties, and 

UH–1 Hueys pick up soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division during operations on the Bong Son 

Plain in 1966.
Map 19

19

1

1

1

1

20

11

14

14

14

21

L A O S C A M B O D I A

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

Ia Drang

I CTZ

III CTZ

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

PLEIKU

PHU BON

PHU YEN

DARLAC

KHANH HOA

QUANG DUC

TUYEN DUC

BINH THUAN

PHUOC

LONG

LAM DONG

BINH TUY

LONG

KHANH

PHUOC TUY

NINH

THUAN

Da Lat

Kontum

Pleiku

An Khe

Bong Son

Plei Djereng

Duc Co

Plei Me

Dak To

Tou Morong

An Lao

Tuy Hoa

Ninh Hoa

Ban Me Thuot

Qui Nhon

Cheo Reo

Gia Nghia

Tung Nghia

Bao Loc

Phan Rang

Nha Trang

Cam Ranh

Phan Thiet

Dao Phu Qui

Cu Lao Re

Chu Pong Mtn

1965–1967

II CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers
American Military History

328

thousands of civilians fled from the Viet Cong–dominated valleys to 

government-controlled areas. Although the in

flux of refugees taxed 

the government’s already strained relief services, the exodus of peasants weakened the Viet Cong’s infrastructure and aimed a psychological 

blow at the enemy’s prestige. The Communists had failed either to 

confront the Americans or to protect the population over which they 

had gained control.

After the An Lao Valley operations, units of the airmobile division 

assaulted another enemy base area, a group of valleys and ridges southwest of the Bong Son plain known as the Crow’s Foot or the Eagle’s Claw. 

Here some Army units sought to dislodge the enemy from his upland 

bases while others established blocking positions at the “toe” of each 

valley (where it found outlet to the plain). In six weeks over 1,300 enemy 

soldiers were killed. Enemy forces in northern Binh Dinh Province were 

temporarily thrown off balance. Beyond this, the long-term effects of 

the operation were unclear. The 1st Cavalry Division did not stay in one 

area long enough to exploit its success. Whether the South Vietnamese 

government could marshal its forces effectively to provide local security 

and to reassert its political control remained to be seen.

After a brief interlude in the highlands, the division returned to 

Binh Dinh Province in September 1966. Conditions in the Bong Son 

area differed little from those the division had first encountered. For 

the most part, the Viet Cong rather than the South Vietnamese government had been successful in reasserting their authority; pacification 

was at a standstill. The division devoted most of its resources for the 

remainder of 1966 and throughout 1967 to supporting renewed pacification efforts. In the fall of 1966, for the first time in a year, all three 

of the division’s brigades were reunited and operating in Binh Dinh 

Province. Although elements of the division were occasionally transferred to the highlands as the threat there waxed and waned, the general 

movement of forces was toward the north. Army units increasingly 

were sent to southern I Corps during 1967, replacing Marine units in 

operations similar to those in Binh Dinh Province.

Operations on the coast continued through 1967 and into early 1968. 

In addition to offensive operations against enemy main forces, Army 

units in Binh Dinh worked in close coordination with South Vietnamese 

police, Regional and Popular Forces, and the South Vietnamese Army 

to help the central government gain a foothold in villages and hamlets 

that the Communists dominated or contested. The 1st Cavalry Division 

adopted a number of techniques in support of pacification. Army units 

frequently participated in cordon and search operations: airmobile forces 

seized positions around a hamlet or village at dawn to prevent the escape 

of local forces or cadres, while South Vietnamese authorities undertook 

a methodical house-to-house search. The Vietnamese checked the legal 

status of inhabitants, took a census, and interrogated suspected Viet 

Cong to obtain more information about the enemy’s local political and 

military apparatus. At the same time allied forces engaged in a variety of 

civic action and psychological operations, and specially trained pacifica-

tion cadres established the rudiments of local government and provided 

various social and economic services. At other times, the division participated in “checkpoint and snatch” operations establishing surprise roadblocks and inspecting traffic on roads frequented by the insurgents.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

329

In many respects, the Binh Dinh campaign was a microcosm of 

Westmoreland’s overall campaign strategy. It showed clearly the intimate relation between the war against enemy main-force units and the 

fight for pacification waged by the South Vietnamese, and it demonstrated the effectiveness of the airmobile concept. After two years of 

persistent pursuit of the 3d PAVN Division, the 1st Cavalry Division 

had reduced the combat effectiveness of each of its three regiments. 

By the end of 1967 the threat to Binh Dinh Province posed by enemy 

main-force units had been markedly reduced. The airmobile division’s operations against the North Vietnamese 3d Division, as well as 

its frequent role in operations directly in support of pacification, had 

weakened local guerrilla forces and created an environment favorable 

to pacification.

The campaign in Binh Dinh also exposed the vulnerabilities of 

Westmoreland’s campaign strategy. Despite repeated defeats at the 

hands of the Americans, the three enemy regiments still existed. They 

contrived to find respite and a measure of rehabilitation, building 

their strength anew with recruits filtering down from the North, with 

others found in country, and with Viet Cong units consolidated into 

their ranks. Although much weakened, Communist forces persistently 

returned to areas the 1st Cavalry Division had cleared. Even more 

threatening to the allied cause, the central government’s pacification 

efforts languished as South Vietnamese forces failed in many instances 

to provide security to the villages and effective police action to root out 

local Viet Cong cadres. And the government, dealing with an alreadyskeptical population, failed to grant the political, social, and economic 

benefits it had promised.

Progress or Stalemate?

The allies could not concentrate their efforts everywhere as they had 

in strategic Binh Dinh. The expanse of the highlands compelled Army 

operations there to proceed with economy of force. During 1966 and 

1967, the Americans engaged in a constant search for tactical concepts 

and techniques to maximize their advantages of firepower and mobility 

and to compensate for the constraints of time, distance, difficult 

terrain, and an inviolable border. Here the war was fought primarily to 

prevent the incursion of North Vietnamese units into South Vietnam 

and to erode their combat strength. In the highlands, each side pursued 

a strategy of military confrontation, seeking to weaken the fighting 

forces and will of its opponent through attrition. Each sought military 

victories to convince opposing leaders of the futility of continuing the 

contest. 

For Americans the most difficult problem was locating the enemy. 

Yet Communist strategists sometimes created threats to draw U.S. 

troops into ambushes. Recurrent menaces to Special Forces camps 

reflected the enemy’s seasonal cycle of operations, his desire to harass 

and eliminate such camps, and his hope of luring allied forces into 

situations where he held the military advantages. Thus Army operations 

in the highlands during 1966 and 1967 were characterized by wideranging, often futile searches punctuated by sporadic but intense battles 

fought usually at the enemy’s initiative.

The Americans engaged in a 

constant search for tactical 

concepts and techniques to 

maximize their advantages of 

firepower and mobility and to 

compensate for the constraints 

of time, distance, difficult terrain, 

and an inviolable border.
American Military History

330

For the first few months of 1966, the Communists lay low. In 

May, however, a significant concentration of North Vietnamese forces 

appeared in Pleiku and Kontum Provinces. The 1st Brigade, 101st 

Airborne Division, the reserve of I Field Force, was summoned to 

Pleiku and subsequently moved elements to Dak To, a CIDG camp in 

central Kontum Province, to assist a besieged South Vietnamese force at 

the nearby government post at Tou Morong. Although the 24th PAVN 

Regiment had surrounded Tou Morong, allied forces secured the road to 

the beleaguered base and evacuated the government troops, leaving one 

battalion of the 101st Division at the abandoned camp and reinforcing 

with two companies to the north. On June 9, during a sweep of the 

battlefield, one of the companies ran into the North Vietnamese, who 

threatened to overrun it. Facing disaster, the commander called in air 

strikes just forward of his position to stop the enemy’s human-wave 

attacks. Relief arrived the next morning, as helicopters carried additional elements of the brigade to the battlefield to pursue and trap the 

North Vietnamese. Fighting to close off the enemy’s escape routes, the 

Americans called in renewed air strikes, including B–52s. By June 20 

enemy resistance had ended and the North Vietnamese regiment that 

had begun the fighting had left behind its dead in its haste to escape to 

the safety of its Laotian base.

Although the enemy’s push in Kontum Province was blunted, the 

siege of Tou Morong was only one aspect of his summer offensive in 

the highlands. Suspecting that the North Vietnamese meant to return 

to the Ia Drang Valley, Westmoreland sent the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry 

Division, back into the valley in May. Dividing the area like a checkerboard, the brigade methodically searched each square. Small patrols 

set out ambushes and operated for several days without resupply to 

avoid having helicopters reveal their location. After several days in one 

square, the patrols leapfrogged by helicopter to another. Though the 

Americans made only light, sporadic contacts, the cumulative toll of 

enemy killed was equal to many short, 

violent battles. The Americans made 

one significant contact in late May near 

the Chu Pong Massif; running battles 

ensued, as the enemy again sought 

safety in Cambodia. Westmoreland 

now appealed to Washington for 

permission to maneuver Army units 

behind the enemy, possibly into 

Cambodian territory. But officials 

refused, fearing international repercussions; the North Vietnamese sanctuary remained inviolate.

Border battles continued, some very 

sharp. When enemy forces appeared in 

strength around a Special Forces camp 

at Plei Djereng in October, elements 

of the 4th Infantry and 1st Cavalry 

Divisions rapidly reinforced the camp, 

clashing with the enemy in firefights 

Infantry Patrol in a Clearing, Roger Blum, 1966 during October and November. As 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

331

North Vietnamese forces began to withdraw through the Plei Trap Valley, 

the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, flew from Phu Yen to northern 

Kontum to try to block their escape but failed to trap them before they 

reached the border. The 4th Infantry Division continued operations in 

the highlands. In addition to screening the border to detect infiltration, 

the division constructed a new road between Pleiku and the highland 

outpost at Plei Djereng and helped the South Vietnamese government 

resettle thousands of Montagnards in secure camps. Contact with the 

enemy generally was light, the heaviest occurring in mid-February 1967 in 

an area west of the Nam Sathay River near the Cambodian border, when 

Communist forces unsuccessfully tried to overrun several American firebases. Despite infrequent contacts, however, 4th Division troops killed 

700 of the enemy over a period of three months.

In I Corps as well, the enemy seemed intent on fighting the 

Americans on the borders. Heightened activity along the demilitarized 

zone drew marines from southern I Corps. Into the area the marines 

had vacated Army units were transferred from III and II Corps, among 

them the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, which pulled out of Operation 

Junction City, and the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, heretofore 

operating in the II Corps Zone. Together with the 1st Brigade, 101st 

Airborne Division, these units formed Task Force Oregon, activated 

at Chu Lai on April 12, 1967, and placed under the operational control 

of the III Marine Amphibious Force. Army infantry units were now 

operating in all four of South Vietnam’s corps areas.

Once at Chu Lai, the Army forces supported an extensive 

South Vietnamese pacification effort in Quang Tin and Quang Ngai 

Provinces. To the north, along the demilitarized zone, Army heavy artillery engaged in almost daily duels with North Vietnamese guns to the 

north. In Quang Tri Province, the marines fought a hard, twelve-day 

battle to prevent North Vietnamese forces from dominating the hills 

surrounding Khe Sanh. The enemy’s heightened military activity along 

the demilitarized zone, which included frontal attacks across it, prompted 

American officials to begin construction of a barrier consisting of 

highly sophisticated electronic and acoustical sensors and strong-point 

defenses manned by allied forces. Known as the McNamara Line, after 

Secretary of Defense McNamara, who had vigorously promoted the 

concept, the barrier was to extend across South Vietnam and eventually into Laos. Westmoreland was not enthusiastic about the project. 

He hesitated to commit large numbers of troops to man the necessary 

strong points, doubting that the barrier was capable of preventing the 

enemy from breaching the demilitarized zone. Hence the McNamara 

Line was never completed and only a limited success in detecting infiltration into the South.

Throughout the summer of 1967, Marine forces endured some of 

the most intense enemy artillery barrages of the war and fought several 

battles with North Vietnamese Army units that infiltrated across the 

17th Parallel. Their stubborn defense, supported by massive counterbattery fire, naval gunfire, and air attacks, ended the enemy’s offensive in 

northern I Corps, but not before Westmoreland had to divert additional 

Army units as reinforcements. A brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division and 

South Korean units were deployed to southern I Corps to replace additional marines who had shifted farther north. The depth of the Army’s 

The enemy’s heightened military 

activity along the demilitarized 

zone, which included frontal 

attacks across it, prompted 

American officials to begin 

construction of a barrier 

consisting of highly sophisticated 

electronic and acoustical sensors 

and strong-point defenses 

manned by allied forces.
American Military History

332

commitment in I Corps was shown by Task Force Oregon’s reorganization as the 23d Infantry Division (Americal). The only Army division to 

be formed in South Vietnam, its name echoed a famous World War II 

division that had also been organized in the Pacific. 

Even as Westmoreland shifted allied forces from II Corps to I 

Corps, fighting intensified in the highlands. After Army units made 

several contacts with enemy forces during May and June, Westmoreland 

moved the 173d Airborne Brigade from III Corps to II Corps to serve 

as the I Field Force’s strategic reserve. Within a few days, however, 

the brigade was committed to an effort to forestall enemy attacks 

against the Special Forces camps of Dak To, Dak Seang, and Dak Pek 

in Kontum Province. Under the control of the 4th Infantry Division, 

the operation continued throughout the summer until the enemy threat 

abated. A few months later, however, reconnaissance patrols in the 

vicinity of Dak To detected a rapid and substantial buildup of enemy 

forces in regimental strength. Believing an attack to be imminent, 4th 

Infantry Division forces reinforced the garrison. In turn the 173d 

Airborne Brigade returned to the highlands, arriving on November 2. 

From November 3–15, an estimated 12,000 enemy probed, harassed, 

and attacked American and South Vietnamese positions along the 

ridges and hills surrounding the camp. As the attacks grew stronger, 

more U.S. and South Vietnamese reinforcements were sent, including 

two battalions from the airmobile division and six South Vietnamese 

Army battalions. By mid-November allied strength approached 8,000.

Despite daily air and artillery bombardments, the North Vietnamese 

launched two attacks against Dak To on November 15, destroying two 

C–130 aircraft and causing severe damage to the camp’s ammunition 

dump. Allied forces strove to dislodge the enemy from the surrounding 

hills, but the North Vietnamese held fast in fortified positions. The 

center of enemy resistance was Hill 

875. Here, two battalions of Brig. Gen. 

Leo H. Schweiter’s 173d Airborne 

Brigade made a slow and painful ascent 

against determined resistance and under 

grueling physical conditions, fighting for 

every foot of ground. Enemy fire was 

so intense and accurate that at times 

the Americans were unable to bring 

in reinforcements by helicopter or to 

provide fire support. In fighting that 

resembled the hill battles of the final 

stage of the Korean War, the confusion 

at Dak To pitted soldier against soldier 

in classic infantry battle. In desperation, 

beleaguered U.S. commanders on Hill 

875 called in artillery and even B–52 

air strikes perilously close to their own 

positions. On November 23 American 

forces at last gained control of Hill 875.

The Battle of Dak To was the 

longest and most violent in the highlands since the Battle of the Ia Drang 

Men of the 173d Airborne Brigade prepare for airlift into the 

Central Highlands in 1967.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

333

two years before. Enemy casualties numbered in the thousands, with 

an estimated 1,600 killed. Americans had suffered too. Approximately 

one-sixth of the 173d Airborne Brigade had become casualties, with 

191 killed, 642 wounded, and 15 missing in action. If the Battle of the 

Ia Drang exemplified airmobility in all its versatility, the battle of Dak 

To, with the arduous ascent of Hill 875, epitomized infantry combat at 

its most basic, as well as the crushing effect of supporting air power.

Dak To was only one of several border battles in the waning months 

of 1967. At Song Be and Loc Ninh in III Corps and all along the 

northern border of I Corps, the enemy exposed his positions in order to 

confront U.S. forces in heavy fighting. By the end of 1967 a reinforced 

brigade of the 1st Infantry Division had again drifted north toward 

Cambodia and a brigade of the 25th Infantry Division had returned 

to War Zone C. The enemy’s threat in I Corps caused Westmoreland 

to disperse more Army units. In the vacuum left by their departure, 

local Viet Cong sought to reconstitute their forces and to reassert their 

control over the rural population. In turn, Viet Cong revival often 

was a prelude to the resurgence of Communist military activity at the 

district and village levels. Hard-pressed to find additional Army units 

to shift from III Corps and II Corps to I Corps, Westmoreland asked 

the Army to accelerate deployment of two remaining brigades of the 

101st Airborne Division from the United States. Arriving in December 

1967, the brigades were added to the growing number of Army units 

operating in the northern provinces.

While allied forces were under pressure, the border battles of 1967 

also led to a reassessment of strategy in Hanoi. Unwavering in their longterm aim of unification, the leaders of North Vietnam recognized that 

their strategy of military confrontation had failed to stop the American 

military buildup in the South or to reduce U.S. military pressure on the 

North. Regular and main-force units had failed to inflict a salient military defeat on American forces. Although the North Vietnamese Army 

maintained the tactical initiative, Westmoreland had kept its units at bay 

and in some areas, like Binh Dinh Province, diminished their influence 

on the contest for control of the rural population. Many Communist 

military leaders perceived the war to be a stalemate and believed that 

continuing on their present course would bring diminishing returns, 

especially if their local forces were drastically weakened.

On the other side, Westmoreland could rightly point to some 

modest progress in improving South Vietnam’s security and to 

punishing defeats inflicted on several North Vietnamese regiments and 

divisions. Yet none of his successes were sufficient to turn the tide 

of the war. The Communists had matched the buildup of American 

combat forces: the number of enemy divisions in the South increased 

from one in early 1965 to nine at the start of 1968. Against 363 allied 

combat battalions, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong could marshal 

209. Despite heavy air attacks against enemy lines of infiltration, the 

flow of men from the North had continued unabated, even increasing 

toward the end of 1967.

Although the Military Assistance Command had succeeded in 

warding off defeat in 1965 and had gained valuable time for the South 

Vietnamese to concentrate their political and military resources on pacification, security in many areas of South Vietnam had improved little. 
American Military History

334

More and more, success in the South seemed to depend not only on 

Westmoreland’s ability to hold off and weaken enemy main-force units, 

but also on the equally important efforts of the South Vietnamese 

Army, the Regional Forces (RF), the Popular Forces (PF), and a variety 

of paramilitary and police forces to pacify the countryside. Writing to 

President Johnson in the spring of 1967, outgoing Ambassador Henry 

Cabot Lodge warned that if the South Vietnamese “dribble along and 

do not take advantage of the success which MACV has achieved against 

the main force and the Army of North Viet-Nam, we must expect that 

the enemy will lick his wounds, pull himself together and make another 

attack in ’68.” Westmoreland’s achievements, he added, would be “judged 

not so much on the brilliant performance of the U.S. troops as on the 

success in getting [the South Vietnamese Army], RF and PF quickly to 

function as a first-class ... counter-guerrilla force.” Meanwhile, the war 

appeared to be in a state of equilibrium. Only an extraordinary effort by 

one side or the other could bring a decision. Discussion Questions

1. In Vietnam, the helicopter provided allied forces with unprecedented mobility. Describe the helicopter’s role in ground combat. What 

were its drawbacks? 

2. During the war, certain officers and civilian analysts said that 

General Westmoreland paid too much attention to the enemy’s main 

forces and not enough to pacification. How do you think the general 

would have responded?

3. President Johnson declined to mobilize the reserves when he 

committed ground troops to Vietnam in 1965. What was the impact of 

this decision on the U.S. Army for the duration of the war? 

4. Until 1970 the enemy’s cross-border sanctuaries were off-limits 

to U.S. ground forces. How did this affect the American conduct of 

the war?

5. Among the earliest U.S. forces introduced into Vietnam were 

U.S. Army Special Forces. To what extent were they the ideal force for 

counterinsurgency? What were their weaknesses? Recommended Readings

Bergerud, Eric M. The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia 

Province. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991.

Carland, John M. Combat Operations: Stemming the Tide, May 1965 to October 

1966. U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 2000.

Davidson, Phillip B. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, 

Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988.

Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–

1968. U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 1996.

Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 

1950–1975. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: Background , Buildup, and Operations, 1950–1967

335

MacGarrigle, George L. Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 

1966 to October 1967. U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 1998.

Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. 

San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1978.

Race, Jeffrey. War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese 

Province. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. U.S. 

Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1985.

Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. NewYork: Da Capo Press, 

1989.

Other Readings

Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. 

New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1989.

Blaufarb, Douglas S. The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and 

Performance, 1950 to the Present. New York: Free Press, 1977.

Bowers, Ray L. Tactical Airlift. The United States Air Force in Southeast 

Asia. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983.

Cash, John A., John N. Albright, and Allan W. Sandstrum. Seven Firefights 

in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1989.

Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, 2d ed. Boulder, 

Colo.: Westview Press, 1996.

Gelb, Leslie H., with Richard K. Betts. The Irony of Vietnam: The System 

Worked. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1979.

Kaiser, David E. American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of 

the Vietnam War. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University 

Press, 2000.

Krepinevich, Andrew F. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Meyerson, Joel D. Images of a Lengthy War. U.S. Army in Vietnam. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1989.

The Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official 

History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975, trans. Merle L. 

Pribbenow. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.

Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once ... 

and Young: Ia Drang, the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. New 

York: Harper Perennial, 1992.

Palmer, Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. 

New York: Da Capo Press, 1990.

The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States 

Decisionmaking on Vietnam. Senator Gravel edition, 5 vols. Boston: 

Beacon Press, 1971.

Pike, Douglas E. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National 

Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1966.

By the beginning of 1968 the United States had been involved in 

military operations in Vietnam for over seven years and in major 

ground combat for two-and-a-half years. In-country U.S. military 

strength had risen to 485,000, and General William C. Westmoreland 

had been using his troops aggressively in all parts of South Vietnam 

to pursue the enemy’s main forces and to help shield the population 

from enemy attack. U.S. and allied forces had conducted hundreds of 

operations both large and small, and some forty of that number had 

each achieved a verified body count of 500 or more enemy soldiers. 

According to MACV estimates, 81,000 Communist soldiers had been 

killed in 1967, giving substance to Westmoreland’s belief that the allies 

were slowly winning the war in Vietnam.

Other trends seemed to confirm his optimism. While the American 

public appeared to be growing weary of recitations of statistics, the 

Johnson administration continued to put faith in them as one way to 

make sense of a war that was so difficult to measure. The pacification trends were especially heartening. By 1967 some two-thirds of the 

hamlets in South Vietnam were judged secure and under the control 

of the central government. (In early 1965 the government was being 

chased from the countryside and on the verge of collapse.) Meanwhile, 

enemy troop strength in the South had dropped by a quarter to 220,000, 

the result both of attrition on the battlefield and declines in infiltration from the North and recruitment in the South. In 1965 and 1966 

some 9,000 North Vietnamese a month were coming down the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail to fight in the South, whereas in 1967 the figure was 6,000 

a month. (See Chart 1 for yearly infiltration rates.) Viet Cong recruitment 

in the villages had fallen to half its previous monthly average of 7,000. 

All this gave precious breathing space to the South Vietnamese as they 

11

The U.S. Army in Vietnam

From Tet to the Final

Withdrawal, 1968–1975
American Military History

338

expanded their security programs in the countryside and prepared to 

assume from the United States more of the burden of responsibility 

for the main-force war. Westmoreland reported that if all went well he 

could begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1970. 

The Johnson administration worked hard to put these projections 

before a restive Congress and the American people in order to bolster 

support for the war. It was critical, the President’s advisers told him, 

to show progress and an eventual end of the fighting if the American 

people were to continue to back the administration. This was especially so as the number of U.S. casualties climbed. By the end of 1967 

some 16,000 Americans had been killed in action in Vietnam, and the 

recent weekly average had exceeded 150. McGeorge Bundy, the former 

National Security Adviser, told President Lyndon B. Johnson: “I think 

people are getting fed up with the endlessness of the fighting. What 

really hurts, then, is not the arguments of the doves, but the cost of 

the war in lives and money, coupled with the lack of light at the end of 

the tunnel.” 

Westmoreland agreed: in November 1967, during a visit to Washington 

for consultations, he put a positive face on the fighting, stating to the 

press and Congress that he believed that the war had entered a new phase 

“when the end begins to come into view.” Similar expressions of confidence followed from other officials in the administration as the campaign 

for opinion spilled over into the new year. Not even suspicious signs 

of enemy movement and consolidations and an upsurge of terrorism in 

the cities dampened the optimism issuing from Saigon and Washington. 

The American public was still taking those assurances at face value and 

appeared to be momentarily mollified when the enemy launched his Tet 

CHART 1 P AVN INFILTRATION OF THE SOUTH: 1965–1975

(in thousands)

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

Pre 1965

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969

1970*

1971*

1972

1973

1974

1975

*Figures are estimates only, averaging the PAVN-stated total of 165,000 for 1970 and 1971 combined.

50 50

60

81

140

80 82.5 82.5

100

64

50

110

Chart 1—PAVN Infiltration of the South: 1965–1975

(in thousands)
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

339

offensive at the end of January, thus 

changing the course of the war. 

The Tet Offensive

The Tet offensive marked a 

unique stage in the evolution of 

North Vietnam’s “People’s War.” 

Hanoi’s solution to the stalemate 

in the South was the product of 

several factors. North Vietnam’s 

large-unit war was unequal to the 

task of defeating American combat 

units. South Vietnam became politically and militarily stronger, while 

the Viet Cong’s grip over the rural 

population eroded. Hanoi’s leaders 

suspected that the United States, 

frustrated by the slow progress, 

might intensify its military operations against the North. (Indeed, Westmoreland had broached plans 

for an invasion of the North when he appealed for additional forces in 

1967.) The Tet offensive was Hanoi’s brilliant stroke of strategy designed 

to change the arena of war from the battlefield to the negotiating table.

Communist plans called for violent, widespread, simultaneous 

military actions in rural and urban areas throughout the South—a 

general offensive. But as always, military action was subordinate to the 

larger political goal. By focusing attacks on South Vietnamese units 

and facilities, Hanoi sought to undermine the morale and will of South 

Vietnam’s forces. Through a collapse of military resistance, the North 

Vietnamese hoped to subvert public confidence in the government’s 

ability to provide security, triggering a crescendo of popular protest to 

halt the fighting and force a political accommodation. In short, they 

aimed at a general uprising.

Hanoi’s generals, however, were not completely confident that the 

general offensive would succeed. Viet Cong forces, hastily reinforced 

with new recruits and part-time guerrillas, bore the brunt. Except in 

the northern provinces, the North Vietnamese Army stayed on the 

sidelines, poised to exploit success. While hoping to spur negotiations, 

Communist leaders probably had the more modest goals of reasserting 

Viet Cong influence and undermining the central government’s authority 

so as to cast doubt on its credibility as the United States’ ally. In this 

respect, the offensive was directed toward the United States and sought 

to weaken American confidence in the South Vietnamese government, 

discredit Westmoreland’s claims of progress, and strengthen American 

antiwar sentiment. Here again, the larger purpose was to bring the 

United States to the negotiating table and hasten American disengagement from Vietnam.

The enemy offensive began in mid-January 1968 in the remote 

northwest corner of South Vietnam. Elements of three North 

Vietnamese divisions had massed near the Marine base at Khe Sanh. At 

first the ominous proportions of the buildup led the Military Assistance 

A Viet Cong ambush in Saigon took a toll of U.S. Army MPs.
American Military History

340

Command to expect a major offensive in the northern provinces. To 

some observers the situation at Khe Sanh resembled that at Dien Bien 

Phu, the isolated garrison where the Viet Minh had defeated French 

forces in 1954. 

While pressure around Khe Sanh increased, 84,000 Communist 

troops prepared for the Tet offensive. Since the fall of 1967, the enemy 

had been infiltrating arms, ammunition, and men, including entire units, 

into Saigon and other cities and towns. Most of these meticulous preparations went undetected, although MACV received warnings of a major 

enemy action to take place in early 1968. Growing edgy, Westmoreland 

did pull thirteen battalions closer to Saigon before the attack, nearly 

doubling U.S. strength around the capital. However, concern over the 

critical situation at Khe Sanh and preparations for the Tet holiday 

festivities preoccupied most Americans and South Vietnamese. Even 

when Communist forces prematurely attacked Kontum City, Qui 

Nhon, Da Nang, and other towns in the central and northern provinces 

on January 30, the Americans were unprepared for what followed. 

On January 31 combat erupted throughout the entire country. 

Thirty-six of 44 provincial capitals and 64 of 242 district towns were 

attacked, as well as 5 of South Vietnam’s 6 autonomous cities, among 

them Hue and Saigon. (Map 20) Once the shock and confusion wore 

off, most attacks were crushed in a few days. During those few days, 

however, the fighting was some of the most violent ever seen in the 

South or experienced by many South Vietnamese Army units. And 

though the South Vietnamese were the main target, American units 

were swept into the turmoil. 

All U.S. Army units in the vicinity of Saigon helped to repel Viet 

Cong attacks there and at the nearby bases of Long Binh and Bien 

Hoa. Cooks, radiomen, and clerks in some American compounds 

took up arms in their own defense. Elements of the 716th Military 

Police Battalion helped to root out enemy soldiers from downtown 

Saigon, and Army helicopter gunships were in the air almost continuously, assisting allied forces. Racing through the night to Tan Son Nhut 

Airport, armored cavalry from the 25th Infantry Division helped to 

defeat an enemy regiment threatening to overrun the giant installation.

Elsewhere the battle was just as furious. South of Saigon, the 

riverine troops of the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, fought 

successively at My Tho, Cai Lay, and Vinh Long and by the second 

The Timing of the Tet Offensive

On January 29, only a day before the offensive was to begin, officials in Hanoi instructed their front 

headquarters in South Vietnam to postpone the attack for twenty-four hours. They had realized that their lunar 

calendar was one day out of sync with the calendar used in the South. Some of the Communist units in southern I 

Corps and in II Corps either did not receive the new instructions in time or decided to go ahead with their assault 

because their troops were already in exposed forward positions. The premature attacks alerted the allies that a 

larger blow was imminent. Nevertheless, the degree of surprise and the scope of the attacks startled the American 

people and undercut support for the war.
Map 20

1

1

1

1

1

1

4

4

4

4

4

21

20

11

14

13

15

19

14

14

9

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

Mekong River

Gulf

of

Thailand

T H A I L A N D L A O S

C A M B O D I A

N O R T H V I E T N A M

DEMARCATION LINE

Cu Lao Cham

Cu Lao Re

Dao Phu Qui

Con Son

I CTZ

III CTZ

II CTZ

IV CTZ

Quang Tri

Khe Sanh

Da Nang

Tam Ky

Kontum

Dak To

Qui Nhon

An Khe

Hau Bon

Tuy Hoa

Ninh Hoa

Nha Trang

Ban Me Thuot

Pleiku

Da Lat

Phan Rang

Cam Ranh

Phan Thiet

Xuan Loc

Phuoc Le

Vung Tau

Tay Ninh

My Tho Sa Dec Vinh

 Long

Phu Vinh

Can Tho

Ben Tre

Tan An

Go Cong

Phu Cuong

Bien Hoa

Long Binh

Chau Phu Moc Hoa

Rach Gia

Ca Mau

Bac Lieu

Soc Trang

Hue

An Loc

Chu Lai

Quang Ngai

SAIGON

PHNOM PENH

Attopeu

Saravane

Pakse

Stung Treng

Tchepone

Savannakhet

Kratie

Snuol

Svay Rieng

0

0

50

50

Miles

Kilometers

TET OFFENSIVE

Engagement

1968
American Military History

342

week of February had crippled the offensive in the upper Mekong 

Delta. In the western highlands town of Pleiku, American tankers, 

cavalrymen, artillerymen, and engineers joined South Vietnamese 

cavalry and infantry to hold off Viet Cong assaults for nearly a week. 

The situation was particularly grave in northern I Corps. There, the 

Viet Cong and North Vietnamese struck at roads, waterways, and 

bridges and threatened to sever the allies’ logistical lifeline. Writing 

on February 9 to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General 

Earle G. Wheeler, Westmoreland observed that logistics would be the 

key to winning the fight in the northern provinces. Tactical airlift for 

a time was the major source of supplies for the 1st Cavalry Division 

just moved to I Corps. While the fight for Quang Tri City was essentially over after two days, the critical stretch of Highway 1 from Da 

Nang northward to Phu Bai and Hue had to wait until marines, paratroopers, and their engineers linked up in the flatlands to the north 

of the Hai Van Pass. Although the highway finally became passable to 

U.S. convoys on March 1, the flow of supplies remained unsatisfactory for several weeks, necessitating the opening just east of Quang 

Tri City of a large shore operation at Wunder Beach (Than My Thuy). 

Marines, Navy Seabees, and Army lighterage and port units, chiefly 

the 159th Transportation Battalion, were all involved. 

The most tenacious combat occurred in Hue, the ancient capital of 

Vietnam. There, the 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne Divisions, together 

with marines and South Vietnamese forces, including the South 

Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division, participated in the only extended 

urban combat of the war. Hue had a tradition of Buddhist activism 

with overtones of neutralism, separatism, and anti-Americanism; North 

Vietnamese strategists thought that here if anywhere the general offensive/general uprising might gain a political foothold. Hence they threw 

most of seven North Vietnamese regiments into the battle, bringing 

Aftermath of Heavy Fighting in Downtown Saigon
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

343

several units down from Khe Sanh, an indication that the stakes at Hue 

were higher than elsewhere in the South. House-to-house and streetto-street fighting caused enormous destruction, necessitating massive 

reconstruction and community assistance programs after the battle. 

The allies took more than three weeks to recapture the city and could 

not shut down the enemy’s supply conduit into Hue until February 24. 

Throughout the country, the South Vietnamese forces acquitted 

themselves well, despite high casualties and many desertions. Stunned 

by the attacks, civilian support for the government of President 

Nguyen Van Thieu coalesced instead of weakening. Many Vietnamese 

for whom the war had been a mere annoyance were outraged, not 

the least by confirmation that the Communists had executed almost 

3,000 civilians at Hue. Capitalizing on the new feeling, South Vietnam’s 

leaders for the first time enacted a general mobilization. The change 

from grudging toleration of the Viet Cong to active resistance provided 

an opportunity to create new local defense organizations and to attack 

the Communist infrastructure. Spurred by American advisers, the 

Vietnamese began to revitalize pacification. Most important, the Viet 

Cong suffered a major military defeat, losing thousands of experienced 

combatants and seasoned political cadres, seriously weakening the 

insurgent base in the South.

Americans at home saw a different picture. Dramatic images 

of the Viet Cong storming the grounds of the American Embassy 

in the heart of Saigon and of the North Vietnamese Army clinging 

tenaciously to Hue obscured Westmoreland’s assertion that the enemy 

had been defeated. Claims of progress in the war, already greeted with 

skepticism, lost more credibility in both public and official circles. The 

psychological jolt to President Johnson’s Vietnam policy was redoubled 

when the military requested an additional 206,000 troops. Most were 

intended to reconstitute the strategic reserve in the United States 

exhausted by Westmoreland’s appeals for combat units between 1965 

and 1967. But the magnitude of the new request, at a time when almost 

a half-million U.S. troops were already in Vietnam, cast doubts on the 

conduct of the war and prompted a reassessment of American policy 

and strategy.

Without mobilization the United States was overcommitted. The 

Army could send few additional combat units to Vietnam without 

making deep inroads on forces destined for NATO or South Korea. 

The dwindling strategic reserve left Johnson with fewer options in 

the spring of 1968 than in the summer of 1965. His problems were 

underscored by heightened international tensions when North Korea 

captured an American naval vessel, the USS Pueblo, a week before the 

Tet offensive; by Soviet armed intervention in Czechoslovakia in the 

summer of 1968; and by chronic crises in the Mideast. In addition, 

Army units in the United States were needed often between 1965 and 

1968 to enforce federal civil rights legislation and to restore public 

order in the wake of civil disturbances.

Again, as in 1967, Johnson refused to sanction a major troop levy, 

but he did give Westmoreland some modest reinforcements to bolster 

the northern provinces. Again tapping the strategic reserve, the Army 

sent him the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, and the 1st Brigade, 

5th Infantry Division (Mechanized)—the last Army combat units to 

General Westmoreland’s Tropical Combat Coat, 

1965
American Military History

344

deploy to South Vietnam. In addition, the President called to active 

duty a small number of reserve units, totaling some 40,000 men, for 

duty in Southeast Asia and South Korea, the only use of reserves 

during the Vietnam War. For Westmoreland, Johnson’s decision meant 

that future operations would have to make the best possible use of 

American forces and that the South Vietnamese Army would have to 

shoulder a larger share of the war effort. To spur negotiations, the 

President also curtailed air strikes against North Vietnam. Finally, on 

March 31 Johnson announced his decision not to seek reelection in 

order to give his full attention to resolving the conflict. North Vietnam 

had suffered a military defeat but had won a political and diplomatic 

victory by shifting American policy toward disengagement.

For the Army the new policy meant a difficult time. In South 

Vietnam, as in the United States, its forces were stretched thin. The 

Tet offensive had concentrated a large portion of its combat forces in 

I Corps, once a Marine preserve. A new command, XXIV Corps, had 

to be activated for the northern provinces; Army logistical support, 

previously confined to the three southern corps zones and southern 

I Corps, now extended to the demilitarized zone as well. While Army 

units reinforced Hue and the demilitarized zone, the marines at Khe 

Sanh held fast. Enemy pressure on the besieged base increased daily, 

but the North Vietnamese refrained from an all-out attack. Recognizing 

that he could ill afford Khe Sanh’s defense or its loss, Westmoreland 

decided to subject the enemy to the heaviest air and artillery bombardment of the war. His tactical gamble succeeded. The enemy withdrew, 

and the Communist offensive slackened.

The enemy nevertheless persisted in his effort to weaken the South 

Vietnamese government, launching nationwide “mini-Tet” offensives 

in May and August. Pockets of stiff fighting occurred throughout the 

South, and enemy forces again 

infiltrated into Saigon, leading to 

heavy destruction in several neighborhoods. But these were the last 

gasps of the general offensive/

general uprising. Thereafter the 

Viet Cong and North Vietnamese 

generally dispersed and avoided 

contact with Americans. In turn the 

allies withdrew from Khe Sanh in 

the summer of 1968. Its abandonment signaled the demise of the 

McNamara Line and further postponement of MACV’s hopes for 

large-scale American cross-border 

operations. For the remainder of 

1968, Army units in I Corps were 

content to help restore security 

around Hue and other coastal 

areas, working closely with the 

marines and the South Vietnamese 

in support of pacification. North 

Marines patrol a street in Hue after the Tet offensive. Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

345

having suffered heavy losses, generally avoided offensive operations. 

As armistice negotiations began in Paris, both sides prepared to enter a 

new phase of the war.

Vietnamization

The last phase of American involvement in South Vietnam was 

carried out under a broad policy called Vietnamization. Its main goal 

was to create strong, largely self-reliant South Vietnamese military 

forces, an objective consistent with that espoused by U.S. advisers 

as early as the 1950s. But Vietnamization also meant the withdrawal 

of a half-million American soldiers. Past efforts to strengthen and 

modernize South Vietnam’s Army had proceeded at a measured pace, 

without the pressure of diminishing American support, large-scale 

combat, or the presence of formidable North Vietnamese forces in 

the South. Vietnamization entailed three overlapping phases: redeployment of American forces and the assumption of their combat role by 

the South Vietnamese; improvement of the South Vietnamese Army’s 

combat and support capabilities, especially firepower and mobility; and 

replacement of the Military Assistance Command by an American 

advisory group. Vietnamization had the added dimension of fostering 

political, social, and economic reforms to create a vibrant South 

Vietnamese state based on popular participation in national political 

life. Such reforms, however, depended on progress in the pacification 

program, which never had a clearly fixed timetable.

The task of carrying out the military aspects of Vietnamization 

fell to General Creighton W. Abrams, who succeeded General 

Westmoreland as MACV commander in mid-1968, when the latter 

returned to the United States to become Chief of Staff of the 

Army. Although Abrams had the aura of a blunt, hard-talking, World 

War II tank commander, he had spent a year as Westmoreland’s 

deputy, working closely with South Vietnamese commanders. Like 

Westmoreland before him, Abrams viewed the military situation 

after Tet as an opportunity to make gains in pacifying rural areas 

and to reduce the strength of Communist forces in the South. Until 

the weakened Viet Cong forces could be rebuilt or replaced with 

North Vietnamese, both guerrilla and regular Communist forces had 

adopted a defensive posture. Nevertheless, 90,000 North Vietnamese 

Army troops were in the South or in border sanctuaries waiting to 

resume the offensive at a propitious time.

Vietnam Advisers

At the height of the war in December 1968, there were nearly 11,000 advisers working at all levels of the 

South Vietnamese Army and the irregular forces assigned to pacification duty. Because advisers had no formal 

authority over the South Vietnamese, they had to develop a bond of trust in order to be effective. This required 

them to overcome vast language and cultural differences and to untangle the intricate web of politics that suffused 

the South Vietnamese officer corps. Generally, an adviser spent much of his tour developing an effective working 

relationship with his counterpart.
American Military History

346

Abrams still had strong 

American forces, which reached 

their peak at 543,000 in March 

1969. But he was also under pressure from Washington to minimize 

casualties, to conduct operations 

with an eye toward leaving the 

South Vietnamese in the strongest 

possible military position when U.S. 

forces withdrew, and to convince 

the American people with progress 

on the battlefield that the tide had 

turned in the allies’ favor. With these 

considerations in mind, Abrams 

pressed the attack, especially against 

enemy bases near the border to 

prevent their use as staging areas 

for offensive operations. At the 

same time, to enhance the South 

Vietnamese government’s pacification efforts and improve local security, he called on his commanders to 

intensify small-unit operations with 

extensive patrolling and ambushes, 

aiming to reduce the enemy’s base of support among the rural population.

To the greatest extent possible, Abrams planned to improve the 

South Vietnamese Army’s performance by enhancing training and 

conducting combined operations with American combat units. As the 

South Vietnamese Army assumed the lion’s share of combat, it was 

expected to shift operations toward the border and to assume a role 

similar to that of U.S. forces between 1965 and 1969. The Regional and 

Popular Forces in turn were to take over the South Vietnamese Army’s 

role in area security and pacification support, while the newly organized 

People’s Self-Defense Force took on the task of village and hamlet 

defense. Stressing the close connection between combat and pacification operations, the need for cooperation between American and South 

Vietnamese forces, and the importance of coordinating all echelons of 

Saigon’s armed forces, Abrams spoke of a “one war” concept.

Yet even in his emphasis on combined operations, his targeting 

of enemy base areas, and American support of pacification, Abrams’ 

strategy had strong elements of continuity with Westmoreland’s. For 

the first and second, operations in War Zones C and D and in the Binh 

Dinh piedmont in 1966 and 1967 were ample precedents. Westmoreland 

had also laid the foundation for a more extensive U.S. role in pacification in 1967 by establishing Civil Operations and Rural (later changed 

to Revolutionary) Development Support (CORDS). Under CORDS, 

the Military Assistance Command took charge of all American activities, military and civilian, in support of pacification. 

Abrams’ contribution was to enlarge the Army’s role. Under him, 

the U.S. advisory effort at provincial and district levels grew as the territorial forces gained importance. During 1967, for example, there were 

108 American advisers attached to the Regional Forces and Popular 

General Abrams with General Wheeler (left) and Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

347

Forces; one year later the number 

was 2,243. Another important step 

pushed by CORDS was establishment of the Phoenix program, a 

concerted effort to eliminate the 

Communist political apparatus by 

capturing or killing enemy leaders 

in the villages and provinces. This 

crucial aspect of the counterinsurgency campaign had been run 

by the Central Intelligence Agency 

in the early 1960s but lacked the 

manpower to take on the importance it deserved. Under CORDS, 

Phoenix expanded into virtually 

every district in South Vietnam, 

using a combination of conventional forces, militia, police, and 

psychological and intelligence 

operations not previously possible 

on such a large scale. 

Despite all efforts, many 

Americans doubted whether South 

Vietnam’s armed forces could 

successfully play their enlarged role 

under Vietnamization. On paper, the armed forces were formidable 

and improving. Thanks to the Thieu government’s mobilization law 

and American aid and assistance, South Vietnam’s forces had become 

among the largest and most heavily equipped in the world. The regular 

and territorial troop level, some 850,000 in late 1968, would rise to over 

a million in less than two years. The newest weapons in the American 

arsenal were being turned over to the South Vietnamese, from M16 

rifles and M60 machine guns to helicopter gunships, jeeps, and jet 

fighters. Combat effectiveness was also apparently on the rise. Of the 

ten South Vietnamese infantry divisions, two of them—the 1st in I 

Corps and the 21st in IV Corps—were considered to be uniformly 

CORDS 

(Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support)

From the beginning of American involvement in Vietnam, the allies agreed that pacification—“winning the 

hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people—was a primary objective of the war effort. However, there was no 

consensus on how to accomplish it, which resulted in inefficiency and bureaucratic infighting. Before pacification 

was consolidated under the military with the CORDS program in 1967, it was considered a political problem best 

handled by civilians. The U.S. embassy in Saigon ran a “country team” of representatives from the civilian agencies, but the team lacked both the political power and the budget to establish an effective pacification effort. 

Under MACV, however, CORDS established an effective civic-action program throughout the countryside. 

South Vietnamese soldiers train in the use of artillery as part of the 

Vietnamization program.
American Military History

348

reliable; three others—the 2d in I Corps, the 23d in the highlands, and 

the 9th in the Delta—received good ratings when strong commanders 

were in charge. In reserve were the airborne division and the Marine 

division, the elite of the entire group, and they had been fighting well 

since before Tet. Nonetheless, earlier counterinsurgency efforts had 

languished under less demanding circumstances, and the government’s 

forces continued to be plagued with a high desertion rate, spotty morale, 

and shortages of high-quality leaders. Like the French before them, 

U.S. advisers had assumed a major role in providing and coordinating 

logistical and firepower support, leaving the Vietnamese inexperienced 

in the conduct of large combined-arms operations. Despite the Viet 

Cong’s weakened condition, South Vietnamese forces also continued 

to incur high casualties.

Similarly, pacification registered gains in rural security and other 

measures of progress, but such improvements often obscured its failure 

to establish deep roots. On the one hand were the pacification statistics. Although complicated and often misleading, they clearly indicated 

that the government with U.S. assistance was making headway in the 

countryside. By early 1970, 93 percent of the South Vietnamese lived in 

“relatively secure” towns and villages, an increase of almost 20 percent 

from the middle of 1968, a year marred by the Tet offensive. Ironically, 

because the statistics themselves became a point of controversy, they 

may have obscured the reality behind the numbers, the fact that the 

enemy’s losses truly were significant. The difficulty, however, was that 

the enemy underground had not been eliminated and still constituted 

a potent threat to the government. The Phoenix program, despite its 

success in seizing low- and middle-level cadres, rarely caught hard-core, 

high-level party officials, many of whom survived, as they had in the 

mid-1950s, by taking more stringent security measures. Furthermore, 

some South Vietnamese officials 

abused the program, using it as 

a vehicle for personal vendettas. 

In some cases, district Phoenix

officials accepted bribes from the 

Viet Cong for the release of certain 

suspects. Some districts released 

as many as 60 percent of the 

suspected members of the enemy 

underground.

Even land reform, the South 

Vietnamese government’s most 

successful program for building 

political strength in the countryside, 

rested on an uncertain foundation. 

Enacted in 1970, the land-to-thetiller program was one of the most 

advanced undertaken anywhere in 

the developing world. President 

Thieu gave it unwavering support 

and placed strong leaders in charge. 

Land tenancy dropped from 60 to 

A Phoenix program paramilitary team enters a village in Tay Ninh Province. 10 percent between 1970 and 1973. 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

349

Computers sped up the process of registering ownership and issuing 

land titles, bypassing the sclerotic South Vietnamese bureaucracy. Even 

so, the social and economic benefits for the peasantry were understood 

to be only as durable as American aid and the conventional-force security shield. In that sense, despite the progress made, the entire South 

Vietnamese enterprise remained in doubt.

Influencing all parts of this struggle to hold the South was a new 

defense policy enunciated by Richard M. Nixon, who became President 

in January 1969. The Nixon Doctrine hearkened back to the precepts of 

the New Look, placing greater reliance on nuclear retaliation, encouraging allies to accept a larger share of their own defense burden, and 

barring the use of U.S. ground forces in limited wars in Asia, unless vital 

national interests were at stake. Under this policy, American ground 

forces in South Vietnam, once withdrawn, were unlikely to return. For 

President Thieu in Saigon, the future was inauspicious. For the time 

being, large numbers of American forces were still present to bolster 

his country’s war effort; what would happen when they departed, no 

one knew.

Military Operations, 1968–1969

The U.S. troop withdrawals began in the summer of 1969, when two 

brigades of the 9th Infantry Division pulled out of III and IV Corps 

and a regiment of the 3d Marine Division departed from northern I 

Corps. These units were selected because they were considered firstrate and would consequently make the reduction in forces credible to 

all concerned—not just to the governments in Hanoi and Saigon but 

also to the American public. The 9th Division was chosen, according 

to General Abrams, because the war south of Saigon had been a South 

Vietnamese affair for years and was apparently going well. The marines 

would be leaving their area of operations to the best South Vietnamese 

division, the 1st Infantry Division, and to the remainder of their parent 

Marine unit, now reinforced along the demilitarized zone by the heavy 

brigade of the U.S. Army’s 5th Division. The northernmost provinces, 

by all accounts, were thus also secure. The one area of the country 

where Abrams refused to thin out his forces was the territory north 

and west of Saigon, the arc protecting the capital. Saigon was the ultimate war prize, and everything depended on its security, from holding 

fast to public support in the United States and building a negotiating 

advantage to giving the South Vietnamese time to grow strong in their 

own defense. Abrams was not prepared to gamble Saigon’s security on 

a military experiment, at least not yet. 

Consequently, when a new threat emerged in III Corps—seven 

North Vietnamese regiments, including the entire 1st People’s Army 

of Vietnam (PAVN) Division, arrived from the highlands to reinforce 

the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN)—Abrams went on the 

offensive. Starting in late 1968 and for the next year and a half, U.S. 

forces, including the 1st Cavalry Division operating in III Corps for the 

first time in the war, engaged in a corps-wide counterattack to locate 

and destroy enemy units. The Americans combined large- and smallunit operations, frequent sweeps through enemy bases, and persistent 

screening of the Cambodian border to prevent the main forces from 
American Military History

350

returning. Commanded by Maj. Gens. George I. Forsythe and Elvy B. 

Roberts, the 1st Cavalry Division waged the border battle. Straddling 

the enemy’s jungle trails through Tay Ninh, Binh Long, and Phuoc 

Long Provinces and making full use of its helicopter mobility, it fought 

the enemy’s units as they crossed from Cambodia. 

The link between the division’s mobility and its ability to carry 

on the fight as light infantry was the firebase. Although the firebase 

had evolved over the course of the war into a familiar component 

of American operations, the 1st Cavalry Division raised its use to a 

tactical art. Most Army firebases in South Vietnam contained an artillery battery or two and the command post of an infantry battalion 

and were built for temporary occupation. The 1st Cavalry Division’s 

firebases tended to be smaller and more fleeting still. In its first month 

in III Corps, November 1968, the division built a line of fifteen bases 

right up to the border. When Firebase Dot, one of four bases west of 

Quan Loi, was nearly overrun, commanders established a new screen 

across the middle of War Zone C, far enough from Cambodia to give 

them warning of any attack. Throughout 1969 the division expanded its 

interdiction both east and west, leapfrogging from firebase to firebase 

and chewing up enemy troop concentrations as they tried to sideslip 

south. This made it easier for allied units closer to Saigon to keep the 

enemy remnants away from the population.

Nearer the capital, the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions continued 

the fight in their traditional haunts to the north and west, but in somewhat reduced operating territory since border coverage was no longer 

required. Intensifying their operations behind the border screen of the 

airmobile division, they zeroed in on pockets of enemy resistance that 

still threatened the city. For the 1st Division, few of the battles were 

dramatic, except for the soldiers who fought them, but were typically 

small sweeps and night ambushes in the rolling hills along Highway 13, 

punctuated by clear-and-hold missions with South Vietnamese regulars, 

Long Range Patrol, James R. Drake, 1969
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

351

Regional Forces, and the police. The more dramatic encounters took 

place in the tactical arena of the 25th Division. Here lay the Tay Ninh 

corridor, one of the traditional enemy funnels from the Cambodian 

sanctuary to the outskirts of Saigon. When the division erected firebase defenses squarely in the enemy’s path, a contest of wills was 

inevitable. One of those fortresses, near Tay Ninh City, was Firebase 

Crook. Small, unprepossessing, and seemingly vulnerable, defended by 

a battery of light artillery and a company of infantry, Crook was in 

fact a formidable redoubt with major tactical advantages: deeply dug 

with reinforced bunkers, equipped with remote sensors and radar, and 

well within range of medium and heavy artillery and, like all bases, 

supported by air power. In June 1969 the 9th People’s Liberation Armed 

Forces (PLAF) Division determined to overrun it and spent three days and 

over 400 dead in the vain attempt (one American soldier died). Further 

attacks followed on Tay Ninh City and other bases, all beaten back with 

heavy enemy casualties. By late 1969 the corridor had quieted; the 25th 

Division turned to pacification, running scores of medical aid missions 

and hundreds of joint operations with South Vietnamese forces and 

gathering in large numbers of defectors from local guerrilla units, probably the best indication available of pacification’s success. Whatever the 

situation elsewhere in Vietnam, III Corps was the one place where U.S. 

commanders had enough troops to deal with the threat. 

As III Corps stabilized behind the allied shield, an uneasy sense of 

hope took hold in Saigon. The city was not impregnable. During the 

Tet celebration in 1969 heavy fighting broke out near Bien Hoa and 

Long Binh; into the early summer, enemy troops could still penetrate 

close enough to launch the occasional rocket attack or set off a bomb. 

Such incidents terrorized civilians, caused military casualties, and raised 

questions about the central government’s ability to protect its citizens. 

The rocket attacks were especially troublesome. An economy-of-force 

measure, they brought little risk to the enemy and compelled allied 

forces to suspend other operations while they cleared the “rocket belt” 

around the urban center. By the autumn, however, the attacks had virtually ceased. Saigon seemed to fall back into a period of tranquility and 

prosperity in which the main concern seemed to be not the fighting off 

in the distance but a wartime inflation eating into the purchasing power 

of the urban population. The trauma visited upon the city during Tet 

1968 had become a bad memory on the wane. 

In the Central Highlands, the war of attrition continued. Until its 

redeployment in 1970, the 4th Infantry Division protected major highland population centers and kept important interior roads clear. Special 

Forces worked with the tribal highlanders to detect infiltration and 

harass enemy secret zones. As in the past, highland camps and outposts 

were a magnet for enemy attacks, meant to lure reaction forces into an 

ambush or to divert the allies from operations elsewhere. Ben Het in 

Kontum Province was besieged from March to July of 1969. Other 

bases—Tien Phuoc and Thuong Duc in I Corps; Bu Prang, Dak Seang, 

and Dak Pek in II Corps; and Katum, Bu Dop, and Tong Le Chon in 

III Corps—were attacked because of their proximity to Communist 

strongholds and infiltration routes. In some cases camps had to be 

abandoned; but in most, the attackers were repulsed. By the time the 

5th Special Forces Group left South Vietnam in March 1971, all CIDG 

Such incidents terrorized civilians, 

caused military casualties, and 

raised questions about the central 

government’s ability to protect its 

citizens. 
American Military History

352

units had been converted to Regional Forces or absorbed by the South 

Vietnamese rangers. The departure of the Green Berets brought an 

end to any significant Army role in the highlands.

Following the withdrawal of the 4th and 9th Divisions, Army 

units concentrated in the northern provinces as well as around Saigon. 

Operating in Quang Ngai, Quang Tin, and Quang Nam Provinces, the 

23d Infantry Division (Americal) conducted a series of operations in 

1968 and 1969 to secure and pacify the heavily populated coastal plain 

of southern I Corps. Along the demilitarized zone, the 1st Brigade, 5th 

Division, helped marines and South Vietnamese forces to screen the 

zone and secure the northern coastal region, including the stretch of 

Highway 1 that the enemy had cut during the 1968 Tet offensive. The 

101st Airborne Division (converted to the Army’s second airmobile 

division in 1969) divided its attention between the defense of Hue and 

forays into the enemy’s base in the A Shau Valley.

Since the 1968 Tet offensive, the Communists had restocked the 

A Shau Valley with ammunition, rice, and equipment. The logistical 

buildup pointed to a possible North Vietnamese offensive in early 1969. 

In quick succession, Army operations were launched in the familiar 

pattern: air assaults, establishment of firebases, and exploration of the 

lowlands and surrounding hills to locate enemy forces and supplies. 

As the Army always had in the A Shau Valley, it once again met stiff 

resistance, especially from antiaircraft guns. The North Vietnamese had 

expected the American forces and now planned to hold their ground.

On May 11, 1969, a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division 

climbing Hill 937 found elements of the 29th PAVN Regiment waiting 

for it. The struggle for Hamburger Hill raged for ten days and became 

one of the war’s fiercest and most controversial battles. Entrenched in 

tiers of fortified bunkers with well-prepared fields of fire, the enemy 

forces withstood repeated attempts to dislodge them. Supported by 

intense artillery and air strikes, Americans made a slow, tortuous climb, 

fighting at close quarters. By the time the allies took Hill 937, three 

U.S. Army battalions and a South Vietnamese battalion from the 1st 

Division had been committed to the battle. Victory, however, was 

ambiguous as well as costly: the hill itself had no strategic or tactical 

importance and was abandoned soon after its capture. Critics charged 

that the battle wasted American lives and exemplified the irrelevance of 

large-unit tactics in Vietnam. Defending the operation, the commander 

of the 101st, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, acknowledged that the hill’s only 

significance was that the enemy occupied it. “My mission,” he said, 

“was to destroy enemy forces and installations. We found the enemy on 

Hill 937, and that is where we fought them.”

About one month later the 101st Airborne Division left the A Shau 

Valley, and the North Vietnamese were free to use it again. American 

plans to return in the summer of 1970 came to nothing when enemy 

pressure forced the abandonment of two firebases needed for opera-

tions there. The loss of Firebase 

O’Reilly, only eleven miles from Hue, 

was an ominous sign that enemy forces had reoccupied the A Shau and 

were seeking to dominate the valleys leading to the coastal plain. Until 

redeployed in 1971, the 101st Airborne Division, with the marines and 

South Vietnamese forces, now devoted most of its efforts to protecting 

Hue. While the operations in western I Corps had inflicted casualties 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

353

on the enemy and bought the allies some time, it remained to be 

seen whether the South Vietnamese Army could hold the area once 

American forces departed.

Operations on the coastal plain brought uncertain outcomes as well. 

Here, the Americal Division fought in an area where the population had 

long been sympathetic to the Viet Cong. As in other areas, pacification in 

southern I Corps seemed to improve after the 1968 Tet offensive, though 

enemy units still dominated the piedmont and continued to challenge 

American and South Vietnamese forces on the coast. Operations against 

them proved to be slow, frustrating exercises in warding off North 

Vietnamese and Viet Cong main-force units while enduring harassment 

from local guerrillas and the hostile population. Except during spasms of 

intense combat, as in the summer of 1969 when the Americal Division 

confronted the 1st PAVN Regiment, most U.S. casualties were from 

snipers, mines, and booby traps. Villages populated by old men, women, 

and children were as dangerous as the elusive enemy main-force units. 

Operating in such conditions day after day induced a climate of fear 

and hatred among the Americans. The already thin line between civilian 

and combatant was easily blurred and violated. In the hamlet of My Lai, 

elements of the Americal Division killed about two hundred civilians 

in March 1968. Although only one member of the division was tried 

and found guilty of war crimes, the atrocity reverberated throughout the 

Army. However rare, such acts undid the benefit of countless hours of 

civic action by Army units and individual soldiers and raised unsettling 

questions about the conduct of the war.

War crimes such as at My Lai were born of a sense of frustration 

that also contributed to a host of morale and discipline problems among 

enlisted men and officers alike. As American forces were withdrawn 

by a government eager to escape the war, the lack of a clear military 

objective contributed to a weakened sense of mission and a slackening 

of discipline. The short-timer syndrome, the reluctance to take risks in 

combat toward the end of a soldier’s one-year tour, was compounded 

by the last-casualty syndrome. Knowing that all U.S. troops would soon 

leave Vietnam, no soldier wanted to be the last to die. Meanwhile, in the 

United States, harsh criticism of the war, the military, and traditional 

military values had become widespread. Heightened individualism, 

growing permissiveness, and a weakening of traditional bonds of 

authority pervaded American society and affected the Army’s rank and 

Fragging

One of the more disturbing aspects of the unpopular war in Vietnam was the practice known as fragging. 

Disenchanted soldiers in Vietnam sometimes used fragmentation grenades, popularly known as frags, or other 

explosives to threaten or kill officers and NCOs they disliked. The full extent of the problem will never be known; 

but it increased sharply in 1969, 1970, and 1971, when the morale of the troops declined in step with the 

American role in the fighting. A total of 730 well-documented cases involving 83 deaths have come to light. There 

were doubtless others and probably some instances of fragging that were privately motivated acts of anger that 

had nothing to do with the war. Nonetheless, fragging was symptomatic of an Army in turmoil. 
American Military History

354

file. The Army grappled with problems of drug abuse, racial tensions, 

weakened discipline, and lapses of leadership. While outright refusals to 

fight were few in number, incidents of “fragging” (murderous attacks 

on officers and noncoms) occurred frequently enough to compel 

commands to institute a host of new security measures within their 

cantonments. All these problems were symptoms of larger social and 

political forces and underlined a growing disenchantment with the war 

among soldiers in the field.

As the Army prepared to leave Vietnam, lassitude and war-weariness at times resulted in tragedy, as at Firebase Mary Ann in 1971. 

There, soldiers of the Americal Division, soon to go home, relaxed 

their security and were overrun by a North Vietnamese force. Such 

incidents reflected a decline in the quality of leadership among both 

commissioned and noncommissioned officers. Lowered standards, 

abbreviated training, and accelerated promotions to meet the high 

demand for noncommissioned and junior officers often resulted in the 

assignment of squad, platoon, and company leaders with less combat 

experience than the troops they led. Careerism and ticket-punching 

in officer assignments, false reporting and inflated body counts, and 

revelations of scandal and corruption all raised disquieting questions 

about the professional ethics of Army leadership. Critics indicted the 

tactics and techniques the Army used in Vietnam, noting that airmobility, for example, tended to distance troops from the population they 

were sent to protect and that commanders aloft in their command and 

control helicopters were at a psychological and physical distance from 

the soldiers they were supposed to lead.

Cross-Border Operations

With most U.S. combat units slated to leave South Vietnam 

during 1970 and 1971, time was a critical factor for the success of 

Vietnamization and pacification. Neither program could thrive if 

South Vietnam’s forces were distracted by enemy offensives launched 

from bases in Cambodia or Laos. While Abrams’ operations temporarily reduced the level of enemy activity in the South, bases outside 

South Vietnam had been strictly off limits to allied ground forces. This 

rankled U.S. commanders, who regarded the restriction as a potentially 

fatal mistake. By harboring enemy forces, command facilities, and 

logistical depots, the Cambodian and Laotian bases threatened all the 

progress the allies had made in the South since Tet 1968. To the Nixon 

administration, Abrams’ desire to attack the Communist sanctuaries 

had the special appeal of gaining more time for Vietnamization and of 

compensating for the bombing halt over North Vietnam.

Because of the proximity of the Cambodian bases to Saigon, they 

received first priority. Planning for the cross-border attack occurred 

at a critical time in Cambodia. In early 1970 Cambodia’s neutralist 

leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was overthrown by his proWestern Defense Minister, General Lon Nol. Nol closed the port of 

Sihanoukville to supplies destined for Communist forces in the border 

bases and in South Vietnam. He also demanded that Communist forces 

leave Cambodia and accepted the South Vietnamese government’s 

offer to apply pressure against those located near the border. (A year 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

355

earlier American B–52 bombers 

had begun in secret to bomb enemy 

bases in Cambodia.) By mid-April 

1970 South Vietnamese armored 

cavalry and ranger units, with no 

U.S. advisers accompanying them, 

were mounting large-scale operations across the border from III 

Corps and uncovering large caches 

of enemy supplies and equipment. 

The main assault began on the 

twenty-ninth. That morning three 

South Vietnamese task forces, 

this time with a full complement 

of U.S. advisers, and preceded 

by heavy air and artillery attacks, 

launched Operation Toan Thang

42, knifing into Cambodia’s Svay 

Rieng Province and pushing 

through enemy resistance. Two 

days later, on May 1, units of the 

1st Cavalry Division; 25th Infantry 

Division; 3d Brigade, 9th Infantry 

Division; 11th Armored Cavalry 

Regiment (ACR); and South 

Vietnamese 3d Airborne Brigade, 

under the command of Brig. Gen. 

Robert L. Shoemaker, followed 

from slightly to the north. The 4th Infantry Division attacked from II 

Corps four days later. 

Cambodia became a new battlefield of the Vietnam War. By May 

2 South Vietnamese forces had cut off the Parrot’s Beak, an area that 

jutted into South Vietnam near the III Corps–IV Corps border, and 

U.S. and South Vietnamese troops had linked up near Memot in the 

so-called Fishhook, meeting little opposition from enemy security 

forces. (See Map 21.) Snuol, a large enemy logistical hub, fell to the tanks 

of the 11th ACR three days later. In the weeks that followed the allies 

cut a broad swath through the enemy’s sanctuary and uncovered storage 

sites, training camps, and hospitals far larger and more complex than 

anyone had anticipated. One site in the Fishhook, dubbed “the city” 

in deference to its size, covered three square kilometers and contained 

mess halls, a livestock farm, supply issuing and receiving stations, and 

over two hundred caches of weapons and other materiel, most of it 

new. By one estimate, the allies in Cambodia seized enough weapons 

and ammunition to arm fifty-five battalions of main-force infantry. 

Main-force offensives against South Vietnam’s III and IV Corps were 

derailed for at least a year.

However, the allies did not find large enemy forces or the COSVN

headquarters. Only relatively small delaying forces offered resistance, 

while main-force units retreated deeper into Cambodia. Meanwhile, the 

expansion of the war produced violent demonstrations in the United 

States. In response to the public outcry Nixon imposed geographical 

While this 9th Division soldier fought in Cambodia, students back home 

protested the expanded war.
Map 21

4

3

1

22

13

15

4

4

1

14

14

19

13

II CTZ

IV CTZ

Parrot's Beak

Fishhook

III CTZ

Tonle

Sap

G u l f

o f

T h a i l a n d

Mekong River

Mekong River

Mekong River

T H A I L A N D

L A O S

C A M B O D I A

Stung Treng

Pleiku

Kontum

Phan Thiet

Da Lat

Ban Me

Thuot

Kratie

PHNOM PENH

Kompong

Cham Chup

Prey Veng

Tay Ninh

Svay Rieng

An Loc

SAIGON

Snuol

Memot

Kampot

Sihanoukville

Rach Gia

Can Tho

My Tho Vung Tau

Miles

Kilometers

0

0

25

25

50

50

75

75

Axis of Attack

Operational Area

May–June 1970

CAMBODIAN INCURSION
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

357

and time limits on operations in Cambodia, which enabled the enemy 

to stay beyond reach. At the end of June, one day short of the sixty 

days allotted to the operation, all advisers accompanying the South 

Vietnamese and all U.S. Army units had left Cambodia.

Political and military events in Cambodia triggered changes in the 

war as profound as those the Tet offensive had engendered. From a 

quiescent sideshow of the war, Cambodia became an arena for the 

major belligerents. Military activity increased in northern Cambodia 

and southern Laos as North Vietnam established new infiltration routes 

and bases to replace those lost during the incursion. North Vietnam 

made clear that it regarded all Indochina as a single theater of operations. Cambodia itself was engulfed in a civil war.

As U.S. Army units withdrew, the South Vietnamese Army found 

itself in a race against Communist forces to secure the Cambodian 

capital of Phnom Penh. Americans provided South Vietnam’s overextended forces air and logistical support to enable them to stabilize 

the situation there. The time to strengthen Vietnamization gained by 

the incursion now had to be weighed in the balance against the South 

Vietnamese Army’s new commitment in Cambodia. To the extent that 

South Vietnam’s forces bolstered Lon Nol’s regime, they were unable 

to contribute to pacification and rural security in their own country. 

Moreover, the South Vietnamese performance in Cambodia was mixed. 

When working closely with American advisers, the army acquitted itself 

well; though there were flaws in planning and the use of air and artillery 

support. The South Vietnamese logistical system, with a few exceptions, proved adequate. The difficulty was that the North Vietnamese 

Army largely chose not to fight, so the South Vietnamese Army was 

never really tested. Furthermore, the South Vietnamese command had 

relied on rangers, armored cavalry, and airborne troops—elite units—

bypassing the mediocre infantry divisions hampered by their politics. If 

the elite units performed credibly, the shortcomings in the regular army 

remained intact, starting with poor leadership and lack of discipline. 

Despite equivocal results in Cambodia, less than a year later the 

Americans pressed the South Vietnamese to launch a second crossborder operation, this time into Laos. Although the United States 

would provide air, artillery, and logistical support, Army advisers would 

not accompany South Vietnamese forces. The Americans’ enthusiasm 

for the operation exceeded that of their allies. Anticipating high casualties, South Vietnam’s leaders were reluctant to involve their army once 

more in extended operations outside their country. But American intelligence had detected a North Vietnamese buildup in the vicinity of 

Tchepone, Laos, a logistical center on the Ho Chi Minh Trail approximately twenty-five miles west of the South Vietnamese border. The 

Military Assistance Command regarded the buildup as a prelude to a 

North Vietnamese spring offensive in the northern provinces. Like the 

Cambodian incursion, the Laotian invasion was justified as benefiting 

Vietnamization, but with the added bonuses of spoiling a prospective 

offensive and cutting off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 

This would be the last chance for the South Vietnamese to cut the 

Ho Chi Minh Trail while American forces were available to provide 

support. A decade earlier military analysts had developed plans to use 

corps-size American and allied forces to block the infiltration routes 
American Military History

358

in Laos permanently as part of the overall defense of Southeast 

Asia. While the political climate in Washington had militated against 

widening the ground war, officials had viewed the sanctuaries in Laos as 

a strategic threat to the South sufficient to justify taking some form of 

punitive action against them. A bombing campaign, accordingly, started 

early, at the end of 1964, initially complementing the air raids against 

the North and the air war in South Vietnam but intensifying after the 

bombing halt over the North in 1968. 

The other campaign against the Ho Chi Minh Trail was covert 

action. The agency responsible for covert operations in Laos was 

the euphemistically named Studies and Observations Group (SOG). 

Formed in 1964 under a special office in the Pentagon, SOG was 

initially expected to take over the clandestine agent program that the 

Central Intelligence Agency had been running for several years against 

North Vietnam. When the ground war in the South heated up in 1965, 

however, officials decided that the group could be helpful in Laos. In 

September the Johnson administration authorized Operation Shining

Brass (later renamed Prairie Fire), allowing teams of Special Forces and 

South Vietnamese to cross the border in secret to conduct reconnaissance and bomb-damage assessment in order to improve the accuracy 

of the air campaign against the trail. In 1967 SOG’s mission expanded 

to include sabotage. All operations were limited 

to a strip along the border extending no more 

than twenty kilometers into Laos. Later operations expanding into Cambodia were code-named 

Daniel Boone, later Salem House. Between 

1965 and late 1970, Shining Brass/Prairie Fire/

Salem House/Daniel Boone launched more 

than 1,600 missions into the enemy base and trail 

complex, providing a useful supplement to aerial 

and electronic intelligence but not tying down 

several North Vietnamese divisions as advocates 

of the program maintained. SOG was still running 

operations in Laos when the allies launched their 

cross-border offensive in 1971. 

Planning for the offensive began in great 

secrecy in January and involved staff from Lt. 

Gen. James W. Sutherland’s XXIV Corps and Lt. 

Ho Chi Minh Trail

The lifeline of the Communist war effort in South Vietnam, the Ho Chi Minh Trail grew from a network of 

footpaths in 1959 into an all-weather roadway by 1972. Beginning in southern North Vietnam, the trail wound 

through Laos and northern Cambodia, with spurs branching into each of almost two-dozen base areas along the 

border. During the war the United States bombed the trail in an unsuccessful attempt to stanch the flow of enemy 

troops and materiel. According to Communist accounts, between 1959 and 1975, over 915,000 men and almost 

1 million tons of supplies arrived in South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Keeping the trail open was one of the 

key elements of North Vietnamese victory.

Captured Flag of the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong)
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

359

Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam’s I Corps. So tightly held was information on 

the impending operation that logistical and signal preparations that 

required long lead time were put in jeopardy and a combined tactical 

command post was not established until well into the offensive. In 

preparation for the attack, Army helicopters, artillery, and supplies 

were moved at the last minute to the vicinity of the abandoned base 

at Khe Sanh. The 101st Airborne Division conducted a feint toward 

the A Shau Valley to conceal the true objective. On February 8, 1971, 

spearheaded by M41 tanks and with units from the 1st Infantry, 1st 

Airborne, and Marine Divisions leapfrogging into Laos to establish 

firebases on the flanks of the attack, a South Vietnamese column from 

the 1st Armored Brigade advanced down Highway 9 toward Tchepone. 

(See Map 22.) Operation Lam Son 719 had begun.

Because of security leaks, the North Vietnamese were not deceived. 

Within a week South Vietnamese forces numbering about 17,000 

became bogged down by heavy enemy resistance, bad weather, and 

poor attack management. Conflicting orders from I Corps headquarters 

and the airborne division delayed the reinforcement of a critical landing 

zone north of the highway, and the position was lost. The drive into 

Laos stalled. Before long the South Vietnamese were facing elements 

of five North Vietnamese divisions, as well as a tank regiment, two 

artillery regiments, and numerous antiaircraft battalions. Departing 

from the evasive tactics they had used a year earlier in Cambodia, the 

North Vietnamese had decided to stand and fight for their sanctuaries. 

Nonetheless, aided by heavy U.S. air strikes, including B–52s, and plenty 

of artillery and helicopter gunship support, the South Vietnamese 

inched forward and after a bloody, month-long delay, air-assaulted on 

March 6 into the heavily bombed town of Tchepone. This was the last 

bit of good news from the front. 

By that time the North Vietnamese had counterattacked with 

Soviet-built tanks, heavy artillery, and infantry. They struck the rear of 

the South Vietnamese forces strung out on Highway 9, blocking their 

main avenue of withdrawal. Enemy forces also overwhelmed several 

South Vietnamese firebases, depriving South Vietnamese units of 

desperately needed flank protection. The South Vietnamese also lacked 

enough antitank weapons to counter the North Vietnamese armor that 

appeared on the Laotian jungle trails and were inexperienced in the use of 

those they had. U.S. Army helicopter pilots flying gunship and resupply 

Lam Son 719

Planning for the invasion of Laos in a belated attempt to restrict the flow of supplies down the Ho Chi Minh 

Trail began in extreme secrecy. In December 1970 the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized MACV to prepare for 

an invasion of the enemy base areas opposite I Corps; but, fearing leaks from the South Vietnamese, General 

Abrams told only his immediate staff, South Vietnamese President Thieu, and the top South Vietnamese general, 

Cao Van Vien. In the end, secrecy accomplished little: there were only a few possible places for an invasion of 

Laos. The North Vietnamese expected some sort of an attack; when Lam Son 719 was launched in February 1971, 

they quickly defeated it. 
American Military History

360

missions and trying to rescue South Vietnamese soldiers from their 

besieged hilltop firebases encountered intense antiaircraft fire. One 

pilot lamented that enemy gunners were “getting better because of 

all the practice we’ve given them.” Planners initially thought that the 

101st Airborne Division and its attached units could provide all the 

helicopters the operation needed; but as enemy resistance stiffened, 

Abrams had to shift more and more helicopters to northern I Corps, 

some from the Americal Division in southern I Corps, others from 

aviation units in II Corps, even from a 1st Cavalry Division element in 

III Corps that was about to leave Vietnam. When the availability rate of 

the UH–1C Huey gunship during Lam Son slipped to 40 percent, the 

USARV commander, Lt. Gen. William J. McCaffrey, put in an urgent 

call to the Department of the Army. He asked that all available AH–1G 

Cobra helicopters, the latest gunship in the Army’s arsenal, be airlifted 

to South Vietnam. 

On March 16, ten days after Tchepone was taken, President Thieu 

issued the order to pull out, turning aside General Abrams’ plea for an 

expansion of the offensive to do serious damage to the trail. Command 

Map 22

9

9

Se Pone

Tchepone

Khe Sanh

Lao Bao

S O U T H

V I E T N A M

L A O S

Muong Nông

SOPHIA

HOPE

LIZ

SOPHIA E

BROWN

LOLO

31

A LUOI

RANGER N

RANGER S

30

SOUTH

VIETNAMESE

FORCES

HOTEL

YELLOW

BLUE

BRICK

DELTA 1

DELTA

DON

HOTEL II

GREEN

GRASS

LAM SON 719

Axis of Advance

Firebase

Landing Zone

February 1971

0 10

Miles
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

361

and control problems that had surfaced during the attack were magnified in the withdrawal, despite warnings from General Sutherland that 

the maneuver had to be carefully planned and closely coordinated. 

General Lam was in a hurry and soon lost control of the operation. 

While many units maintained their cohesiveness and fought well, for 

others all semblance of order vanished. The 1st Armored Brigade, its 

infantry protection on the flanks prematurely removed, ran into a series 

of ambushes in which it lost 60 percent of its tanks and half its armored 

personnel carriers. The infantry, 

airborne, and marine divisions, 

under continuous harassing fire, did 

succeed in extricating themselves, 

but they left behind many casualties and much equipment, including 

ninety-six artillery pieces. Eventually, 

South Vietnamese forces punched 

their way out of Laos but only after 

paying a heavy price.

That the South Vietnamese 

Army had reached its objective of 

Tchepone was of little consequence. 

Its stay there was brief and the supply 

caches it discovered disappointing, 

since most were in the mountains to 

the east and west. South Vietnam’s 

forces had failed to sever the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail; infiltration reportedly 

increased during Lam Son 719, as 

the North Vietnamese shifted traffic 

to roads and trails farther to the west 

in Laos. In addition to equipment 

AH–1G Cobras made thousands of high-speed runs across the border 

against targets in Laos.

Chopper Pick-up, Brian H. Clark, 1968
American Military History

362

losses, the South Vietnamese lost nearly 1,600 

men. The U.S. Army’s lost 215 men killed, 1,149 

wounded, and 38 missing. The Army also lost 

108 helicopters, the highest number in any one 

operation of the war. Supporters of helicopter 

warfare pointed to heavy enemy casualties and 

argued that equipment losses were reasonable, 

given the large number of helicopters and 

helicopter sorties (more than 160,000) that 

supported Lam Son 719. The battle nevertheless raised disturbing questions among Army 

officials about the vulnerability of helicopters in 

mid- or high-intensity conflict to any significant 

antiaircraft capability.

Lam Son 719 was a test of Vietnamization 

less ambiguous than the Cambodian incursion. 

The South Vietnamese Army did not perform 

well in Laos. Reflecting on the operation, Lt. 

Gen. Ngo Quang Truong, a former commander 

of the 1st Division who took command of I 

Corps in 1972, noted the South Vietnamese 

Army’s chronic weakness in planning for and 

coordinating combat support. He also observed 

that from the battalion to the division level the 

army had become dependent on U.S. advisers. 

At the highest levels of command, he added, 

“the need for advisers was more acutely felt in 

two specific areas: planning and leadership. The 

basic weakness of [South Vietnamese] units 

at regimental and sometimes division level in 

those areas,” he continued, “seriously affected 

the performance of subordinate units.” Lam

Son 719 scored one success, forestalling a 

Communist spring offensive in the northern 

provinces; in other respects it failed and was an 

ill omen for the future.

Withdrawal: The Final Battles

As the Americans withdrew, South Vietnam’s combat capability 

declined. The United States furnished its allies heavier M48A3 tanks to 

match the North Vietnamese Army’s T–54 tanks and heavier artillery 

to counter North Vietnamese 130-mm. guns, though past experience 

suggested that additional arms and equipment could not compensate 

for poor skills and mediocre leadership. In fact, the weapons and 

equipment were insufficient to offset the reduction in U.S. combat 

strength. In mid-1968, for example, some forty-five allied infantry 

battalions were present in South Vietnam’s two northern provinces; in 

1972, with U.S. infantry gone, only twenty-one battalions were in the 

same area. Artillery strength in the northern region suffered a similar 

decline, and ammunition supply rates fell as well. Similar reductions 

took place throughout South Vietnam, causing declines in mobility, 

Point Crossing, Konrad F. Hack, 2003
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

363

firepower, intelligence support, and air support. American specialties 

(B–52 strikes, photo reconnaissance, and the use of sensors and other 

means of target acquisition) were drastically curtailed.

Such losses were all the more serious because operations in 

Cambodia and Laos had illustrated how deeply ingrained in the South 

Vietnamese Army the American style of warfare had become. Nearly two 

decades of U.S. military involvement were exacting an unexpected price. 

A South Vietnamese division commander commented, “Trained as they 

were through combined action with US units, the [South Vietnamese] 

unit commander was used to the employment of massive firepower.” 

That habit, he added, “was hard to relinquish.”

By November 1971, when the 101st Airborne Division withdrew 

from South Vietnam, North Vietnam was preparing for its 1972 spring 

offensive. With the South’s combat capacity diminished and nearly all 

U.S. combat troops gone, the North sensed an opportunity to demonstrate the failure of Vietnamization, hasten the South Vietnamese Army’s 

collapse, and revive the stalled peace talks. In its broad outlines and goals, 

the 1972 offensive resembled Tet 1968, except that the North Vietnamese 

Army, instead of the Viet Cong, bore the major burden of combat. 

The allies had plenty of warning of an impending attack. In 

December U.S. intelligence had started detecting enemy concentrations of armor and artillery farther south along the Ho Chi Minh 

Trail than ever before encountered, and analysts had also noted a 

dramatic increase in the number of North Vietnamese soldiers infiltrating into the South. By mid-January Abrams was so certain of his 

information that he was predicting a major conventional attack in 

which massed enemy formations and enemy armor and artillery operating in the open would play the decisive role. This gave confidence 

to those officials who believed in the efficacy of U.S. air power. In 

fact, as the winter wore on, air power advocates felt that a succession 

of “protective reaction” air strikes President Nixon had authorized 

in December had actually forestalled the expected offensive. While 

this point was controversial, all did agree that U.S. ground forces in 

Vietnam were no longer in a position to exercise influence over the 

battlefield. By March 1972 total military strength in the South had 

fallen to about 100,000, with one brigade, the 196th Light Infantry, at 

Da Nang, another, the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, at Bien Hoa. 

The task of countering any offensive on the ground would fall almost 

exclusively to the South Vietnamese.

Easter Offensive

By January 1972 U.S. intelligence knew full well that North Vietnam was planning a major offensive. 

Infiltration of enemy troops had increased sharply, and overhead surveillance spotted new supply caches along 

the Ho Chi Minh Trail. MACV also knew that the enemy would for the first time be employing armor and heavy 

artillery in large numbers. All this was coming at a time when the United States was withdrawing; on the eve of 

the offensive in March 1972, U.S. military strength in South Vietnam was down to 103,824, the lowest figure since 

mid-1965.
American Military History

364

The Nguyen Hue, or Easter, offensive began on March 30, 1972. 

Attacking on three fronts, the North Vietnamese poured across the 

demilitarized zone and out of Laos into northern I Corps, pushed eastward into the Central Highlands, and drove down Highway 13 toward 

Loc Ninh and An Loc, one of the traditional invasion routes to Saigon. 

Surprised by the ferocity of the attacks, the South Vietnamese fell 

back everywhere. The most devastating assaults took place in Quang 

Tri Province. (Map 23) While enemy artillery struck every firebase in 

the northern defense sector, infantry and armor quickly routed the 3d 

Infantry Division, formed just months before, and slashed their way 

toward Dong Ha. Momentarily held up by the 20th Tank Regiment, 

by May 1 North Vietnamese forces had taken Quang Tri City and the 

rest of Quang Tri Province and were threatening to move on Hue. In 

one month of battle, the South Vietnamese in northern I Corps had 

lost almost all their artillery and all but one of their M48s. The marines 

and rangers had also lost heavily, and several U.S. advisers had died. 

As refugees streamed south toward the dubious safety of Hue, South 

Vietnamese forces established a defense line at the My Chanh River 

on the Quang Tri–Thua Thien provincial border and President Thieu 

replaced the I Corps commander, General Lam. 

Elsewhere, South Vietnamese losses were nearly as serious. Though 

the enemy attack in II Corps developed more slowly, by April 24 North 

Vietnamese forces had destroyed the 22d Division at Tan Canh and Dak 

To, seized control of northern Kontum Province, and were knocking 

on the door of Kontum City. President Thieu removed another corps 

commander, leaving the senior adviser, John Paul Vann, a civilian, in 

command of II Corps and Kontum City braced for all-out assault. 

The III Corps area also was sorely threatened. Realizing too late that 

the main attack was developing in Binh Long, not Tay Ninh, Province, 

the South Vietnamese and their advisers were slow to reinforce the 

corridor down Highway 13. Loc Ninh fell to the 5th PLAF Division in a 

week, and a few days later enemy infantry and armor invaded An Loc’s 

northern neighborhoods and could not be ejected. The U.S. adviser 

with the South Vietnamese 5th Division thought defeat was near. 

This was the grim situation, enemy pressure unrelenting everywhere 

and the contest in doubt, when, sometime during May, the battlefield 

on all three fronts began to stabilize. The change was barely perceptible 

at first, but slowly the enemy offensive ran out of steam. Much of the 

enemy’s difficulty turned out to be logistical. For the first time in the 

war huge amounts of fuel and ammunition were required to sustain the 

enemy’s fighting forces in South Vietnam. Those supply lines became 

targets of a renewed aerial offensive in both North and South Vietnam 

that isolated the Southern battlefield as never before. Every front felt 

the impact of U.S. air power. At Kontum City, with supplies and artillery running low, the North Vietnamese Army spent its infantry in city 

fighting until it was too weak to withstand a counterattack by the 23d 

Division. Harried by U.S. helicopters and tactical air strikes, enemy 

forces were soon in retreat toward Cambodia. An Loc was touchand-go a little longer; but by mid-June, buttressed by air drops from 

U.S. Air Force C–130s, and massive B–52 bombing runs, the South 

Vietnamese made their stand at the city center, decimating the attacking 

formations. After several more desperate assaults, the enemy survivors 
Map 23

Tonle

Sap

G U L F O F

T H A I L A N D

S O U T H

C H I N A S E A

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

Mekong River

MR 1

MR 2

MR 3

MR 4

Con Son

Phu Quoc

DEMARCATION LINE

Sakon Nakhon

Savannakhet

Kammouane

Tchepone

Dong Ha

Hue

Da Nang

Muong Nông

Ubon Ratchathani

Paksé Quang Ngai

Tam Ky

Tam Quan

Hoai Nhon

Hoai An

Khong

Attopeu

Surin

Stung

 Treng

Dak To

Kontum

Qui Nhon

Ban Me Thuot

Kratie

Kompong Thom

Pursat

Kompong Cham

Chup Memot

Snuol

Loc Ninh

An Loc

Nha Trang

Tay Ninh

Svay Rieng

Sihanoukville

Kampot

Takeo

SAIGON

Rach Gia Can Tho

Quang Tri

Saravane

Pleiku

PHNOM PENH

Siem Reap

Neak Luong

Lomphat

L A O S

T H A I L A N D

C A M B O D I A

S O U T H

V I E T N A M

N O R T H

 V I E T N A M

 EASTER OFFENSIVE

North Vietnamese Axis of Attack

Military Region 

Note: On 1 July 1970, Corps Tactical Zones 

 were redesignated Military Regions.

MR 

March–May 1972

0 100

Miles
American Military History

366

In August the South Vietnamese took Quang Tri City and this 

Russian-built T–54 tank.

slipped away into the forests to the 

west. The toughest fight took place 

in Quang Tri Province, where for 

the next four months North and 

South Vietnamese forces waged 

a slow, grinding attrition struggle 

that had all the bloody hallmarks 

of World War I. By the time South 

Vietnamese marines took Quang 

Tri City in September, tens of 

thousands of North Vietnamese 

soldiers had perished and the 

Marine Division had bled as well. 

But the Easter offensive had finally 

run its course. 

In the aftermath the governments in Saigon and Hanoi both 

claimed victory, but the balance 

had not been significantly altered. 

On one side of the ledger were the 

declines in rural security wherever 

North Vietnamese divisions had 

forced their way into South Vietnam. By the end of the offensive 

substantial parts of Quang Tri and Binh Long Provinces remained in 

enemy hands, while northwest Tay Ninh Province had also become safe 

enough for the Communists to reestablish COSVN headquarters there. 

In addition, there were new and disturbing signs of North Vietnamese 

penetration of the Mekong Delta to compensate for Viet Cong losses 

there to pacification. A rise in attacks on government outposts in 

the delta pointed to the fragility of pacification in this crucial arena. 

Looking at the country as the whole, on the other hand, CORDS officials insisted that the offensive had not undone the gains since 1968, at 

least not permanently. Although the measurements of hamlet security 

remained controversial and subject to interpretation, the trends seemed 

to suggest that government programs for security and rural development were well on the way to recovery by the end of 1972. 

What had changed in 1972 were the tactics of the war, bringing 

new levels of destructiveness to the battlefield. Communist forces had 

made extensive use of armor and artillery. Among the new weapons in 

the enemy’s arsenal was the Soviet SA–7 handheld antiaircraft missile, 

which posed a threat to slow-flying tactical aircraft and helicopters and 

inflicted losses at Quang Tri City. The Soviet AT–3 Sagger antitank 

missile destroyed allied armor and bunkers in northern I Corps and at 

Tan Canh in II Corps. On the other hand, Army helicopter gunships, 

some of them newly outfitted with TOW (Tube-launched, Optically 

tracked, Wire-guided) antitank missiles, proved effective against North 

Vietnamese armor at standoff range. In their antitank role, Army attack 

helicopters were crucial to the South Vietnamese Army’s successes at 

An Loc and Kontum City, suggesting a larger role for helicopters in the 

future as part of a combined-arms team in conventional combat.

The other major development in 1972 was the decisive application 

of air power and the encouragement this offered to South Vietnamese 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

367

leaders facing a future without American ground forces. President 

Nixon’s resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam during the 

Easter offensive and, for the first time, his mining of North Vietnamese 

ports, gave confidence to the belief that the South Vietnamese could 

count on U.S. air support in the years ahead. So did the intense B–52 

bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, the Linebacker II raids, in December 

1972. But such pressure was intended at least in part to force North 

Vietnam to sign an armistice. If President Thieu was encouraged by 

the display of U.S. military muscle, the course of negotiations in Paris 

could only have been a source of discouragement. The long deadlock 

was broken in August, when North Vietnam, in the wake of its failed 

Easter offensive and under pressure from the Soviet Union to find a 

solution, dropped an earlier demand for Thieu’s removal. At the same 

time the United States gave up its insistence on North Vietnam’s withdrawal from South Vietnam. With that agreement, the talks hastened 

to a conclusion. In early 1973 the United States, North and South 

Vietnam, and the Viet Cong signed an armistice that promised a ceasefire and national reconciliation. In fact, fighting continued; but MACV 

was dissolved, remaining U.S. forces withdrawn, and American military 

action in South Vietnam terminated. Perhaps most important of all, 

American advisers—still in many respects the backbone of the South 

Vietnamese Army’s command structure—were withdrawn.

Between 1973 and 1975, South Vietnam’s military security declined 

through a combination of old and new factors. Plagued by poor maintenance and shortages of spare parts, much of the advanced equipment 

provided South Vietnam’s forces under Vietnamization became inoperable. A rise in fuel prices stemming from a worldwide oil crisis further 

restricted the South Vietnamese military’s use of vehicles and aircraft. 

Government forces in many areas of the country were on the defensive, 

confined to protecting key towns and installations. Seeking to preserve 

its diminishing assets, the South Vietnamese Army became garrison 

bound and either reluctant or unable to react to a growing number of 

guerrilla attacks that eroded rural security. Congressionally mandated 

reductions in U.S. aid further reduced the delivery of spare parts, fuel, 

and ammunition. American military activities in Cambodia and Laos, 

which had continued after the cease-fire in South Vietnam went into 

effect, ended in 1973 when Congress cut off funds. Complaining of 

this austerity, President Thieu noted that he had to fight a “poor man’s 

war.” Vietnamization’s legacy was that South Vietnam had to do more 

with less. 

In 1975 North Vietnam’s leaders began planning for a new offensive, still uncertain whether the United States would resume bombing 

or once again intervene in the South. When their forces overran Phuoc 

Long Province, north of Saigon, without any American military reaction, they decided to proceed with a major offensive in the Central 

Highlands. Neither President Nixon, weakened by the Watergate 

scandal and forced to resign, nor his successor, Gerald R. Ford, was 

prepared to challenge Congress by resuming U.S. military activity in 

Southeast Asia. The will of Congress seemed to reflect the mood of an 

American public weary of the long and inconclusive war.

What had started as a limited offensive in the highlands now 

became an all-out effort to conquer South Vietnam. Thieu, desiring 

Seeking to preserve its 

diminishing assets, the South 

Vietnamese Army became 

garrison bound and either 

reluctant or unable to react to 

a growing number of guerrilla 

attacks that eroded rural security.
American Military History

368

to husband his military resources, decided to retreat rather than to 

reinforce the Central Highlands. The result was panic among his 

troops and a mass exodus toward the coast. As North Vietnamese 

forces spilled out of the Central Highlands, they cut off South 

Vietnamese defenders in the northern provinces from the rest of 

the country. (Map 24) Other North Vietnamese units now crossed 

the demilitarized zone, quickly overrunning Hue and Da Nang and 

signaling the collapse of South Vietnamese resistance in the north. 

Hurriedly established defense lines around Saigon held back the 

enemy offensive against the capital for a while, but not for long. As 

South Vietnamese leaders waited in vain for American assistance, 

Saigon fell to the Communists on April 30, 1975. 

The time South Vietnamese forces bought near Saigon allowed 

the United States to complete a final evacuation from the capital. All 

day long on the twenty-ninth of April, Air Force and Marine Corps 

helicopters shuttled nearly 7,000 people, including the American 

ambassador, to U.S. Navy ships waiting off shore. Among the 5,600 

non-American evacuees were South Vietnamese who were related to 

Americans or who faced a doubtful future because of the work they 

had done in Vietnam for U.S. agencies. Two U.S. marines were killed 

when North Vietnamese shells struck the compound of the former 

MACV headquarters that was serving as an evacuation site. Two pilots 

died when their helicopter went down at sea. These were the final U.S. 

casualties in Vietnam while the war still raged. When the last helicopter 

lifted off from the American embassy the next morning, taking with 

it a contingent of marine guards, the long American war for Vietnam 

came to a close. 

An Assessment

Saigon’s fall was a bitter end to the long American effort to sustain 

South Vietnam. Ranging from advice and support to direct participation in combat and involving nearly 3 million U.S. servicemen, the effort 

failed to stop Communist leaders from reaching their goal of unifying 

a divided nation. South Vietnam’s military defeat tended to obscure the 

crucial inability of this massive military enterprise to compensate for 

South Vietnam’s political shortcomings. Over a span of two decades, 

a series of regimes had failed to mobilize fully and effectively their 

nation’s political, social, and economic resources to foster a popular 

base of support. North Vietnamese conventional units ended the war, 

but insurgency and disaffection among the people of the South made 

that outcome possible.

The U.S. Army paid a high price for its long involvement in South 

Vietnam. American military deaths exceeded 58,000; of those, about 

two-thirds were soldiers. The majority of the dead were low-ranking 

enlisted men (E–2 to E–4), young men twenty-three years old or 

younger, of whom approximately 13 percent were African American. 

Almost a third of the deaths were caused by small-arms fire; but a 

significant portion, a little over a quarter, stemmed from mines, booby 

traps, and grenades. Artillery, rockets, and bombs accounted for only 

a small portion of the total fatalities. The deadliest year was 1968, 

followed by 1969 and 1967.
Map 24

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

S O U T H C H I N A S E A

Mekong River

Gulf

of Thailand

L A O S T H A I L A N D

C A M B O D I A

N O R T H V I E T N A M

DEMARCATION LINE

Cu Lao Cham

Cu Lao Re

Dao Phu Qui

Con Son

Quang Tri

Da Nang

Tam Ky

Kontum

Dak To

Qui Nhon

An Khe

Hau Bon

Tuy Hoa

Ninh Hoa

Nha Trang

Ban Me

Thuot

Pleiku

Da Lat

Cam Ranh

Phan Thiet

Vung Tau

Tay Ninh

My Tho

Can Tho

Phu Cuong

Bien Hoa

Long Binh

Moc Hoa

Rach Gia

Ca Mau

Soc Trang

Hue

Loc Ninh

Chu Lai

Quang Ngai

SAIGON

PHNOM PENH

Attopeu

Saravane

Pakse

Stung Treng

Tchepone

Savannakhet

Kratie

Snuol

Svay Rieng

0 50

0 50

Miles

Kilometers

THE FINAL DAYS

Communist Advances, Jan

Communist Advances, Mar

Communist Advances, Apr

1975
American Military History

370

If not for the unprecedented medical care that the Army provided in 

South Vietnam, the death toll would have been higher still. Of the nearly 

300,000 Americans wounded, half required hospitalization. The lives of 

many seriously injured men, who would have become fatalities in earlier 

wars, were saved by rapid helicopter evacuation direct to hospitals close 

to the combat zone. Here, relatively secure from air and ground attack, 

usually unencumbered by mass casualties, and with access to an uninterrupted supply of whole blood, Army doctors and nurses availed themselves of the latest medical technology to save thousands of lives. As 

one medical officer pointed out, the Army was able to adopt a “civilian 

philosophy of casualty triage” in the battle zone that directed the “major 

effort first to the most seriously injured.” But some who served in South 

Vietnam suffered more insidious damage from the adverse psychological 

effects of combat or the long-term effects of exposure to chemical 

agents. Moreover, three decades after the end of the war, almost 1,900 

American soldiers remain listed as missing in action. 

The war-ravaged Vietnamese, North and South, suffered the 

greatest losses. South Vietnamese military deaths exceeded 200,000. 

War-related civilian deaths in the South approached a half-million, while 

the injured and maimed numbered many more. Accurate estimates of 

enemy casualties run afoul of the difficulty in distinguishing between 

civilians and combatants, imprecise body counts, and the difficulty of 

verifying casualties in enemy-controlled areas. Nevertheless, nearly a 

million Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers are believed to have 

perished in combat through the spring of 1975. 

For the U.S. Army the scars of the war ran even deeper than the 

grim statistics showed. Given its long association with South Vietnam’s 

fortunes, the Army could not escape being tarnished by its ally’s fall. 

The loss compounded already unsettling questions about the Army’s 

role in Southeast Asia, about the soundness of its advice to the South 

Vietnamese, about its understanding of the nature of the war, about 

the appropriateness of its strategy and tactics, and about the adequacy 

of the counsel Army leaders provided to our nation’s decision makers. 

Marked by ambiguous military objectives and defensive strategy, 

sometimes ponderous tactics, and untidy command arrangements, the 

struggle in Vietnam seemed to violate most of the time-honored principles of war. Many officers sought to erase Vietnam from the Army’s 

corporate memory, feeling uncomfortable with failure or believing that 

the lessons and experience of the war were of little use to the postVietnam Army. Although a generation of officers, including many of 

the Army’s future leaders, cut their combat teeth in Vietnam, many 

regretted that the Army’s reputation, integrity, and professionalism had 

been tainted in the service of a 

flawed strategy and a dubious ally.

Discussion Questions

1. The Tet offensive was a desperate gamble on the part of the 

North Vietnamese leadership and a sign of military weakness: true or 

false? Why?

2. What were the main elements of the pacification program in 

Vietnam, and how did the program change over time? 
The U.S. Army in Vietnam: From Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975

371

3. General Abrams’ methodology of war has sometimes been 

contrasted with that of General Westmoreland. How did it differ? How 

was it similar?

4. Discuss the division of labor on the battlefield between the U.S. 

Army and the South Vietnamese Army. Could the United States have 

done this differently? How?

5. Toward the end of the war, some observers called the U.S. Army 

the ultimate people’s army. To what were they referring? Were they right? 

6. “You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,” said the 

American colonel during a conversation in Hanoi in April 1975. The 

North Vietnamese colonel replied, “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.” What did the North Vietnamese colonel mean?

Recommended Readings

Andrade, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter 

Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001.

Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973. U.S. 

Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1988.

Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–

1973. U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 1996.

Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts 

and Minds. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995. 

Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 

1978.

Oberdorfer, Don. Tet!: The Turning Point in Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Spector, Ronald H. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: 

Vintage Books, 1994.

Other Readings

Andrade, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. 

Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990.

Kimball, Jeffrey P. Nixon’s Vietnam War. Lawrence: University Press of 

Kansas, 1998.

LeGro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Vietnam 

Studies. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

2001.

Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Vietnam 

Studies. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1991.

Pisor, Robert. The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh. New York: W. 

W. Norton, 1982.

Shulimson, Jack, et al. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year, 1968. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps, 1997. 

Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground 

Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1973. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 

1985.
American Military History

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Starry, Donn A. Mounted Combat in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies.

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2002.

Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. 

Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1982.

Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Vietnam Studies. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1989.

Vien, Cao Van. The Final Collapse. Indochina Monographs. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1984.

Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Ithaca: Cornell 

University Press, 1991.
T he end of American ground forces’ direct participation in the 

Vietnam War in January 1973 left the U.S. Army a much weakened institution. Public trust in the Army was at a low point, 

with many blaming the military for the war as much as they blamed 

the civilian policymakers whose orders the military was carrying out. 

Many of the soldiers who returned from Vietnam faced a hostile or at 

best indifferent public reception. A number of soldiers had become 

drug addicts in Vietnam, where the supply of heroin was plentiful. 

Discipline, especially in the rear base camps, had begun breaking 

down in many units toward the end of the war as it became apparent 

that America was only interested in leaving Vietnam. A common 

saying of the time was that no one wanted to be the last man to die in 

Vietnam. Racial tension and even instances of “fragging” (tossing a 

fragmentation grenade into the sleeping quarters or office of a superior officer or noncommissioned officer [NCO] to injure or “warn”) 

led to some unit-cohesion problems. The Army that left Vietnam 

and returned to America and its garrisons in Germany and Korea 

in the early 1970s was at low ebb of morale, discipline, and military 

effectiveness.

The problems did not go away immediately with the end of the 

war. For those career soldiers and officers who remained in the Army, 

drug problems, poor leadership (especially at the junior NCO and 

officer levels), and severe racial problems often split units into hostile 

camps. Race riots were not uncommon, especially in the understrength 

kasserns of Germany as the Army tried to rebuild its European units 

that had been drained to support the Vietnam War. With the expiration 

of Selective Service induction authority on June 30, 1973, the establishment of a new, all-volunteer Army was under way. Many wondered if 

the Army could recover sufficiently to recruit enough quality soldiers 

and, even if it did so, if the country would be able to pay the bill. The 

result was far from certain.

12

Rebuilding the Army

Vietnam to Desert Storm
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The All-Volunteer Force

Even while the Vietnam War was raging, the Army and the 

Department of Defense had begun tentative planning to transition 

to an all-volunteer force. For most planners, this was new ground. 

Except for a short period of time immediately after World War II, the 

Army had not had a volunteer force since just before the United States 

entered World War II. Commanders could rely upon the steady flow of 

young men of reasonable physical and mental quality, since they had 

the entire manpower of the country to draw upon. Recruiting was not a 

high priority: it was not seen as entirely necessary. Why struggle to meet 

a quota for recruits when the draft guaranteed enough men to fill the 

force? The reserve components, both the National Guard and Army 

Reserve, were at full strength and even overstrength, as young men 

flocked to those units to fulfill their service obligations with a minimal 

risk of going to Vietnam. 

With the election of President Richard M. Nixon in 1968, the 

prospect of ending the draft became a real possibility. As a result, the 

Defense Department started a study project entitled Project Volunteer 

in November 1968 to determine the feasibility of recruiting an allvolunteer force while still maintaining military effectiveness. Quickly, 

many key issues began surfacing: how to get enough high-quality 

soldiers, how to keep them, how to pay for them, and what management and leadership practices would create an effective military force 

out of this voluntary manpower. 

In January 1969 the process of ending the draft accelerated. The 

newly inaugurated President specifically requested that the Defense 

Department take action to eliminate the draft and create an allvolunteer force. He formed an advisory commission, called the Gates 

Commission, to develop a complete plan on how to implement the 

new force. The Army, the service most affected by manpower levels, 

began its own study on how it could implement such an idea. Project 

Volunteer in Defense of the Nation (PROVIDE) addressed such topics 

such as cost, standards of quality, personnel management, numbers 

needed to recruit, and even the possible socioeconomic impact of an 

all-volunteer force. 

Perhaps the biggest single hurdle in creating an all-volunteer 

force was money. The draft brought in young men for a short period 

of service at artificially low wages, essentially “taxing” a segment of 

The Army in Germany

Throughout the seventies, funding shortages undermined the readiness and morale of American soldiers in 

Germany. United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), suffered from under investment and under maintenance. Bad 

housing, dilapidated facilities, worn equipment, and inadequate training were the rule. The situation changed in 

the eighties. Large increases in USAREUR’s capital budget made up for years of parsimony, while stepped-up 

training improved U.S. combat capabilities. For the remainder of the 1980s, the U.S. Army in Germany was 

perhaps the most-desired training and operational assignment for Army personnel.
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

375

society. With the ending of that tax, the government would have to 

find enough money to provide monetary incentives—viable wages and 

even bonuses for some specialties—for new recruits. Without competitive pay, the Army could not enlist or retain the best soldiers. Money 

was also needed for advertising for the United States Army Recruiting 

Command (USAREC) if the Army was to become an attractive career 

choice and bring in enough quality American youths. 

Some negative aspects of Army life also required additional funding 

to eliminate. With virtually unlimited manpower, the Army over the 

years had diverted more and more of its soldiers to nonmilitary, even 

menial, tasks. Army posts had soldiers cutting the grass, painting quarters, working as “kitchen police” (KP) in the mess halls, and functioning 

as clerks in various support and morale activities often unrelated to 

military skills. Many considered Army soldiers just a source of “cheap” 

manpower. With the ending of the draft, however, the Army could 

no longer afford to waste manpower or divert highly trained soldiers 

to menial tasks. As the time for the end of the draft grew closer, the 

Army began lobbying for more money to hire civilian workers to take 

over many of the tasks deemed unsuitable for soldiers. This improved 

morale and increased the training time available for soldiers to improve 

their individual and unit military skills. Soldiers were on their way to 

being treated as professionals again, not merely as cheap, unskilled 

manpower. Money by itself was not enough, but it went a long way 

toward redressing some of the young soldiers’ worst grievances. 

As the Nixon administration reiterated its commitment to ending 

the draft, the Army moved to implement the new concept. In October 

1970 Chief of Staff of the Army General William C. Westmoreland 

created the position of Special Assistant for the Modern Volunteer 

Army (SAMVA) to head the Modern Volunteer Army (MVA) program 

and appointed Lt. Gen. George I. Forsythe. Forsythe faced a formidable challenge as he tried to lay out a blueprint for what would amount 

to a major cultural change while a war still raged in Southeast Asia.

The most obvious problem the new volunteer Army faced was 

the difficulty of attracting and keeping enough manpower. Without a 

sufficient number of recruits, the entire experiment would collapse. 

The Army faced problems with raw manpower needs and with the 

basic requirement of getting enough soldiers to join the critical combat 

arms of Infantry, Field Artillery, and Armor. Fewer than half the men 

entering the Army in 1970 were considered volunteers, and only 4 

percent of them joined the combat arms. Yet the Army, still involved in 

combat in Vietnam, needed thousands of combat soldiers. To make the 

new volunteer force work, the Army estimated that it had to increase 

enlistments for the combat arms by about 300 percent by June 1973. 

To achieve this goal, in the midst of an increasingly unpopular war for 

which all the services were beginning to share the blame, was going to 

require innovative leadership and a willingness to experiment, in addition to much more money.

One of the more controversial experiments under the MVA 

program was Project VOLAR (Volunteer Army) conducted at selected 

Army posts (Forts Benning, Carson, and Ord, joined by Bragg in April 

1971) from January 1, 1971, to June 30, 1972. This project experimented with ways to raise morale, increase retention rates, and decrease 

With the ending of the draft, ... 

the Army could no longer afford 

to waste manpower or divert 

highly trained soldiers to menial 

tasks.
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disciplinary problems (especially absent without leave, or AWOL, rates) 

to prove that with the right combination of leadership and incentives a 

volunteer force was possible. At each selected post, the leadership abolished harassing or “Mickey Mouse,” details; civilianized the infamous 

KP duties; relaxed grooming standards; allowed for weekends without 

duty or inspections; established junior enlisted councils to provide 

another channel for grievances; and put forth a host of other initiatives. 

When implemented consistently by conscientious officers and NCOs, 

the initiatives often resulted in soldiers’ being treated like mature adults 

and not like children, with a concomitant increase in pride, morale, and 

reenlistment rates. 

However, some ill-thought-out VOLAR initiatives such as beer in 

the barracks or severe relaxation of grooming and discipline standards 

led to more problems than they solved and presented the impression 

of a loss of control. Some programs, if implemented by poor leaders 

not really interested in taking care of soldiers or not believing that 

the volunteer force would work, sometimes led to a collapse of discipline, exacerbated existing racial problems, and alienated officers and 

noncommissioned officers. This time of experimentation showed what 

the Army needed to do to restore morale and improve the quality of 

life for soldiers, but it also revealed what it needed to avoid in order 

rebuild the force after decades of relying on the draft. The initial media 

and Army focus on making the Army more permissive and attractive 

soon faded as commanders and soldiers realized that the more important initiatives revolved around more and better training, instilling in 

the soldiers a stronger sense of professionalism, and building greater 

individual and unit pride.

With the formal ending of direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam 

War and the formal establishment of the all-volunteer Army in 1973, 

the need to make the Army an effective military force rested first and 

foremost on the need to recruit more soldiers. At first it seemed an 

impossible task. Month after month in 1973 the Army, like many of 

the other services, failed to meet its recruiting quotas. Recruiters were 

initially able to fill only 68.5 percent of their quota for enlisting firstterm male soldiers. Attempts to hold the line for high-quality recruits, 

those with high school diplomas, seemed doomed to failure. Some, 

including members of Congress, began claiming that the Army was 

secretly intent on subverting the Modern Volunteer Army Program and 

returning to the “safe” days of the unlimited manpower of the draft. 

Even with the reduction of the authorized end strength of the Army to 

781,000 in 1974, the Army ended fiscal year 1973, the last year of the 

draft, understrength by almost 14,000. 

The pivotal year for the survival of the all-volunteer Army was fiscal 

year 1974 (July 1, 1973–June 30, 1974). For the first time, recruiting 

began to turn the corner; in November 1973 recruiting quotas were 

topped. Army recruiters enlisted 104 percent of their overall quota in 

that month. By June of the following year, they had attained 123 percent 

of their quota. Of those recruited, 84 percent were in the average or 

above average mental groups, proving that the Army was starting to 

turn the corner on quality enlistees. 

There were a number of reasons for this turnaround in recruiting. 

First, the smaller size of the Army helped. The Army during Vietnam 

When implemented consistently 

by conscientious officers and 

NCOs, the initiatives often 

resulted in soldiers’ being treated 

like mature adults and not like 

children, with a concomitant 

increase in pride, morale, and 

reenlistment rates. 
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

377

had peaked at 1.57 million soldiers in 1968 and declined to an authorized end strength of 785,000 by the end of June 1974. This relaxed 

some of the pressure on the recruiters. Congress also helped when it 

authorized bonuses for thirty-two of the most critical skills, including 

the combat arms, the Army needed. Congress had also authorized 

additional incentive pay bonuses for recruiters. With more and betterpaid recruiters on the street and better deals to offer, the Army reached 

more and more potential recruits. Finally, the Army leadership, in 

particular Secretary of the Army Howard H. “Bo” Callaway, began to 

show an unwavering commitment to making the all-volunteer force 

succeed. The Army realized that there was no going back to the draft. 

As recruiting slogans changed from “The Army wants to join you” 

to “Join the people who have joined the Army” and finally to the 

classic “Be all that you can be, in the Army,” the number and quality 

of recruits continued to increase. 

Another reason for the improvement in the recruitment rates for 

the Army had lasting consequences. The Army, at first out of necessity 

and later out of a realization that it needed the highest-quality recruits it 

could get, began actively to expand the number of women in the Army 

and increased the numbers of specialties they could perform. From 

about 1948, the number of women in the Army had been limited to 

no more than 2 percent of the end strength. They were excluded from 

most combat and combat support (CS) specialties and concentrated 

in the clerical and supply fields. Married women could not enlist, and 

women who became pregnant in the service faced mandatory discharge. 

To meet the new all-volunteer Army manpower quotas, all that would 

have to change. 

The changes in the role of women in the Army proceeded slowly 

but inexorably as the talent, skill, and dedication women brought to 

their task made believers out of the somewhat conservative male Army 

leadership. The numbers of women recruited went from 10,900 a year 

to 25,130 a year in just five years. By 1978 there were 53,000 women in 

the Army, growing to around 80,000 by the end of fiscal year 1983. The 

Army could not have made its recruiting 

quotas without this dramatic expansion 

of the number of women who willingly 

joined the service.

Training for women dramatically 

improved; new skill areas, many previously 

all male, opened for females. Units increasingly were mixed gender, and women 

were no longer discharged for pregnancy. 

Women were soon training on the use of 

small arms, initially on a voluntary basis, 

beginning in Women’s Army Corps basic 

training in July 1974. Then, in a major 

symbolic event, 119 women were admitted 

to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point 

for the first time in July 1976, graduating 

as members of the class of 1980. The integration of women into the Army was so 

complete and irreversible that in October A Drill Instructor Training Recruits in Basic Rifle Marksmanship
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378

1978 the Women’s Army Corps was disestablished and all women were 

assigned to branches for management purposes just as all other soldiers. 

During time of war, they went to the theater just as men did. When the 

Army deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1990, 8.6 percent of the total 

force deployed to Saudi Arabia, 26,000, were women. 

The increase in the number of women in the Army did not occur 

without problems. Change never comes easy to a large and somewhat 

conservative organization. Women continued to be excluded from the 

combat arms despite strong lobbying by women’s organizations that 

often had their own agendas. This was codified to a certain extent by 

a February 1988 “risk rule” approved by then Secretary of Defense 

Richard Cheney. This rule prevented women from serving in positions 

where there was risk of direct combat or exposure to hostile fire or 

capture. Although modified over the years, much of this exclusion 

policy remained in place to the dismay of many females who believed 

their careers were thereby restricted. 

Even more serious problems arose with the increase of sexual 

harassment charges and fraternization problems in the Army. With more 

women in units, there were more instances reported of inappropriate 

language, gestures, or actions of a sexual nature directed at women. As a 

result, the Army established regulations and policies (tied closely to the 

equal opportunity program that continued to grapple with lingering racial 

prejudice in the Army) to cope with the inevitable problems as a predominately male military adjusted to the greater number of female soldiers. 

Fraternization between soldiers, especially between superiors and subordinates (generally, but by no means always, between male superior officers and NCOs and subordinate females) was also an increasing problem 

as the Army tried to regulate human behavior in the Army workplace. 

Neither of these challenges was completely solved; but as the Army grew 

more professional and women began “proving” themselves as soldiers, 

male and female soldiers and officers began treating each other with the 

respect due a professional. Like racism, however, problems with sexual 

Servicing the Engine of a CH–47 Chinook Helicopter
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

379

harassment and inappropriate relationships between ranks did not vanish 

completely and programs continued in place to mitigate the problem as 

much as possible.

While Army enlistments, the integration of women, and disputes 

about the quality of the soldiers would fluctuate in the 1970s and 1980s, 

the all-volunteer Army slowly proved itself a tremendous success. 

Training became tougher, standards were raised higher, and all levels 

of the Army began rediscovering the pride that comes with doing a 

job well. Recruitment rates remained relatively healthy throughout the 

buildup of forces during the tenure of President Ronald W. Reagan. 

However, it was also increasingly important to spread these changes 

in training and improvements in pride throughout the entire Army, 

including the Army Reserves and National Guard. A smaller Army 

necessarily relied more heavily upon its reserve components.

The Total Force Policy 

The Army’s reliance on its reserve components changed the 

very nature of its active and reserve force structure and mobilization 

plans. The resulting Total Force Policy grew out of the closing days 

of the Vietnam War. In 1969 President Nixon established a policy of 

Vietnamization, under which the burden of the war was increasingly 

transferred to the South Vietnamese Army. This action and the eventual U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973 meant, among other things, 

lower defense budgets. Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird announced 

in August 1970 a Total Force Concept: there would be reductions in 

all facets of the active forces and concomitantly increased reliance on 

the reserve components for both combat and combat support capabilities. In 1973 this concept was declared policy by Laird’s successor 

as Secretary of Defense, James R. Schlesinger. Thus the major reason 

behind the enunciation of the Total Force Policy was more budgetary 

and circumstantial than philosophical.

There were also modernization imperatives behind why the Army 

so readily accepted and institutionalized the Total Force Policy. Because 

the buildup for the Vietnam War had been accomplished by adding to 

the active forces instead of mobilizing the reserve components, there 

was a redundancy between the active force and the reserve components 

in certain types of units. Removing support capabilities from the active 

force and placing them in the reserve components not only solved the 

problem of duplication, it also saved money for the modernization of 

the active force. Having postponed modernization to meet the exigencies of the war in Southeast Asia, the Army could now afford to begin 

the long, slow process of becoming a more capable force but at the 

cost of increasing dependence on the reserves. 

The budgetary and modernization rationales for the Total Force 

Policy do not fully explain the degree of dependence on the reserve 

components that the Army developed in the 1970s, however. The 

budget reductions meant a much smaller Army. From its Vietnam War 

high strength of 1.57 million in fiscal year 1968, the Army declined to 

785,000 in fiscal year 1974. Army Chief of Staff General Creighton W. 

Abrams, Jr., in 1973 set up a study group that postulated a future multipolar world in which thirteen active Army divisions would constitute a 

Women’s Utility Coat, Olive Drab–107, 1970
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“high-risk” force. Could such a small Army fulfill all its obligations and 

still retain an adequate contingency force?

In response, General Abrams obtained the Secretary of Defense’s 

approval to increase the Army’s active divisions to sixteen without an 

increase in Army end strength. Abrams laid the basis for the sixteen 

divisions by shifting manpower from the Table of Distribution and 

Allowances (TDA) Army (headquarters and educational infrastructure) to 

Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E) units, assigning reserve 

component “round-out” brigades as integral units in late-deploying active 

divisions, and moving combat support and combat service support (CSS) 

functions to the reserve components. By the end of fiscal year 1973, 66 

percent of CS/CSS was in the reserve components.

General Abrams and much of the Army’s senior leadership, 

following the lead of Secretaries of Defense Laird’s and Schlesinger’s 

commitment to the total force policy, believed that President Lyndon B. 

Johnson’s failure to fully mobilize the reserve components was a major 

cause of the lack of popular support for the Vietnam War. By helping 

ensure that the Army could not be involved in a major war again without 

the reserve components, Abrams and his successors sought to prevent 

such insufficient support in the future. The Army leadership realized 

that one of the dangers of a volunteer Army was that an elite professional force might weaken the bonds between the American people and 

the service that the draft had engendered. Greater integration of the 

reserve components into the active force would strengthen the Army’s 

ties with the states, the Congress, and the public. Such ties were seen 

as increasingly important: the collapse of the national will to continue 

the struggle, rather than outright military defeat, had essentially ended 

the Vietnam War.

As the Army implemented its new Total Force Policy, the National 

Guard and Army Reserve recovered from Vietnam and the immediate 

Creighton W. Abrams

(1914–1974)

As an armor officer steeped in conventional tactics, General 

Abrams was perhaps an unlikely choice to command MACV; but his 

experience as Westmoreland’s deputy and a creative mind served 

him well during his tenure in Vietnam from July 1968 to June 1972. 

Like his predecessor, Abrams sought to fight the war within the restrictions Washington placed on him. However, the rules changed somewhat when President Nixon took office in 1969. Abrams was allowed 

to launch two cross-border incursions against enemy base areas, one 

into Cambodia in May 1970 and the second into Laos in February 

1971. General Abrams became the twenty-seventh Chief of Staff 

of the Army in 1972 and began the long process of rebuilding the 

Army after the Vietnam War. He died in office in 1974. 
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to

DesertStorm

381

post–Vietnam War doldrums to gain new heights of readiness. Each 

component was reduced in size throughout the 1970s but rebounded 

by the end of the 1980s. The National Guard, at an authorized strength 

of 402,175 in 1971, was down to only 368,254 soldiers a decade later, 

only to increase to 456,960 by 1989. The Army Ready Reserve end 

strength was only at 263,299 in 1971 and fell with the end of the draft 

to 202,627 by 1980. However, it had recovered to the level of 312,825 

soldiers by 1989. By the eve of Operation 

DesertShield/Storm in 

1990, the Guard and the Army Reserve would be, like their active-duty 

counterparts, as strong and well trained as they ever had been in the 

nation’s history.

New Doctrine

The new volunteer Total Army needed more than mere numbers. 

It needed a mission; it needed to focus on what type of war it might 

need to fight. As a result, the Army began developing a new doctrine 

to regain its perspective and focus on its new missions after Vietnam. 

A reassessment of how the Army would fight began in essence with 

President Nixon’s 1969 Guam Doctrine, in which he stated that the 

United States would maintain a smaller defense establishment to fight 

a “1 1/2 war” contingency. This was generally interpreted to mean that 

the Army would prepare to engage in a general war, probably in the 

European or Northeast Asian theaters, and at the same time fight a 

minor conflict, presumably a Third World counterinsurgency. 

Nixon’s smaller Army vision faced growing challenges, however. 

American intelligence agencies in the early 1970s noted an increase of 

five Soviet armored divisions in Europe, the continued restationing of 

Soviet Army divisions farther to the west, and a major improvement in 

equipment, with T–62 and T–72 tanks replacing older models and with 

a corresponding modernization of other classes of weapons. If general 

war had come to Europe during the 1970s, the U.S. Army and its North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies would have confronted 

Warsaw Pact armies that were both numerically and qualitatively superior. With the Army mired down in Vietnam and with modernization 

postponed, this was a very sobering prospect.

The Arab-Israeli War that began on October 6, 1973, further intensified concerns about the modernization and preparedness of the Army 

for intense ground combat. The deadliness of modern weapons as well 

as the Army’s Vietnam-era concentration on infantry-airmobile warfare 

at the expense of other forces led many to believe that we could not fight 

this new type of war. American observers who toured the battlefields 

of Egypt and Syria began to create a new tactical vocabulary when they 

reported on the “new lethality” of a Middle Eastern battlefield where 

in one month of fighting the Israeli, Syrian, and Egyptian Armies lost 

more tanks and artillery than the entire U.S. Army, Europe, possessed. 

Improved technology in the form of antitank and antiaircraft guided 

missiles, much more sophisticated and accurate fire-control systems, 

and vastly improved tank cannons heralded a far more costly and lethal 

future for conventional war. 

Technology likewise brought changes to battlefield tactics. Egyptian 

infantry armed with missiles enjoyed significant successes against 
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382

Israeli tank units, bolstering the importance of carefully coordinated 

combined-arms units. It seemed clear that in future wars American 

forces would fight powerful and well-equipped armies with soldiers 

proficient in the use of extremely deadly weapons. Such fighting would 

consume large numbers of men and quantities of materiel. It became 

imperative for the Army to devise a way to win any future war quickly. 

A new operations field manual, the Army’s specific response to new 

conditions that required new doctrine, was preeminently the work of 

General William E. DePuy, commander of the new U.S. Army Training 

and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). General DePuy, a combat-tested 

infantry officer in World War II and the commander of the 1st Infantry 

Division in Vietnam during some of its hardest fighting, brought a 

wealth of experience to his position. Surveying conditions of modern 

warfare that appeared to reconfirm the lessons he and his men had 

learned so painfully in World War II, DePuy in 1976 wrote much of a 

new edition of Field Manual (FM) 100–5, Operations, the Army’s premier 

tactical doctrine manual of the time. DePuy’s FM 100–5 initially touted 

a concept known as the Active Defense, which once more focused on 

“the primacy of the defense.” The handbook evolved from its first 

publication to become the keystone of a family of Army manuals that 

completely replaced the doctrine practiced at the end of the Vietnam 

War. 

From these modest beginnings the Army’s new doctrine, AirLand 

Battle, slowly emerged. In its final form AirLand Battle doctrine was 

actually a clear articulation of fundamentals that American generals had 

understood and practiced as early as World War II, with an appropriate 

and explicit recognition of the role air power played in making decisive 

ground maneuver possible. The U.S. Army Command and General 

Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, acknowledged AirLand 

Battle’s basis in traditional concepts of maneuver warfare by teaching it 

and making frequent use of historical examples to explain its principles 

more fully. 

In practical terms, the doctrine required commanders to simultaneously supervise three types of operations: close, deep, and rear. In close 

operations, large tactical formations such as corps and divisions fought 

FM 100–5

After Vietnam, Army planning emphasized the Warsaw Pact threat to NATO, in particular the need for 

U.S. forces to defeat a technically sophisticated and numerically superior opponent. This problem required a 

new approach, presented in the 1976 edition of Field Manual 100–5, Operations, the Army’s central doctrinal 

publication. This Active Defense concept emphasized the tank as the pivotal element of land forces, promoted the 

concentration of fires over the concentration of forces wherever practical, and advocated replacement of tactical 

reserves with the lateral movement of unengaged forward units behind a strong covering force. Such a radical 

departure from earlier doctrine proved both controversial and difficult to implement in the field, especially outside 

the NATO area. The next edition of FM 100–5, issued in 1982 and revised in 1986, was organized around the 

idea of AirLand Battle, a more generalized concept stressing aggressive operations in depth with an increased 

emphasis on the exploitation of tactical air power. 

General DePuy
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to

DesertStorm

383

battles through maneuver, close combat, and indirect fire support. Deep 

operations helped to win the close battle by engaging enemy formations not by contact, but chiefly through deception, deep surveillance, 

and ground and air interdiction of enemy reserves. Objectives of deep 

operations were to isolate the battlefield and influence when, where, and 

against whom later battles would be fought. Rear operations proceeded 

simultaneously with close and deep operations and focused on assembling and moving reserves in the friendly rear areas, redeploying fire 

support, continuing logistical efforts to sustain the battle, and providing 

continuity of command and control. Security operations, traffic control, 

and communications maintenance were critical to rear operations. 

After 1976 AirLand Battle generated an extended doctrinal and 

tactical discussion in the service journals that helped to clarify and 

occasionally to modify the manual. General Donn A. Starry, who 

succeeded DePuy in 1977 at the Training and Doctrine Command, 

directed a substantial revision that concentrated on the offensive and 

added weight to the importance of deep operations by stressing the 

role of deep ground and air attack in disrupting the enemy’s follow-on 

echelons of forces. Changes mainly dealt with ways to exploit what 

noted historian Basil H. Liddell Hart described as the indirect approach 

in warfare by fighting the enemy along a line where he least expects it. 

In 1982 the Army modified FM 100–5 to stress that the Army 

had to “fight outnumbered and win” the first battle of the next war, 

an imperative that required a trained and ready peacetime force. The 

manual acknowledged the armored battle as the heart of warfare, with 

the tank as the single most important weapon in the Army’s arsenal. 

Success, however, hinged on a deft manipulation of all the arms, especially Infantry, Engineers, Artillery, and Air Power, to give free rein to 

the maneuver forces. Using that mechanized force, the doctrine required 

commanders to seize the initiative from the enemy; act faster than the 

enemy could react; exploit depth through operations extending in space, 

time, and resources to keep the enemy off balance; and synchronize the 

combat power of ground and air forces at the decisive point of battle. 

AirLand Battle doctrine had additional utility because it helped to 

define both the proper equipment for its execution and the appropriate 

organization of military units for battle. This, along with the widespread promulgation of common terms and concepts, was at the very 

roots of the need for doctrine. Thus the new AirLand Battle doctrine 

explicitly acknowledged the growth of technology both as a threat 

and as a requirement for new equipment to meet the threat. The U.S. 

Army and its NATO allies could not hope to match Soviet and Warsaw 

Pact forces either in masses of manpower or in 

floods of materiel. To 

that extent, AirLand Battle served as the basis for both an organizational strategy and a procurement rationale. To fight outnumbered and 

survive, the Army needed to better employ the nation’s qualitative edge 

in technology. 

New Equipment

Military theorists generally agree that a defending army can hope 

for success if the attacking enemy has no greater than a 3:1 advantage 

in combat power. The best intelligence estimates in the 1970s concluded 

General Starry
American Military History

384

that the Warsaw Pact armies enjoyed a much larger advantage. Continuing 

budget constrictions made unlikely the possibility of increasing the size 

of the American military to match Soviet growth. To solve the problem 

of how to fight an enemy that would almost certainly be larger, the United 

States relied in part on technologically superior hardware that could 

defeat an enemy with an advantage ratio higher than 1:3. To achieve that 

end, the Army in the early 1970s began work on the new “big five” equip-

ment systems: a tank, an infantry combat vehicle, an attack helicopter, a 

transport helicopter, and an antiaircraft missile. 

Several factors affected new equipment design. Among the most 

important was the 

flourishing technology encouraged by the pure and 

applied research associated with space programs. Although the big 

five equipment originated in the years before AirLand Battle was first 

enunciated, that doctrine quickly had its effect on design criteria. Other 

factors were speed, survivability, and good communications, essential to economize on small forces and give them the advantages they 

required to defeat larger, but presumably more ponderous, enemies. 

Target acquisition and fire control were equally important, since the 

success of a numerically inferior force depended heavily on the ability 

to score first-round hits. 

Even such simply stated criteria were not easy to achieve, with 

compromises and trade-offs often necessary between weight, speed, 

and survivability. All of the weapon programs suffered through years 

of mounting costs and production delays. A debate that was at once 

philosophical and fiscal raged around the new equipment, with some 

critics preferring simpler and cheaper machines fielded in greater 

quantities. The Department of Defense persevered, however, in its 

preference for technologically superior systems and managed to retain 

funding for most of the proposed new weapons. Weapon systems 

were expensive, but defense analysts recognized that personnel costs 

were even higher and pointed out that the services could not afford 

the manpower to operate increased numbers of simpler weapons. 

Nevertheless, spectacular procurement failures, such as the Sergeant 

York Division Air Defense (DIVAD) weapon, kept the issue before 

the public; such cases kept program funding for other equally complex 

weapons on the debate agenda. 

The first of the big five systems was the M1 tank, soon to be named 

after General Abrams, a noted World War II tank leader who had died 

in 1974 during his tenure as Chief of Staff. Despite some growing 

pains, the tank weathered considerable criticism that in fact had derived 

from the failure of a preceding tank program. The standard tanks in 

the Army inventory had been various models of the M48 and M60, 

both surpassed in some respects by new Soviet equipment. The XM803 

succeeded the abortive joint American-German Main Battle Tank–70 

project and was intended to modernize the armored force. Concerned 

about expense, Congress withdrew funding for the XM803 in December 

1971, thereby canceling the program, but agreed to leave the remaining 

surplus of $20 million in Army hands to continue conceptual studies. 

For a time, designers considered arming tanks with missiles for 

long-range engagements. This innovation worked only moderately well 

in the M60A2 main battle tank and the M551 Sheridan armored reconnaissance vehicle, both armed with the MGM51 Shillelagh gun-launcher 
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

385

system. In the late 1960s tank guns were rejuvenated by new technical 

developments that included a fin-stabilized, very-high-velocity projectile that used long-rod kinetic energy penetrators. Attention centered 

on 105-mm. and 120-mm. guns as the main armament of any new tank. 

Armored protection was also an issue of tank modernization. The 

proliferation of antitank missiles that could be launched by infantry, 

antitank vehicles, or mounted on helicopters demonstrated the need for 

considerable improvement. At the same time, weight was an important 

consideration because the speed and agility of the tank would be important 

determinants of its tactical utility. No less important was crew survivability; 

even if the tank were damaged in battle, it was important that a trained tank 

crew have a reasonable chance of surviving to man a new vehicle. 

The Army made the decision for a new tank series in 1972 and 

awarded developmental contracts in 1973. The first prototype of the 

M1, known as the XM1, reached the testing stage in 1976; the tank 

began to arrive in battalions in February 1980. The M1 enjoyed a low 

silhouette and a very high speed, thanks to an unfortunately voracious gas turbine engine. Chobham spaced armor (ceramic blocks set 

in resin between layers of conventional armor) resolved the problem 

of protection versus mobility. A sophisticated fire-control system 

provided main-gun stabilization for shooting on the move; and a 

precise laser range-finder, thermal-imaging night sights, and a digital 

ballistic computer solved the gunnery problem, thus maximizing the 

utility of the 105-mm. main gun. Assembly plants had manufactured 

more than 2,300 of the 62-ton M1 tank by January 1985, when the 

new version, the MlA1, was approved for full production. The M1A1 

had improved armor and a 120-mm. main gun that had increased range 

and kill probability. By the summer of 1990 several variations of the 

M1 had replaced the M60 in the active force and in a number of Army 

Reserve and National Guard battalions. Tankers had trained with the 

Abrams long enough to have confidence in it. In fact, many believed 

it was the first American tank since World War II that was qualitatively 

superior to Soviet models.

Abrams Tank
American Military History

386

The second of the big five systems was the companion vehicle 

to the Abrams tank: the M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, also 

produced in a cavalry fighting version as the M3. Its predecessor, the 

M113 armored personnel carrier, dated back to the early 1960s and was 

really little more than a battle taxi. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War demonstrated that infantry should accompany tanks, but it was increasingly 

clear that the M113 could not perform that function because it was far 

slower than the M1 and much more poorly armored. 

European practice also influenced American plans for a new 

vehicle. German infantry used the well-armored Marder, a vehicle that 

carried seven infantrymen in addition to its crew of three, was armed 

with a 20-mm. gun and coaxial 7.62-mm. machine gun in a turret, and 

allowed the infantrymen to fight from within the vehicle. The French 

Army fielded a similar infantry vehicle in the AMX–10P in 1973. 

The Soviets had their BMP family of armored vehicles, which had a 

73-mm. smoothbore cannon and an antitank guided missile as early 

as the late 1960s. Variations of the BMP were generally considered 

the best infantry fighting vehicles in the world during the 1980s. The 

United States had fallen at least a decade behind in the development 

of infantry vehicles. General DePuy at TRADOC and General Starry 

at the U.S. Army Armor Center and School at Fort Knox, Kentucky, 

agreed the Army needed a new infantry vehicle and began studies in 

that direction. 

In 1980, when Congress restored funding to the Infantry Fighting 

Vehicle Program, the Army let contracts for prototypes, receiving the 

first production models the next year. Like the Abrams, the Bradley 

was a compromise among competing demands for mobility, armor 

protection, firepower, and dismounted infantry strength. As produced, 

the vehicle was thirty tons but carried a 25-mm. cannon and 7.62-mm. 

coaxial machine gun to allow it to fight as a scout vehicle and a TOW 

(Tube-Launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) missile launcher that 

enhanced the infantry battalion’s antiarmor capability. The vehicle’s 

interior was too small for the standard rifle squad of nine: it carried 

Bradley Fighting Vehicle
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to

DesertStorm

387

six or seven riflemen, depending on the model. That limitation led to 

discussions about using the vehicle as the “base of fire” element and to 

consequent revisions of tactical doctrine for maneuver. 

The Bradley, with its superior weapons and armor protection, 

could move close into the battle, unload its infantrymen for dismounted 

combat, and stay in position to assist the infantrymen by accurate and 

powerful machine-gun and antitank or antibunker fire. It was both 

an infantry “taxi” (the former role of the M113 armored personnel 

carrier) and a supporting weapons platform that could lay down a base 

of fire to suppress the enemy and support the infantry assault. Another 

critical aspect of its usefulness in the combined-arms team, however, 

was that the Bradley could keep up with the Abrams tank on the battlefield. If tanks and infantry fought together, they brought their own 

level of synergy to the battlefield. However, this could only happen if 

the infantry vehicle could sustain the pace and speed of the formidable 

M1 tank.

By 1990 forty-seven battalions and squadrons of the Regular Army 

and four Army National Guard battalions had M2 and M3 Bradleys. A 

continuing modernization program that began in 1987 gave the vehicles, 

redesignated M2A1 and M3A1, the improved TOW 2 missile. Various 

redesigns to increase survivability of the Bradley began production in 

May 1988, with these most recent models designated A2. 

The third of the big five systems was the AH–64A Apache attack 

helicopter. The experience of Vietnam showed that the existing attack 

helicopter, the AH–1 Cobra, was vulnerable even to light antiaircraft 

fire and lacked the agility to 

fly close to the ground for long periods 

of time. The AH–56A Cheyenne, canceled in 1969, had been intended 

to correct those deficiencies. The new attack helicopter program 

announced in August 1972 drew from the combat experience of the 

Cobra and the developmental experience of the Cheyenne to specify 

an aircraft that could absorb battle damage and had the power for rapid 

movement and heavy loads. The helicopter would have to be able to 

fly 

nap of the earth and maneuver with great agility to succeed in a new 

antitank mission on a high-intensity battlefield. 

The first prototypes 

flew in September 1975, and in December 1976 

the Army selected the Hughes YAM–64 for production. Sophisticated 

night-vision and target-sensing devices allowed the pilot to 

fly nap of 

the earth even at night. The aircraft’s main weapon was the heat-seeking 

Hellfire missile, sixteen of which could be carried in four launchers. In 

place of the antitank missile the Apache could carry seventy-six 70-mm. 

(2.75-inch) rockets. It could also mount a combination of eight Hellfire 

missiles and thirty-eight rockets. In the nose, the aircraft mounted a 

Hughes 30-mm. single-barrel chain gun. 

Full-scale production of the Apache began in 1982, and the Army 

received the first aircraft in December 1983. By the end of 1990 the 

McDonnell-Douglas Helicopter Company (which purchased Hughes 

in 1984) had delivered 629 Apaches to equip 19 active attack-helicopter battalions. When production was completed, the Apaches were 

intended to equip 26 Regular Army, 2 Reserve, and 12 National Guard 

battalions, a total of 807 aircraft.

The fourth of the big five systems, the 

fleet of utility helicop

-

ters, had already been modernized with the fielding of the UH–60A 
American Military History

388

Black Hawk to replace the UH–1 Iroquois (“Huey”) used during the 

Vietnam War. The Black Hawk could lift an entire infantry squad or 

a 105-mm. howitzer with its crew and some ammunition. The new 

utility helicopter was both faster and quieter than the UH–1 and 

proved a reliable and sturdy platform during combat operations in 

Grenada and Panama. 

The last of the big five equipment was the Patriot air defense 

missile, conceived in 1965 as a replacement for the HAWK (Homing 

All the Way Killer) and the Nike-Hercules missiles, both based on 

1950s technology. The Patriot benefited from lessons drawn from 

design of the antiballistic missile system, particularly the highly 

capable phased-array radar. The solid-fuel Patriot missile required 

virtually no maintenance and had the speed and agility to match 

known threats. At the same time its system design was more compact, 

more mobile, and demanded smaller crews than had previous airdefense missiles. Despite its many advantages, or perhaps because 

of the ambitious design that yielded those advantages, the development program of the missile, initially known as the SAM-D 

(Surface-to-Air Missile–Developmental), was extraordinarily long, 

spanning virtually the entire careers of officers commissioned at the 

end of the 1960s. The long gestation and escalating costs incident 

to the Patriot’s technical sophistication made it a continuing target 

of both media and congressional critics. Despite controversy, the 

missile went into production in the early 1980s; the Army fielded 

the first fire units in 1984. 

A single battalion with Patriot missiles had more firepower than 

several HAWK battalions, the mainstay of the 32d Army Air Defense 

Command in Germany. Initial fielding plans envisaged forty-two units, 

or batteries, in Europe and eighteen in the United States; but funding 

and various delays slowed the deployment. By 1991 only ten half-battalions, each with three batteries, were active. 

Originally designed as an antiaircraft weapon guided by a computer 

and radar system that could cope with multiple targets, the Patriot also 

had the potential to defend against battlefield tactical missiles such as 

the Soviet FROG (Free Rocket Over Ground) and Scud. About the 

time the first units were fielded, the Army began to explore the possi-

bility that the Patriot could also have an ATBM, or antitactical ballistic 

missile, mission. In 1988 testing authenticated the PAC–1 (Patriot 

Antitactical ballistic missile Capability, Phase 1) computer software, 

which was promptly installed in existing systems. The PAC–2 upgrade 

was still being tested in early 1991 as it prepared for action in 

Desert

Storm. 

The big five were by no means the only significant equipment 

modernization programs the Army pursued between 1970 and 1991. 

Other important Army purchases included the Multiple-Launch Rocket 

System (MLRS); a new generation of tube artillery to upgrade fire 

support; improved small arms; tactical wheeled vehicles, such as a new 

5-ton truck and utility vehicle (the high-mobility multipurpose wheeled 

vehicle, or HMMWV) to replace the venerable World War II jeep; and 

a family of new command, control, communications, and intelligence 

hardware. By the summer of 1990 this equipment had been tested and 

delivered to Army divisions. 
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

389

While most of those developments began before the Training and 

Doctrine Command’s first publication of AirLand Battle doctrine, a 

close relationship between doctrine and equipment swiftly developed. 

Weapons modernization encouraged doctrinal thinkers to consider 

more ambitious concepts that would exploit the capabilities new 

systems offered. A successful melding of the two, however, depended 

on the creation of tactical organizations properly designed to use the 

weapons in accordance with the doctrine. While doctrinal development 

and equipment modernization were under way, force designers also 

reexamined the structure of the field army. 

New Organizations

After Vietnam the Army underwent a number of organizational 

changes at the higher headquarters and tactical levels. At the highest 

level the Army determined to reorganize its command structure for 

the Continental United States (CONUS) and separate its essentially 

command and control headquarters from its training base.

Following World War II, the Army had organized its operational forces 

in CONUS under six U.S. armies, each with a geographic area of responsibility. The chiefs of the Army’s technical services retained responsibility 

for depots and other specialized facilities and activities that reported 

directly to them. In 1955 the Army established the U.S. Continental 

Army Command (CONARC) to command and control the six armies 

in CONUS and their subordinate operational forces and in 1962 created 

the Army Materiel Command (AMC) and the Combat Developments 

Command (CDC) to manage force development and control the technical services. Over the years, CONARC’s control expanded to most 

Army schools and the various branch boards involved with Army combat 

developments, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), the U.S. 

Army Reserve, and support for the Army National Guard. CONARC 

was a multifunctional Army major command (MACOM) responsible for 

active and reserve component force readiness, collective training, individual training, recruiting, and officer procurement.

During the Army’s expansion for the Vietnam War, CONARC was 

deeply involved with training and deploying units and individuals to the 

theater. As the Army began the withdrawal of forces from Vietnam in 

1969, General Westmoreland, the Chief of Staff, directed an extensive 

review of the Army’s organizational structure to determine its responsiveness to current and foreseeable requirements. He commissioned 

several studies that examined the Army’s institutional organization, 

including a special review panel headed by Maj. Gen. D. S. Parker of 

the Office of the Chief of Staff. The Parker Panel issued its report in 

1970 with sixty-eight recommendations that augured a significant overhaul of the Army’s existing major commands in CONUS. Except for 

reorganizing the Military District of Washington as an Army MACOM, 

Westmoreland deferred action on most of these recommendations 

pending additional study by CONARC and CDC. In February 1971 

CONARC completed its own study, in competition with the Parker 

Panel, recommending several realignments within the command but 

not addressing the gap between the combat development process in 

CDC and the Army school systems controlled by CONARC.

Weapons modernization 

encouraged doctrinal thinkers 

to consider more ambitious 

concepts that would exploit 

the capabilities new systems 

offered. 
American Military History

390

At an impasse between the Parker Panel and CONARC recommendations, Westmoreland in September 1971 directed his Assistant Vice 

Chief of Staff, then Lt. Gen. William E. DePuy, to begin a separate 

Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA), study to examine 

ways to streamline CONARC’s organization and resource management 

processes. DePuy concluded that CONARC was unwieldy, unresponsive to HQDA and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and slow 

to adapt Army school curricula to incorporate doctrinal innovations 

coming from CDC. In February 1972 DePuy obtained the Secretary of 

Defense’s approval to break up CONARC and CDC and reassign their 

functions. Arguing that the collective training and maintaining of the 

readiness of active and reserve component Army units in the United 

States was a full-time job for any commander, DePuy recommended 

transferring all these functions from CONARC to a forces command. 

He further recommended consolidating CONARC’s schools with its 

combat developments functions from CDC into a doctrine and training 

command.

Armed with the Secretary’s approval, DePuy drove his reorganization past protesting CONARC and CDC commanders. Westmoreland 

appointed Maj. Gen. James G. Kalergis as Project Manager for implementing the reorganization, Operation Steadfast. The detailed plan 

transferred all Army schools except the Army War College, the U.S. 

Military Academy, and medical professional training schools to the new 

Army Training and Doctrine Command on July 1, 1973, along with the 

responsibility for ROTC that would come under TRADOC’s new Cadet 

Command. TRADOC would occupy the old CONARC headquarters at 

Fort Monroe, Virginia. On the same day, the new Army Forces Command 

(FORSCOM) at Fort McPherson, Georgia, assumed command of all 

active and reserve Army forces in CONUS and consolidated existing 

armies into three Continental United States Armies (CONUSAs). Army 

CONUS medical facilities had transferred to the new U.S. Army Health 

Services Command on April 1. Under the Steadfast reorganization, the 

Army transferred the U.S. Army Recruiting Command from CONARC 

to a field operating agency reporting to HQDA. It also established the 

Concepts Analysis Agency and Operational Test and Evaluation Agency 

as HQDA field operating agencies (FOAs), which assumed certain functions formerly executed by CDC. 

Steadfast

At the end of the Vietnam War, the Army’s leadership sought to reorganize the nondeployable side of the 

Army (those units organized on a TDA basis). Led by Assistant Vice Chief of Staff General DePuy, an Army study 

group began examining ways to reduce layers of command between HQDA and the Army’s major commands. The 

group concluded that the Army should replace its large, multifunctional major command, CONARC. The resulting 

reorganization, Steadfast, divided CONARC into functional commands. FORSCOM assumed oversight of all U.S. 

operational units in CONUS and focused on readiness. TRADOC combined oversight of most Army schools with 

combat developments functions that the new command inherited from the Army’s Combat Developments Command.
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

391

The Steadfast reorganization accelerated the process of creating 

functional major commands out of multifunctional Army commands. 

During the same time that Steadfast focused on CONARC and 

CDC, the Army also established the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation 

Command and the Military Traffic Management Command as 

MACOMs. In 1984 the U.S. Army Information Systems Command 

consolidated operations from two FOAs into a separate MACOM 

until, pursuant to the Force XXI Functional Area Analyses, the Army 

subordinated this command to FORSCOM in 1997. 

As in the post–World War II era, conflicting influences complicated decisions about the correct size and organization of divisions 

and corps. The hazards of the nuclear and chemical battlefield deeply 

ingrained the notion that any concentration of large bodies of troops 

was dangerous. Improved weapons technology further strengthened 

the imperative for dispersion, a trend facilitated by steadily improving 

communications systems. Despite that, the classic need to exert overwhelming force at the decisive point and time remained the basic 

prescription for winning battles. 

America’s isolated strategic position posed additional problems, 

particularly in view of the growth of Soviet conventional power in 

Europe in the 1960s and 1970s and the belief that the Warsaw Pact 

intended to fight a quick ground war that would yield victory before 

NATO could mobilize and before the United States could send divisions across the Atlantic. Time and politics thus governed decisions 

that led to forward deployment of substantial ground forces in overseas 

theaters and the pre-positioning of military equipment in threatened 

areas. Issues of strategic force projection likewise influenced decisions 

about the types, numbers, and composition of divisions. 

Differing schools of thought within the Army tended to pull force 

designers in different directions. There were those, strongly influenced 

by the war in Vietnam, who believed that the future of warfare lay in 

similar wars, probably in the Third World. Accordingly, they emphasized counterinsurgency doctrine, low-intensity conflict, and light and 

airmobile infantry organization. Advocates of light divisions found 

justification for their ideas in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 

1979, when it appeared possible that the United States might have to 

confront Soviet forces outside the boundaries of Europe. That uncertainty encouraged ideas that called for the creation of light, quickly 

deployable infantry divisions. 

Still, the emphasis within the Army throughout the decade of the 

1970s remained on conventional war in Europe. Generals Abrams 

and DePuy and like-minded officers believed the greatest hazard, if 

not the greatest probability of war, existed there. They conceived of 

an intense armored battle, reminiscent of World War II, to be fought 

in the European Theater. If the Army could fight the most intense 

battle possible, some argued, it also had the ability to fight wars of 

lesser magnitude. 

While contemplating the doctrinal issues that led to publication of 

Field Manual 100–5, General DePuy also questioned the appropriateness of existing tactical organizations to meet the Warsaw Pact threat. He 

believed that the Army should study the problem more closely. Thus, in 

May 1976 DePuy organized the Division Restructuring Study Group to 

Time and politics governed 

decisions that led to forward 

deployment of substantial ground 

forces in overseas theaters and 

the pre-positioning of military 

equipment in threatened areas.
American Military History

392

consider how the Army divisions might best use existing weapons of the 

1970s and the planned weapons of the 1980s. DePuy’s force structure 

planners, like those concerned with phrasing the new doctrine, were also 

powerfully influenced by the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. 

The Division Restructuring Study Group investigated the optimum 

size of armored and mechanized divisions and the best mix of battalions 

within divisions. Weapons capabilities influenced much of the work and 

had a powerful effect on force design. Planners noted a continuing trend 

toward an increasing number of technicians and combat support troops 

(the “tail”) to keep a decreasing number of combat troops (the “teeth”) 

in action. In general, the group concluded that the division should retain 

three brigades, each brigade having a mix of armored and mechanized 

infantry battalions and supported by the same artillery and combatservice units. To simplify the task of the combat company commander, 

the group recommended grouping the same type of weapons together 

in the same organization, rather than mixing them in units, and transferring the task of coordinating fire support from the company commander 

to the more experienced battalion commander. The group suggested 

creating a combat aviation battalion to consolidate the employment of 

helicopters and adjusting the numbers of weapons in various units. 

General Starry, Commander of the Training and Doctrine 

Command, a noted cavalry leader in Vietnam, and a soldier-scholar, had 

reservations about various details of the Division Restructuring Study. 

He was especially concerned that an emphasis on the division and 

tactics was too limiting. In his view, the operational level of war above 

the division demanded the focus of Army attention. After reviewing 

an evaluation of the Division Restructuring Plan, Starry ordered his 

planners to build on that work in a study he called Division 86. 

The Division 86 proposal examined existing and proposed 

doctrine in designing organizations that could both exploit modern 

firepower and foster the introduction of new weapons and equipment. 

In outlining an armored division with six tank and four mechanized 

infantry battalions and a mechanized division with five tank and five 

mechanized infantry battalions, it also concentrated on heavy divisions 

specifically designed for combat in Europe, rather than on the generic 

division. Anticipating a faster pace of battle, planners also tried to give 

the divisions flexibility by increasing the number of junior leaders in 

troop units, thereby decreasing the span of control. 

The Army adopted Division 86 before approving and publishing 

the new AirLand Battle doctrine, yet General Starry’s planners assumed 

that the new doctrine would be accepted and therefore used it to state 

the tasks the new divisions would be called on to accomplish. Similar 

efforts, collectively known as the Army 86 studies, pondered the correct 

structure for the infantry division, the corps, and larger organizations. 

Although Infantry Division 86 moved in the direction of a much lighter 

organization that would be easy to transport to other continents, such 

rapidly deployable contingency forces lacked the endurance and, frankly, 

the survivability, to fight alongside NATO divisions in open terrain. 

The search for a high-technology solution that would give light divisions such a capacity led to a wide range of inconclusive experiments 

with the motorized 9th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington, 

officially designated a high-technology test-bed unit.

Anticipating a faster pace of 

battle, planners also tried to 

give the divisions flexibility by 

increasing the number of junior 

leaders in troop units, thereby 

decreasing the span of control. 
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

393

Under the Army of Excellence program, military leaders further 

investigated the Division 86 plans for a heavier mechanized and 

armored force but reconsidered the role of light divisions. In August 

1983 Chief of Staff General John A. Wickham, Jr., directed the Training 

and Doctrine Command to restudy the entire question of organization. 

The resulting Army of Excellence force design acknowledged the need 

for smaller, easily transportable light infantry divisions for the express 

purpose of fighting limited wars. At the same time, the plan kept the 

heavy divisions of the Division 86 study with some modifications. 

Thus the new force structure—five corps with a total of twentyeight divisions—available to the U.S. Army (active and reserve) in the 

summer of 1990 was the product of almost twenty years of evolving 

design that had carefully evaluated the requirements of doctrine for 

battle and the capabilities of modern weapons. (Chart 2) Army leaders 

believed that they had found a satisfactory way to maximize the combat 

power of the division, enabling it to confidently fight a larger enemy 

force. The other vital task had been to devise a training system that 

imparted the necessary skills so properly organized and equipped 

soldiers could carry out their combat and support functions, effectively 

accomplishing the goals the new doctrine specified. 

New Training 

The Renaissance infantryman who trailed a pike and followed the 

flag, like his successor in later wars who shouldered a musket and stood 

in the line of battle, needed stamina and courage but required neither 

a particularly high order of intelligence nor sophisticated training. The 

modern infantryman, expected to master a wide range of skills and 

think for himself on an extended battlefield, faced a far more daunting 

46%

46%

8%

Combat

26% 42%

32%

Combat 

Support

44% 30%

24%

Combat Service 

Support

Regular Army

Army National Guard

Army Reserve

Source: Table 5, "Total Army Structure," in Reserve Forces Policy Board, Office 

of the Secretary of Defense, Reserve Component Programs, Fiscal Year 1990: 

The Annual Report of the Reserve Forces Policy Board (Washington, D.C.: 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1991), p. 25.

Chart 2—Total Army Structure, September 30, 1990
American Military History

394

challenge. To prepare such soldiers for contemporary battle, TRADOC 

planners in the 1970s and 1980s evolved a comprehensive and interconnected training program that systematically developed individual 

and unit proficiency and then tested that competence in tough, realistic 

exercises. To some in the Army it seemed as if they were on the verge 

of a revolution in training; to others it was a return to the basics of 

soldier training, focused on the simple concept “Be-Know-Do.”

Individual training was the heart of the program, and the Training 

and Doctrine Command gradually developed a methodology for 

training that clearly defined the desired skills and then trained the soldier 

accordingly. This technique cut away much of the superfluous and was 

an exceptional approach to the repetitive tasks that made up much of 

soldier training. Once the soldier mastered the skills appropriate to his 

grade, skill qualification tests continued to measure his grasp of his 

profession through a series of written and performance tests. 

The training of leaders for those soldiers became increasingly 

important through the 1970s and 1980s. By the summer of 1990 the 

Training and Doctrine Command had created a coherent series of 

schools to train officers in their principal duties at each major turning 

point in their careers. Lieutenants began with an officer basic course 

that introduced them to the duties of their branch of service. After 

a leavening of experience as senior lieutenants or junior captains, the 

officers returned for an officer advanced course that trained them for 

the requirements of company, battery, and troop command. 

The new Combined Arms and Services Staff School at Fort 

Leavenworth instructed successful company commanders in the art of 

battalion staff duty. The premier officer school remained the Command 

and General Staff College, also at Fort Leavenworth, which junior 

majors attended before serving as executive and operations officers of 

battalions and brigades. Although all Army schools taught the concepts 

and language of AirLand Battle, it was at Leavenworth that the professional officer attained real fluency in that doctrine. For the select few, a 

second year at Fort Leavenworth in the School of Advanced Military 

Studies (SAMS) offered preparation as division and higher operations 

officers and Army strategists. 

Finally, those lieutenant colonels with successful battalion commands 

behind them might be chosen to attend the services’ prestigious senior 

schools: the Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; the Navy 

SAMS

In 1983 the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, established 

the Advanced Military Studies Program (AMSP) as a one-year course taught at the School of Advanced 

Military Studies. The course supplemented the Army’s Command and General Staff Officer Course or its 

equivalent. Intended to develop an advanced understanding of military science at the operational and 

tactical levels, the AMSP immersed officers in graduate-level education in operational art and advanced 

tactics. SAMS provided the Army with many of its top campaign planners for the late twentieth and early 

twenty-first centuries.
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

395

War College, Newport, Rhode Island; the Air War College, Maxwell 

Air Force Base, Alabama; and the National War College or Industrial 

College of the Armed Forces, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. Beyond 

those major schools, officers might attend one or more short courses in 

subjects ranging from foreign language to mess management. The career 

officer thus expected to spend roughly one year of every four in some 

sort of school, either as student or as teacher. 

The NCO corps also required a formal school structure, which ultimately paralleled that of the officer corps. Initially, the young specialist 

or sergeant attended the primary leadership development course at his 

local NCO academy, a school designed to prepare him for sergeant’s 

duties. The basic noncommissioned officer course trained sergeants to 

serve as staff sergeants (squad leaders) in their arm or service. Local 

commanders selected the soldiers to attend that course. 

Staff sergeants and sergeants, first class, selected by a Department 

of the Army board attended the advanced noncommissioned officer 

course, where the curriculum prepared them to serve as platoon 

sergeants and in equivalent duties elsewhere in the Army. At the apex 

of the structure stood the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy at Fort 

Bliss, Texas, where a 22-week course qualified senior sergeants for the 

top noncommissioned officer jobs in the Army. 

Professional development, of course, went hand in hand with both 

individual- and unit-training programs. Progressively more sophisticated programs melded the individual’s skills into those of the squad, 

platoon, company, and battalion. Just as the individual was tested, so 

were units, which underwent a regular cycle of evaluations, known at the 

lowest level as the Army Training and Evaluation Program (ARTEP). 

Periodically, both Regular Army and reserve component units in the 

Continental United States went to the National Training Center (NTC) 

at Fort Irwin, California, where brigade-size forces fought realistic, 

unscripted maneuver battles against an Army unit specially trained and 

equipped to emulate Warsaw Pact forces. Brigades assigned in Europe 

conducted similar exercises at the Combat Maneuver Training Center 

(CMTC) at Hohenfels, Germany, while light forces exercised at the 

Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, later 

moved to Fort Polk, Louisiana. 

Army tactical units were 

subject to further tests and evaluations, the most important of 

which were exercises to reinforce 

units in Europe, generally known 

as Reforger, or Return of Forces 

to Germany. Similarly, units went 

to the Middle East in Bright Star

exercises, conducted in cooperation with the armed forces of 

the Republic of Egypt, and to 

Korea for Team Spirit exercises. 

Periodic readiness evaluations 

tested the divisions’ capacity for 

quick deployment, especially the 

82d Airborne Division, long the 

During an exercise at Hohenfels, tanks and observation helicopters train to work together on 

the battlefield.
American Military History

396

Army’s quick-reaction force, and the new light divisions that had been 

designed for short-notice contingency operations. 

The Army entered the summer of 1990 probably better trained 

than at any time in its history and certainly better trained than it had 

been on the eves of World War I, World War II, and the Korean 

War. Sound training practices produced confident soldiers. Realistic 

exercises acquainted soldiers with the stress of battle as thoroughly 

as possible in peacetime. Force-on-force maneuvers, such as those at 

the NTC, tested the abilities of battalion and brigade commanders to 

make the combined-arms doctrine work and confirmed commanders’ 

confidence in their doctrine, their equipment, and their soldiers. But as 

thorough and professional as Army training was, the most important 

fact was that all training and exercises were specifically keyed to the 

doctrinal precepts laid down in Field Manual 100–5. Training brought 

the diverse strands of AirLand Battle together. 

AirLand Battle would have been merely another academic exercise, 

however, had the Army not attended to the problems of morale, discipline, 

and professionalism that were obvious at the end of the Vietnam War. By 

directly confronting drug abuse, racism, and indiscipline, leaders gradually 

corrected the ills that had beset the Army in 1972. Schools and progressive military education played a part, as did strict qualitative management 

procedures that discharged the worst offenders. More important, officer 

and NCO education stressed the basics of leadership and responsibility 

to correct the problems that existed at the end of the Vietnam War. Over 

time, in one of its most striking accomplishments, the Army cured itself 

through higher standards of training and better leadership. 

Military Operations for the Post-Vietnam Army

Improvements in personnel, doctrine, and weapons notwithstanding, the Army that went to Saudi Arabia in 1990 was largely 

National Training

Center

Consisting of 1,000 square miles in the 

Mojave Desert midway between Las Vegas 

and Los Angeles, the NTC was activated at 

Fort Irwin, California, in 1981 as the Army’s 

premier facility for combined-arms training 

for heavy battalions. The NTC exemplified the 

Army’s training revolution initiated in the postVietnam/volunteer-force era that required units 

to “train as they would fight” and to maintain 

high readiness levels. A permanent opposing 

force, exercise observer/controllers, sophisticated instrumentation, and a live-fire range with a simulated 

advancing force provided realistic battlefield training and a critical evaluation of unit performance. 

Infantrymen prepare to fire a TOW missile system during a 

training exercise.
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to

DesertStorm

397

untested in combat. The decades of the 1970s and 1980s were largely 

peaceful from the U.S. perspective, except for some low-intensity 

conflict operations in South and Central America. Initially, this 

peace was as much about concerns over American will power—the 

“Vietnam Syndrome”—as the lack of any threat. After the failure 

of the decades-long struggle to save South Vietnam from communism, American public opinion seemed allergic to the idea of using 

American power in other parts of the world. For a while it seemed 

the United States would retreat into isolation in “Fortress America” 

as it had so many times in the past. A series of direct threats to U.S. 

interests in South and Central America, however, sounded an unmistakable call for action in the 1980s and into the 1990s. 

El Salvador

In 1979 a Communist-inspired takeover of Nicaragua led to Leftist 

insurrections in El Salvador and prompted U.S. concerns about the 

stability of a number of other countries in the region. Moving quickly to 

stem the tide, the United States focused on a combination of economic 

sanctions, political maneuvers, and military support to allies to cope 

with the threat from Communist insurgents. Various American intelligence agencies worked to undermine the Communist government of 

Nicaragua while the Army worked on providing open military support 

for the insurrection-wracked country of El Salvador. This small country 

was soon seen as a test case for American resolve in the use of the appropriate level of force for the emergency at hand, including advisers and 

limited direct military support. It was also an important test of how well 

we had learned our lessons from the defeat in Vietnam. 

The political situation in El Salvador had been deteriorating since a 

military coup against the government in 1979. Successive military and 

civilian juntas had not been able to cope with the situation. In October 

1980 the FMLN (Farabundo Marti Liberacion Nacional), a Communist 

front organization, was formed. Soon U.S. intelligence documented 

weapons deliveries from Vietnam through Nicaragua to the insurgents. 

In January 1981 the FMLN prematurely launched a “final offensive” to 

overthrow the government. The offensive was defeated, but the poorly 

trained El Salvadoran Army was not strong enough to destroy the guerrillas. Failure drove the insurgents back into the countryside and led to 

a series of attacks on military units, power lines, and other elements of 

the national infrastructure.

When the Salvadorans called for U.S. assistance, the U.S. Army 

focused on training El Salvadoran Army units using a variety of 

methods. The Americans trained a series of immediate reaction battalions (IRBs) in 1981 and 1982 to help stem the tide. Many of the trainers 

of these units included members of the newly revitalized Army Special 

Forces that had almost been eliminated after Vietnam. As the situation 

stabilized, the United States established the Regional Military Training 

Center in Honduras to train Salvadoran units without having to bring 

them to the United States and the following year organized the establishment of a similar facility inside El Salvador. As the Salvadorans 

became better trained in the basics of soldiering, they began to staff 

these facilities with their own officers and noncommissioned officers. 
American Military History

398

In addition to training Salvadoran soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and officers, the U.S. Army sent advisers to each of the brigade 

headquarters in the six military zones of El Salvador. Regular teams 

of advisers (generally no more than two or three officers and NCOs) 

lived, worked, and trained with Salvadoran soldiers for six months to 

a year. It was not possible to send more to each location because a 

1981 agreement between the government of El Salvador and the U.S. 

State Department limited the number of official advisers in country to 

fifty-five. Many sites would have only a single officer or NCO assigned, 

making close cooperation with Salvadoran counterparts a matter of life 

or death. However, U.S. advisers were strictly prohibited from engaging 

in offensive combat operations to avoid giving the impression that this 

was a U.S.-led war. The lesson learned from Vietnam was clear; the host 

nation had to fight its own war.

There were times, of course, when the strict adherence to the 

combat prohibition rule was not enough. The fight often came to the 

adviser. Given the nature of guerrilla war, an attack could occur at any 

El Salvador cuartel (fortified army camp) at any time. In the most publicized incident, which led to the death of a Special Forces NCO, the 

FMLN guerrillas attacked the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Brigade 

in El Paraiso, Chalatenango. The attack on March 31, 1987, included 

demolitions and mortars and was preceded by effective infiltration of 

the camp by well-trained assault squads. Sixty-four Salvadoran soldiers 

were killed and seventy-nine wounded. S. Sgt. Gregory A. Fronius of 

the 3d Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), was killed while 

attempting to organize the resistance to the attack.

In 1988 a similar attack on the 4th Brigade cuartel found the 

Salvadorans and their U.S. advisers more prepared. Despite some initial 

success in penetrating the wire, the El Salvadoran Army forces and U.S. 

advisers fought back and by dawn had recaptured the camp. At least 

11 enemy guerrillas were killed at the cost of 17 friendly killed and 31 

wounded.

Despite some continuing concerns about potential human rights 

abuses by Salvadorans, the U.S. advisory effort in El Salvador was 

remarkably successful. The professional training imparted to the 

Salvadoran military led to ultimate success on the battlefield against the 

guerrillas. Despite some military setbacks and the increase of international support to the enemy, the Salvadoran military fought back and 

The U.S. Army in El Salvador

Limited American military assistance to El Salvador dates from the 1940s, but with the Reagan administration’s 

policy of turning back communism in Central America, the U.S. Army became more deeply involved. Beginning 

in 1981, advisers trained the El Salvadoran Army in counterinsurgency; but Congress limited their number to 55 

plus a handful of Special Forces soldiers. With American aid, the Salvadoran military grew from 20,000 men (17 

maneuver battalions) in 1982 to 56,000 (41 maneuver battalions) in 1987, bolstered by an increase in security 

assistance during the same period from $42.2 million to $704.7 million. It was considered a highly successful 

counterinsurgency campaign.
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

399

beat the guerrillas to a standstill. When the final “final” offensive of the 

FMLN was launched in 1989, the Salvadoran military took some hard 

hits but rallied and decimated the rebels. Free elections, supported by 

the majority of the people, soon showed the world that the Communists 

had little public support. The FMLN was forced to seek victory through 

a political solution; a military victory was no longer an option. 

Not only had U.S. advisers worked to make the El Salvadoran Army 

a more effective military force, they also helped ensure that its human 

rights record improved. Cases of human rights abuse by the military 

dropped dramatically over the decade as the El Salvadoran Army slowly 

recognized that such abuses only cost it popular support. Civic action 

projects, information programs, and a greater respect for the citizenry 

paid off for the El Salvadoran Army. Finally, on January 16, 1992, the 

FMLN signed peace accords with the government. In return for ending 

the armed struggle, the FMLN was recognized as a legitimate political 

party and would participate in the political life of the country. In addition, 

the government agreed to enact land- and judicial-reform measures, and 

to create a new, less politicized police force. As a side effect, the United 

States showed the world that it was capable of sustaining a long politicomilitary struggle in support of an ally when the stakes were high enough.

Between Vietnam and Desert Storm, other than a limited military 

assistance role in the 1980s in the covert support to anti-Sandinista 

forces opposing the Leftist government in Nicaragua, there were only 

two other instances of limited combat actions. Neither was a full test 

of AirLand Battle doctrine, and neither gave very many soldiers experience under fire. Nevertheless, they infused the soldiers with increasing 

confidence and provided a useful testing ground for some new equipment and concepts. 

Grenada

A bloody coup on the small 

Caribbean island of Grenada and the 

possible involvement of Cuba in those 

troubled waters prompted the United 

States to launch a hasty invasion, 

Operation Urgent Fury, in October 

1983. (See Map 25.) This involved fewer 

than 8,000 Army soldiers, with actual 

Army combat limited to the 1st and 

2d Battalions of the 75th Rangers, two 

brigades of the 82d Airborne Division, 

and some Special Forces elements. In 

fact, Army strength on the island during 

the period of combat probably did not 

exceed 2,500; the heaviest combat, occurring during the first hours of the landing 

on October 25, was borne by Company 

A, 1st Battalion, 75th Rangers. The operation, though successful, pointed out a 

number of problems with joint operations, especially communications and 

Members of the 82d Airborne Division on Patrol during Operation Urgent Fury. 

Two of the soldiers on the road have M47 Dragon antitank weapons.
Map 25

I I

1 75 Rn

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25 Oct

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26 Oct

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USMC

25-26 Oct

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25 Oct

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SOF

25 Oct

POINT SALINES

PEARLS AIRPORT

C A R I B B E A N

S E A

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

Little Saint Vincent

Little Martinique

Carriacou Is

Diamond Is

Ronde Is

G R E N A D A

G

R

E

N

A

D I N

E I S

L

A

N

D

S

Charlotte Town

Victoria

Sauteurs

Saint George's

Calivigny

Grand Anse

Grand Mal

Grenville

Saint David's

October–December 1983

OPERATION URGENT FURY

0 10

0 10 Kilometers

Miles

ELEVATION IN METERS

0 300 600 and Above

Axis of Attack

Axis of Airmobile Attack
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

401

command and control. It highlighted the 

necessity of all the services to work and 

train together to achieve true synergy of 

operations, with the unique strength of 

each service working to complement the 

strengths of the others and cover for any 

weaknesses.

Invasion of Panama

The fighting during Operation Just

Cause in Panama in December 1989 was 

similarly limited. However, the highly 

successful nature of such a complex 

operation pointed out just how well the 

U.S. Army had learned the lessons of a 

decade of training and preparation. 

The origins of the U.S. invasion 

of Panama are complex. Forty years 

of finely balanced confrontation with 

the Soviet Union had induced the 

United States to cooperate with many unsavory international leaders. 

Panama’s General Manuel Antonio Noriega was among the worst. The 

last free election in Panama had been in 1968, when a military coup 

expelled the populist Arnulfo Arias from the Presidency he had won 

at the ballot box. Noriega, a capable intelligence officer at the time, 

ingratiated himself with the new military leadership of Panama by 

ruthlessly facilitating their consolidation of power. He subsequently 

gained a measure of favor with the United States by assisting the 

Central Intelligence Agency in covert operations against Nicaraguan 

and Salvadoran Leftists. Ultimately he himself attained absolute 

power, his rise assisted by blackmail, fraud, corruption, intimidation, 

drug dealing, and outright murder.

As the Cold War wound down, it became more difficult for the 

U.S. government to overlook Noriega’s crimes. He was indicted in a 

Florida court for his direct involvement in the drug trade and was also 

suspected of colluding with Communist Cuba to help it avoid economic 

sanctions, as well as smuggling illicit arms to Colombian rebels. He 

sustained a brutal campaign of intimidation against critics and opponents and stood accused of spectacular, grisly political murders. When 

American leaders expressed concern with his outrageous behavior, 

Noriega turned his intimidation efforts against American soldiers and 

civilians in the Panama Canal Zone. His heavily armed Panama Defense 

Force (PDF) and paramilitary “dignity battalions” began a campaign 

of harassment that ebbed and flowed with Noriega’s whims and with 

the current volume of criticism from Washington. Because of national 

preoccupations elsewhere, American military leaders in the Southern 

Command (SOUTHCOM) were ordered to handle the abuses quietly. 

Ultimately the PDF murdered an American marine, and the United 

States could turn the other cheek no longer.

Fortunately, the newly assigned SOUTHCOM commander, 

General Maxwell Thurman, was well along in planning an invasion 

Soldiers with an M113 armored personnel carrier guard an entrance to Gorgas Army 

Community Hospital in Panama.
American Military History

402

of Panama when the political decision to do so was made. Under the 

operational command of the XVIII Airborne Corps out of Fort Bragg, 

North Carolina, 13,000 soldiers from a half-dozen major posts across 

the United States airlifted into Panama to join the 13,000 soldiers and 

marines already there. H-hour was 1:00 a.m. on December 20, 1989. At 

that time the Americans simultaneously assaulted the two battalions, 

ten independent infantry companies, cavalry squadron, and special 

forces command of the PDF at over a dozen localities while fanning 

out to secure American lives and property in over a dozen more locations. (See Map 26.)

Typical of the fighting was the airfield takedown at Rio Hato, 

seventy-five miles west of Panama City. At H-hour two F–117A stealth 

fighter-bombers delivered two 2,000-lb. bombs in an attempt to stun 

the soldiers of two heavily armed infantry companies defending the 

airfield. Thirteen C–130 transport aircraft, having flown nonstop from 

the United States, parachuted in two battalions of rangers from the 

dangerously low altitude of 500 feet. Gathering quickly in the darkness, 

two companies of rangers fanned out to isolate the airfield, cut the 

Pan-American Highway running through it, and seize a nearby ammunition dump. Meanwhile, another company attacked a nearby NCO 

academy complex and yet another struck the two PDF companies 

deployed to defend the airfield. 

The fighting turned into a ferocious exchange of fire, with the 

ground fire of the rangers heavily reinforced by fires from an AC–130 

gunship and attack helicopters. Contested buildings fell in room-toroom fighting following a liberal use of grenades and automatic rifles 

at close ranges. Within five hours the rangers had secured Rio Hato, 

including Noriega’s lavishly appointed beach house nearby. At Rio 

Hato, the Americans killed 34 Panamanians and captured 405 plus a 

huge inventory of weapons, themselves losing 4 killed, 18 wounded, 

and 26 injured in the jump. The fighting had been confusing and brutal 

but brief and decisive.

General Thurman

Air Assault, Tinajitas, Al Sprague, 1990
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

403

In many cases urban settings and 

the proximity of civilians—in particular 

American civilians—complicated the nature 

of the fighting. The PDF’s La Comandancia 

Headquarters, for example, in the heart of 

Panama City, was seized only after a tough 

firefight. M113 armored personnel carriers 

found themselves peppered by fire from 

surrounding buildings as they pushed their 

way through obstacles en route. Operations 

assumed a third dimension when the 

Americans had to clear PDF snipers floor 

by floor from high-rise apartments. At Fort 

Amador, the firepower was less intense but the 

situation just as tricky; PDF objectives to be 

secured or neutralized were within a hundred 

meters of an American housing area, wherein 

dependents were still sleeping. At Omar 

Torrijos International Airport, some PDF 

soldiers attempted to escape by hiding among 

300-plus passengers from a stranded Brazilian 

airliner and others attempted to escape by 

making hostages of American passengers. 

In some cases PDF soldiers and dignity 

battalion members fought in civilian clothes. 

As careful and disciplined as the American 

soldiers were, they could not altogether avoid 

civilian casualties in this confused and intermingled fighting. Somewhat more than 200 

nonhostile Panamanian civilians were killed 

in the crossfire.

Within eight hours serious fighting 

ceased and the Panama Defense Force had 

been effectively subdued, thanks to a number 

of factors. Most of the fighting occurred in the dark; and the Americans 

had overwhelming advantages with respect to night combat, including 

more-effective night-vision devices. Such devices, in their infancy 

during Vietnam, were now sufficiently refined to provide near-daytime 

light quality or thermal imaging and were available to individual soldiers 

as well as to crew-served weapons. Even more important, American 

units had trained extensively in night fighting and were fully prepared 

to make the best use of their technical advantages. The Americans also 

enjoyed absolute air supremacy and had sufficient airlift to parachute or 

helicopter to dozens of targets at the same time—with overwhelming 

force at each such target. Air power meant radically enhanced firepower 

as well, particularly with respect to the formidable AC–130 Spectre 

gunships and deadly efficient munitions. A final and in some ways decisive advantage was that the Americans were long familiar with Panama 

and were not only exhaustively trained but also carefully rehearsed 

for their combat roles. Indeed, in many cases American soldiers 

had driven through, physically observed, or even exercised on their 

H-hour objectives during the weeks prior to the attack. The combat 

Final Glory (Father Ortiz), Al Sprague, 1990
Map 26

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SHERMAN

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BASE

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NAVAL

STATION

FORT DAVIS

ARMY BASE

FRANCE

FIELD

U

AMMU

AR

TAN

TASK FORCE 

SEMPER FIDELIS

TASK FORCE 

ATLANTIC

FORT ESPINAR

C A R I B B E A N

S E A

GATUN LOCKS

EL RENACER PRISO

PEDRO 

LO

COLON

GATUN

GAMBOA

LA CHORRERA

C A N A L Z O N E

P A N A M A

Z O N E

C A N A L

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Anton

Rio Hato

Santa Clara

D-DAY: RIO HATO

OPERATION JUST CAUSE

Airborne Assault

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US NAVAL

UNITION DEPOT

RRAIJAN

NK FARM

FORT CLAYTON

ARMY BASE

FORT

KOBBE

FORT CIMARRON

TASK FORCE 82d

TASK FORCE BAYONET

TASK FORCE ATLANTIC

FORT

AMADOR

B A Y

O F

P A N A M A

Madden

Lake

CERRO TIGRE

N

LA COMANDANCIA

PAITILLA

MIRAFLORES 

LOCKS

 MIGUEL

CKS

PANAMA VIEJO

TINAJITAS

TORRIJOS

PACORA RIVER 

BRIDGE

TOCUMEN

MADDEN DAM

P A N A M A

BALBOA

20 December 1989

D-DAY: PANAMA CANAL

OPERATION JUST CAUSE

Major Points of Attack

0 10

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American Military History

406

Goldwater-Nichols

In 1986, after three years of testimony by retired military leaders and defense experts in favor of 

various reforms, Congress passed the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act. As with 

past reorganizations, Goldwater-Nichols made provision for restructuring the Defense Department to address 

immediate needs rather than seeking to mandate a comprehensive overhaul. The act strengthened the 

authority of the Secretary of Defense and gave the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the combatant 

commanders an enhanced role in operational planning, officer assignments, and service program review. The 

Goldwater-Nichols Act overhauled headquarters functions within the three military departments, transferring 

oversight of such areas as financial management; information management; and research, development, and 

acquisition from the Army Staff to the Army Secretariat. Goldwater-Nichols has generally succeeded in its 

primary goal of forcing the services to become more tightly integrated within the Defense Department and 

more focused on joint warfare.

results were correspondingly lopsided; the Americans lost 26 killed and 

325 wounded to the 314 killed and thousands of captured or wounded 

Panamanians. 

Operations in Panama quickly shifted from combat to peacekeeping. 

The legitimately elected government was restored to power within days 

of the invasion. The American soldiers were welcomed as liberators 

virtually everywhere, which greatly eased such tasks as restoring law, 

order, public utilities, and civil government. Noriega had fled the fighting 

almost immediately, hidden in one refuge and then another, and ultimately 

sought asylum in the Papal Nunciature, which American troops quickly 

surrounded. He surrendered after a short siege. While frustrating for a 

number of days, Noriega’s neutralization took the heart out of whatever 

sustained resistance the PDF or dignity battalions might have contemplated: open opposition collapsed. The American military presence in the 

Canal Zone soon dropped to precrisis levels, and U.S. attention turned to 

building a new Panamanian police force to replace the corrupt PDF. On 

December 14, 1999, true to earlier commitments, the American government surrendered its 100-year lease in Panama and shortly thereafter 

evacuated its military forces from the Canal Zone. 

Neither Urgent Fury nor Just Cause offered serious opposition 

of the kind the Army had been training for decades to meet. Far and 

away the most important aspects of both of these interventions were 

their utility in testing the effectiveness of U.S. joint forces command 

and control procedures, in which both operations, as well as subsequent joint deployments, revealed continuing problems. Joint doctrine 

and joint warfighting was so great a concern of Congress that it had 

created in 1986, after a major legislative struggle, the GoldwaterNichols Defense Act that gave additional power to the Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, established the office of Deputy Chairman, 

and created seven warfighting Commanders in Chief to conduct joint 

military operations in their respective geographic regions or, in the case 

of the newly created U.S. Special Operations Command, anywhere in 

the world. (See Map 27.) The Army would have to fight all its future wars 

as part of a joint, if not combined, team.
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

407

A U.S. Soldier on Watch along the East/West German Border

The Army at the End of the Cold War

Army accomplishments over the years between 

the end of the Vietnam War and the end of the 

1980s were impressive. By 1990 the claim could be 

made reasonably that the service had arrived at a 

sound doctrine, the proper weapons, an appropriate 

organization, and a satisfactorily trained, high-quality 

force to fight the intense war for which Generals 

DePuy and Starry and their successors had planned. 

International developments in the first half of the 

year seemed, however, to have made the Army’s 

modernization unnecessary. The apparent collapse of 

Soviet power and withdrawal of Soviet armies into the 

Soviet Union itself, the disintegration of the Warsaw 

Pact and even the dismemberment of the Soviet 

Union, and the pending unification of Germany 

removed almost all the justifications for maintaining 

a powerful presence in Europe. In view of all these 

developments, the immediate political question was 

whether the nation felt it needed to maintain such a 

large and expensive Army. In the interests of fiscal 

retrenchment, the Army projected budgets for the 

subsequent five years that would decrease the total 

size of the active service from approximately 780,000 

in 1989 to approximately 535,000 soldiers in 1995. It 

seemed as if America, looking for a “peace dividend,” 

would indulge in its normal belief that the end of one 

war meant that permanent peace was now the order of the day and we 

could dismantle our “bloated” military establishment. 

Even after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and while Army units were 

in the midst of frantic preparations for movement to Saudi Arabia, Army 

organizations concerned with downsizing the service to meet the longrange strength ceilings continued to work. Quicksilver and Vanguard

task forces had deliberated on the size of the Army’s field and base force 

structure, recommending inactivations that now directly affected the 

forces preparing to deploy to the Middle East. The Army 2000 study 

group at HQDA considered the implications of such decreases in size 

and pondered the ways a smaller Army could continue to carry out its 

major missions. Among the major actions that the group managed in 

July and August 1990 was a scheduled command post exercise named 

Homeward Bound, designed to test a possible removal of Army units 

from Europe. Army 2000 staff officers also weighed concerns voiced 

at the highest levels of the service that the drive to save defense dollars 

would not produce another “hollow” force and thus repeat the disaster 

of Task Force Smith in July 1950 at the start of the Korean War.

Department of the Army planners in operations and logistics 

found themselves in the anomalous situation of pulling together the 

combat and support units scheduled for deployment to the Middle East 

at the same time their colleagues in personnel were proceeding with 

plans for a reduction in force. The Army temporarily suspended the 

latter plans when the deployment to Saudi Arabia was announced, and 
Map 27

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American Military History

410

orders went out suspending retirements from active duty and routine 

separations from the Army. Still, uncertainty about the future, both for 

individuals and for major Army units, persisted as the Army prepared 

for overseas service and possibly for war. 

The important questions blunted the edge of pervasive official opti-

mism as the Army deployed to the Middle East during the summer of 

1990. Chief among them was how well the new weapons would perform. 

The Abrams tank and Bradley fighting vehicle had never faced combat. 

Neither had the Multiple Launch Rocket System, the Patriot missile, the 

AH–64A Apache, nor modern command, control, and communications 

mechanisms that were supposed to weld those sophisticated implements 

into a coherent fighting system. Problems with weapons procurement 

over the preceding decade had conditioned many to doubt how well 

the new high-technology weapons would perform. As a result, despite a 

highly trained force, many skeptics doubted the Army’s ability to sustain 

a major land campaign against a determined foe. When Saddam Hussein 

invaded the tiny but oil-rich country of Kuwait in August 1990, many 

voices predicted a hard fight, if not outright disaster. These critics, many 

unaware of the Army’s startling renaissance during the nearly twenty 

years since the Vietnam War, did not realize that the United States was 

sending to the Persian Gulf the best-prepared force America had ever 

had at the beginning of a foreign war. Discussion Questions

1. Why was the post-Vietnam Army in such poor shape? What did 

the Army leadership have to do to turn things around?

2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of an all-volunteer 

Army. In what ways was Selective Service beneficial and/or harmful to 

the nation? 

3. What continuing role do ground combat forces have in the 

modern world of high-tech war, computers, satellites, and increasingly 

powerful air forces?

4. How did Army doctrine change in the 1970s? What lessons do 

you think the Army learned from its Vietnam experience as it crafted 

new ways to fight?

5. What were the challenges in integrating women into the Army? 

Could the Army have done it differently? Should women serve in the 

combat arms?

6. How did the roles of the Army Reserve and National Guard 

change in the 1970s? What are the continuing strengths and weaknesses of the Army Reserve and National Guard in comparison with 

the Regular Army? 

Recommended Readings

Bolger, Daniel P. Americans at War, 1975–1986: An Era of Violent Peace. 

Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988.

———. Dragons at War: 2–34 Infantry in the Mojave. Novato, Calif.: 

Presidio Press, 1986.
Rebuilding the Army: Vietnam to Desert Storm

411

Chapman, Anne E. The Origins and Development of the National Training 

Center, 1976–1984. Fort Monroe, Va.: U.S. Army Training and 

Doctrine Command, 1992.

Donnelly, Thomas M., et al. Operation Just Cause: The Storming of 

Panama. New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1991.

Doughty, Robert A. The Evolution of U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946–

1976. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1979.

Griffith, Robert K. The U.S. Army’s Transition to the All-Volunteer Force, 

1968–1974. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1997.

Romjue, John L. The Army of Excellence: The Development of the 1980s 

Army. Fort Monroe, Va.: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command, 1993.

Other Readings

Brownlee, Romie L., and William J. Mullen. Changing an Army: An Oral 

History of General William E. DePuy, USA Retired. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1987.

Currie, James T., and Richard B. Crossland. Twice the Citizen: A History of 

the United States Army Reserve, 1908–1995, 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: 

Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, 1997.

Doubler, Michael D. I Am the Guard: A History of the Army National 

Guard, 1636–2000. Department of the Army Pamphlet 130–1. 

Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 2001. 

Kelly, Orr. King of the Killing Zone: The Story of the M1, America’s Super 

Tank. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

Lock-Pullan, Richard. “An Inward Looking Time: The United States 

Army, 1973–1976.” The Journal of Military History 67, no. 2 (April 

2003): 483–512.

Morden, Bettie J. The Women’s Army Corps 1945–1978. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1992.

Raines, Edgar F., Jr., and David R. Campbell. The Army and the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff: Evolution of Army Ideas on the Command, Control and 

Coordination of the U.S. Armed Forces, 1942–1985. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1986.

Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His 

Times. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

On November 9, 1989, crowds of elated Berliners surged back 

and forth through ever-enlarging holes in the wall that for so 

long had divided their city. Similar, albeit smaller, demonstrations also occurred all along the border separating the former East 

Germany from the West. American soldiers observing these festive 

affairs soon realized how much was changing in the strategic environment that had brought them to Germany in the first place. Within 

a few years, Soviet troops evacuated all of their former satellites in 

the Warsaw Pact countries, those satellites reconfigured themselves as 

independent and democratic states, the Soviet Union itself collapsed 

into fifteen different countries, and Germany reunited into a single 

nation. With little notice the Cold War ended and with it the American 

military’s forty-year preoccupation with containing Communist expansion within an enormous arc that swept from the Norwegian border 

through Germany, around the southern rim of Eurasia, and across 

the Korean peninsula to the Bering Straits. (See Map 28.) In hot wars 

and in cold, two generations of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, 

and marines had secured the line separating the Free World from the 

Communist bloc; now this frontier suddenly disappeared everywhere 

except in Korea.

Soon the governments of the United States and its allies enthusiastically pursued a “peace dividend,” slashing military budgets and 

manpower levels in order to reduce taxes or divert resources to other 

pursuits. By the late 1990s sobering international challenges had taken 

the bloom off, however; the enduring complexities of national security 

were apparent to many. Indeed, although the stakes were never as high 

as they had been during the potential life-or-death struggle with the 

Soviet Union, American armed forces found their operational tempo 

13

Beyond the Wall

Operations in a Post–Cold

War World, 1990–2001
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MAJOR U.S. COMBAT UNITS 

AT THE END OF THE COLD WAR

GERMANY

1:5,100,000
Beyond the Wall: Operations in

a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

415

of deployment to distant theaters and into harm’s way greater than it 

had been since the Vietnam War.

Several factors accounted for this proliferation of post–Cold 

War violence. First, the discipline the Soviets had exerted on satellites, clients, and occupied territories disappeared and long-suppressed 

national aspirations and ethnic quarrels bubbled up again. Some of 

these resolved themselves peacefully, but many did not. The disintegration of the totalitarian regime that Josip Broz “Tito” had constructed 

in Yugoslavia played itself out as a miniature version of the collapse 

of the Soviet Union. Second, huge inventories of weapons, many of 

them now surplus from Cold War needs and others manufactured by 

corporations competing for shrinking markets, were widely available 

for purchase. Indeed, by one count the adjusted military expenditure 

of developing countries soared from $20 billion in 1950 to $170 billion 

in 1999. An increasingly lethal array of weapons was now available to 

such nonstate actors as terrorists, criminal gangs, and drug lords. Third, 

through wide stretches of Africa, the Middle East, Southern Asia, and 

Latin America, population growth so outstripped economic growth that 

desperation and discontent remained widespread. This unrest provided 

fertile soil for insurgency, ethnic strife, sectarian violence, humanitarian 

crisis, and general lawlessness. Finally, precipitate military downsizing 

in both Russia and the West created an impression of vulnerability, 

thus opportunity, among those inclined to test such weakened military postures. Even if not seeking victory in the traditional sense, such 

opportunists could hope to present the United States and others with 

battlefield situations that would cost more in lives and money than they 

were willing to pay to reverse. The notion of asymmetrical warfare, 

focusing on narrow and specific vulnerabilities rather than competing 

across a broad spectrum of con

flict, became topical among strategic 

thinkers. Many thought the American public would no longer accept 

significant casualties in international quarrels.

This change in America’s strategic setting occurred at a time when 

technological advance suggested the possibility of what some called a 

revolution in military affairs. The primary driver of this technological 

advance was the microchip, whose ever-smaller size and ever-greater 

capacity proliferated the employment of computers through a wide 

range of uses. The most obvious such use was information technology, 

managing huge quantities of information and disseminating it discriminately at the speed of light. Wedded to advanced sensors, computers 

rendered the acquisition of targets evermore timely. Wedded to 

advanced ballistic controls or guidance systems, computers rendered 

the destruction of targets evermore precise. Precision-guided munitions, or PGMs, provided unprecedented lethality to those who used 

them effectively. The potential microchip revolution accompanied a 

sustained evolution in technologies of other types: plastics, light metals, 

stealth engineering, lasers, night-vision devices, battlefield surgery, and 

medicine—to name but a few.

As American military planners shifted their focus from the prospects of a titanic struggle with the Soviet Union, they faced risks 

perhaps less threatening but certainly more diverse. Flexible response, 

a concept born in the late 1950s to meet Communist aggression with 

means appropriate to the level at which it presented itself, was reborn 
American Military History

416

in the notion of a military force capable of meeting a wide variety of 

adversaries. The possibility of large-scale conventional warfare or even 

nuclear warfare had not disappeared, but smaller-scale contingencies 

such as peacemaking, peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, humanitarian relief, and drug interdiction seemed more likely. 

Conducting these operations would require skill in multinational coalitions, with the diplomatic and political stakes often as dominant as the 

military ones. Relationships with such international organizations as 

the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) would necessarily evolve somewhat differently in this new 

area. The post–Cold War peace dividend seemed to be an enormous 

blessing to the American people; but their national security continued 

to be ensured by the blood, sweat, and tears of the American soldier, 

sailor, airman, and marine—by a strong and capable military.

War in the Persian Gulf

In the early morning hours of August 2, 1990, three armored 

divisions of Saddam Hussein’s elite Iraqi Republican Guard crossed 

the Kuwaiti border and sped toward the city of Kuwait. The several 

brigades and potpourri of military equipment of the hapless Kuwaiti 

Army, already disorganized by special operations attacks, proved no 

match for this assault. Within days most Kuwaitis had surrendered or fled to Saudi Arabia, the Republican Guard divisions had closed to the 

Saudi border, and Iraqi follow-on forces had fanned out to secure the 

oil fields and commercial wealth of the small, yet prosperous country. 

Iraq had long coveted oil-rich Kuwait, characterizing it as a nineteenth 

province the British had purloined during the colonial era. This ambition became aggravated during the prolonged, desultory Iran-Iraq War 

(1980–1988). Saddam Hussein had accrued enormous debts fighting 

the Iranians, leaving him with a large and battle-hardened army but an 

economy in disarray. The wealth of Kuwait could fix this problem.

Saddam Hussein’s army had grown tenfold during the war with Iran. 

When fully mobilized, it numbered over a million soldiers. Perhaps more 

important, it was well equipped by huge purchases from international 

arms markets. Although most of this equipment was of Soviet design 

and a generation behind its American counterparts, the sheer numbers 

of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, and small arms of all 

types made it seem formidable indeed. In the years before, the Soviets 

had parlayed their role as arms supplier to the Iraqis into a species of 

proxy control; but that discipline of course had broken down as the 

Soviet Union collapsed. Russian and Ukrainian arms suppliers became 

desperate to turn inventories into cash, and the oil-rich Iraqis diversified 

their sources of supply in a buyers’ market. Despite the brazen aggression, Hussein could count on support among the most disaffected in 

the Arab world. Many viewed Kuwait as an American dependent and its 

seizure as a righteous act of defiance against America.

For the American government and President George H. W. 

Bush, the first priority quickly became the defense of Saudi Arabia. 

Disruption of Kuwaiti oil supplies was damaging enough to the global 

economy; disruption of Saudi oil supplies could be disastrous. The 

Saudis shared Bush’s view, and their national leadership overcame a 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

417

traditional antipathy to foreign troops in a land sacred to Mohammed. 

On August 6 Saudi King Fahd bin Abdul Azziz approved American 

intervention to assist in the defense of his kingdom, and on August 8 

a brigade of the 82d Airborne Division hit the ground in Saudi Arabia.

The arrival of the 82d Airborne Division began an anxious several 

weeks for American defense planners. The staff of the U.S. Central 

Command (CENTCOM), commanded by Army General H. Norman 

Schwarzkopf, Jr., knew the level of risk as it carefully balanced the 

right proportion of support and combat troops coming into theater. 

Recognizing the enormous armored wherewithal of the Iraqis, the 

lightly armed paratroopers called themselves speed bumps, intended 

at best to delay an Iraqi advance and to signal the determination of the 

United States to expend American lives to buy time for the buildup of 

forces. This perception may have been a bit of an exaggeration, given 

the air and attack helicopter assets that arrived with them in theater. 

Compared to historical precedent, the American buildup in Saudi 

Arabia progressed quickly and efficiently. In a little over two months 

the powerful XVIII Airborne Corps, consisting of an airborne division, an air-assault division, two heavy divisions, an armored cavalry 

regiment (ACR), and the requisite array of combat support and combat 

service support assets, had deployed. The inventory included over 

120,000 troops, 700 tanks, 1,400 armored fighting vehicles, and 600 

artillery pieces, not to mention the 32,000 troops and 400 tanks local 

Arab allies provided. Hundreds of planes were operating out of Saudi, 

Turkish, and Qatari airfields, with more operating off American aircraft 

carriers and long-range bombers able to range the theater from Diego 

Garcia and even from the United States. The Navy was on hand and 

active in the Persian Gulf and its approaches, having already imposed 

an effective blockade on Iraq. 

The mission of defending Saudi Arabia, code-named Operation 

Desert Shield, relied on presenting the Iraqis a formidable opponent. 

Had the Iraqis dared to attack, they would have rolled forward into a 

defense in depth, wherein outlying security elements called in waves 

of air and aviation counterstrikes while retiring to heavier forces to 

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. 

(1934– )

Nicknamed Stormin’ Norman and the Bear and best known as 

Commanding General, Coalition Forces, Persian Gulf War, 1990–1991, 

General Schwarzkopf had a 35-year military career (1956–1991) that 

spanned the Cold War, the intervening Vietnam War, and the increasing 

overseas deployments of the 1980s. A U.S. Military Academy graduate, he 

served two tours in Vietnam and rose to the grade of full general in 1988. 

Carrying out contingency plans generated during a command-post exercise 

against Iraq in July 1990, Schwarzkopf’s coalition forces rapidly defeated 

the Iraqi Army with the five-week air war and the 100-hour ground war in 

January–February 1991. 
American Military History

418

their rear. Soon the attack would have driven into heavy and precisely 

surveyed artillery fires, then it would have encountered the deadly 

accuracy of M1A1 Abrams tanks and TOW (Tube-launched, Optically 

tracked, Wire-guided) missiles mounted on M2 and M3 Bradley fighting 

vehicles. American direct-fire weapons had double the effective range 

of their Iraqi counterparts; under pressure, American defenders would 

have had a sufficient range advantage to safely withdraw to subsequent 

firing positions. Iraqi losses would have been appalling well before they 

had the opportunity to engage in effective combat. This grim pattern 

would have repeated itself for the entire 200 kilometers the Iraqis would 

have had to attack through to reach a target of strategic significance. 

Some idea of the probable results of an Iraqi attack can be gained 

from the abortive Iraqi probe into the town of Khafji on January 30–31, 

1991. An Iraqi mechanized division lost 80 percent of its strength while 

attacking a town a mere seven miles inside the Saudi border. Weakened 

by the forward screen of security—including marines firing TOWs 

from light armored vehicles (LAVs)—and pummeled from the air, the 

Iraqis achieved little and lost much; the Saudis chased them back across 

the border in a day and a half. 

In concert with coalition forces, the XVIII Airborne Corps was 

adequate to defend Saudi Arabia. By early November the objective had 

changed, however. Frustrated in efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution 

to the crisis, a worldwide coalition reinforced by UN mandates determined not to allow Saddam Hussein to enjoy the fruits of his aggression. President Bush committed the United States to the liberation of 

Kuwait as well as to the defense of Saudi Arabia. This objective would 

require offensive action, and forces deployed to Kuwait did not have 

sufficient mass to succeed in such an offensive with minimum losses. 

On November 9 President Bush announced his intent to deploy yet 

another corps, the VII Corps out of Europe, to Saudi Arabia and his 

determination that the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait would be reversed by 

force if necessary. Saddam Hussein had 

already developed elaborate defenses of 

his own and had opined he could make 

the cost of liberating Kuwait higher than 

the coalition would be willing to pay. His 

specific admonition to Americans was 

“Yours is a nation that cannot afford to 

take 10,000 casualties in a single day.” 

The stage was set for Desert Shield to 

become Desert Storm. 

By November 1990 the Iraqis occupying Kuwait had matured a layered 

defense of their own, with line infantry 

entrenched behind protective barriers 

along the border and reinforced by 

local mobile reserves of regular army 

tank and mechanized divisions. These 

local reserves were themselves backed 

up by the operational reserves of the 

heavily mechanized Republican Guard. 

Of these Iraqi forces, the line infantry 

Like this Abrams tank, all vehicles used in Operation Desert Shield/Storm were 

painted in desert camouflage.
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

419

was considered brittle, the regular army heavy divisions reliable, and the Republican Guard formidable. 

The most direct approach for the coalition would 

have been an attack into the teeth of Iraqi defenses 

along the Saudi Arabia–Kuwait border. The avenues 

available for such an attack included northward 

along the coastal road, from the “elbow” of the 

border northeast along the shortest route directly 

into Kuwait City, or along the Wadi al Batin in the 

far west of Kuwait. A more indirect approach would 

have been an envelopment through Iraq, either 

close in by punching through thinly held defenses 

immediately west of the Wadi al Batin or deeper by 

turning the Iraqi line altogether in its far west. Both 

the direct approach and the envelopment could 

be complemented by amphibious landings on the 

Kuwaiti coast and airborne or air-assault landings 

into the enemy’s rear. 

A factor complicating operational deliberations 

was the role allies were willing play. The United 

States, Great Britain, and France favored attacking 

Iraq directly. Their Arab allies believed the legitimate 

mission was to liberate Kuwait and were reluctant to 

commit their ground forces to a wider war. Over 

time a campaign plan emerged that accommodated 

allied preferences and borrowed heavily from each 

of the basic operational options available.

Fighting would begin with a multiphase air 

campaign to establish preconditions for ground 

assault. Coalition air forces would successively 

smash Iraqi air defenses, secure air supremacy, suppress Iraqi command 

and control, isolate the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations (KTO), and 

attrit enemy ground forces in the path of the proposed offensive. The 

ground assault would begin with a division-size feint up the Wadi al 

Batin and a supporting attack by the marines reinforced with an Army 

armored brigade through the elbow of Kuwait. Arab thrusts equivalent in size to that of the marines would go in to their left and right. 

A marine amphibious feint would tie Iraqi units into coastal defenses, 

while an air assault deep into Iraq would isolate the KTO from the 

Iraqi core around Baghdad. The main attack would be that of the VII 

Corps, consisting of five heavy divisions, four separate field artillery 

brigades, an armored cavalry regiment, and a separate aviation brigade. 

This mailed fist—as the Corps Commander, Lt. Gen. Frederick M. 

Franks, Jr., described it—would envelope the Iraqi line at its far west 

end, turning east to annihilate the Republican Guard before sweeping 

across the northern half of Kuwait. The four-division XVIII Airborne 

Corps, already commanding the air assault into Iraq, would ride the VII 

Corps’ left flank and continue to isolate the Kuwaiti Theater from the 

west while assisting in closing the trap to the east. 

Operation Desert Storm, the liberation of Kuwait, began on 

January 17, 1991, with massive air strikes and missile bombardment 

throughout Iraq. Air supremacy was readily achieved and does in fact 

Victory Division Soldier on Guard at Sunset, 

Peter G. Varisano, 1990

General Franks
American Military History

420

seem to have virtually paralyzed Iraqi command and control by the time 

the ground war began. Logistical degradation wore unevenly, with Iraqi 

units most proximate to the border being the most disadvantaged. In 

part this was because of the greater distances, every kilometer of which 

exposed units and their supply lines to coalition attack. This was also 

due in part to the lower priority of the line infantry units on the border 

and an absence of stockpiles of supplies in them comparable to those 

built up to support mechanized units to their rear and the Republican 

Guard. Overall, the coalition air campaign was a great success, but it 

did far less well against dug-in equipment than it did against command 

and control nodes and logistical assets. This situation changed radically 

when ground fighting forced theretofore hidden Iraqi equipment to 

move. Then the synergy achieved by ground and air assets in concert 

demonstrated itself with devastating effect. 

One limit on the operational success of the air campaign was the 

distraction caused by an urgent diversion of air assets to a campaign 

against Iraqi Scud missiles. Although the Iraqis launched only eighty-six 

Scuds, these relatively primitive missiles had an impact well beyond their 

number. Their range enabled them to reach, albeit inaccurately, soft and 

unprepared targets. Indeed, for Americans the bloodiest single incident 

of the war occurred when a Scud missile slammed into a barracks in 

the Dhahran suburb of Al Khobar, killing twenty-eight and wounding 

ninety-eight—almost half from a single unit, the 14th Quartermaster 

Detachment (National Guard) from Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Perhaps 

as troubling, Scuds launched at Israel threatened to bring that embattled nation into the war, thus wrecking carefully constructed alliances 

with Arab nations hostile to or suspicious of Israel. Patriot air defense 

missiles hastily deployed to Saudi Arabia and Israel claimed to have 

destroyed a number of incoming Scuds; but this certainly did not deter 

the Iraqis from employing the missiles. By January 24, 40 percent of all 

coalition air sorties were directed against the Scuds—as were significant intelligence, electronic warfare, and Special Operations resources. 

A vast cat-and-mouse game developed throughout the western Iraqi 

desert as American intelligence and reconnaissance assets attempted 

to find Scuds for fighter-bombers to engage while Iraqis attempted to 

Pagonis and Gulf War Logistics

When Maj. Gen. William G. Pagonis (1941– ) was handpicked to lead the logistics effort in Operation Desert Shield, his 

entire Gulf War logistics team consisted of himself and four logisticians. Since no operational plan was on the shelf and no logistics 

plan or time-phased force deployment data was available, 

Pagonis had to create the logistics plan during his initial flight 

to Saudi Arabia. Although the effort was a success, numerous 

logistical problems occurred during and after the war, including 

the mountains of extra supplies scattered around the desert in 

unopened containers.
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

421

fire their mobile missiles quickly and then scoot out of harm’s way. 

Planes hunting Scuds could not, of course, pursue other previously 

agreed-upon targets whose destruction had been preconditions for the 

ground assault.

The Desert Storm ground operational scheme consisted of a 

demonstration, a feint, three supporting attacks, an economy-of-force 

measure to isolate (guard, if you will) the battlefield, and a main attack 

that featured a penetration early on and was in itself an envelopment. 

The U.S. Navy demonstrated with the 5th Marine Expeditionary 

Brigade (MEB) to create the impression of an imminent amphibious 

assault. Like many, the Iraqis had been exposed to Marine Corps 

publicity concerning its ability to wreak havoc across the shore and 

had believed what they heard. Conscious exposure of the 5th MEB 

and its preparatory activities on Cable News Network (CNN) and 

through other media heightened the Iraqi sense of anxiety, as did the 

visible presence of naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. The Iraqis dug in 

four divisions along their seaward flank specifically to defend against 

amphibious assault, and as many more divisions were postured in such 

a manner to allow them to quickly intercede when the marines came 

across the beaches. However, once the ground war was well under way, 

the 5th MEB landed behind friendly lines and became an operational 

reserve for the supporting attack discussed below.

The 1st Cavalry Division began its ground war by feinting up the 

Wadi al Batin, ultimately drawing the attention of five Iraqi divisions. 

(See Map 29.) After exchanging shots and doing some damage, the division backed out of the wadi and swung west to catch up with the VII 

Corps and serve as its operational reserve.

Patriot Missiles in the Gulf War

Despite the Patriot’s much-touted Gulf War use, 

it was designed as an antiaircraft system and only 

secondarily given an antimissile capability. Operations 

Desert Shield and Desert Storm did put the antimissile 

capability to the test: Army Patriot batteries fired 158 

Patriot missiles against 47 of 88 Scud missiles launched 

from Iraq. The Army initially believed that the Patriot 

was 100 percent effective, but later analysis showed 

an effectiveness of 52 percent against incoming 

missiles, which often presented challenging targets by 

breaking up and tumbling upon reentry. Even these 

revised results were controversial: outside critics using 

the same data claimed an even lower effectiveness 

rate. Improvements in Patriot missiles, radars, and 

computers have continued since 1991. 

Patriot Missile Launchers Ready for Desert Shield
Map 29

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X X

1

X X

1

I I I

2ACR

X X

1CAV

X X

24

I I I

3ACR

X

4 Ku

X

4 SA

X

20 SA

X X

3 Eg

X X

9 Sy

X X

4 Eg

X

3 2

X X

2

USMC

X X

1

USMC

X

Ku

X

2 SA

NG

X

Qatar X

8 SA

X

10 SA

Jalı ̄bah

Al Basrah West

Safwa ̄n

Al Qays ̧u ̄mah

ary City

JOINT FORCES

COMMAND NORTH

MARINE CENTRAL

COMMAND

JOINT FORCES

COMMAND EAST

XXX

XXX

ARCENT

XXXX

JOINT FORCES COMMAND

Tigris River

Shatt al Arab

Wa ̄di al Ba ̄t ̧in

Hawr al H ̧ amma ̄r

P E R S I A N

G U L F

KUWAIT

As Sa ̄limı ̄yah

Al Ah ̨ madı ̄

Al Bas ̧rah

Az Zubayr Aba ̄da ̄n

Al Bus ̧ayyah

far al Ba ̄t ̧in

Al Mish'a ̄b

Ra’s al Khafjı ̄

Al Wafrah

Umm Qas ̧r 

Ahva ̄z

An Na ̄s ̧irı ̄yah

Al Jahrah

Khorramshahr

Ar Rawd ̧ atayn

Oil Field

Rumaylah

Oil Field

Sa ̄ birı ̄ yah

Oil Field

Al Wafrah Oil Field

Al Burqa ̄ n

Oil Field

Bu ̄ biya ̄ n

I R A N

K U W A I T

A B I A

I R A Q
American Military History

424

Demonstrations and feints work best if the deception is plausible 

and one the enemy is inclined to believe. The Iraqis had reason for anxiety 

concerning their 200-plus kilometer coastline, particularly since important supply routes ran along it. They also fully expected an attack up the 

Wadi al Batin, recognizing that the prominent terrain feature would facilitate land navigation deep into the heart of their theater. Indeed, when the 

VII Corps did conduct its attack from the west, it came across mile after 

mile of vehicle defensive positions aligned precisely along the azimuth 

described by 240 degrees magnetic—facing the direction of an attack up 

the Wadi al Batin. Without much effort the theater deception plan had 

taken 20 percent of the Iraqi in-theater force structure out of the fight. 

By the time the Iraqis realized their mistake and attempted to redeploy, it 

was too late. The 5th MEB and 1st Cavalry Division, on the other hand, 

were readily available for operations elsewhere.

Supporting attacks are often timed to deceive an enemy into 

reacting to them as if they were the main attack. They may draw forces 

away from the main attack and, perhaps even more important, may 

lead him to malposition his reserves. Since a supporting attack involves 

significant resources and some risk, a single supporting attack is gener-

ally preferred. 

DesertStorm featured three, largely because the two 

divisions of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (reinforced by the M1 

tank–equipped Tiger Brigade of the Army’s 2d Armored Division 

and beefed up by additional M1 tanks rotated into their inventory) 

had lined up on the most direct approach from the elbow of Kuwait 

into Kuwait City. Suitable but independent missions were needed 

for the Arab allies to their left and right. The largely Saudi and Gulf 

Coalition (Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates) Joint Forces 

Command–East (JFC-E) and the largely Egyptian, Syrian, and Saudi 

Joint Forces Command–North (JFC-N) were each assigned the mission 

of conducting a supporting attack as well.

The marines attacked before dawn on February 24 with a tightly 

choreographed breaching effort into the Iraqi infantry defending to 

their front. These Iraqi units, already brittle, had been pummeled by air 

strikes and were at the farthest end of Iraq’s tenuous logistical chain. 

They proved no match for the methodical marine attack. M60A1 tanks 

with dozer blades breached the berms, while engineer line charges and 

M60A1 tanks with mine plows cleared lanes through the minefields. 

Marine artillery readily suppressed its Iraqi counterparts, and tanks 

and TOWs quickly picked off the relatively few T–55s and T–62s that 

chose to fight. By the end of the first day, the I Marine Expeditionary 

Force had advanced thirty-two kilometers, destroyed dozens of 

armored vehicles, captured 10,000 Iraqis, and seized Al Jaber Airfield 

south of Kuwait City. The following morning an Iraqi heavy division 

attempted a counterattack but was quickly repulsed. By the third day of 

the ground war, the I Marine Expeditionary Force had isolated Kuwait 

City, secured Kuwait International Airport, and seized Mutla Ridge, 

the dominant terrain feature overlooking Kuwait City and roads north 

from it. Nothing that the marines encountered could cope with their 

carefully synchronized and tightly focused supporting attack.

The Arab allies of JFC-E and JFC-N paced themselves according 

to the marine advance. They were less well equipped and supported, 

however, and found themselves trailing the marines on the first day. 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

425

They did preoccupy substantial Iraqi units to their front; as the extent 

of the marine penetration became clear, these defending units collapsed 

as well. By February 27 both joint forces commands were abreast of 

the marines and expediently passed Saudi-led units through the marines 

to liberate Kuwait City. (It seemed prudent to have those responsible 

for securing such a heavily populated area speak the language and 

understand the culture of the inhabitants.) Since the Iraqis had fled or 

surrendered, the advance into Kuwait City took on a festive air.

An economy-of-force mission, as the name implies, is an effort 

to accomplish a supporting purpose with a minimal investment of 

resources. In the case of Desert Storm the supporting purpose was 

the isolation of the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations from the rest of 

Iraq. The coalition would not allow Iraqi units and logistical assets from 

outside the KTO to enter nor Iraqi forces inside to escape the theater. 

The XVIII Airborne Corps was ideally suited for such a role. One 

element attached to this corps, the French 6th Light Armored Division, 

reinforced with paratroopers from the 82d Airborne Division and 

incorporating organic missile-firing Gazelle helicopters, had the general 

attributes of an American cavalry regiment. On day one of the ground 

war it rushed forward to seize As Salman in a spirited fight and then 

faced west to guard against Iraqi intrusion from that direction. At the 

same time the heliborne 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) flew in 

to seize a forward operating base 176 kilometers deep into Iraq and then 

leaped a brigade forward to the Euphrates River valley the following day. 

From these positions, swarms of Apache and Cobra attack helicopters 

fanned out to intercept and terrorize Iraqi ground movement along the 

northerly routes into the KTO. The dangerous east flank of the XVIII 

Airborne Corps featured the formidably heavy 24th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized) and the 3d ACR. These units backstopped the French 6th 

Light Armored Division and 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) until 

they were set, cleared the corps’ right flank to the Euphrates, and then 

turned east to cooperate with the VII Corps in its main attack against the 

Iraqi Republican Guard. Given that the XVIII Airborne Corps’ sole heavy 

division in effect became part of the main attack, it had in fact isolated 

the KTO with minimal but well-chosen force.

The main attack was that of the heavily armored Anglo-American 

VII Corps. This massive steel fist boasted over 146,000 soldiers and 

almost 50,000 vehicles. Its divisions advanced along frontages twentyfour kilometers wide by forty-eight kilometers deep. Never before had 

so much firepower been concentrated into such an organization, and 

never before had such an organization featured such extraordinary 

tactical mobility. Generally, a main attack seeks to crush an enemy’s 

center of gravity, that asset or attribute most essential to his prospects 

for success. The Iraqi center of gravity was adjudged to be the Republican 

Guard, three heavy and five motorized divisions equipped and trained to 

Iraq’s highest standards. As formidable as the Republican Guard was, the 

even more superbly equipped and far more highly trained VII Corps 

seemed the right force to defeat it.

The VII Corps’ 1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”) breach was 

as methodical as that of the marines farther east. Tightly synchronized 

teams of M1A1 bulldozer tanks, M1A1 mine plow tanks, combat 

engineer vehicles, and accompanying engineers in armored personnel Desert Camouflage Hat, 1991
American Military History

426

carriers (APCs) bored through sand berms, minefields, and other 

obstacles. The teams were guarded by sniper tanks and supported by 

the preparatory fires of fourteen battalions of field artillery. A carefully 

derived intelligence picture hopelessly compromised the Iraqi defenders, 

who found their crew-served weapons destroyed even before the first 

American target offered itself. In a few hours the Big Red One had cut 

twenty-four lanes across a sixteen-kilometer front without the loss of a 

single soldier. In short order the division pulled its own units through 

the breach and passed the U.K. 1st Armoured Division through as well.

Meanwhile, the 2d ACR and 1st and 3d Armored Divisions had 

swept around the western margin of the obstacle belt and had swung 

east to envelop the Iraqi defenses. Finding little opposition short of Al 

Busayyah, the 1st Armored Division hammered that town with preparatory artillery and then swept through it, overrunning an Iraqi division and a corps headquarters en route. Farther east, the 3d Armored 

Division had made contact with the Republican Guard’s Tawakalna 

Division, as had the 2d ACR screening to the east of the two armored 

divisions. Outnumbered but engaging accurately at extended ranges, the 

cavalrymen soon identified the basic contours of the Republican Guard

defenses, including several regular army heavy divisions that augmented 

its force structure. Within hours the 1st and 3d Armored Divisions 

rolling in from the west and the 1st Infantry Division and U.K. 1st 

Armoured Division emerging from the breach were on line facing the 

east to deliver the decisive blow.

The VII Corps attack on the Republican Guard was a massive and 

well-coordinated armored assault. The M1A1 Abrams tanks moved 

forward on line, closely supported by M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehi-

cles. The tanks destroyed major enemy armored vehicles with their main 

guns while the infantry vehicles used their machine guns on thinnerskinned targets. Infantry dismounted from the Bradleys as needed to 

clear positions or collect prisoners. Farther to the rear, M113 APCs 

sped along with communicators, engineers, mortarmen, mechanics, 

and other supporting troops, accompanied by the occasional recovery 

vehicle. Even farther to the rear, howitzers kept the advance in range of 

their supporting fires. Potential 

targets were destroyed by the 

tankers or surrendered to the 

infantrymen so quickly that 

the artillerymen seldom had 

an opportunity to fire; but 

when they did, the effects were 

devastating. The Americans, 

equipped with night-vision 

sights and devices, relentlessly pressed the attacks in 

daylight and darkness with 

equal ferocity. The Republican 

Guard—out

flanked, surprised, 

outranged, and in any given 

exchange outgunned—had no 

chance. The decisive attack 

U.S. Checkpoint on Highway 8 achieved decisive results; in 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

427

little more than a day VII Corps smashed 

the Republican Guard in its path as well as 

those regular army units chosen to fight 

alongside it and then swept on across 

northern Kuwait. 

Americans reasonably expected to 

win the war with Saddam Hussein but 

nevertheless were surprised by the expediency of the victory and its low cost 

in coalition lives. The Americans had 

suffered 148 battle deaths and their allies 

another 99, versus something upward 

of 20,000 for the Iraqis. Another 50,000 

Iraqis were wounded or captured. This 

result can be largely explained by the 

superb equipment, rigorous training, 

and professional character the coalition’s 

armed forces brought to the fight, as well 

as by the poor quality of the Iraqi Army. 

The epitome of the coalition’s qualities was the professional American 

soldier, thoroughly trained to make the best use of the most modern equipment. The operational scheme for Desert Storm was well conceived and 

capitalized on coalition strengths while exploiting Iraqi weaknesses. Never 

before had American forces been more fully prepared for war. The Army 

that had recovered its balance in the 1970s and trained so hard in the 1980s 

had done all that was asked of it in the desert in 1991. 

Striving for Strategic Mobility

Operations in Panama and the Persian Gulf had made a powerful 

case for anticipating expeditionary combat—the ability to project 

power around the world on short notice. American forces had rapidly 

deployed with very little warning to fight on distant and unexpected 

battlegrounds. In the aftermath of the Cold War, expeditionary combat 

Left: Retreating Iraqi soldiers left behind ruined 

vehicles like this T–55 main battle tank on the 

highway between Kuwait City and Basra, Iraq. 

Below: Defeated Iraqi forces set fire to Kuwaiti 

oil wells, causing an environmental and economic 

catastrophe.
American Military History

428

seemed to be the future of warfare for the United States. However, 

the Army faced the daunting task of redesigning itself to meet such 

global challenges while reducing the active force from 772,000 in 1989 

to 529,000 in 1994 with commensurate cuts in the National Guard and 

Army Reserve. Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan’s “modern 

Louisiana Maneuvers” (LAM) Task Force (TF) replicated the spirit of 

operational adaptation and innovation embodied in the World War II 

LAM initiative while adapting the smaller force structure to the stillchallenging requirements. This initiative resulted in an integrated array 

of battle labs, each capable of testing adjustments to organization, 

doctrine, and weaponry using the latest techniques for simulation and 

modeling. 

In due course this intellectual fermentation diverted Army planners from feeling sorry about the force structure they had lost to feeling 

excited by the challenges for which they had to prepare—a major goal 

of General Sullivan. The 1993 version of Field Manual 100–5, Operations, 

greatly expanded the attention given to power projection and to operations other than war (peacekeeping, humanitarian relief, etc.). Initial 

efforts focused on expanding sealift, airlift, and the infrastructure that 

complemented them, soon followed by the establishment of stockpiles 

located in advance, called pre-positioning, close to likely trouble spots 

overseas. Over time these initiatives also included efforts to change the 

nature of the forces being moved. Improved strategic mobility would 

be the product of strategic lift, pre-positioning, and transformed forces.

As effective as the deployment for 

DesertShield had been, it retrospectively seemed frenzied and ad hoc to those who had participated in 

it. Convenient roll-on roll-off (RO-RO) shipping was not sufficiently 

available to accommodate the huge mass of vehicles. Break-bulk shipping, requiring cranes and heavy equipment to off-load, was more plentiful but required considerably more time in port. It took extraordinary 

efforts to keep track of supplies and equipment in international shipping containers, and maddening delays resulted when recordkeeping 

broke down. Units in Saudi Arabia too often found themselves piecing 

their hardware together first from one ship and then from another, 

rummaging through hundreds of containers to find items they had lost 

track of or pursuing supplies and equipment that had been unloaded 

from the ships but then wheeled past them to the “iron mountains” of 

supplies building up in the desert. The hasty preparations for war in a 

distant theater were a far cry from the methodical long-term preparations that characterized major Cold War plans.

An obvious first step was to procure more shipping, particularly 

RO-RO ships capable of accommodating entire battalions or brigades. 

Sealift in the Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Fleet expanded 

from 17 RO-RO ships in 1990, through 29 in 1994, to 36 in 1996. 

Expanding sealift was accompanied by corresponding improvements 

in infrastructure and training. During 

DesertShield many divisions 

deployed through seaports not planned for that purpose, and others did 

so through facilities that were antiquated or in poor condition. By 1994 

a massive $506 million deployment infrastructure refurbishment plan 

was under way, investing heavily in port facilities, railheads, and airfields 

to speed departing units on their way. The lion’s share of this expenditure went to such high-profile troop establishments as Fort Bragg, 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

429

North Carolina, for airborne forces; Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for aviation; Fort Stewart, Georgia, and Fort Hood, Texas, for heavy forces; and 

Fort Bliss, Texas, for air defense. Training budgets adapted to ensure 

that units were proficient with respect to deployment processes. In 

1994 alone, $26 million went to Sea Emergency Deployment Readiness 

Exercises wherein combat units raced to port, loaded themselves onto 

ships, and deployed into a training event featuring some combination 

of amphibious, over-the-shore, and through-port entry into a selected 

battlefield. National Training Center (NTC) scenarios, in which heavy 

battalions participated ostensibly on a rotating two-year basis, featured 

a speedy tactical draw of vehicles and equipment such as might be 

the case when uniting troops with hardware previously shipped or 

pre-positioned. By the mid-1990s, rotations to draw battalion sets of 

equipment into Kuwait and then to train in the Kuwaiti desert offered 

further expeditionary training. 

The disposition of pre-positioned equipment for deploying U.S.-

based units adjusted to the new realities. During the Cold War such 

equipment had been stockpiled in division sets in Germany and the 

Benelux countries. In annual Reforger exercises, troops from the 

United States flew to Europe, drew and manned that equipment, and 

rolled out to training areas, thus demonstrating their capability to 

rapidly reinforce NATO. During the 1990s this capability dispersed 

more broadly, with a total of eight brigade sets spread throughout 

Europe, Korea, Kuwait, Qatar, and afloat. The set pre-positioned 

afloat in the Indian Ocean offered the most flexibility. It consisted of 

a brigade set of two armored and two mechanized infantry battalions 

with a thirty-day supply of food, fuel, and ammunition aboard sixteen 

ships, of which seven were roll-on, roll-off. Collectively considered, 

the sets in Kuwait, Qatar, and afloat could have positioned a heavy 

division into the Persian Gulf in days rather than the month plus of 

Desert Shield. By the mid-1990s the expeditionary intent of the Army 

proposed a capability to deploy five-and-a-third divisions into a theater 

of war within seventy-five days. 

Deployment on such a scale would rely on the reserve components 

as never before. The post-Vietnam force structure had allocated to the 

reserves and National Guard major fractions of the combat support and 

combat service support upon which the active component depended. 

During Desert Storm (when active duty strength was 728,000, reserve 

strength was 335,000, and National Guard strength was 458,000), 39,000 

reservists and 37,000 National Guardsmen were called up to support a 

total force of 297,000 deployed to Southwest Asia. As the active force 

shrank to 529,000 and continued to decline and the Army budget went 

from $77.7 billion in 1990 to $63.5 billion in 1994, early reliance upon 

the reserve components during major deployments became even more 

critical. The relative size, composition, balance, and roles of the active 

and reserve components would remain an important aspect of Army 

deliberations throughout the 1990s and beyond.

A major consideration with respect to strategic mobility was the 

logistical footprint of forces once deployed. American heavy divisions 

had gotten into the habit of accumulating huge iron mountains of spare 

parts and supplies of all types in their immediate rear in case they needed 

it. Without reliable means for precisely tracking and quickly delivering 

The relative size, composition, 

balance, and roles of the active 

and reserve components would 

remain an important aspect of 

Army deliberations throughout 

the 1990s and beyond.
American Military History

430

specific repair parts, they had no other options. During the 1990s information technology advanced to the point that it seemed possible to radically reduce the need for these stockpiles. Required materials might be 

delivered as they were needed rather than hoarded in advance. Emerging 

technologies offered to help solve this problem with bar coding, satellite 

communications, and global positioning systems (GPS) to provide visibility of supplies and repair parts as they moved through the supply and 

transportation network. Other technical advances, including embedded 

vehicle diagnostics, greater fuel efficiency, and on-board water generation systems held out hope of further reducing the amount of supplies 

needed on hand in the future. The expectation of rapid deployment 

would become a way of life for thousands of servicemen and women in 

the United States and overseas, and the material means to support that 

way of life became increasingly available as the decade progressed.

Northern Iraq: Operation Provide Comfort

America’s first post–Desert Storm experience with expeditionary 

operations came unexpectedly. The stunning Gulf War destruction of 

the Iraqi Army in Kuwait had seemed decisive, but Saddam Hussein had 

withheld or evacuated forces sufficient to secure his regime. Dissident 

Shi’ites in southern Iraq and Kurds in northern Iraq were emboldened 

by Hussein’s defeat and revolted against his regime. Unfortunately for 

them, there was little external support for such revolt. The coalition had 

agreed to liberate Kuwait but not to a sustained intervention in Iraq. 

Americans were wary of Shi’ite fundamentalists in Iran and inclined 

to believe the Shi’ites in Iraq might prove as hostile to them as they 

were to Saddam Hussein. America’s allies in the region, themselves by 

and large Sunni Muslims inclined toward secularism, advised against 

involvement. Moreover, NATO allies were sufficiently deferential to 

Turkish sensibilities to avoid any impression of supporting Kurdish 

autonomy. The Gulf War coalition restricted Iraqi use of some air 

assets but initially failed to ground Iraqi helicopter forces, thus allowing 

Hussein a vital edge to attack the rebels. Nervous about splintering 

Iraq, U.S. policymakers stood by as Hussein crushed first the Shi’ites in 

the south, then the Kurds in the north.

If the cause of the revolutionaries did not much excite world 

opinion, the plight of refugees did. Shi’ites tended to flee to coreligionists 

Provide Comfort

After the end of Operation Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein turned against his own people who were trying 

to throw off the shackles of tyranny. The Kurds in northern Iraq were particularly hard hit; and over 450,000 of 

them streamed north into the mountains of southern Turkey, where they faced disease, cold, and hunger. On April 

7, 1991, U.S. and coalition forces moved into southern Turkey and helped set up refugee camps, deliver food 

and water, and provide rudimentary medical care. They quickly averted what could have been a humanitarian 

disaster. With a strong allied presence watching over them, the Kurds were induced to return in safety to their 

homes by the end of July with only minimal losses. 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in

a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

431

in Iran rather than westward, although a number did seek refuge in 

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and were accommodated by coalition forces 

there. Many Kurds fled into Iran as well, but over a half-million fled 

into Turkey. Kurdish refugees in Turkey were in a desperate plight, 

dying by the hundreds. Iraqi control of the roads had forced them into 

the mountains; and in the mountains, they faced the bitter cold and 

drizzle of late winter without adequate food, water, clothing, or shelter. 

They quickly overwhelmed the capacity of relief agencies to support 

them in the border areas, yet the Turks were loath to move them out 

of those border areas because they already had significant problems 

with internal Kurdish insurgency and unrest. Rapid-fire discussions 

and negotiations crystallized into three sequential imperatives: stop the 

dying and suffering in the mountains, resettle the refugees in temporary 

camps, and return the refugees to their original homes. 

American and NATO forces had long operated out of bases in 

eastern Turkey, and during 

DesertStorm a composite U.S. air wing 

had flown 4,595 sorties out of them with over 140 aircraft while Special 

Operations Forces stood by to rescue downed pilots. This effort’s Air 

Force commander, Maj. Gen. James L. Jamerson, and the Special 

Operations Command, Europe (SOCEUR), commander, Brig. Gen. 

Richard W. Potter, would later emerge as key players as the Kurdish 

crisis unfolded. Indeed, they had barely returned from Turkey to their 

home stations when calls over the night of April 5–6, 1991, notified 

them that they were going back. Units initially to deploy with them 

for the upcoming Operation 

ProvideComfort would include the 39th 

Special Operations Wing, the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 

and the 7th Special Operations Support Command.

The quickest way to get relief to the Kurds was to airdrop supplies 

directly to them. This was also the least efficient, guaranteeing enor-

mous losses and waste and unlikely to get supplies distributed to all 

who needed them. Heliborne delivery would be more efficient and 

routine truck delivery, when feasible, even more so. The urgent mission 

to stop the suffering and dying progressed through these increasingly 

efficient methods. At 11:00 

a.m. on April 7, ProvideComfort began 

with two MC–130 aircraft dropping eight 2,000-lb. bundles of blankets 

and rations to the Kurds along the Turkish border. Numerous other 

airdrops followed, and within a week sufficient rotary-wing aircraft 

were on hand to begin heliborne deliveries of the tons of supplies 

accumulating at ports and airfields in Turkey. This shift to heliborne 

delivery was accompanied by frenzied construction efforts as Army 

and Air Force engineers refurbished airfields close enough to the refu-

gees to facilitate the transition from cargo planes to helicopters. While 

this was going on, Army Special Forces teams pushed forward into the 

refugee encampments to organize the effort from that end. If encampments could be consolidated and camp life made routine, an orderly 

shift to ground transportation could begin.

Special Forces proved the Army’s best choice to make contact with 

and assist in organizing the refugees. They were trained to deal with indigenous cultures, experienced in organizing such peoples, and contained 

a wide range of talents in a small, dozen-man team. Understandably, 

their medical proficiencies were most in demand initially. Their military 

bearing and prowess favorably impressed the martial Kurds. What was 
American Military History

432

more, their communications and ability to reach back for transportation 

and logistics enabled a few soldiers on the spot to quickly get assistance 

forward where it was needed.

Special Forces organizational and reach-back capabilities also 

proved of great value in facilitating the integration of nongovernmental 

organizations (NGOs) and private volunteer organizations (PVOs) into 

the overall relief effort. These organizations, likely partners in the case 

of humanitarian relief, varied widely in structure and capabilities. Some, 

like the Red Cross and Red Crescent, featured substantial organization and means. Most, however, were smaller agencies with specialized skills and limited logistical assets. Many were deeply ambivalent 

about working alongside the military, but all appreciated what military 

communications, transportation, and logistics could do to enhance 

their contributions. Over time, useful working relationships developed 

among the Special Forces, the NGOs, PVOs, other allied soldiers in the 

encampments, and the Kurdish family and clan leadership. Tents were 

erected, food and water became routinely available, medical support 

matured, and the dying ceased. 

As Kurdish camp life along the Turkish border stabilized into a 

survivable routine, allied leaders shifted their attention to returning 

the Kurds to their homes. This would require, in effect, yet another 

invasion of Iraq. The Kurds would not return to homes the Iraqi 

Army occupied, so coalition forces would have to provide a security 

envelope within Iraq into which the Kurds could resettle. American 

General John M. Shalikashvili was given overall responsibility for 

the operation, with Joint Task Force (JTF) 

Alpha established under 

General Potter to sustain support to the encampments in Turkey and 

JTF 

Bravo under Maj. Gen. Jay M. Garner to clear northern Iraq 

sufficiently to get the Kurds back into their homes. Soon American 

marines and soldiers accompanied by British marines and French 

soldiers entered northern Iraq. The allied forces met little opposition, with the Iraqis readily giving way before the intervening forces. 

Trusting their new benefactors to defend them, the Kurds swarmed 

out of the mountain camps and back to their ancestral homes. 

Civilian relief agency volunteers accompanied the return, and international efforts to replant, rebuild, and refurbish came on the heels 

of the returning tide of refugees. Within months, the local population 

seemed resettled and the United States and its allies sought to extricate themselves from the improved situation.

The Kurds were understandably nervous about being left in 

Iraq without American troops; initial attempts to withdraw were met 

by demonstrations, riots, and the threat of another refugee crisis. 

Ultimately, Americans persuaded the Kurds that the combination of 

international observers, air patrols over the nofly zone, readily avail

-

able American expeditionary forces, and Iraqi memories of the Gulf 

War would be enough to guarantee their future security. America and its 

allies sought to protect the Kurds so that their lives and property were 

reasonably secure, but not so that they became a politically autonomous entity. Within a few years factional fighting among the Kurds 

would enable the Iraqis to reassert a military presence within the region. 

However, in early 1991, faced with a huge and largely unanticipated 

refugee crisis, America and its allies had stopped the dying, resettled 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

433

the refugees into sustainable camps, and returned them to their ancestral homes without unduly upsetting the delicate international political 

balance in that far-off region. It constituted a credible use of armed 

forces to resolve an unanticipated and unconventional international 

circumstance. 

Somalia

Even as one humanitarian crisis subsided in northern Iraq, another 

emerged in Somalia, an arid, impoverished, and turbulent failed state 

on the horn of Africa. Americans had had some Cold War interest in 

Somalia, neighboring Ethiopia, and the strategically positioned horn of 

Africa; but the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of Somalia into 

sectarian and clan warfare demolished whatever attraction the region 

might have held for national policy considerations. 

This disinterest reversed itself when a devastating drought precipitated famine, and internecine warfare rendered relief efforts ineffective. Combatant clans raided each other’s food supplies, local warlords 

charged protection money to international relief agencies attempting 

to deliver supplies, and convoys delivering supplies were nevertheless looted to enhance the wherewithal and prestige of the warlords. 

Starvation became a weapon, and supplies did not make it into the 

hands of the hundreds of thousands who needed them most. Night 

after night international television broadcast images of starving, emaciated children covered with flies and dying in filth. A Pulitzer Prize went 

to a photographer who captured the agonies of a dying child with a 

painfully distended abdomen, crying as expectant vultures perched 

nearby. President Bush believed he could ignore this situation no longer.

On August 15, 1992, the United States launched Operation Provide

Relief, an effort to airlift supplies from nearby Kenya to airfields 

throughout the interior of Somalia. This would avoid the bottlenecks 

and uncertainty of clan politics in the congested port of Mogadishu 

while dispersing supplies throughout the country to get a head start 

in distribution. Local distribution was 

to remain in the hands of the international relief agencies already there, but 

the warring factions and armed gangs 

quickly adapted their operations to 

steal these relief supplies as well. They 

hoarded food, terrorized international 

agencies, killed those who did not pay 

protection money, and allowed tens of 

thousands to continue starving.

Embarrassed by this continuing 

confusion, the United States, supported 

by UN resolutions, launched Operation 

Restore Hope on December 8. Heavily 

armed marines and soldiers of the 

10th Mountain Division, supported by 

Special Forces elements, 13,000 all told, 

deployed by sea and air into Somalia 

to cow the warring factions with their An Army medic renders aid to a Somali child.
American Military History

434

overwhelming strength. The warlords quickly came to terms with the 

Americans and each other, and relief supplies began to flow to their 

intended recipients. UN forces organized nine Humanitarian Relief 

Sectors throughout Somalia. Ultimately, some 38,000 soldiers from 

twenty-three nations supporting forty-nine humanitarian-relief agencies 

fanned out to secure the countryside and guarantee food deliveries to the 

starving people. Over 40,000 tons of grain was off-loaded and distributed 

by the end of December, and within a few weeks the worst of the crisis 

had passed. Markets reopened, travel became more common, indigenous 

crops began to come in, and the U.S. government decided the situation 

was stable enough to yield control to the United Nations. On May 4, 

1993, Turkish Lt. Gen. Cevik Bir assumed command of UN Forces in 

Somalia as the U.S. military presence continued to dwindle. By October 

the UN command in Somalia was reduced to 16,000 peacekeepers from 

twenty-one nations, only about 4,000 from the United States.

Unfortunately, demonstrable success in ending the famine did not 

mean success in achieving political stability. The warlords had temporarily cooperated out of necessity: they sullenly stood aside while UN 

troops preempted their practice of hoarding food and coldly calculating who would eat and who would starve. Ostensible participants in a 

disarmament program, they were actually hiding weapons and military 

supplies, warily biding their time until the opportunity presented itself 

to resume their internecine conflict. Perhaps the most disgruntled was 

Muhammed Aideed of the Habr Gidr subclan, a former general officer 

who had been locked in conflict with Ali Mahdi Mohammed of the 

Abgal subclan for control of the port of Mogadishu. Aideed perceived 

UN operations as weakening his authority and as having become 

increasingly partisan. 

One confrontation led to another; and on June 5, 1993, Aideed’s 

forces ambushed and killed twenty-four Pakistani soldiers. U.S. and UN 

Black Hawk Down

The raid on October 3 against 

Somali strongman Mohammed Aideed 

in Mogadishu was initially a success. The 

highly skilled Special Operations Forces 

achieved surprise and took several highvalue prisoners. However, the plan fell 

apart with the downing of two circling 

Black Hawk helicopters. The soldiers rushed 

to the first crash site and set up a perimeter 

but could not reach the second. Defending 

the site and their increasing number of 

wounded men, they waited much of the 

night for relief. In the early morning hours 

of the next day, U.S. and coalition elements reached the cut-off forces and took them to safety. The shock 

of so many casualties in these elite units helped to doom this effort to save Somalia from itself. 

A Black Hawk Helicopter in a Clearing in Somalia
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

435

forces retaliated with attacks on weapons-storage facilities and 

Radio Mogadishu. The United States deployed a Joint Special 

Operations Task Force (JSOTF), named TF Ranger, to assist. 

These exceptional forces—Army rangers, Navy SEALS (Sea, 

Air, Land operators), Special Forces, and Special Operations 

aviation assets—went on the offensive during August and 

September, conducting a series of raids directed at Aideed and 

his henchmen. They captured a number of Aideed’s ranking 

subordinates and destroyed some of his facilities and equipment; 

Aideed himself eluded capture in Mogadishu’s confusing rabbit 

warren of streets, alleys, and buildings. 

Unfortunately, TF Ranger’s efforts did not reflect unity 

of command. Ranger took its orders through its own U.S. 

command channels and did not adequately coordinate with the 

more numerous and pervasive UN forces or even with the senior 

U.S. general in theater working under UN auspices. This limited 

the timeliness of the assistance the allies could give each other.

The seventh major TF Ranger mission went spectacularly 

wrong. A heliborne Special Operations assault team captured 

twenty-four of Aideed’s henchmen in a lightning strike into 

downtown Mogadishu and then transferred the men to a wheeled 

convoy for ground evacuation. While this was happening, Habr 

Gidr militia gathering to resist the intrusion fired on helicopters 

circling in support of the operation. Two were downed. This 

precipitated an evening and night of fierce fighting as rangers 

diverted from securing the capture site to securing the first crash 

site while two Special Forces snipers helicoptered in to attempt 

to secure the second crash site. (See Map 30.) The ground convoy 

extricating the Somali prisoners and others attempting further 

relief also came under heavy attack and were forced to retreat to the 

U.S.-controlled airport. The confused melee ebbed and flowed through 

the jumbled urban sprawl of Mogadishu, with embattled American 

soldiers desperately defending themselves at close ranges while heavily 

supported by helicopter gunships circling overhead. 

Ultimately, a relief column from the American 10th Mountain 

Division supported by a hastily improvised augmentation of Malaysian 

and Pakistani armor extracted the troops from the first crash site. The 

second crash site had been overrun already, its two heroic defenders 

posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. TF Ranger suffered 16 

killed and 83 wounded during the fighting and the relief column 1 

killed and a number more wounded. The Habr Gidr subclan had been 

far more severely punished: perhaps as many as 500–1,000 killed and an 

inestimable number wounded. 

Traditional logic would have characterized the fighting on October 

3–4 as an American tactical victory, but televised news coverage of 

Somali crowds jubilantly dragging American corpses through the streets 

soon stood traditional logic on its head. The American public had 

drifted away from giving Somalia much attention after the food crisis 

had passed but was shocked at Americans’ having been turned on by 

their intended beneficiaries, who visibly exulted in the soldiers’ deaths. 

Reinforcements rushed to Somalia were constrained from further 

retaliation, and President William J. Clinton decided to withdraw from 

Ready for Convoy, Peter G. Varisano, 1993
Map 30

Crash Site #2

BLACK Crash Site #1

SEA

AREA Olympic Hotel

Stadium

MOGADISHU

AIRPORT

NEW PORT FACILITY

PAKISTANI HQ

HQ TASK FORCE RANGER

2 1 O c t o b e r R o a d

 A r m e d F o r c e s S t r e e t

N a t i o n a l S t r e e t

V i a L e n i n

V i a A g f o y e

V i a M o s c o w

Shalalawi St

H a w a l W a d a g S t

Via Nigeria

 M a x u d H a r b i 

K4 Circle

0 1

0 1 Kilometer

Mile

3–4 October 1993

MOGADISHU
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

437

the country altogether. American units 

had left Somalia by March 25, 1994, and 

the United Nations was out within a 

year later.

Somalia had a chilling effect on 

American humanitarian instincts, 

especially with respect to sub-Saharan 

Africa. The United States by and large 

stood aside as hundreds of thousands 

of inhabitants of Rwanda, Burundi, 

the Congo, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, 

Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and 

the Ivory Coast perished due to civil 

strife, starvation, and natural disaster 

over the next several years. Somalia, no 

longer starving, was abandoned to the 

depredations of its own warlords and 

internal power struggles. Humanitarian 

relief alone would not be a sufficient 

argument for significant American 

military intervention. Other national 

interests would have to be involved; 

significant allied participation would be expected; and, if peacekeeping were to be a mission, there would have to be a peace to keep. 

Haiti

Throughout most of the Cold War, the United States and the 

Organization of American States (OAS) had tolerated repressive dictatorial regimes in the island nation of Haiti. Intervention would have 

been complex and difficult, many other Latin American nations featured 

military dictatorships, legal mechanisms did not exist for meddling in 

the internal politics of another country, and at the time dictatorships 

seemed preferable to Communist regimes. With the Cold War over, 

Americans became more assertive in their support of democracy, virtually all Latin American nations had transitioned into democracies, and 

the United Nations and other international organizations were setting 

precedents of intervening on behalf of the people in the cases of failed 

states. On September 30, 1991, a military coup led by Lt. Gen. Raoul 

Cedras turned out Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first elected President in 

Haitian history. The Organization of American States quickly imposed 

a trade embargo on Haiti and in coordination with the United Nations 

contemplated further economic, diplomatic, and political initiatives to 

restore democracy to Haiti.

The United States was party to OAS and UN deliberations, of 

course, but soon found it had more at stake than most. Thousands 

of Haitians fled their country on rickety boats at great personal risk, 

most of them bound for the United States. This precipitated a major 

humanitarian crisis as dozens were lost at sea and thousands of others 

detained, turned back, or forcibly repatriated by skittish U.S. immigration authorities. American policy was permissive toward those seeking 

political asylum but restrictive toward economic refugees (the latter 

On Watch, Jeffrey Manuszak, 1994
American Military History

438

characterization seemed to fit most Haitians). The murkiness of the two 

categories, given Cedras’ repressive military dictatorship, and apparent 

differences in the treatment of Haitian and Cuban refugees proved a 

domestic embarrassment first to President Bush and then to President 

Clinton. Democracy needed to be restored to Haiti to remove political 

incentives to flee and perhaps to establish a climate wherein economic 

conditions would improve as well. Many believed that democracies 

should be upheld as a matter of principle.

As sentiment built toward American intervention, the degree of 

force to be involved remained unclear. Ultimately, two distinct military 

campaign plans developed in parallel, one envisioning forcible entry and 

the battlefield destruction of the Haitian Army and the other espousing 

a more gentle intervention into a negotiated permissive environment. In 

July 1993 it seemed that the gentle approach would work when Cedras, 

pressured by UN sanctions and the freezing of his foreign assets, 

signed a UN-brokered accord providing for his retirement, the return 

of Aristide, and the retraining and professionalization of the Haitian 

Army. Within weeks of the United Nations’ suspending its sanctions, 

however, Cedras was back to his old ways. He may have thought that 

neither the United States nor the United Nations had the stomach for 

actual casualties. With few rounds fired, thugs in his employ forcibly 

prevented an American ship, the USS Harlan County, from off-loading 

UN troops intended to retrain the Haitian Army and police; attacked 

the car of the U.S. Charge d’ Affairs with axe handles; and assassinated known Aristide supporters. After a few months more of failed 

sanctions and diplomacy, UN Secretary General Butros Butros-Ghali 

acknowledged the failure of peaceful efforts and UN Security Council 

Resolution 940 authorized the “application of all necessary means to 

restore democracy in Haiti.” This set the stage for forcible entry, to be 

spearheaded by the XVIII Airborne Corps’ 82d Airborne Division and 

U.S. Special Operations assets.

Even as the paratroopers were en route to their targets, the situation 

changed again. Former President Jimmy Carter headed a last-minute 

Haiti, 1994, Jeffrey T. Manuszak, 1996

 “Hummers” make their way down a flooded road between villages.
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

439

U.S. soldiers on patrol in Haiti draw the attention of curious villagers.

delegation to seek nonviolent resolution. 

With invasion imminent, Cedras and his 

cronies capitulated, agreeing to an unopposed landing the following day. Parallel 

planning for nonforcible options had 

progressed apace, and troops and helicopters of the 10th Mountain Division 

were offshore aboard the carrier USS 

Eisenhower with rangers and Special 

Operations Forces and their helicopters 

positioned on the carrier USS America. 

Waves of theretofore invading combat 

and airborne assault aircraft returned 

to home stations; and at 9:00 a.m. on 

September 19, 1994, 10th Mountain 

Division troops in full battle gear leaped 

out of helicopters onto the tarmac of 

Port-au-Prince, there to be met by a U.S. 

Embassy Army officer casually dressed 

in a summer Class B uniform.

The American soldiers and marines 

entering Haiti found themselves in an ambiguous political situation. 

Rather than destroying or displacing Haitian troops loyal to Cedras, they 

were to work alongside them for a period of weeks while Cedras and 

his colleagues made arrangements to depart and Aristide and his allies 

arrived to assume the reins of government. U.S. forces would conduct 

military operations to restore and preserve civil order, protect the interests of U.S. citizens and third-country nationals, restore the legitimately 

elected government of Haiti, and provide technical assistance. They 

were not, however, to be unduly aggressive, nor were they to directly 

disarm Haitian forces or be drawn too far into nation-building.

Ambiguities in the concept of operations led to ambiguities in their 

conduct. In Port-au-Prince, American troops interpreted rules of engagement narrowly, deferring to existing Haitian authorities to maintain public 

order and not intervening in “Haitian on Haitian” violence. This handsoff attitude had immediate and unfortunate results when surly Haitian 

police beat a man to death in full view of the media while American 

troops stood idly by. In the interior of Haiti, on the other hand, Special 

Forces A Teams followed their traditional formulas of working through 

local community leaders, taking charge as much as they viewed necessary, 

and incarcerating the worst known criminals and attachés (pro-Cedras 

vigilantes). As they expanded their control—ultimately 1,200 Special 

Forces personnel spread through over two-dozen towns and cities—they 

dabbled in medical support and other community activities to reinforce 

the notion that the American presence was a good idea. 

In Cap Haitian, Haiti’s second largest city, a marine patrol responded 

to an imminent attack by opening fire, killing ten pro-Cedras Haitian 

policemen in a sharp firefight. From that point U.S. forces dominated 

the streets in Cap Haitian, a circumstance the average Haitian welcomed. 

Some commentators would later contrast a minimalist “siege mentality” 

allegedly acquired in Somalia and demonstrated in Port-au-Prince with 

the more expansive engagement by the Special Forces and the more 
American Military History

440

aggressive posture of the marines. It is probably more accurate to say 

that the initial circumstances and guidance were unclear, thus yielding 

inconsistent troop behavior as well.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff soon changed the rules of engagement 

to authorize intervention to protect Haitian lives, and 1,000 American 

military police took to patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince to assist 

in that purpose. (Map 31) By October 2 the intervening multinational 

force (including the battalion-size Caribbean Command) had peaked 

at 20,931 and plans were under way to reduce, refurbish, and retrain 

the Haitian military and police. Pro-Cedras paramilitaries persisted in 

some violence, but their grip steadily slipped. American soldiers found 

themselves in the increasingly ironic position of protecting Cedras’ 

supporters from mob violence. 

On October 13 Cedras and his Chief of Staff 

fled the country, and 

on October 15 Aristide triumphantly returned. Soon the Haitian Senate 

outlawed paramilitary groups, 15,000 weapons were turned over to the 

multinational force, known human-rights abusers were in custody or 

had fled the country, the Haitian Army was downsized and redesig

-

nated as a border patrol of 1,500, and Haitian police began rotating 

through a six-day course taught by international monitors. Violence 

subsided, American soldiers were generally welcomed as liberators, 

thousands of Haitians who had fled the country returned, and circum-

stances seemed stable enough to transition to UN supervision before 

restoring independence altogether. On March 31, 1995, the Americandominated multinational force handed over its responsibilities to the 

newly established United Nations Mission in Haiti.

Multinational Operations

Operations in northern Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti reflected 

changing philosophies with respect to armed intervention on the 

part of both the United Nations and the United States. Throughout 

the Cold War, peacekeeping and humanitarian relief had featured 

minor to modest military participation. In such operations, political 

and diplomatic imperatives had heavily outweighed military ones and 

troops were introduced sparingly. In 1987 about 10,000 UN troops 

were deployed on seven operations at a cost of perhaps $230 million. 

Very few of these troops were Americans. By 1995, 80,000 personnel 

were deployed on twenty peacekeeping operations at a cost exceeding 

$3.5 billion and a major fraction of the troops were American. What 

had changed?

The most notable change was an elevated expectation of the role 

uniformed soldiers would play. Traditional peacekeeping had envisioned the interposition of lightly armed observers between two armed 

parties that had agreed to separation and had the internal discipline 

to enforce an agreed cease-fire upon their own soldiers. Generally the 

belligerents were national armies—Israelis, Egyptians, Syrians, Indians, 

or Pakistanis, for example—but even if they were not, the expectation existed that there would be a peace to keep before UN observers 

became involved. The peacekeepers observed and reported on both 

parties, physically separated the adversaries, defended themselves 

in cases of minor infractions, and generally facilitated a cooling-off 
Map 31

MNF HAITI

MNF HAITI

UNMIH

USSPTGPHAITI

USFORHAITI

A T L A N T I C O C E A N

C A R I B B E A N S E A

W i n

d

w

a r d

P

a

s

s

a g

e

Cap-Haïtien

Fort-Liberté

Port-de-Paix

Guantánamo

Gonaïves

Saint-Marc

Mirebalais

Jimaní

PORT-AU-PRINCE

Les Cayes

Anse-d'Hainault

Monte Cristi UNITED STATES

NAVAL STATION

H I S P A N I O L A

Tortuga

B

A

H

A

M

A

S

D O M I N I C A N

R E P U B L I C

H A I T I

C U B A

OPERATION UPHOLD DEMOCRACY

19 September 1994–31 March 1995

31 March 1995–February 1996

and

UNITED NATIONS MISSION

HAITI

E L E V A T I O N I N F E E T

0 500 1000 2000 and Above

100 Miles

100 Kilometers

0

0
American Military History

442

period while diplomats sought more permanent solutions. In the interests of impartiality, the United Nations preferred collections of small 

contingents of troops from all over the world, and most featured dual 

chains of command both to the United Nations and to their country of 

origin. This was not the kind of force for serious warfighting. The long, 

unhappy experience of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon 

(UNIFIL, 1978–1996) eroded the notion that former belligerents 

would behave as agreed or be able to control their own subordinates. 

Heavily armed desperadoes operating with autonomy and impunity in 

the wreckage of failed states required a more robust response to keep 

or, more properly, to impose a peace.

Fortunately for those who favored an energetic approach, the end of 

the Cold War removed an important brake on multinational activity. The 

remarkably broad-based coalition that fought the Gulf War featured a 

diverse mix of former allies and adversaries under an American lead with 

UN approval and Russian acquiescence. The UN Security Council found 

itself newly imbued with a spirit of consensus when cleaning up the 

debris of the Cold War. Angola, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, 

Namibia, and Nicaragua were Cold War battlegrounds whose internal 

quarrels were no longer of interest to the Great Powers. Strife in the 

former Yugoslavia, Tajikistan, and Georgia were viewed as threats to the 

general peace more so than as cracks in Russian hegemony. Each of these 

embattled war zones soon received substantial UN peacekeeping forces, 

generally numbering in the thousands and tens of thousands rather than 

in the hundreds of an earlier era. The impotence of UNIFIL in Lebanon 

was not to be repeated. This new team on the UN Security Council 

created an ambitious expectation on the council of what to expect from 

dispatched forces. Between 1945 and 1990, vetoes had paralyzed the 

Security Council 279 times; between 1990 and 1994, none did.

The United Nations’ new-found energy had important implications for the U.S. Army. The distinguished world body had diminished the inviolability of the nation state when it endorsed intervention in destructive civil quarrels within failed states that could not 

control them. The simplicity of interposing lightly armed observers 

between the disciplined forces of two nation states was replaced by 

the complexity of controlling a highly lethal environment wherein 

factions could not ensure the compliance of their subordinates. 

Suddenly, peacekeepers might well need armored vehicles, attack helicopters, overwhelming firepower and an assertive attitude to make 

their mandates endure.

Only a few countries, like the United States, or alliances could 

provide the organizational and logistical framework within which such a 

force could be fielded. President Clinton had adopted a national strategy 

of “shape, prepare, respond,” wherein shaping the international environment with a modest investment of forces and funds and preparing 

for worldwide contingencies became as important conceptually as 

responding to major crises after they had already occurred. Shaping 

and preparing argued for intense multinational activity during periods 

of peace or operations other than war and for developing capabilities 

useful worldwide at all levels of the combat spectrum rather than those 

focused narrowly on a specific threat. Chief of Staff General Dennis J. 

Reimer recognized the challenging human dimension of transitioning 

Heavily armed desperadoes 

operating with autonomy and 

impunity in the wreckage of 

failed states required a more 

robust response to keep or, more 

properly, to impose a peace.
Beyond the Wall: Operations in

a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

443

to a highly flexible capabilities-based force and set about revising the 

Officer Personnel Management System to, among other things, ensure 

appropriate career opportunities for officers not pursuing traditional 

combat-arms tracks. Indeed, he believed so strongly in putting a human 

face on the President’s national strategy that he adopted the motto 

“Soldiers are our credentials.” 

The United States had taken the lead in northern Iraq and even 

went so far as to forcibly occupy the region to secure the resettlement 

of the Kurds. The United States also had taken the lead in Somalia, 

sending troops to the southern third of the country to guarantee the 

arrival of relief supplies until the worst of the food distribution crisis 

had been resolved, then turning over the operation to a UN force with 

a substantial American contingent. Similarly, intervention in Haiti had 

started as an American operation and then mutated into a UN one. 

Soon, as we shall see, the United States found itself heavily involved in 

multinational efforts to bring peace to Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 

and Kosovo as well. In all cases operations were intensely multinational, 

and in most allied troops under UN auspices eventually outnumbered 

the Americans on the ground.

Recognizing that integrated multinational operations were increasingly likely, American soldiers gave considerable attention to preparing 

for them. In 1993 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization established 

the Partnership for Peace program, a concerted effort to draw neutrals, 

former Warsaw Pact nations, and former Soviet constituent republics 

into multinational military exercises. Training exercises emphasized 

search and rescue, humanitarian relief, and peacekeeping. Dozens of 

such exercises every year, involving dozens of nations at a time, became 

a standard feature of NATO training regimes. Similar exercises in Latin 

America and around the Pacific Rim followed suit, albeit with less 

consistency, diversity, and scale. Allied units were increasingly invited 

to participate in U.S. National Training Center, Joint Readiness Training 

Center (JRTC), and Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC) exercises on an evermore integrated basis. American soldiers had had ample 

experience working with allies but seldom in circumstances wherein the 

mix of nations was so great and the scale of combined operations so 

small. Individual patrols and even checkpoints often became multinational events during the conduct of peacekeeping. This contrasted with 

earlier operations in Europe, Korea, or Southwest Asia, where allies 

were present but American soldiers were largely independent in their 

own brigades and divisions. 

The Breakup of Yugoslavia

During the early 1990s the former nation of Yugoslavia disintegrated into chaos. Yugoslavia had been a post–World War I construct 

that artificially conglomerated Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, 

Albanians, Macedonians, Montenegrans, Hungarians, and others into 

a single state. Historic ethnic rivalries had been exploited by German 

and Italian occupation authorities during World War II and then ruthlessly suppressed by Communist strongman Tito during his subsequent 

35-year rule. After Tito’s death in 1980, ethnic rivalries bubbled up again, 

achieving particular virulence with Serbian leader Slobodan Miloševic. 
American Military History

444

Fearing the worst from Miloševic’s ferocious Serbian nationalism, 

Slovenia and Croatia broke free from Yugoslavia in sharp, relatively brief 

wars of independence during 1991. 

The Muslim plurality of Bosnia-Herzegovina was not so fortunate 

when it attempted to follow suit. At that time Bosnia was 44 percent 

Muslim, 33 percent Serb, and 17 percent Croat. When the European 

community recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent state on 

April 6, 1992, its constituent Serbs revolted from within it. The Serbdominated Yugoslav National Army (JNA) heavily assisted the Bosnian 

Serbs; soon thousands on both sides were dead and over a million were 

refugees. The Serbs had the upper hand initially and forced Muslims 

and Croats out of one village after another. A gruesome campaign 

of murder, rape, and intimidation labeled “ethnic cleansing” forced 

dispossessed refugees from areas the Serbs wanted to control. 

The United States had hoped to stay clear of this Balkan conflict, 

being preoccupied elsewhere and hopeful that European leaders or 

perhaps the United Nations would sort things out. The United Nations 

did embargo arms shipments to the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and 

deployed a United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in 1992 

to enforce agreed-upon cease-fires and to facilitate humanitarian 

relief. Over time UNPROFOR became the largest and most expensive 

UN peacekeeping operation in history, featuring 38,000 troops from 

thirty-seven countries. It nevertheless proved no match for the heavily 

armed Serbs, who intermittently bullied or defied the peacekeepers. A 

particularly egregious demonstration of UNPROFOR’s ineffectiveness 

occurred in July 1995, when Serbian forces overwhelmed the so-called 

UN Safe Area of Srebrenica in a calculated orgy of mass murder and 

forcible deportation. 

NATO and the United States attempted to stiffen UNPROFOR 

with naval and air support. Over a 

two-year period an average of seventeen ships at a time enforced the 

arms embargo by challenging 31,400 

ships, boarding 2,575, and diverting 

643 into port for further inspection. 

A multinational humanitarian airlift 

labeled Operation Provide Promise

delivered more than 176,000 tons of 

humanitarian supplies over a threeyear period while airdropping a further 

19,800 tons into areas isolated by the 

Bosnian Serbs. NATO imposed and 

enforced a no-fly zone over Bosnia 

to deny combatants the option of 

inflicting mayhem from the air. The 

Serbs challenged this restriction once, 

and American F–16s shot down four 

of their Jastreb J–1s. NATO threats to 

engage Serbian ground targets worked 

less well, in part because of the difficulty of identifying them in the terrain 

A Suburb of Sarajevo after a Clash between Serbs and Muslims and weather and in part because of 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in

a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

445

the fear that Serbs would retaliate by attacking UNPROFOR peacekeepers. Prior to August 1995 NATO aircraft struck or threatened 

to strike Serbian ground targets on only a few occasions, when 

UNPROFOR peacekeepers or their charges were at exceptional risk. 

On one such occasion the Bosnian Serbs did in fact seize scores 

of UNPROFOR peacekeepers to use as shields against further attack. 

This embarrassment underscored the vulnerability of UNPROFOR 

and increased the inclination in frustrated NATO capitals for more 

resolute action. On August 28 Bosnian Serbs who had besieged the 

beautiful Bosnian capital of Sarajevo for three years were alleged to 

have fired a mortar round that dropped into a crowded market square, 

killing thirty-seven people. This was the last straw. UNPROFOR 

coiled into a defensive posture while NATO responded with a 

sustained air campaign against Serbian guns and heavy equipment 

surrounding Sarajevo. Over a three-week period NATO 

flew 3,515 

sorties, of which 2,318 were American, before the Serbs agreed to 

break the siege and withdraw their big guns. In addition to air operations, the United States deployed an infantry battalion (Operation Able Sentry) to newly independent Macedonia to ensure that the 

conflict did not widen.

The show of American and European resolve did much to bring 

Miloševic into peace negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force 

Base in Dayton, Ohio, in the fall of 1995. The damage done by years 

of crippling international economic sanctions did even more. What 

perhaps accomplished the most was a dramatic reversal of Bosnian 

Serb fortunes in the ground fighting. Croatian strongman Franjo 

Tudjman had long resented the Serbian retention of some Croatian 

lands after his successful bid for independence. He had quietly built 

up his army into a capable offensive force, assisted somewhat by 

American advisers, many of them military retirees under contract. 

On August 4 he struck viciously and successfully to drive the Serbs 

out of Croatia. He then drove on to assist the now-allied Bosnian 

Muslims and Croats, who themselves were pressing successful attacks 

against the Serbs. In short order they rolled the Bosnian Serbs from 

controlling almost three-fourths of the country to controlling less 

than half. America and its allies were wary of too much Croatian 

success, however, fearing the direct intervention of the Yugoslav 

Army. They helped broker peace and brought Serbs, Croats, and 

Muslims to the table at Dayton.

The Bosnian Peace Agreement envisioned a robust UN-sanctioned, 

NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) responsible for ensuring: 

compliance with the cease-fire; separation of the forces; withdrawal 

of forces out of zones of separation into their respective territories; 

collection of heavy weapons into agreed cantonment sites; safe withdrawal of UN forces; and control of Bosnian air space. The IFOR 

would ultimately consist of 60,000 troops deployed into the area under 

the command of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC). In addition to NATO troops, IFOR included soldiers from Albania, Austria, 

the Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Jordan, Latvia, 

Lithuania, Malaysia, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, 

and the Ukraine. Russia’s participation was particularly important 

because of her previous hostility to NATO and because of her special 
American Military History

446

relationship with the Serbs. Most of the troops arriving as part of 

IFOR were well trained, well equipped, heavily armed, and prepared 

for combat should circumstances require—a posture very different 

from that of UNPROFOR.

In addition to leading the overall military effort from a headquarters under the supervision of the United State Army, Europe 

(USAREUR), commander, the United States contributed to the 

IFOR 20,000 troops built around the Germany-based 1st Armored 

Division. About half as many international troops also worked under 

the 1st Armored Division’s supervision, to include a Russian airborne 

brigade. Rather than competing with their allies for access through 

the damaged, diminutive, and restricted Adriatic ports, the Americans 

decided to deploy overland with an intermediate staging base in Taszar, 

Hungary, and an operational sector in northern Bosnia around Tuzla. 

The 3/325 Airborne Infantry Battalion Task Force from Vicenza, 

Italy, parachuted in to seize Tuzla and establish an early presence 

while the heavy division arrived by road and rail through Hungary. 

Severe winter weather, extensive flooding, and horrible mud forced 

the Americans into a monumental bridging exercise to get across the 

swollen Sava River. From December 20–31 the deployment had more 

to do with man against nature then it did with man against man. U.S. 

Army engineers persevered, installing a pontoon bridge, across which 

tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, trucks, and other vehicles rolled in a 

seemingly unending stream.

Once deployed, IFOR handled its military tasks fairly readily. The 

Serbs, Croats, and Muslims were weary of war and respectful of the 

NATO display of force. Occasional efforts to cheat with respect to 

hiding heavy weapons or avoiding inspection were abandoned in the face 

of further demonstrations of overwhelming military muscle. Fighting 

ceased. Landmines remained as a legacy of the earlier warfare, proving 

deadly to peacekeepers and civilians alike. De-mining operations fell 

behind schedule because of the sheer numbers involved, because of 

poor records kept when laying mines, 

and because of subsequent difficulty 

in finding them. De-mining progressed 

nevertheless. 

American soldiers eventually settled 

into a routine of patrols, collateral training, 

and camp life. Civilian contractors built 

or deployed modular living and working 

facilities with electrical power, water, and 

waste disposal in the base camps. Original 

plans called for eight base camps with 

3,000 soldiers each, but extremes of 

terrain compartmentalization forced the 

construction of twenty smaller camps. 

The soldiers needed expedient access to 

the secured population, who themselves 

benefited from employment in building or 

servicing the camps or in reconstructing 

roads and the infrastructure to support 

them. Within the camps, soldiers found 

IFOR vehicles cross the Sava River on the 

hastily constructed bridge.
Beyond the Wall: Operations in

a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

447

respite in post exchanges, long-distance telephones, Internet access, mess 

halls, and recreational facilities. Other than separation from loved ones, an 

air of normalcy emerged inside the wire surrounding the camps. 

Outside the wire, things were not quite normal. Although the 

strictly military tasks of enforcing the cease-fire, separating former 

adversaries, and sustaining control of heavy weapons went generally 

as envisioned, issues for which civil resolution was anticipated went 

less well for a number of reasons. Crime was rampant. Apolitical incidence of theft, drugs, and prostitution were complicated by hate crimes 

involving arson, intimidation, and even murder. Efforts to resettle 

refugees in their original homes were clandestinely resisted by those 

who had forced them out, and freedom of movement became a hotly 

contested issue. Members of one ethnicity attempting to cross the territory of another to visit family, gravesites, or property were spat upon, 

bullied, or stoned. In the absence of a capable and reliable police force, 

allied soldiers soon found themselves deeply involved in law and order 

issues. In this difficult environment, economic recovery understandably 

lagged as well.

The mandate for the IFOR expired on December 20, 1996. Too 

many had assumed that in a year the difficulties of Bosnia could be 

resolved to a point at which the country no longer required outside 

assistance. Indeed, one American brigade commander created a media flap when he opined that Americans would be in Bosnia for years 

to come. Results bore him out. At the end of a year circumstances 

were still too fragile to hope that NATO could leave Bosnia without 

its reversion into chaos, and the allies were unwilling to continue the 

mission without U.S. participation. The parties involved agreed to 

continue the missions with a UN-sanctioned, NATO-led Stabilization 

Force (SFOR). (See Map 32.) Testimonial to the progress that had been 

made was the fact that 31,000 troops, about half the IFOR requirement, seemed sufficient for the SFOR. 

NATO settled in for the long haul. For the American soldiers, 

one six-month rotation followed another as divisions took their 

turns in Bosnia. Slowly, progress was made. Houses were rebuilt, 

refugees resettled, freedom of movement restored, elections supervised and held, and economic enterprises undertaken. By 2003 

SFOR 12, the twelfth American rotation into SFOR, included a U.S. 

contingent of only 1,450 troops. Their duties were a fairly routine 

round of presence patrols, security, and backup to local authorities. 

To that point, however, the Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims had 

become used to peaceably living apart more than they had learned to 

work together. Their effective governance and 

fledgling democratic 

processes were parallel rather than integrated, and there seemed 

to be no way to resolve disputes between them without the intervention of some UN or NATO leader or commander. A de facto 

partition of the country of Bosnia-Herzegovina emerged, with the 

predominately Muslim state of Bosnia-Herzegovina counterpoised 

by the predominately Christian Serb Republic. The creation of a 

truly viable, multiethnic Bosnian state may take generations, if it 

occurs at all. In the meantime, a peaceable, if divided, land policed 

by several thousand NATO-led soldiers is infinitely preferable to 

what happened before.
Map 32

HQ

B R I T I S H S E C T O R

M N D ( S W )

Una

Sava

SIPOVO

LJUBIJA

CORALICI

MRKONKJIC

GRAD

SISAVA

BANJA LUKA

VIT

GORNJI VAKUF

SIBENIK

PRIMOSTEN TROGIR

DONJI SEGET SPLIT

MEDUGORJ

PLOCE

OKUCANI

C R O A T I A

C R O A 

Bihac

Drvar

Banja Luka

Jajce

Bugojno

Jablanic

M

February–March 2002

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

STABILIZATION FORCE (SFOR)

SFOR Multinational Division (MND) Boundary

Site of Major Troop Deployment

Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IEBL)

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Serb Republic

Muslim

Serb

0 60

0 60 Kilometers

Miles

Croat
HQ

HQ SFOR

HQ

F R E N C H S E C T O R

U . S . S E C T O R

M N D ( S E )

M N D ( N )

Bosna

Sava

Sava

Danube

Drina

Drina

ZENICA

UGLJEVIK

BIJELA

TUZLA

DOBOJ

KLADANJ

TEZ

SARAJEVO

VISOKO

MOSTAR

JE

TREBINJE

A T I A

(autonomous province)

 Vojvodina

S E R B I A

M O NT E N EG R O

A L B A N I A

Stavonski Brod

Brcko

Tuzla

Orasje

Bijeljina

Srebrenica

Gorazde

Pale

SARAJEVO

a

Mostar

Dubronik

Novi Sad
American Military History

450

Kosovo

Bosnia was not the last casualty of Miloševic’s fervent Serbian 

nationalism. The southern province of Kosovo held an especially 

revered place in Serbian folklore. Here, much of the nation’s earliest 

history had transpired. Here, the semimythical Prince Lazar had died 

at the hands of the Turks in an epic battle that came to epitomize 

martyrdom in the defense of Serbian national identity. For all of 

Kosovo’s Serbian roots, however, by the 1990s, 90 percent of its 

population was Albanian. Miloševic ruthlessly suppressed the local 

autonomy these Albanian Kosovars had previously enjoyed. Excesses 

on the part of Yugoslav police and armed forces fueled Kosovar 

agitation for independence or unification with Albania, which in 

turn fueled further repression. A shadowy guerrilla force known as 

the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) emerged occasionally to attack 

Yugoslav officials and policemen. The cycle of violence and revenge 

threatened to escalate into another Bosnia, and the NATO nations 

determined not to let it do so. After a particularly egregious attack 

wherein Serbian security forces massacred forty-five Albanian civilians in the Kosovar village of Racak, NATO pressured all parties 

involved into peace talks in Rambouillet, France, beginning February 

6, 1999. The talks broke down when Miloševic refused to accept 

NATO peacekeeping troops in Kosovo, a precondition without 

which other provisions eventually would have proved meaningless. 

The Rambouillet talks broke down on March 19, and on March 20 

Serbian forces launched a major offensive in Kosovo that clearly they 

had been preparing for some time. Heavily armed Yugoslav soldiers 

and Serbian paramilitaries, supported by formidable complements of 

armed vehicles, ravaged one village after another in an orgy of arson, 

murder, and rape. The objective was ethnic cleansing on a vast scale 

to reverse the demographics throughout Kosovo and bring about a 

Serbian majority. Soon thousands were dead and hundreds of thousands desperate refugees fleeing into the mountains or into neighboring Albania and Macedonia. The sheer mass of the humanitarian 

crisis threatened to overwhelm those countries, and the complexities 

of dealing with refugees encumbered military options. American 

pilots flew 500 airlift missions to deliver 3,100 tons of humanitarian supplies, while American engineers and contractors hastily 

constructed three camps in Albania to accommodate 60,000 refugees. 

Another 9,000 refugees were flown to temporary accommodations in 

Fort Dix, New Jersey. As it was, the U.S. government accounted for 

about a fifth of the humanitarian effort, with the rest borne by allies 

and nongovernmental agencies. In addition to resources diverted 

to bringing succor to the refugees, competition developed between 

relief efforts and combat operations in the use of transportation, 

airfields, roads, and other infrastructures. 

The NATO nations resolved to thwart Miloševic’s aggression and 

the threat it posed to Balkan stability. Perhaps too soon they ruled out 

intervention on the ground, constrained more by political fears than 

military possibilities, and undertook to punish the Belgrade regime 

from the air. NATO decisionmaking required the consent of all nations 

to each major permutation of the target set or plan—a fact perhaps 

Competition developed 

between relief efforts and 

combat operations in the use of 

transportation, airfields, roads, 

and other infrastructures. 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in

a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

451

not fully appreciated in Washington, D.C.—and the earliest rounds of 

attacks were designed more to send a message to Miloševic than to do 

any real damage. Shock at the emerging fate of the Kosovar Albanians 

stiffened NATO resolve for tougher and more damaging strikes, but a 

certain asymmetry remained as the Serbs pretty much did as they chose 

on the ground while the allies were supreme in the air.

The Kosovo Air Campaign lasted seventy-eight days and featured 

38,000 sorties, about 40 percent by NATO allies and 60 percent by the 

United States. Although modest in its effects at first, as the campaign 

progressed it had the cumulative effect of severely eroding Yugoslav 

strategic capabilities. Allied air strikes significantly damaged all oil refin-

eries, 57 percent of petroleum reserves, 29 percent of ammunition 

storage, 34 highway bridges, 11 railroad bridges, 14 command posts, 

and 10 military airfields, as well as destroying over 100 aircraft on the 

ground. Perhaps most remarkably, NATO lost only two planes and no 

pilots despite the robustness of the Yugoslav air defenses. A thoughtful 

combination of PGMs delivered from high attitudes, suppression and 

destruction of Yugoslav air defenses, electronic countermeasures, and 

superb coordination and training accounted for this unprecedented 

success in preventing friendly casualties.

Despite strategic damage to Yugoslavia, efforts to deter the Serbs 

from terrorizing the Albanians had less success. The Serbs made 

artful use of camou

flage and decoys, and frequent bad weather greatly 

reduced the effectiveness of air strikes against mobile or indeterminate 

targets. NATO efforts to avoid civilian casualties allowed the Serbs to 

use Albanians as shields, and the incidents of civilian casualties quickly 

aroused the attention of the media and were broadcast for all the world 

to see. For a period it appeared as if NATO was hammering away from 

the air at the civilian infrastructure of remnant Yugoslavia while the 

Serbs were terrorizing the Albanians at will, with neither adversary able 

to come to grips with what was vital to the other. This asymmetry was 

resolved in part by the increasing effectiveness of the KLA and its 

gradual cooperation with the NATO air and missile campaign. The 

KLA was on the ground in Kosovo and could identify Serbian targets 

and distinguish them from decoys and noncombatants. KLA attacks 

forced the Yugoslavs to concentrate, and attempted counterstrikes 

against the KLA forced them to concentrate even more. This created 

useful observed targets for marauding NATO aircraft. Indeed, NATO 

reported that its destruction of Serbian ground assets shot up from 20 

tanks, 40 other armored vehicles, and 40 mortars and artillery pieces 

during the first sixty days of the air campaign to 122 tanks, 222 other 

armored vehicles, and 454 mortars and artillery pieces in the weeks 

after NATO had achieved effective synergy with the KLA. 

The KLA in effect provided NATO the ground option it had 

earlier dismissed and with it the synergy that AirLand Battle generates. 

Even as this KLA contribution was maturing, the prospect that NATO 

would after all introduce its own ground forces into Kosovo also came 

into play. NATO land forces had built up over time in Macedonia and 

Albania, initially with peacekeeping in mind but increasingly capable of 

other missions. The American contribution in this regard was named 

Task Force 

Hawk, a brigade-size mix of attack helicopters, rocket 

artillery, and mechanized forces deployed into Albania. TF 

Hawk was 
American Military History

452

initially intended to deploy to Macedonia and provide a cross-border 

capability, low-flying helicopters supported by artillery attacking the 

fleeting ground targets that high-flying NATO planes were having such 

difficulty engaging. It never actually got into combat for that purpose. 

Macedonia balked at harboring such a force, so it was diverted to 

Albania. Weather, changes directed in its organization and disposition, 

and competition with humanitarian relief assets for lift and airfield space 

further delayed its deployment. Despite those obstacles the soldiers of 

TF Hawk did establish themselves as a credible ground force proximate 

to Kosovo. However, the Serbs thickened their low-level air defenses in 

the formidable mountains separating Albania from Kosovo. It seemed 

increasingly dangerous to helicopter into them without a more general 

ground offensive. Media debate favoring such a ground complement 

to the air campaign, in addition to increasing KLA effectiveness and 

the apparent advocacy of ground intervention in several NATO capitals, must have weighed on the minds of Miloševic and his colleagues. 

Moreover, better weather improved the effectiveness of allied bombing.

After seventy-eight days of NATO bombing, Miloševic capitulated 

and agreed to evacuate loyal forces from Kosovo, allow NATO-led 

peacekeepers to replace them in securing the province, and accept the 

right of return of the refugees he had so recently been attempting to 

drive from the country. It remains unclear exactly why Miloševic capitulated when he did, but reasons probably included the 

strategic damage to his national infrastructure; the 

prospects of an allied ground campaign’s reinforcing 

the already dangerous KLA ground campaign; the 

continuing solidarity of the NATO alliance even as 

it committed to increasingly severe military measures; 

the absence of NATO casualties; economic and legal 

sanctions’ crippling his fiscal posture; and his one 

possible ally, Russia, committing to favor the end state 

the allies were trying to achieve (if not their means). 

Shortly before Miloševic capitulated, Russian Special 

Envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin visited Belgrade in the 

company of the Finnish President and explained that 

the refugees should return, Serbian forces should leave, 

and a NATO-led security force should replace them. 

A decade of conscious effort to engage Russia in a 

common vision for European security was paying off.

For Supreme Allied Commander, Europe 

(SACEUR), General Wesley K. Clark, the issues of 

command and control were unprecedented. The scale 

and pace of the military campaign by itself would have 

been difficult enough to manage and was enormously 

complicated by alliance politics in keeping the sixteen 

participating NATO nations aboard and achieving their 

unanimous support for each major permutation of 

the war effort. Ubiquitous media coverage catapulted 

tactical events into strategic visibility, especially if 

civilian casualties were involved. Media coverage played 

in different capitals differently, forcing Clark into recurPeace Keeper, Henrietta Snowden, 2000 rent rounds of negotiation with national counterparts— 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in

a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

453

including those of his own government—as issues arose. On the positive 

side, modern communications made it possible for these exchanges to 

occur quickly, and video-telephone conferences (VTCs) allowed parties 

involved from all over the world to meet “face to face” on a daily basis, 

though a role for traditional written correspondence and documentation remained. Clark’s extensive background in Europe and NATO 

and positions of high responsibility facilitated his development of a 

command style uniquely appropriate to this effort and the technology 

that supported it. 

Communications were but one arena of technological advance 

witnessed by the Kosovo con

flict. Another was with respect to 

PGMs. During Operation 

DesertStorm, PGMs had been effective 

but expensive. Costs easily ran into hundreds of thousands or even 

millions of dollars per munition, and PGMs constituted only about 

8 percent of the bombs and missiles used. By the late 1990s satellitebased global positioning systems had come of age and provided a 

reliable alternative to such guidance systems as lasers, radio or radar 

signals, heat seeking, television guidance, and the like. Moreover, GPS 

sensing was so pervasive that a newly developed $18,000 add-on kit 

could make a $3,000, 2,000-lb. “dumb” bomb “smart.” This radically 

increased the numbers of PGMs available and the platforms from 

which they could be fired. Thirty-five percent of NATO’s Kosovo 

strikes were with PGMs. NATO aircraft had made considerable 

strides with respect to interoperability in the years before this war, 

and the overall air campaign progressed smoothly under an umbrella 

of American intelligence synchronization and air-space management. 

There was, however, further work to be done to sufficiently modernize 

many of the allied air forces to allow for their full participation in a 

PGM-based high-technology campaign. 

When Miloševic capitulated and signed the Military Technical 

Agreement, attention quickly swung to getting ground troops into 

Kosovo rapidly. NATO envisioned the ARRC in control of five multina-

tional brigades, one each from the United States, Great Britain, Germany, 

France, and Italy. Many of these soldiers were already in position to move 

forward from Macedonia. The U.S. contingent was capped at 7,000, some 

of it drawn from TF 

Hawk in Albania. Given the enormous refugee 

crisis, the lack of civil government, and the collapse of law enforcement, 

it was important that these troops move in close behind the Serbian 

withdrawal. Concerns were that abandoned weapons might fall into the 

wrong hands, that pillage and lawlessness might erupt, that returning 

refugees would overwhelm the means hastily gathered to support them, 

and that returning Albanians would avenge themselves on Serbian civilians who had chosen to remain. The NATO occupation of Serbian 

Kosovo did proceed quickly and generally according to plan. (See Map 

33.) One miniature crisis did erupt when a contingent of Russian troops 

from Bosnia slipped all controls, roared triumphantly through Pristina, 

and secured the nearby Slatini Airport in the expectation other Russians 

would quickly be airlifted in. This puzzling and maverick show of force 

fizzled when Bulgaria and Romania refused to let Russian airborne rein-

forcements 

fly through their air space.

The Americans of the Kosovo Force (KFOR) soon settled into 

a routine of checkpoints, vehicle searches, patrols, searches for illegal 
American Military History

454

Map 33

weapons, support to humanitarian relief efforts and liaison with allies, 

nongovernmental organizations, and local officials. The Albanians 

welcomed the Americans as liberators, but scoff-laws among them did 

not hesitate to simultaneously work their own agendas with respect to 

smuggling, crime, and vice. Lawlessness in the absence of an effective police force became a military problem while a police force was 

being hastily constructed. A more serious problem stemmed from 

HQ

HQ

HQ KFOR

HQ

HQ

HQ

CAMP BONDSTEEL

B R I T I S H S E C T O R

G E R M A N S E C T O R

U . S . S E C T O R

F R E N C H S E C T O R

I TA L I A N S E C T O R

Bajram

Curri

Kukes

Prizren

Pec 

SKOPJE

Kacanik

Bujanovac

Gnjilane

Kosovska Kamenica

Pristina

Prokuplje

Leposavic

Klina

Istok

Rozaj

Dakovica

Orahovac

Kosovska

Mitrovica

Urosevac

M O N T E N E G R O Podujevo

A L B A N I A

M A C E D O N I A

S E R B I A

CROATIA

SLOVENIA

HUNGARY

BOSNIA AND 

HERZEGOVINA

ROMANIA

Kosovo

SERBIA

MONTENEGRO

ALBANIA

MACEDONIA ITALY

Kosovo Autonomous Province 

SERBIA

May 2002

KOSOVO FORCE (KFOR) SECTORS

KFOR Sector Boundary

0 20

0 20 Kilometers

Miles
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

455

Albanian retaliation against the few Serbs that 

remained, mostly in dispersed enclaves or along the 

northern border. The allies found themselves in the 

ironic position of spending much of their energy 

protecting hostile Serbs from friendly Albanians. 

Impartiality is one of the most important attributes 

of peacekeeping.

Over time and under the steady hand of NATO 

peacekeepers, circumstances in Kosovo began to 

follow the pattern set in Bosnia. Violence subsided, 

residents returned to peaceable activities, and some 

semblance of economic and civil life returned. 

In the town of Cernica, for example, serious 

incidents of violence dropped from about eighty 

during 2000 to none in six months during 2002. 

By 2003 Americans committed to KFOR dropped 

to under 3,000, a decrease of more than half. As 

was the case with Bosnia, however, this progress 

represented separation more than reconciliation. 

Albanians and Serbs demonstrated no particular 

interest in working together, and a modest number 

of NATO peacekeepers remained necessary to 

resolve or avoid difficulties between them.

Army Transformation

The dramatic events of the post–Cold War 

world focused the senior Army leadership on 

changing the Army to meet these new challenges. 

When General Eric K. Shinseki became the thirty-fourth Army Chief 

of Staff in June 1999, he was already committed to a dramatic transformation of the Army. He had commanded a heavy division and had 

served as Commander of USAREUR and SFOR in Bosnia. He had 

been Vice Chief of Staff of the Army when the Army was bruised by 

press and congressional criticism concerning how long it took to deploy 

TF Hawk to Albania. In his opinion, the heavy divisions were too heavy 

to get where they might be needed quickly and the light forces lacked 

the staying power to stand up to a capable adversary. As an opening 

move he established several marks on the wall with respect to deployability: a fully capable brigade anywhere in the world within 96 hours, a 

similarly capable division within 5 days, and a corps of five divisions in 

30 days. He gave the process he was embarking upon a definitive label: 

Army Transformation.

These timelines mandated a lighter and more nimble Army. At the 

time, a lively debate was ongoing among defense intellectuals concerning 

whether significant changes were more often evolutionary or revolutionary and whether or not the stars were aligned for what some called 

a revolution in military affairs. Within most venues, technical advance 

was perking along in an evolutionary manner; but revolutionary potential seemed near at hand in two venues: digitally enabled network-centric 

warfare and affordable PGMs. If this revolutionary potential could 

become reality, a lighter and more lethal force was a possibility.

Waiting To Phone Home, Henrietta Snowden, 2000
American Military History

456

Network-centric warfare was the military manifestation of 

the digital technology that had led to the Internet and its capability 

to move huge masses of data quickly and accurately. Coupled with 

modern communications, sufficient bandwidth, and trained personnel, 

it permitted a real-time battlefield picture shared by all parties involved. 

Coming out of Desert Storm, and in part because of difficulties 

achieving a shared battlefield picture during that conflict, the Army had 

begun experimenting extensively with and investing heavily in digital 

technology. Friendly force tracking, for example, envisioned transponders on vehicles and platforms that would relay friendly locations 

through satellite-based global positioning systems in such a manner 

that U.S. commanders at all levels were instantly aware of all locations 

and movements. Detected enemy locations and activities could also be 

instantly available to all parties on the net. Perhaps as important, logistical information could be tracked with such precision that the great 

mountains of contingency supplies could diminish. Commanders who 

knew the exact location of their logistical assets could have increased 

confidence to bring them forward just in time, an enormous increase in 

efficiency. Instructions and information of all types could be instantly 

accessed everywhere, permitting, for example, troops engaged in operations overseas to rummage through databases in the United States for 

counsel and advice. Knowledge would be power.

The most valuable sort of knowledge would be sufficiently precise 

for targeting enemy locations. With digitized communications such 

information would progress instantaneously from the sensor detecting 

the target to the shooter intended to engage it and would be available 

to other stations on the net at the same time. This would bring into play 

the second revolutionary advance, PGMs. Global positioning enabled 

a dramatic drop in the cost of such weapons. In future wars, potentially all stand-off munitions could be precision guided and could then 

cost-effectively engage trucks and troops as well as high-value targets. 

The timeliness of destructive effects, avoidance of unwanted collateral damage, and proliferation of platforms from which PGMs could 

be dropped, launched, or fired would dramatically alter the nature of 

war-fighting. In addition, the economy with which munitions were used 

would reduce the need for huge stockpiles of ammunition massed at 

the front. Such stockpiles had always represented a large fraction of a 

Revolution in Military Affairs

A number of defense experts inaugurated a debate in the late twentieth century over an impending revolution in military affairs, or RMA. For the next decade most of the discussion of this RMA centered on major advances 

in information management. Even beyond technology, others argued that the revolution also represented social 

and economic changes that fundamentally altered the face of battle. In short, many postulated that the RMA 

would render all previous forms of warfare obsolete. Such revolutions had been declared before when the tank or 

the airplane or the atomic bomb were supposed to relegate the foot soldier to the ash heap of history. It remained 

to be seen whether the events of the early twenty-first century were to be truly revolutionary or just a continuing 

evolution in warfighting. 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

457

heavy division’s lift requirements, and reducing them would go a long 

way toward developing a lighter and nimbler force.

Those venues wherein technology was evolving at a less revolutionary pace could nonetheless appreciably deepen the revolution 

introduced by digitization and PGMs. More-fuel-efficient engines—

and perhaps an eventual shift to hybrid engines or batteries alone—

would chop away at yet another logistical encumbrance. Fuel supplies 

comprised 70 percent of the tonnage within defense logistics. Improved 

vehicular armor could reduce the weight of vehicles while preserving 

crew protection. Body armor that could reliably protect against artillery fragments and small arms was now feasible for individual soldiers. 

Lasers could prove as useful in targeting direct-fire weapons as they 

were in guiding PGMs and might eventually directly destroy ballistic 

missiles and aircraft as well. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had 

steadily improved in performance and reliability, and the prospect 

for using them as weapons platforms as well as for surveillance now 

seemed feasible. Night-vision devices were more sophisticated and 

more miniaturized, allowing American soldiers to “rule the night” as 

never before. Indeed, the downside of such modernization was battery 

consumption. This set in motion a new technological evolution: the 

search for miniature, long-lasting, rechargeable batteries.

Perhaps the most controversial transformation decision was the 

determination to step away from the formidable and proven, but fuelconsumptive and logistically demanding, seventy-ton M1 series tanks 

in favor of a twenty-ton vehicle airliftable by C–130 and preferably 

wheeled. The Army envisioned such a Future Combat System (FCS) as 

coming in several variants: reconnaissance, troop carrying, tank killing, 

artillery bearing, and the like. Technical advances with respect to armor 

and crew protection might close some of the gap with the heavier 

tank with respect to survivability, but even more protection was to be 

afforded by inconspicuousness and by the lethality of an overall array 

of sensors, shooters, and digital connectivity that was to destroy the 

enemy before the enemy could reliably engage. Historical experiences 

with light tanks or vehicles in lieu of tanks had not gone well, so the 

FCS concept had its share of critics. Chief of Staff Shinseki nevertheless committed the Army to the development of such a vehicle and 

further committed it to have a first battalion-size unit equipped during 

the period 2008–2010.

Investment in a future force did not mean that the current force 

could be ignored. This so-called Legacy Force was still a powerful 

fighting machine and had to be maintained, even upgraded with new 

technology, to be ready for any operations in the near future. The Legacy 

Force would continue the worldwide missions of the Army during the 

immediate future, and some mix of Legacy with more modern forces, 

as they became available, would be in the Army’s inventory of units for 

years to come. An Interim Force was to be an immediate fix for the gap 

between the heavy Legacy Force and the light future forces. This force 

was to be equipped with light armored wheeled vehicles named Stryker. 

These vehicles were designed in variants similar to those envisioned for 

the FCS and would be organized into six brigade combat teams, each 

of which could be quickly airlifted into operations overseas. Although 

Strykers would be at a disadvantage against modernized heavy divisions, 

Even more protection was to be 

afforded by inconspicuousness 

and by the lethality of an overall 

array of sensors, shooters, and 

digital connectivity that was to 

destroy the enemy before the 

enemy could reliably engage.
American Military History

458

they could fight well against all else and offered a test bed for technology 

and doctrine intended for the future Objective Force. The Objective 

Force would be built around the FCS, when developed, and would embed 

all the technological advances possible. Interim Force brigades would be 

fielded at a pace of about one a year through 2006, and the Army would 

transition into the Objective Force in the dozen or so years following 

2008.

To succeed, the Legacy Force, the Interim Force, and the 

Objective Force all required appropriate manning; and the prolonged 

downsizing of the 1990s had inhibited the incentive to recruit. When 

active-duty strength finally bottomed out at 480,000 in 1998, the 

Army had to replace each departing soldier with a new recruit—

something it had not needed to do for some time. In 1999 the Army 

missed its recruiting goals by 6,000 in the active force and 10,000 in 

the Army Reserve. Within the next several years the Army revamped 

its emphasis on recruiting and introduced an initially controversial 

“Army of One” campaign. This campaign heavily emphasized the 

contributions of and skills acquired by individual soldiers and steered 

prospective recruits into Internet-based information to learn more 

about Army service. Indeed, one of the Internet’s most popular 

role-playing games during the period was an action adventure based 

upon and sponsored by the U.S. Army. The Army met its recruiting 

goals while attracting a substantial number of computer-savvy young 

people interested in self-improvement who were an ideal match for its 

increasingly digital posture.

When fielded, the proposed Objective Force would embody a 

new way of war. Digital technology would provide it knowledge of 

its own forces, of the enemy, and of environmental circumstances so 

quickly that it could make decisions and act on them far more rapidly 

than could the enemy. That same digital technology, combined with a 

vast array of sensors and shooters, would rain PGMs onto a hapless 

enemy with devastating effects. Enabling information would course 

through a worldwide network drawing into the fight joint forces of all 

descriptions along with other government agencies and forces from 

other nations. This theoretical force of the future would take full 

advantage of the effectiveness of PGMs, more-fuel-efficient vehicles, 

and digital logistical-information networks to shrink the size of unit 

logistical footprints. Modular subordinate tactical elements would 

organize and reorganize at a rapid pace, enabled by the sureness of 

their battlefield knowledge to do so at the right time, each time. Gone 

would be the elaborate control measures and methodical coordination that had kept a less information-capable Army from shooting 

its own people. What need for unit boundaries, phase lines, and carefully maintained alignment when nimble units could speed through 

the battlefield in small, difficult-to-target swarms, each fully mindful 

of the presence of the others? The possibilities of this new force 

of the future, however dependent on the success of a number of 

technological breakthroughs, were dizzying. 

To succeed, Army Transformation as envisioned would require a 

prolonged campaign of development, testing, and garnering of institutional, political, and financial support. Few had any illusions that 

it would reach fruition quickly, although successful lobbying in the 

Enabling information would course 

through a worldwide network 

drawing into the fight joint forces 

of all descriptions along with other 

government agencies and forces 

from other nations. 
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

459

halls of Congress provided transformation a measure of budgetary 

support and momentum. In 2000 the Army budget began to grow 

for several years, and important pieces did seem in place for longterm success. Skeptics to such a dramatic departure from the past 

did remain, especially among some in the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, in civilian think tanks, and among retirees. These cautioned 

against committing to technology that had not yet matured, were 

concerned that emphasis on the FCS might evolve into too narrow 

a hardware solution, and believed that the huge reliance on communications technologies and bandwidth might make the Army unduly 

vulnerable to a sophisticated adversary who could compromise 

both. Transformation also seemed to further reinforce American 

supremacies that already existed in battlefield technology and logistics while not addressing weaknesses in peacekeeping, urban combat, 

etc., wherein the technical advances were not all that great an asset. 

Successful Army Transformation would require continued attention 

to doctrine, training, leadership development, and force structure 

addressing all levels of intensity on the combat spectrum. 

Conclusion

The U.S. Army accomplished much in the years following the Cold 

War. It successfully fought a major war in Southwest Asia. It then downsized by a third while nevertheless sustaining high levels of overseas 

deployment. This requirement for overseas presence led it to improve 

upon its expeditionary capabilities while at the same time operating 

in such unfamiliar places as northern Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti. Tight 

budgets and international expectations suggested multinational operations, and the United States prepared for and proved the key player in 

successful operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. Even as it sustained a blistering operational tempo overseas, the Army undertook to transform 

itself. This transformation envisioned taking full advantage of technical 

leaps with respect to digitization and PGMs, as well as changes beyond 

technology. 

Throughout the 1990s the Army’s strategic focus remained broad 

and diffuse. No single adversary dominated its attention, and often 

it reacted to circumstances rather than adversaries. Paradigms developed, albeit slowly and deliberately, for a capabilities-based force, 

able to go almost anywhere and do almost anything, rather than for 

a threat-based force with a given adversary in mind. As busy as the 

Army was, it assumed its risks at some distance from the American 

people. Freedom’s battles were being fought on Freedom’s frontiers. 

The American people could go about their peaceable pursuits at home 

unmolested. How abruptly that would change.

Discussion Questions

1. The end of the Cold War led to major reductions both in the size 

of the U.S. military structure and in the budgets available to the services. 

Discuss the benefits and dangers to America of this development.
American Military History

460

2. Why did the United States deploy forces to Saudi Arabia so 

quickly in 1990 after the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait? Was this in the 

vital interest of the United States?

3. How did the Gulf War in 1991 highlight the changes made to 

the Army after Vietnam? How did the American people view these 

changes? 

4. Why should the U.S. Army be used as a peacekeeping or nation 

building force? Discuss some positive and negative aspects of such 

missions.

5. With the end of the Cold War, what was the continuing usefulness of NATO? Why should or should not the alliance continue to 

exist? 

6. To what degree did the United States play the role of “world 

policeman” in the 1990s? What dynamics have increasingly forced the 

United States to assume this role? What role did, and should, allies play 

in this effort?

7. In what ways did the Army attempt to transform itself after the 

end of the Cold War, and why? Recommen

ded Readings

Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American 

Power. New York: Basic Books, 2002.

Bourque, Stephen A. Jayhawk!: The VII Corps in the Persian Gulf War. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2002.

Brune, Lester H. The United States and Post–Cold War Interventions: Bush 

and Clinton in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia, 1992–1998. Claremont, 

Calif.: Regina Books, 1998.

Casper, Lawrence E. Falcon Brigade: Combat and Command in Somalia and 

Haiti. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2001.

Kretchick, Walter E., Robert F. Baumann, and John T. Fishel. Invasion, 

Intervention, “Intervasion”: A Concise History of the U.S. Army in 

Operation 

UpholdDemocracy. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. 

Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1998.

Schubert, Frank N., and Theresa L. Kraus, gen. eds. The Whirlwind War: 

The United States Army in Operations 

Desert Shield and Desert

S

torm. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

2001.

Stewart, Richard W. The United States Army in Somalia: 1992–1994. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2002.

Other Readings

Baumann, Robert F., Lawrence A. Yates, and Versalle F. Washington. 

My Clan Against the World: U.S. and Coalition Forces in Somalia, 1992–

1994. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute Press, 

2004.

Bowden, Mark. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. New York: 

Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999.

Clark, Wesley. Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat. 

New York: Public Affairs, 2001.
Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001

461

Fishel, John T. The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of 

Panama. Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 1992.

Hillen, John. Blue Helmets: The Strategy of UN Military Operations. 

Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 2000.

McDonnell, Janet A. After Desert Storm: The U.S. Army and the 

Reconstruction of Kuwait. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1999.

Murray, Williamson, ed. Army Transformation: A View from the U.S. Army 

War College. Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 2001.

Owens, Dallas D. A/C R/C Integration: Today’s Success and Transformation’s 

Challenge. Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 2001.

Rudd, Gordon W. Humanitarian Intervention: Assisting the Iraqi Kurds in 

Operation Provide Comfort, 1991. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 2004.

Scales, Robert H. Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War. 

Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1997.

Swain, Richard M. Lucky War: Third Army in Desert Storm. Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and General Staff 

College Press, 1994.

S

eptember 11, 2001, started out as a beautiful day across most 

of the eastern United States. Blue skies and pleasant temperatures carried the hint of fall even as summer lingered. At 8:46 

a.m. American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the 96th floor of the 

110-story North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center, spewing 

out 20,000 gallons of aviation fuel that ignited in a firebomb nearly 

2,000 ̊F. As horrified Americans watched the unfolding tragedy on television, United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the twin South Tower 

sixteen minutes later, creating yet another inferno on its 80th floor. 

Firefighters and police rushed to the rescue of what might have been 

upward of 50,000 employees later in the day. Soon hundreds and then 

thousands were streaming away from the doomed buildings and their 

neighbors. The 110,000 tons of steel, concrete, and impedimenta above 

the point of impact on the South Tower proved too much to bear by 

9:59, and it collapsed from 110 stories to 150 feet of rubble. Within 

thirty minutes the North Tower collapsed as well. 

At the Pentagon, crisis action teams were just standing up to deal 

with the emerging catastrophe when American Airlines Flight 77 roared 

into the western face of that squat building at 9:38 with somewhat less 

effect because of the Pentagon’s formidable construction. Over the 

next several hours details would emerge of yet another plane, United 

Airlines Flight 93, which crashed under mysterious circumstances into 

a field in Pennsylvania. A total of 2,435 workers, 343 firemen, and 23 

policemen died in the Twin Towers and another 125 employees and 

servicemen in the Pentagon.

Well before details became clear, Americans surmised that they 

had been attacked by a clever and ruthless adversary. A chilling story 

emerged: In a well-organized scheme each plane had been seized by a 

team of five (in one case four) terrorists armed with plastic weapons 

and purporting to be passengers. These imposters had overwhelmed 

the crews, substituted one of their own for each pilot, and flown into 

14

The Global War

on Terrorism
American Military History

464

their chosen targets. The exception was United Airlines Flight 93. The 

passengers on this somewhat later flight had learned by cellular phones 

of the fate of earlier hijacked aircraft. Popular conjecture holds that 

some passengers attempted to regain control. In the resulting tumult, 

the plane crashed headlong into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

The 33 passengers, 7 crewmembers, and 4 highjackers died together, 

but the unknown target was spared. Americans had their first heroes, 

and martyrs, in what President George W. Bush would soon label the 

Global War on Terrorism. They also had a new date that would live in 

infamy: “9-11.” 

Homeland Security

The Army was heavily involved from the beginning of the crisis. 

Time-honored tradition looks upon the Army National Guard as 

heir to the militia for state governors under duress. When New York 

Governor George Pataki declared a state of emergency, Adjutant 

General Thomas P. Maguire ordered 8,000 guardsmen to report for 

state active duty. New York Guard soldiers had already been gathering 

in their armories. By the evening of September 11, 1,500 were already 

at Ground Zero, as the World Trade Center catastrophe site came to be 

called; the rest were en route to duty stations.

The initial role of these National Guardsmen is best described 

as military support to civilian authority. They quickly reinforced the 

hard-pressed New York City Police with respect to traffic control and 

security; their uniforms and disciplined demeanor had a calming presence on the public. As equipment arrived, guardsmen provided civil 

engineering support, assisted with debris tagging and removal, established shelter and lodging, coordinated transportation, and facilitated 

logistical support. Over time they picked up such additional taskings 

as escorting official visitors, managing relief donations, moving mail, 

checking credentials, facilitating stress management, providing medical 

support, and serving as honor guards 

for memorial services. The guardsmen’s 

special mix of military and civilian 

skills, complemented by organization 

and discipline, make them an invaluable asset for local authorities facing an 

emergency.

At the Pentagon site, the involvement of soldiers was even more immediate, since so many were either victims 

or impromptu first responders. Many 

heroically rescued comrades from smoke 

and flame or unearthed them from the 

debris. Firemen, paramedics, police, and 

rescue personnel from the surrounding 

communities began arriving within 

minutes; soon patches of open ground 

west of the Pentagon organized into 

a relatively orderly array of triage and 

treatment areas, emergency medical 

Ground Zero symbolizes the 9-11 terrorist attacks, as the USS Arizona

had the attack on Pearl Harbor nearly sixty years before.
The Global War on Terrorism

465

response staging areas, and an air evacuation site. No one present had expected 

to see such carnage at the Pentagon, but 

many had worked through carnage at 

other times and places. Casualties were 

evacuated, survival assistance officers 

appointed, families notified, and about 

a tenth of the building sealed off as 

unusable and under investigation as a 

crime scene. Symbolizing the resilience 

of the American people, the following 

day soldiers from the Military District 

of Washington draped their huge 

garrison flag, an outsized American 

flag measuring twenty by forty feet, 

beside the gaping wound; the rest of 

the building went on with the business 

of national defense. There would be 

tearful memorial services to come but 

no pause in the war others had started.

Military support to civilian authority 

has been but one Army role historically 

associated with homeland security. Others have included rear-area security, border security, civil defense, controlling domestic disturbances, 

internment, humanitarian relief, and economic intervention (seizing 

factories). The immediate reaction after the September 11 attacks 

was to reinforce local authorities in relief and security, but broader 

responses soon emerged. During World War II the entire Continental 

United States had been treated as a combatant rear area wherein 

16,007 factories and other strategic sites were secured by their own 

employees assisted by 200,000 auxiliary military policemen and 160,000 

state guardsmen. In 2001’s new war, civilian airports seemed the most 

vulnerable facilities; and 6,000 guardsmen under state control fanned 

out to assist in securing 444 of them in fifty-four states and territories. Another 3,000 guardsmen under state control assisted in securing 

waterways, harbors, nuclear power plants, dams, power generator facilities, tunnels, bridges, and rail stations. This was no small task, since 

the Corps of Engineers alone manages 12,000 miles of commercial 

waterways, 925 harbors, and 276 locks. An additional 14,000 from the 

reserve components were mobilized to assist in securing facilities and 

installations on federal property. Some of these manpower commitments diminished over time, as when the Transportation Security 

Administration assumed responsibility for the airports. 

Some homeland security taskings were episodic. In 2002 the Army 

assisted in securing the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics, the Winter 

Paralympics, meetings of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, 

and the World Economic Forum. The Olympics alone required the 

services of 5,000 guardsmen.

Border security had not been a military responsibility for most of 

the twentieth century, but the war on drugs had reintroduced the military 

to assisting in that role. In 1989 Congress designated the Department of 

Defense (DOD) as the lead agency for detecting the air and maritime 

Two days after the attack on the Pentagon, investigators take 

a break. Inside, search and rescue efforts continue.
American Military History

466

transit of illegal drugs. Shortly afterward, it stood up Joint Task Force 

6 (JTF–6) in Texas to assist with aerial reconnaissance, border surveillance, dive operations, intelligence analysis, construction, transportation, 

communications, canine support, and other types of support wherein 

military skills would be useful. JTF–6 had been a small headquarters with 

the manpower equivalent of two or three battalions customarily attached. 

After 9-11 national attention to border security radically increased and 

broadened beyond the emphasis on drugs. Over 1,500 more soldiers 

deployed to assist the U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Customs Service, and 

the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Posse Comitatus Act of 

1878 did limit their role to indirect, nevertheless valuable, support. 

The greatest single fear the terrorists inspired was that they would 

somehow acquire weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, 

or nuclear—and unleash them against the citizens of the United States. 

President Bush’s administration had already reenergized investments 

in ballistic missile defense. The systems under design were oriented 

against missile launches from rogue states, however. What if nonstate 

terrorists smuggled a weapon of mass destruction into the country 

undetected? The Army had been responsible for elaborate civil defense 

efforts throughout much of the Cold War, though emphasis had waned 

after the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union in 1972. 

By the late 1990s fanatical terrorists rather than calculating Soviets 

seemed the more plausible threat, and the Defense Authorization Act 

for fiscal year 1997 established the Domestic Preparedness Training 

Initiative within the Department of Defense. This envisioned soldiers 

training local law enforcement authorities in preparation for chemical, 

biological, or nuclear attack and offering other assistance with respect 

to such possible events as appropriate. Mass casualty exercises involving 

soldiers, police, firefighters, medical personnel, and other first responders 

with scores of volunteers playing victims became a common sight in 

towns and cities around the United States. Not all the support was for 

training alone; the Army Reserves’ 310th Chemical Company provided 

biological integrated detection system 

(BIDS) early warning at the 2002 Winter 

Olympics, for example.

The Army’s homeland security 

responsibilities after 9-11 were superimposed on a continuing expectation that 

soldiers would remain available to assist 

their fellow citizens in cases of natural 

disaster. The National Guard in particular provides state and local governments 

readily available, disciplined manpower 

with inherent command, control, transportation, and support. Specialized skills 

and equipment for engineering, debris 

removal, water purification, messing, 

and medical support can be particularly 

useful when any form of disaster strikes. 

There is ample precedent for the Army’s 

fielding as many as 30,000 soldiers at a 

time nationwide for humanitarian relief. 

In the wake of 9-11, National Guardsmen augment security at 

airports across the United States.
The Global War on Terrorism

467

The post–9-11 period was no exception to this recurrent yet unpredictable aspect of homeland security.

A few homeland security tasks that had historically come the way 

of the Army were not features of the Army’s post–9-11 environment. 

The Army was not asked to intern enemy aliens. No specific nation was 

identified as enemy, and individuals suspected of terrorism or violations 

of immigration policies were few enough in number to render Army 

involvement unnecessary. There were no domestic disturbances associated with the disaster: the American people seemed more united than 

ever. There was no expectation of economic intervention or reconstruction on the part of the Army, with the exception of the Pentagon. 

Here, the Corps of Engineers took charge of a challenging project to 

rebuild and restore the shattered section of the building within a year 

of the attack. They met this timeline, and the newly rebuilt portions of 

the Pentagon reopened with ceremony and fanfare—and with the same 

large garrison flag hanging alongside the restored facade.

It had been some time since Americans had been attacked on 

their own soil, so there was understandable confusion with respect to 

who was in charge of what. The North American Aerospace Defense 

Command (NORAD) had supervised defense against aerospace strategic weapons, while the Army had been the DOD Executive Agent 

for military support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency 

(FEMA). Shortly after the 9-11 attacks Secretary of Defense Donald H. 

Rumsfeld reiterated and refined these arrangements, making the Joint 

Forces Command responsible for the land and maritime defense of the 

Continental United States and appointing the Secretary of the Army 

the DOD Executive Agent for Homeland Security, including homeland 

security and military support to civilian authority. Homeland security 

implied the direct application of military forces with DOD as the 

federal government’s lead agency, whereas military support to civilian 

authority encompassed supporting the lead of local officials or other 

Rebuilding the

Pentagon

When Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon on September 11, 

2001, the first portion of a twenty-year renovation project had 

recently been completed. Much of the section the aircraft hit had 

been reinforced with a Geotech antifragmentation panel and 

featured blast-resistant windows. Under Lee Evey, Program 

Manager for the Pentagon Renovation, building contractors quickly 

reoriented to rebuilding the shattered corridors. Three thousand 

workers, some laboring around the clock, cleared 50,000 tons of 

debris and quickly repaired the outer three rings of the building. 

Named Project Phoenix, the rebuilding exceeded expectations; by 

September 11, 2002, the once-wrecked portion was open for 

September 11, business. Henrietta Snowden, 2001
American Military History

468

federal agencies. These arrangements proved satisfactory for the time 

being. In due course, President Bush proposed and Congress approved 

the reorganization of many different federal agencies involved in 

homeland security into a single overarching Department of Homeland 

Security. As this book is written, the Department of Defense is still 

working out its relationships with this new agency.

Afghanistan: The War against the Taliban and al-Qaeda

Even as the World Trade Center still smoldered and the first rush 

to reinforce homeland security was on, American intelligence ascertained that Osama bin Laden’s shadowy Islamic extremist al-Qaeda 

(literally “the base”) terrorist network had organized the devastating 

9-11 attacks. Al-Qaeda was ferociously hostile to Israel and to the 

American presence in the Middle East, and was already suspected of 

numerous attacks, including the spectacular and deadly car bombings 

of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the suicide 

ramming of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. The American response to 

these attacks had been cruise missile strikes against suspected terrorist 

training camps in Afghanistan so ineffectual they seemed to reinforce a 

smug sense of invulnerability within the al-Qaeda leadership.

Al-Qaeda had reason to feel smug. Their worldwide network of cells 

and supporters was so secretive as to evade detection, and their base 

of operations comfortably tucked into the protection of Afghanistan’s 

pathologically fundamentalist Taliban regime. The Taliban had emerged 

victorious in vicious factional fighting following the Soviet withdrawal 

from Afghanistan in 1989. Their brutally strict regime offered safe 

haven to some the world’s most deadly Islamic terrorists.

Neither the Taliban nor al-Qaeda fielded standing armed forces in 

the modern sense. Taliban leaders surrounded themselves with a core 

of experienced fighters to which further volunteers and conscripts 

were added in times of strife. Recruitment generally followed clan 

and ethnic lines, though several concentrations of foreign troops who 

shared their religious views were present as well. Of these the estimated 7,000 or so Pakistanis were the most numerous, and the 3,000 or 

so multinational al-Qaeda the most deadly. Perhaps 20,000 additional 

fighters constituted the core of the Taliban proper; and the regime was 

able to field as many as 50,000 for major operations. The Taliban had 

taken over a considerable inventory of Soviet heavy equipment when 

they seized Afghanistan, but it was not in good shape and they did not 

use it well. Their preferred tactical unit was ten or so militiamen armed 

with assault ri

fles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) mounted in 

the back of pickup trucks with heavy machine-guns mounted over 

the cabs. Swarms of these sped through the countryside, terrorizing 

the civilian population or fighting a 

fluid war of movement as circum

-

stances might require.

Opposition to the Taliban within Afghanistan came from a loose 

coalition of tribal adversaries alienated by the Taliban’s heavy-handed 

methods and its domination by Afghan’s majority ethnic Pashtun. 

Their United Front, or Northern Alliance (NA), included ethnic Tajiks, 

Uzbeks, and Hazaras led by their own warlords and reinforced by semiprofessional leftovers from the old regime and anti-Soviet Mujahideen
The Global War on Terrorism

469

(literally “holy warriors”). The Northern Alliance fielded 

a core of perhaps 10,000 fighters and controlled about 

10 percent of the country in the north and northeast. 

Guerrillas associated with the Northern Alliance operated 

in much of northern Afghanistan, taking advantage of 

both the rugged nature of the country and of increasing 

resentment against Taliban rule.

An American air and missile campaign against the 

Taliban began on October 7, 2001, heralding the start of 

Operation Enduring Freedom. That evening 25 fighters 

from 2 aircraft carriers, 15 long-range bombers, and 50 

cruise missiles struck airfields, air defenses, and purported 

command and control facilities. At the same time two C–

17s dropped 37,500 humanitarian daily rations into Afghanistan to reinforce the point that the campaign was 

against the Taliban regime and not the Afghan people.

The initial air and missile strikes seem to have been no 

more effective than their predecessors in 1998 had been. 

There were simply too few discrete high-value strategic 

targets in Afghanistan critical to the grip of the Taliban 

regime, with the possible exception of the lives of the 

leaders themselves. This ineffectualness changed quickly 

beginning October 19, when several 12-man American 

Special Forces Operational Detachment A Teams helicoptered through difficult mountains in the darkness to 

link up with the leaders of the Northern Alliance. Soon 

there would be 18 A Teams plus 4 company-level (B 

Teams) and 3 battalion-level command units (C Teams) in 

Afghanistan, about 300 soldiers all told. 

The arrival of Special Forces teams had a dramatic effect on the 

fortunes of the Northern Alliance. Almost overnight its tactical circumstances transformed from desperate inferiority to an overwhelming firepower advantage. The Special Forces teams accompanied the 

tribal warriors by foot, in pickups, or even on horseback, carrying with 

them the reach-back capabilities of satellite communications. Armed 

with laser designators and state-of-the-art optics and global positioning 

system (GPS) technology, they brought in precision-guided munitions 

(PGMs) on one target after another. PGMs were considerably less expensive than they had been during Desert Storm and could be delivered en masse from the bellies of B–1 and B–52 bombers as readily 

as from nimbler fighter-bombers. Absolute air supremacy and artfully 

positioned air-to-air refueling tankers enabled supporting aircraft to loiter while targets were being sorted out and then to strike with deadly 

effect. Because the PGMs were cheap, small knots of troops or individual bunkers were cost-effective as targets; and entire lines of defense 

were immolated by cascades of precisely directed 2,000-lb. bombs. The 

2,000-lb. bomb was the workhorse munition but not the upper limit; 

that distinction went to the monster 15,000-lb. BLU–82 “Daisy Cutter” 

introduced into the campaign on November 5. What was seen was hit, 

and what was hit was killed.

Although American manpower on the ground within Afghanistan 

itself was by design tiny, by November over 50,000 service personnel 

Operation Enduring Freedom Leaflets, 2002
American Military History

470

were in the theater and associated with the campaign. Of these, half 

were at sea manning the ships providing carrier air strikes and seaborne 

cruise missiles. About 2,000 soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division 

secured Karshi Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan; while 3,000 more 

service personnel, including a battalion of rangers, staged out of Oman. 

Detachments helped secure air bases and other facilities in Pakistan as 

well, while about 400 aircraft were based in the region. From time to 

time these forces intervened directly in the ground fighting, as was the 

case in a spectacular televised ranger parachute assault on October 19, 

2001, into a compound belonging to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed 

Omar; but more often they guaranteed the unrelenting 

flow of air and 

logistical support to the predominantly Afghan fighters on the ground. 

The Muslim leaders of Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and Oman had taken 

some risks to cooperate with the American campaign; it was important that American forces be viewed as assisting in a national liberation 

rather than invading a nation.

The fighting in Afghanistan fractured into several miniature 

campaigns as each allied Afghan warlord advanced on his own objectives, carefully protecting the tiny contingent of Americans who gave 

him such awesome firepower. (Map 34) In the north, Uzbek General 

Abdul Rashid Dostum pounded his way into Mazar-e Sharif behind a 

curtain of American 2,000-lb. bombs. In the west, warlord Ismail Khan 

liberated Herat to the delight of his local followers. In the northeast, 

Generals Fahim Khan and Bismullah Khan, Tajik successors to slain 

NA leader Shah Ahmed Masoud, followed up on massive air strikes 

to break through a protracted stalemate that had developed around 

Bagram Airfield. Capitalizing on U.S. air support, they next rushed into 

Kabul when the Taliban unexpectedly abandoned that capital city. Not 

far away, the NA forces also seized the city of Taloqan handily and then 

fought a see-saw battle around Konduz—to include infighting between 

Taliban who wanted to surrender and al-Qaeda who did not—until that 

city finally fell after a twelve-day siege. In the far east, Haji Abdul Qadir 

captured Jalalabad the day after the Northern Alliance entered Kabul. 

The loosely cobbled-together Northern Alliance then controlled half 

of Afghanistan.

As heartening as the speedy liberation of northern Afghanistan 

was, it raised the risk of permanently alienating the Pashtun south if a 

Pashtun face could not be associated with the process of liberation. 

Fortunately, two Pashtun expatriate leaders, Hamid Karzai and Gul 

Agha Sharzai, had infiltrated Afghanistan after the onset of the fighting 

to raise adherents of their own and take on the Taliban. Karzai based 

himself north and Sharzai south of Kandahar, the most important city 

of the Pashtun south and the spiritual home of the Taliban.

Karzai’s experience with Special Forces Operational Detachment 

Alpha (ODA)–574 illustrates the teamwork that developed between tribal 

militias and Special Forces operatives. Karzai had been deputy foreign 

minister in the pre-Taliban government and had returned to Uruzgan 

Province north of Kandahar to rally opposition to the Taliban. The 

twelve-man Special Forces team commanded by Capt. Jason Amerine 

accompanied him to help him organize and to procure equipment 

and ammunition. When Karzai took possession of the town of Tarin 

Kowt, 110 kilometers north of Kandahar, the Taliban awoke to the 
Map 34

I I

1 87(-)

USMC

SF TF DAGGER

SF TF K-BAR

X X

CJTF MOUNTAIN

I I

1 87/10

I I

4 31/10

X

2 10

X

3 101

X

3 101

Tora Bora

LZ

LZ

LZ

LZ

LZ

Nov 01

OBJECTIVE RHINO

OPERATION ANACONDA

Mar 02

Dec 01

Jan 02

Indus River

T U R K M E N I S T A N

P A K I S T A N

T A J I K I S T A N

U Z B E K I S T A N

Maza ̄r-e Sharı ̄f

Kondoz Taloqa ̄n

KABUL

Bagra ̄m

Sha ̄hı ̄ Kowt

Kandaha ̄r

October 2001–March 2002

AFGHANISTAN

MAJOR U.S. OPERATIONS

U.S. Special Forces Movement

U.S. Airmobile Movement

Landing Zones (approximate)

Province (vela ̄ yat) Boundary

0 150

0 150 Kilometers

Miles
American Military History

472

danger his insurgency posed and dispatched about eighty vehicles and 

500 troops to crush him. Captain Amerine, protected by several dozen 

of Karzai’s men, set up his laser target acquisition equipment on a ridge 

overlooking the approach to Tarin Kowt. When the Taliban column 

swung into view, he locked onto the lead truck and guided a bomb from 

a carrier-based Navy F–14 Tomcat onto a spot between its headlights. 

The truck disappeared in a horrific explosion, killing all aboard it and 

demolishing the antiaircraft gun it was carrying for fire support. Amerine 

repeated this performance along the length of the valley, displacing from 

one position to another as tactical circumstances required. 

Meanwhile, Karzai’s men defending Tarin Kowt proper had 

beaten off a flanking attack that had attempted to encircle the town. 

As the Taliban attempted to break contact, Amerine’s men continued 

to hammer them with laser-guided munitions. The Taliban, who had 

expected an easy win, left behind about 300 dead and over thirty 

destroyed vehicles. Needless to say, Karzai’s men were favorably 

impressed with the lethality of their newfound allies; and this battlefield 

success radically enhanced NA recruiting. Karzai’s offensive rolled on 

toward Kandahar as an ever-increasing torrent of armed men carefully 

positioning their precious Americans to overwatch positions whenever 

a few precisely delivered bombs might best be used. 

One aspect of the campaign that required the Americans to 

adjust was the extraordinarily negotiable aspect of Afghan warfare. 

Adversaries often knew each other personally, in many cases were 

related, and shamelessly communicated with and offered deals to each 

other during the course of the fighting. Radio traffic exchanging interpersonal bluster and family news alternated with calls for fire and the 

coordination of troop movements. The tactical bartering did have the 

salutary effect of reducing bloodshed. One side would convince the 

other that it was totally overmatched: a quietly arranged surrender might 

well ensue or, more often, the weaker side would fade into the darkness 

Special Forces Operational

Detachment A

Special Forces units that served in Afghanistan were 

built around twelve-man teams of soldiers trained in 

unconventional warfare. A captain (18A) and warrant 

officer (180A) generally led the team. Typically, the other 

members were team sergeant (18Z), 2 weapons specialists 

(18B), 2 engineers (18C), 2 medics (18D), 2 communicators (18E), and an operations/intelligence expert (18F). 

Most teams in Afghanistan were augmented with Air Force 

tactical air controllers to aid in providing close air support. 

Special Forces, area oriented and language trained, were 

specially configured for missions behind enemy lines and 

the ideal force for operations in Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzai (Middle Row, Third from Left) and 

Special Forces
The Global War on Terrorism

473

while the stronger triumphantly took possession of the geographical 

prize. Fighters who surrendered en masse were seldom searched and 

segregated and often wandered off the battlefield under their own 

recognizance or joined their former adversaries after a decent interval. 

Combat itself could be sharp and vicious and retaliations gruesome, 

but there often seemed to be a way to talk things out as well.

The rapid collapse of the Taliban had much to do with deals struck 

by confident warlords newly empowered by American arms, but Afghan 

habits led to some curious embarrassments as well. Al-Qaeda and its 

Pakistani adherents did not play by the same rules and occasionally 

bloodily suppressed arrangements worked out among the Afghans. At 

Konduz, for example, hard-core fighters ambushed NA forces advancing 

to accept a surrender that had previously been arranged; and in Mazar-e 

Sharif, Pakistanis gunned down twelve Islamic Mullahs sent into their 

barracks to finalize terms. Loosely secured foreign prisoners staged a 

spectacular revolt at the Quali Jangi fortress at the end of November that 

was bloodily suppressed by Afghans and PGMs. Another uprising by 

armed patients turned a Kandahar hospital into a battle zone in January 

2002, long after the rest of the city had been secured. In these cases, 

Afghan retribution against the foreign fighters was severe. 

Perhaps more consequential, however, the much-anticipated 

surrender of Kandahar turned into a nonevent. Hundreds of Taliban 

troops with their leader Mohammed Omar simply vanished into the 

night to make way for Karzai’s and Sharzai’s triumphant fighters. For 

weeks thereafter men wearing the black turbans of the Taliban mingled 

unmolested on the streets with allies of Karzai and the Americans. All 

things considered, the negotiative aspect of Afghan warfare seems to 

have worked out better for the Afghan warlords who won with it than 

it did for the al-Qaeda and Pakistanis massacred during its course or for 

the somewhat baffled Americans.

Osama bin Laden also seems to have slipped the noose presented 

by encircling Afghan forces. Some time after the fall of Kabul, al-Qaeda 

and Taliban forces fled into the rugged Tora Bora mountains south of 

Jalalabad. Here, the terrorists had built up stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, and other supplies in hundreds of cave complexes they had heavily 

fortified. Local anti-Taliban forces under Hazrat Ali undertook to root 

them out, assisted by several Special Forces teams providing advice and 

air support. Their advance moved painfully forward over rocky, convoluted terrain between 10,000 and 12,000 feet in altitude. AC–130 Spectre 

gunships and PGMs proved useful, but the depths of the caves and 

extremes of relief limited their effectiveness considerably. The enemy 

fought stubbornly as the terrain he controlled shrank into smaller and 

smaller pockets over a period of eight days. When the fighting finally 

sputtered out, hundreds of al-Qaeda and Taliban were dead, but even 

more seemed to have slipped away through the trackless mountains into 

nearby Pakistan. There is some evidence that bin Laden may have been 

at Tora Bora; if so, he seems to have been among those who escaped.

By this time, conventional ground forces were present in Afghanistan 

in increasing numbers. A company from the 10th Mountain Division 

had deployed from Uzbekistan to assist with the prisoner revolt at Quali 

Jangi, and marines had arrived to secure facilities southwest of Kandahar 

shortly before it fell. Other conventional forces soon followed to secure 

The enemy fought stubbornly as 

the terrain he controlled shrank 

into smaller and smaller pockets 

over a period of eight days. 
American Military History

474

the Kandahar airport, Bagram Airfield, facilities in Kabul, and prisoner 

screening and holding areas. A deployable reserve was established as well. 

The facility with which Omar, bin Laden, and many of their adherents 

had eluded capture by encircling Afghan forces suggested the desirability 

of having tightly disciplined American ground forces to pursue critical 

targets. The newly allied Afghan warlords seemed receptive to having a 

modest number of Americans on the ground in Afghanistan pursuing 

diehard al-Qaeda while they themselves went about the business of 

consolidating their grip on the rest of the country.

On December 11, 2002, Hamid Karzai was sworn in as the Prime 

Minister of the interim government of Afghanistan during ceremonies 

held in Kabul. His ascendancy had the general support of both the 

people and the warlords—the concurrence of the latter having been 

the result of considerable negotiation. Over the next several weeks a 

UN International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that would ultimately number about 5,000 soldiers from eighteen nations deployed 

into Kabul, while an American force of about that size fanned out 

to work the hinterlands looking for al-Qaeda. In seventy-six days of 

operations a few hundred American special operators and a handful 

of conventional units supported by 6,500 strike missions expending 

17,500 munitions had provided the margin of reinforcement necessary 

for a Northern Alliance victory over the theretofore dominant Taliban 

regime. The Global War on Terrorism was by no means over, but at 

least terrorists were no longer safe in Afghanistan.

Global Operations

The speedy American victory in Afghanistan bolstered operations 

against terrorism worldwide. President Bush’s administration clearly 

recognized that military operations would be only part, and perhaps 

a lesser part, of their ultimate success. Effective counterterrorism 

would require extensive diplomatic, financial, legal, public relations, and 

Karzai reviews the troops at the first graduation of the Kabul Military Training Center, 

Afghanistan, July 23, 2002.
The Global War on Terrorism

475

perhaps humanitarian efforts as well. Initiatives within each of these 

venues were already well under way when the fighting in Afghanistan 

began, but the overthrow of the Taliban generated intelligence and an 

atmosphere that reinforced the American hand in each of them. The 

overthrow also suggested or encouraged further military action. 

American diplomatic efforts experienced an immediate groundswell of sympathy throughout most of the world in the aftermath of 

the September 11 attacks, and numerous governments pitched in to 

help defang al-Qaeda. Operatives and fellow travelers were detained in 

Germany, Spain, Italy, and Great Britain. It turned out that a number 

of key figures in the attacks had important connections in the permis-

sive and liberal environment of Germany, which cracked down with 

particular severity. Captured documents and prisoner testimony from 

Afghanistan facilitated the hunt. In Malaysia, captured materials enabled 

direct police intervention to break up a pending attack. Muslim nations 

like Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan took some risks in assisting 

the United States against the Taliban and went after their own potential 

terrorists energetically, recognizing that they had already “grabbed the 

wolf by the ears.” Pakistan in particular made some spectacular arrests 

of al-Qaeda operatives bailing out of Afghanistan. 

American operators in central Asia needed and got the tacit 

approval of Russia and China. These two regional giants had problematic Islamic extremists of their own and were gratified when Americans 

suddenly found much less to criticize concerning Russian operations in 

Chechnya or the Chinese handling of their western provinces. A major 

fraction of the al-Qaeda killed or captured in Afghanistan turned out 

to be Chechnyan in origin, reinforcing Russian views of that unruly 

province.

Even such previously hostile states as Iran, Syria, the Sudan, and 

Libya tacitly cooperated with the United States in a calculated sort of 

way. They seemed inclined to distance themselves from any appearance of affiliation with al-Qaeda after the ferocious American attack on 

those harboring them in Afghanistan. 

In Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, historically tepid cooperation with 

U.S. counterterrorism efforts became suddenly energetic after further 

spectacular attacks in those two countries. In the case of Indonesia, 

over two hundred tourists succumbed to a car bombing in Bali. In Saudi 

Arabia, coordinated strikes on housing areas featuring foreign workers 

in

flamed the government’s ire. In dozens of countries around the 

world, operations against al-Qaeda and their fellow travelers increased, 

and the success in Afghanistan contributed in one way or another to 

that acceleration.

In addition to diplomacy, the United States pursued al-Qaeda in the 

financial realm. The 9-11 attackers seem to have been well funded, and 

al-Qaeda operations as a whole demonstrated considerable sophistication in raising money and bankrolling operations worldwide. Funding 

seems to have originated in bin Laden’s personal fortune—he was 

scion of a wealthy Saudi family that had made a great deal of money 

in construction—but had grown well beyond that original source. 

Al-Qaeda had been a major financial backer of the Taliban regime and 

also may have profited from the drug smuggling so lucrative in other-

wise impoverished Afghanistan. Much of al-Qaeda’s money moved 
American Military History

476

around in conventional financial channels, but much also moved 

through a shadowy network of telephone-connected loaners and 

creditors labeled Hawala. Captured documents and prisoner interviews 

from Afghanistan sharpened the American understanding of al-Qaeda 

financial transactions. Investigators uncovered, for example, a callous 

and cynical sale of stocks in anticipation of a drop in value when the 

World Trade Center was attacked. It also seemed that money donated 

to Muslim charities was diverted into terrorist hands, though the extent 

and foreknowledge of this remains a matter of dispute. In concert with 

other nations, the United States set about freezing or seizing known 

al-Qaeda assets and attempted to disrupt suspected sources of income. 

There is no way to confidently measure the extent of the damage thus 

done, but it seems to have been considerable.

The most lucrative source of intelligence from Afghanistan was 

from prisoners caught in the fighting. Their status and disposition, 

however, raised important legal issues. Conventions relating to prisoners 

of war had been designed with belligerent nation-states in mind. Upon 

achieving a treaty or peace, they could be repatriated to their nations. 

No nation sanctioned al-Qaeda, and strong arguments existed that they 

were simply criminals. If so, in what nation would they account for 

their crimes and against whose standard would they be judged? What 

was more, since the Global War on Terrorism was ongoing, could the 

United States not detain them until its conclusion—indefinitely? 

Criminals in the United States are normally charged, afforded 

due process in defending themselves from a case that is made against 

them, and, if convicted, given a specific sentence. The United States 

was willing to turn over most of the prisoners to the Afghans or to 

their nations of origin for adjudication but decided to keep the most 

dangerous, knowledgeable, or in

fluential under its own control. The 

Afghan allies were happy enough to oblige. The United States labeled 

these prisoners detainees and set about developing its own precedents 

for handling them. JTF–17 stood up in Guantánamo, Cuba, to house the 

detainees under circumstances that placed more emphasis on security 

than on amenities. Sufficient information did not exist to make a case 

against these individuals in the traditional forensic sense, and the right 

to confront witnesses who would then be in great danger was out of the 

question. If trials were to occur, they would be by military tribunal, for 

which there was some precedent from World War II. By 2003 some 660 

detainees were housed in Guantánamo; 1,600 servicemen and women 

had been dispatched to secure them and exploit them for intelligence. 

Some of the intelligence drawn from the detainees proved invaluable 

and allowed timely apprehension of more suspects. The situation 

became even more complicated when alleged or potential terrorists 

were apprehended in the United States, the press in various countries 

of origin became aware of the nationality of their detainees, and the 

issues of individuals apprehended for violations of immigration laws 

became muddled with the issue of suspected terrorists. 

The uncertain status of the Guantánamo detainees may have caused 

some public relations issues for the United States, but the far greater issue 

was to assure that a war against Islamic terrorists was not interpreted 

as a war against Islam itself. Within days of the September 11 attacks, 

President Bush appeared among American Muslim congregations to 
The Global War on Terrorism

477

make the point that they too shared the common enemy of terrorism 

and that religion was not the issue. Educators and commentators went to 

some lengths to distinguish between the benign tolerance of mainstream 

Islamic traditions and contemporary extremists who were characterized as 

having hijacked a virtuous religion for their own evil purposes. Diplomats 

consciously courted Muslim counterparts to help them emphasize a spirit 

of cooperation against Islamic terrorism, and one Muslim nation after 

another demonstrated by its actions that it concurred. Even television 

and advertising got into the act. Popular shows such as “West Wing” 

and “Law and Order” aired episodes distinguishing evil terrorists from 

virtuous Muslims, and President Bush directly engaged a public relations firm to improve the image of America in the Muslim world. All 

things considered, the effort to separate Islamic terrorism from Islam 

itself seems to have gone reasonably well. Within the United States, 

relatively few hate crimes were perpetrated against Muslim citizens or 

visitors and nothing remotely resembling the abuse and incarceration of 

Japanese Americans in World War II emerged. Overseas, calls for jihad

against Americans and Westerners gained relatively little momentum 

and produced truly dangerous circumstances sporadically rather than 

generally. 

Counterinsurgency and counterterrorist doctrine had long held 

that there needed to be a carrot as well as a stick in conducting operations; the catch phrase, “draining the swamp,” gained popularity among 

those envisioning a way ahead. The swamp described those countries 

or regions of the world where poverty, injustice, abuse, and instability 

drove people to desperation and to identification with the terrorists. 

Humanitarian intervention to ameliorate such circumstances seemed 

an appropriate way to drain the swamp. In Afghanistan itself, growing 

American troop strength afforded the opportunity to divert some 

efforts to humanitarian relief, and a civil affairs battalion was an important part of the force structure from an early date. 

Perhaps even more important was the work done by the United 

Nations and nongovernmental agencies when the security environment 

was sufficiently permissive to allow them to go about their work. As 

the international, largely NATO, peacekeeping force matured in Kabul 

and an Afghan army and police force began to take shape, the security 

of efforts to refurbish the impoverished country became a primary 

emphasis. American forces shared their concern and energetically 

pursued Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants. A striking example of this 

kind of support to humanitarian relief was presented by the death of 

Mullah Satar. Satar, a relatively minor Taliban-sympathetic thug, shot 

and killed an Ecuadorian relief worker, a water engineer named Ricardo 

Munguia. This was the first overt case of an International Committee 

of the Red Cross employee in post-Taliban Afghanistan consciously 

killed for the good he was trying to do. In an operation best described 

as implacable, American special operators strained every intelligence 

resource available to reliably locate Satar and then gunned him and his 

adherents down during a spectacular air assault on the village of Safi 

during the night. Their message was clear.

Recognizing the critical diplomatic, financial, legal, public relations, 

and humanitarian aspects of the Global War on Terrorism, soldiers 

nevertheless discovered that there was ample ground fighting yet to do. 

 As the international ... 

peacekeeping force matured in 

Kabul and an Afghan army and 

police force began to take shape, 

the security of efforts to refurbish 

the impoverished country became 

a primary emphasis.
American Military History

478

In Afghanistan, the search for diehard al-Qaeda and Taliban continued, 

with a particular emphasis on the eastern mountains along the Pakistani border. Operation Anaconda, conducted from March 2–19, 2002, 

proved particularly ambitious, challenging, and rewarding. Reports indicated a residual concentration of about 200 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters congregating in the Shahi Kowt Valley, over a mile above sea level 

in rugged mountains proximate to Pakistan. (Map 35) When the allies 

attempted to sweep these remnants into a trap defined by helicopterdelivered American blocking positions in the mountains to the east that 

would pick off escapees from a major allied Afghan thrust from the 

west, major fighting ensued. It turned out that the al-Qaeda and Taliban 

fighters numbered closer to 1,000 in well-defended positions supported 

by elaborate cave complexes featuring huge stockpiles of arms and ammunition. Helicopters labored heavily in the thin mountain air, as did 

troops struggling to take the battle to the enemy across frozen, rocky 

ground. 

Overcoming initial surprise and embarrassment, the allies piled 

on. Ultimately some 1,200 Americans; 2,000 friendly Afghans; and 200 

Australian, Canadian, Danish, German, and Norwegian special operators were into the fight, supported by over 2,500 bombs. They killed 

about half their adversaries, while the other half seems to have exfiltrated to further mountain hiding places or into Pakistan. Warfare in 

eastern Afghanistan became a grim round of patrols and operations in 

the mountains to keep al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants off balance and 

under pressure while a new Afghan army was equipped and trained, 

relief efforts stabilized the economy and society, and Karzai’s government established a grip. Occasionally, Americans and their allies were 

ambushed, sniped at, mortared, or rocketed; but the quality of intelligence available to the Americans improved over time and they ground 

their adversaries down, a few guerrillas or arms caches at a time.

Military success in Afghanistan inspired military efforts elsewhere. 

The most immediate need was to preclude Pakistan from becoming a 

refuge for guerrillas operating in Afghanistan. Particular risks existed 

in the so-called tribal regions, wherein the population was inclined to 

favor the largely Pashtun Taliban and the mandate of the Pakistani 

central government never ran strong anyway. The Pakistanis were very 

sensitive about visible American involvement in their country, yet the 

hundreds of miles of mountainous border was virtually impossible to 

police. Fortunately, the tribesmen were not particularly partial to the 

largely Arab al-Qaeda and the Pakistani hand could be reinforced by 

largely invisible assistance from American Special Operations Forces. 

Workable, cooperative cross-border arrangements emerged with time, 

and soon the Pakistanis were apprehending guerrillas in flight from the 

Americans and their Afghan allies.

Thousands of miles away in the Philippines, fanatic Abu Sayyaf 

Islamic militants seemed another dangerous source of potential terror. 

Hostile and separatist at least since the Moro Wars in the early twentieth century, Islamic extremists had waxed and waned in their defiance of central government over the years. Recently they had taken 

to piracy, theft, and kidnapping for ransom to fund their agendas and 

had acquired demonstrable links to international terrorism. Indeed, 

they were heavily implicated in a barely failed plot to simultaneously 

Warfare in eastern Afghanistan 

became a grim round of patrols 

and operations in the mountains 

to keep al-Qaeda and Taliban 

remnants off balance and under 

pressure while a new Afghan 

army was equipped and trained.
The Global War on Terrorism

479

destroy a dozen aircraft over the Pacific. Conscious of Filipino sensibilities, the United States undertook logistical, intelligence, and training 

support to the Philippine Army in its post–9-11 efforts to crush Abu 

Sayyaf. Combined “training” operations on a battalion scale in the 

midst of territory theretofore dominated by the Abu Sayyaf became 

an important feature of this renewed cooperation. Similarly, the U.S. 

Army and Special Forces greatly expanded their logistical, training, and 

intelligence cooperation with numerous Muslim nations such as Oman, 

Yemen, Djibouti, Indonesia, and Jordan to reinforce their hands against 

the mutual threat of terrorism. Most of these military-to-military 

Map 35

TF ANVIL

Z K

TF 64

I I

2 187(-)

I I

1 87(-)

TF RAKASSAN

TF K-BAR

TF HAMMER

Z I A

TF ANVIL

K K

A F G H A N I S TA N

PA K I S TA N

11000

11060

11940

11030

11360

12250

11740

11930

GARDEZ NEW

KHOWST

KHOST

AX IS

STEEL

LOA

HONDA

FORD

CHEVY

OLDSMOBILE

JEEP

A X I S M E T A L

A X I S I R O N

OBJECTIVE REMINGTON

Gardı ̄z Ghunday

Khowst

Elmarah

Shir Kha ̄ n Kheyl

Sar H ̧awzeh

Solt ̧a ̄nı ̄

T ̧alab Kheyl

Margha

Shabow Kheyl

Orgu ̄n-e Kala ̄n

Ghbargi

'Ayu ̄bkhel

AFGHANISTAN

March 2002

OPERATION ANACONDA

Ground Movement

Air Assault

Blocking Position

Expected Enemy Retreat

0 15

0 15 Kilometers

Miles

ELEVATION IN FEET

0 2000 5000 9000 and Above
American Military History

480

relationships had already existed, and some were quite mature; but 9-11 

lent them a special urgency insofar as the United States was concerned.

Back to Iraq

Since the liberation of Kuwait in Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein’s 

Iraq had remained a nagging threat to American security. Many expected Saddam to be overthrown in the aftermath of his overwhelming 

defeat, but in the absence of a sustained American military presence he 

had bloodily suppressed his internal adversaries and remained in power. 

Tens of thousands of Shi’ites and Kurds were murdered, and a police 

state already consciously modeled on that of Stalin became even worse. 

His internal brutality was matched by external belligerence; time and 

again he demonstrated against or bullied Kuwait, defied disarmament 

obligations under the terms of the cease-fire, and fired on allied aircraft 

enforcing a no-fly zone in northern and southern Iraq. He seems to 

have been involved in an attempt to assassinate President George H. W. 

Bush in 1993 and ultimately forced UN weapons inspectors out of the 

country in 1998. The new Bush administration expressed great concern 

that he would further develop weapons of mass destruction—he had 

already employed chemical munitions against the Kurds—and either 

use them himself or pass them along to international terrorists. Either 

prospect would be horrific.

Shortly after 9-11, Chief of Staff General Eric K. Shinseki had 

directed the Army to assume a wartime footing, with all other priorities being of lesser import. Every effort was made to bring units to 

full strength, and every division and cavalry regiment ascertained its 

preparedness to fight a war that had not yet been decided upon with a 

force list that had not yet been specified. War plans for Iraq came and 

went, and commanders likely to be involved war-gamed the plans separately and together. Key leadership was psychologically prepared and 

units physically prepared for Iraq even before they knew of a decision 

to go, and such in-theater investments as a state-of-the-art command and 

control facility in Qatar and a fuel farm on the Iraqi border furthered that 

preparation.

For all his bluster, Saddam’s capacity for conventional warfare had 

dramatically declined since his invasion of Kuwait. UN sanctions and 

a weapons embargo had dried up his access to modern arms and spare 

parts. Rather than the 950,000 troops, 5,000 tanks, and 800 combat 

aircraft of 1990, he mustered 280,000 troops, 2,200 tanks, and virtually 

no combat aircraft in 2003. The equipment was poorly maintained and 

the troops demoralized. Postwar interviews suggest that discipline was 

maintained by fear. Iraqi soldiers tell of being tortured and abused and, 

if they deserted or went absent without official leave, of their families’ 

being incarcerated or beaten. The regular army was in tatters, though 

the elite Republican Guard was somewhat better. 

Hussein recognized his weakness and seems to have been inspired 

by America’s Somalia experience in planning his way ahead should 

the allies attack. The regular army would be considerably reinforced 

by the irregular Fedayeen and by the Special Republican Guard operating 

as special operations forces. He would take maximum advantage of 

the urban terrain, ambush, surprise, and proximity to civilian targets. 

Key leadership was 

psychologically prepared and 

units physically prepared for 

Iraq even before they knew of a 

decision to go.
The Global War on Terrorism

481

Pickups modified with machine guns and RPGs, the Iraqi version of 

the Somali “technical,” would allow for speedy movement and appreciable firepower. Fedayeen and Ba’athists hiding among the population 

would use terrorism to discourage cooperation with allied authorities. 

If the regular army could preoccupy units leading the allied advance, 

the Fedayeen could strike its vulnerable rear, increasing American casualties. If eighteen men killed in a Mogadishu firefight had precipitated an 

American withdrawal from Somalia, how much easier would it be to 

force a withdrawal from a challenge as complex as Baghdad?

In the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, Americans were perhaps less 

averse to casualties than they had been; certainly, the stakes were higher. 

President Bush decided a regime change in Iraq was necessary, in part 

because of the potential threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraqi 

hands but also because of potential Iraqi links with international terrorists, Iraq’s continuing threat to the stability of the Middle East, and a 

sentiment that Saddam Hussein represented unfinished business. Not all 

of America’s allies perceived Hussein as an imminent threat; many argued 

instead for granting more time to UN weapons inspectors whom Hussein, 

under pressure, had recently readmitted. Bitter wrangling ensued in the 

United Nations and elsewhere as the United States and Britain insisted 

on speedy intervention and other major powers declined to support such 

a notion. Perhaps most consequential, at the eleventh hour the Turkish 

parliament refused to allow the U.S. 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) 

to move through Turkey en route to establishing a front in northern Iraq. 

This obviated a major feature of the preferred war plan, left the division’s 

equipment out of play as it hastily transshipped from standing offshore 

from Turkey to Kuwait, and perturbed deployment schedules because 

the ships carrying 4th Infantry Division equipment were not available for 

other purposes for a prolonged period of time.

The theater commander, General Tommy R. Franks, and his ground 

component commander, Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, faced a quandary as 

combat operations became imminent. With approximately 200,000 ground 

troops available in theater at the time—as opposed to the 600,000 of 

Des-

ertStorm—they did not enjoy massive and overwhelming ground combat 

force. With the Turkish option gone, their conventional ground attack would 

have to originate in Kuwait and progress 300 miles to Baghdad, and then 

perhaps 200 more to the vital oil fields around Mosul. The major headquar-

ters that would control the fight were the U.S. Army V Corps and the U.S. 

Marines I MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force.) On hand in Kuwait they had 

but a single American heavy division, the 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized); 

an equivalent number of marines with some M1A1 tanks but including the 

awkward Amtrack as troop carriers; and a British force built up around the 

U.K. 1st Armoured Division including the 7th Armoured Brigade. Lighter 

forces included the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), one brigade of the 

82d Airborne Division, the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment, and a fistful of 

smaller units. This seemed a small force considering the challenges involved. 

The force did, however, have 1,600 combat aircraft in theater as compared to Desert Storm’s 2,100, representing an air force proportionally much closer 

in size to that of the earlier war. Conventional wisdom held that combat 

operations would begin with a prolonged air campaign while the 4th Infantry 

Division made its way to Kuwait and then its newly freed shipping opened 

up a flow of follow-on heavy divisions. 
American Military History

482

General Franks was not partial to 

waiting, and not just because to do so 

would mean operating in the terrible heat 

of the Iraqi summer. In his mind mass was 

firepower more so than troops; and, as we 

have seen, the widespread availability of 

inexpensive joint direct-attack munitions 

(JDAMs) had radically increased the effectiveness of his firepower. The Afghan 

experience convinced him that he could 

drive jointness to the lowest possible level 

and that a brigade supported by JDAMs 

could do what it had taken several to 

achieve before. What was more, the Iraqis 

were probably expecting a lengthy air 

campaign and perhaps anticipated time 

to redeploy their forces from northern 

Iraq to keep pace with the redeployment 

of the 4th Infantry Division. One of 

General Franks’ contingency plans envisioned a rolling start, wherein he began 

the campaign with modest forces already 

on hand and fed in reinforcements as they 

arrived, if they were needed. Iraqi dispositions and circumstances did not suggest 

significant resistance much south of 

Baghdad, so why not sweep up relatively 

uncontested terrain with a lesser force 

and feed in further forces as they arrived?

Factors beyond JDAMs and strategic surprise argued for the rolling start. 

In effect the United States had already 

waged a prolonged air campaign. Time 

and again since Desert Storm the 

Americans had reacted to Saddam’s 

provocations by bombing Iraq. Desert Fox in December 1998 had featured four intense days of air and 

missile strikes; and when retaliating for potshots at planes enforcing 

the no-fly zones, the Americans had taken the opportunity to further 

dismantle Iraqi air defenses and communications systematically. Over 

twelve years many of the purposes an air campaign might otherwise 

have served had already been achieved through these operations, 

called Northern Watch and Southern Watch. American ground 

forces were acclimatized for operations in Iraqi and poised for a rolling start. Since Desert Storm they had repeatedly sped into theater 

to defend Kuwait against Saddam’s provocations and had developed 

a routine deployment and training program labeled Intrinsic Action

that rotated robust battalion combat teams through rigorous exercises in the Kuwaiti desert. American soldiers had long since figured 

out how to get the best results out of themselves and their equipment 

in this harsh environment. Most of the soldiers who would cross the 

line of departure had already been living in the desert for some time 

General Franks examines a weapons cache that the 101st Airborne Division discovered 

in Najaf. 
The Global War on Terrorism

483

as diplomatic crises ebbed and flowed. Another argument for a rolling 

start lay in the memory of catastrophic damage retreating Iraqis had 

inflicted on Kuwaiti oil fields during 

DesertStorm. If the coalition 

moved quickly enough on the ground this time, it could secure the 

nearby Rumaylah Oil Fields before Saddam Hussein could set them 

on fire. McKiernan gave his Marine Expeditionary Force an on-order 

mission to seize these oil fields within four hours of notification, and 

Special Operations Forces infiltrated to monitor and perhaps inter-

fere with any attempts at demolition prior to the marines’ arrival.

The final logic for the rolling start was fortuitous. Intelligence 

reports seemed confident that Hussein, his influential sons Uday and 

Qusay, and other regime leaders were in the same bunker at the same 

time and that the coalition knew where it was. The allies seized upon 

this opportunity to decapitate Saddam’s regime with a single blow. 

Simultaneously, thirty-six Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) 

hit the complex early in the morning on March 20. Unfortunately, later 

reports proved that the intelligence was faulty: Hussein and his sons 

were not in the bunker. Further combat operations followed immediately, and the main bodies of the 3d Infantry Division, 1st Marine 

Division, and U.K. 1st Armoured Division were rolling across the line 

of departure within twenty-four hours.

The 3d Infantry Division streaked up the west side of the Euphrates 

River toward Baghdad, blowing through light resistance to cover 200-plus 

miles into the vicinity of Al Najaf within twenty-four hours. (See Map 36.) 

During this same period the marines overran the Rumaylah Oil Fields, 

handily mopping up fragments of defenders and securing the facilities 

virtually unscathed. The British captured 750 dispirited defenders of 

Umm Qasr without much of a fight and set about preparing that port to 

receive humanitarian supplies. Far to the west, the Special Forces already 

had infiltrated to compromise Iraqi efforts to launch missiles from 

western Iraq into Israel; to the north, special operators in Kurdistan had 

laid groundwork to bring the Kurds in as a second front. Most of this 

drama and activity was televised worldwide by the virtue of embedded 

media correspondents traveling within units yet linked to their home 

stations by satellite technology. Their real-time, gripping, and sometimes 

breathless commentary added to the sense of momentum and success.

Unfortunately, the campaign did not stay easy. Many had thought 

that overwhelming American air strikes would so shock and awe the 

Baghdad regime that it would quickly fold with minimal ground effort. 

The Iraqis anticipated the allied advantage, surrendered control of the 

air from the beginning, hid much of their valuable equipment amidst 

the civilian populace where the allies were loath to strike, and pushed 

deep underground what command and control they could sustain. The 

allies were far too sensitive to world opinion to risk serious damage 

to civilian infrastructure and instead used spectacular firepower on 

selected government buildings and military facilities. The Arab world 

recoiled from footage of massive plumes of smoke over the fabled 

city of Baghdad and of hapless civilian victims of occasional errant 

munitions, when in fact little real damage was being done to the city or 

its citizens. Strategic bombing was also doing little real damage to Iraqi 

warfighting capabilities. The air power that would matter would be joint 

and in support of the ground advance.
Map 36

I I I

5

JSOTF-W

SF

X

173

21 Mar–

Euphrates River

Tigris River

Al H ̧asakah

Dayr az Zawr

Cizre

Dahu ̄k

Mosul

(Al Maws ̧il) 

Tall 'Afar

T

Ar Rut ̧bah

Ar Rama ̄dı ̄

Al Fa

Karba

'Ar 'ar

Rafh ̧a ̄ '

S A U D 

A R A B I 

T U R K E Y

S Y R I A

J O R D A N

21 March–9 April 2003

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

INVASION OF IRAQ

Main Axis of Advance, Date

Supporting Axis of Advance, Date

Securing Line of Communications, Date

0 150

0 150 Kilometers

Miles
X X

101

X X

3

X X

1 UK

X X

1

USMC

X

2 82

X X X

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X X X

V

I I I

10

JSOTF-N

SF

XXX

I MEF

V

BASHUR

–7 Apr

26 Mar

21 Mar–9 Apr

22 Mar–6 Apr

28 Mar

28 Mar

CAMP DOHA

Tigris River

Euphrates River

H ̧ awr al Hamma ̄r

Yüksekova

Arbı ̄l 

As Sulayma ̄nı ̄yah 

Kirku ̄k

BAGHDAD

Ba'qu ̄bah

Tikrı ̄t

Sa ̄marra ̄'

allu ̄jah

ala ̄'

As Sama ̄wah

Al H ̧illah Al Ku ̄t

An Najaf

Al Ku ̄fah

Al 'Ama ̄rah

Ahva ̄z

Khorramshahr

Aba ̄da ̄n

Al Bas ̧rah

KUWAIT

Ba ̄khtara ̄n

I

A

I R A N

K U W A I T
American Military History

486

Ground troops soon enough found themselves in need of the 

advantages air power could bring. Although the Iraqi regular army 

quickly faded from view south of Baghdad, by desertion more so than 

through combat or surrender, Fedayeen and Special Republican Guards

counterattacked with vengeance. Attacks against lead elements of the 

3d Infantry Division seem almost suicidal in retrospect. Swarms of 

pickup trucks mounting machine guns and packed with light infantry 

raced to close with the Americans, only to be swept away by hurricanes of tank and Bradley fire. Ambushes more rationally sited amidst 

buildings and vegetation were still speedily shredded by phenomenal 

American gunnery, the product of thermal sights, state-of-the-art 

equipment, and years of training. The heavy armor of the M1A1 tanks 

was proof against almost any munitions in the Iraqi inventory, and 

the lighter armor of the Bradleys protected their crews from most. 

Shootouts with American armor inevitably went badly for the Iraqis.

Unfortunately for the Americans, their armor could not be everywhere and their rapid advance had exposed a lengthy supply line. While 

some Fedayeen were demolishing themselves fighting lead elements in 

and around Najaf, their brethren were having somewhat better results 

attacking trailing logistical assets around An Nasiriyah. One maintenance 

company became disoriented as they attempted to move through that 

enemy-held town and lost 11 killed, 7 captured, and 9 wounded in a 

chaotic gun battle. The Iraqis presented the prisoners on television for the 

world to see, and pictures of dead bodies showed on that media as well. 

Marines rushed in to assist in securing An Nasiriyah found themselves 

embroiled in stiff fighting with wily and ruthless opponents and took 

significant casualties as well. The Fedayeen and other irregulars routinely 

dressed as civilians, pretended to surrender and then opened fire, hid 

among civilians, attacked from ambush, and operated out of hospitals, 

schools, and mosques. They knew and exploited the American rules of 

engagement. As major fighting ceased, they persisted with sniping and 

encouraged suicide attacks against isolated American checkpoints.

March 24, 2003, was a discouraging day for coalition arms. The 

damage inflicted upon the ambushed maintenance company was 

becoming clear, and attacks along the elongated supply lines continued. 

An Nasiriyah in particular remained a hotly contested scene of carnage 

and confusion. The 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment attempted a deep 

Ambush of a Convoy

The 507th Maintenance Company entered enemy territory unprepared for the type of combat it was about 

to face. On March 23, 2003, the company unwittingly drove through enemy positions at An Nasiriyah. So surprised 

were the Iraqi soldiers that they initially did not fire on the Americans and the 507th continued unscathed. Turning 

around, the lumbering column made its confusion obvious. The Iraqis, once fearful of American might, now saw 

easy targets. They began shooting; the surprised maintenance personnel fumbled with their weapons, with some 

jamming. The highway in An Nasiriyah became a gauntlet of fire. Sixteen Americans escaped, but eleven died and 

seven were captured in one of the costliest single combat incidents during Operation Iraqi Freedom. 
The Global War on Terrorism

487

attack on the Republican Guard Medina Division defending Karbala and 

overflew a mammoth air defense ambuscade of machine guns and 

shoulder-fired air-defense weapons coordinated by cellular telephones. 

Although all but one of the redoubtable AH–64 Apache helicopters 

made it out of the battle area, in one battalion only six of eighteen 

aircraft remained mission capable and in another only one. Weather 

reports anticipated the imminent arrival of a massive sandstorm, 

yielding several days of winds up to 50 knots and visibility measured 

in inches rather than miles. Such appalling weather conditions could 

negate American technical advantages and allow Iraqi attackers a close 

combat opportunity with American troops. Perhaps most troubling, 

Iraqi Shi’ites who had been so terribly abused during Saddam Hussein’s 

regime did not rise to greet the allies as liberators but rather seemed 

to present an overall attitude of sullen indifference. Allied postwar 

plans depended heavily on Iraqi cooperation: If those most aggrieved 

with Hussein remained distant, what hope was there for an agreeable 

outcome? It was in this context of troubling surprises that V Corps 

Commander Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace made his now-famous remark 

that the Iraqis were “not the enemy we war-gamed against.”

Wallace’s remark was discouraging only to those who believed 

that wars are supposed to unfold as planned. Wallace’s 34-year career 

included service as the Commander of the Operations Group and then 

Commanding General at the National Training Center, where he became 

acutely aware how often plans must change to accommodate a dynamic 

battlefield. His soldiers demonstrated that flexibility now. With respect to 

exposed logistics, within a few days V Corps drew on lessons learned in 

Vietnam and elsewhere—in some cases drawing on materials e-mailed 

from archives in the United States—to reconfigure convoys into a more 

defensible posture. Wallace resisted the temptation to redirect leading 

armored elements back into securing their own lines of communication 

and instead brought forward elements of the more lightly armed 101st 

Allied postwar plans depended 

heavily on Iraqi cooperation: 

If those most aggrieved with 

Hussein remained distant, what 

hope was there for an agreeable 

outcome?

Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith

(1969–2003)

Sfc. Paul R. Smith of Company B, 11th Engineers, 3d Infantry 

Division, was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for 

his heroic actions on April 4, 2003, during Operation Iraqi

Freedom. During an attack to clear a compound near Baghdad 

International Airport, his platoon was attacked by approximately 

sixty Iraqi insurgents. Sergeant Smith led his men from the front as 

they fought off the attackers with small arms and 

grenades. In a decisive moment, Sergeant Smith 

mounted one of his platoon’s armored personnel 

carriers and in that exposed position directed 

.50-caliber machine-gun fire against the enemy 

until he was mortally wounded.
American Military History

488

and 82d Airborne Divisions to deal with 

rear-area security. The 377th Theater 

Support Command pushed a hosereel fuel system over fifty miles to the 

vicinity of An Nasiriyah, thus reducing 

the turnaround time for fuel-bearing 

trucks. This further capitalized upon a 

million-gallon fuel farm the Army had 

already quietly built up just short of the 

Iraq-Kuwait border. The 11th Attack 

Helicopter Regiment set about repairing 

or replacing shot-up aircraft, and their 

pilots conducted a video teleconference 

with the attack helicopter pilots of the 

101st Airborne Division to discuss the 

innovative Iraqi defenses and to communicate lessons learned. 

The 101st Division had more 

success with far less damage when their own opportunity for deep 

attacks came. The gigantic sandstorms did slow the American advance 

to a crawl and allowed some Iraqi Fedayeen and irregulars to get close, 

but these found the Americans as formidable close up as they had been 

at a distance. Even degraded thermal sights were better than the alternatives, and American gunners were quick on the trigger. American 

dismounts were well trained and organized, equipped with night-vision 

goggles, and heavily armed with automatic weapons. Perhaps most 

important, their newly improved Kevlar body armor was proof against 

fragments and munitions up through the ubiquitous 7.62-caliber round 

of the Iraqi AK–47. Dozens of American infantrymen who would have 

been fatally wounded in earlier wars remained in the fight. The close-in 

battles that did occur were lopsided in the favor of the Americans. 

With respect to Shi’ite reticence, the British pioneered a go-slow 

technique around Basra that developed insights useful elsewhere. The 

allies had a free hand in the open desert and could surround populated 

Right: Low Visibility during a Sandstorm in 

Southern Iraq. Below: Satan’s Sandbox, Elzie 

R. Golden, 2003.
The Global War on Terrorism

489

areas to enter them at their own pace. It turned out that the Shi’ites 

were not so much hostile to the allies as they were frightened of a 

Ba’athist hard core in their own midst. The British gathered intelligence on the surrounded population, conducted nighttime forays to 

neutralize identified Ba’athists, and built the confidence of the Shi’ite 

remainder. Ultimately, the British, supported by the local populace, 

swept the Ba’athists out of Basra and entered the city as liberators. All 

things considered, the allies shifted their paradigm from the enemy that 

they had war-gamed against to the one they were actually fighting well.

Allied air power continued to hammer away at the Iraqis during 

all this adjustment. The rapid advance of the 3d Infantry Division 

(Mechanized) along the Euphrates and of the marines up the Tigris and 

between the rivers had drawn out the Republican Guard to defend the 

environs of Baghdad. They may have thought themselves concealed 

by the dust storm and by moving at night, but they were not. Satellites, 

unmanned aerial vehicles, and aerial reconnaissance detected their 

movements; Special Operations Forces and the leading ground forces 

established their front-line trace. Relentless air bombardment with 

PGMs seriously attrited the Republican Guard before it could achieve 

substantial ground contact with the Americans.

As vital as air power was to the advance from the south, it was 

even more instrumental to allied successes in the west and north. In 

the west, thinly supported Special Operations Forces quickly overran 

airfields and neutralized potential Iraqi missile strikes. Packing little 

organic firepower themselves, they depended heavily on aerial precision strikes to offset their shortcomings. In the north, the Air Force 

airdropped a reinforced battalion of the 173d Airborne Brigade, airlanded an M1A1 tank–equipped company team to support it, and 

then sustained this host and their Kurdish Peshmerga allies by air as 

well. Again much of the necessary fire support came from airborne 

PGMs. All these resources—tanks, paratroopers, Peshmerga, and 

PGMs—operated under the supervision of the handful of special 

operators already deployed in the north, inducing the Army’s Vice 

Chief of Staff, General John (“Jack”) M. Keane, to quip that it was 

like attaching a naval carrier battle group to a SEAL team. Operations 

in both west and north progressed well, while the climactic battle was 

shaping up in the south.

Thunder Runs in Baghdad

Urban combat can bog down armies, and the campaign to seize Baghdad in April 2003 required audacity 

to prevent a slow, set-piece battle. The American Army mounted two armored raids, nicknamed Thunder Runs. First, 

on April 5 an armored battalion attacked swiftly up Highway 8 into Baghdad and then withdrew. Two days later 

an entire heavy brigade of Abrams tanks and Bradleys roared into downtown Baghdad and stayed, fighting off 

all counterattacks. These raids—armored vehicles speeding down highways—brought mayhem: tanks blasting 

thin defenses, suicidal assaults on armor, and vast expenditures of ammunition on suspected enemy locations. They 

were a key element in toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. 
American Military History

490

By April 4 the 3d Infantry Division had battered its way through 

the fragmenting Republican Guard to seize Saddam Hussein International 

Airport. Meanwhile, the marines had continued up the Tigris to cut 

off Baghdad from the east. (See Map 36.) The following day the 3d 

Infantry Division dispatched a battalion task force on a raid into central 

Baghdad, taking advantage of the relatively open construction of major 

highways into the city. This foray turned into a spectacular media event 

as the tanks and Bradleys sped through town, blazing away to the left 

and right, destroying twenty armored vehicles, sixty-two trucks, and 

hundreds of troops while losing only four wounded in action themselves. Clearly, organized resistance was collapsing. 

By April 7 the division had fought its way into central Baghdad 

to stay and the following day had closed to the Palestine Hotel in full 

view of the numerous international media who had set up operations 

there. The marines moved into the city from the other side, and the 

continuing rout of the Iraqis in the west and north completed the isolation of the now-fallen capital city. The campaign’s cumulative casualties 

to that point were reported as 42 killed and 133 wounded for the Army, 

41 killed and 151 wounded for the Marine Corps and 19 killed and 

36 wounded for the British. On April 9 a tiny contingent of marines 

and a crowd of jubilant Iraqis pulled down the Saddam monument in 

the Shi’ite sector of Baghdad while breathless television commentary 

related the symbolism and decisiveness of the moment. It truly seemed 

that the war was over and a triumphant peace at hand. 

Phase IV

Coalition planners had envisioned IraqiFreedom as a multiphase 

operation, with Phase IV being the mop-up and reconstruction that 

followed the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The conduct of 

Phases I through III had been mindful of Phase IV; collateral damage 

to the civilian infrastructure had been kept to a minimum. Graphic photos and film footage revealed smoke pluming out of precisely drilled 

military targets while civilian buildings surrounding them remained untouched. Psychological operations repeatedly made the point that the 

war was against Hussein’s regime and not the Iraqi people. Unlike most 

other wars, there was no sudden 

flight of panicked refugees. The Iraqis 

stayed where they were and by and large had sufficient food on hand 

to last them for a week or so. Many thought that the Iraqis would greet 

the Americans as liberators and that Phase IV would involve a modest 

and expedient expenditure of resources. Unfortunately, these optimists 

underrated the resilience of the Ba’athist regime, the complexity of the 

Iraqi national identity, and the deplorable conditions in which Hussein 

had left his country.

There was no precise end to Saddam Hussein’s regime, no surrender, no cease-fire, no treaty. There was not much formal capitulation 

at lower levels either. By and large the Iraqi Army deserted and went 

home rather than surrendering en masse. Regime adherents disappeared back into the population but retained the means to intimidate 

it through threat, arson, and murder. The coalition resorted to the attention-getting tactic of associating a different key regime figure with 

each card in a deck of cards: Hussein, for example, was the Ace of 
The Global War on Terrorism

491

Spades. In southern Iraq, the Shi’ites 

well remembered their abortive uprising against Hussein following Desert

Storm and the massacres they blamed 

in part on America’s failure to assist 

at that time. They were understandably wary of cooperating too soon; 

Ba’athist diehards would have to be 

rooted out and an expectation of personal security established before cooperation could be expected. In central 

Iraq, Sunni Arabs had received favored 

treatment from Saddam’s regime; his 

personal power base had been heavily 

concentrated in Tikrit and other small 

towns north and west of Baghdad. (See 

Map 37.) Here, the number of his adherents was larger and their grip on the 

population more profound than in the 

south. Only the Kurds in the far north 

had already virtually extinguished the 

Ba’athists in their midst and enthusiastically welcomed the Americans as 

liberators.

The Iraqi national identity was both fragmented and complicated. 

Profound tensions had long divided Shi’ites, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds; 

such smaller minorities as Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Turks had their 

share of historical grievances as well. Iraqis were overwhelmingly Muslim, 

mindful of centuries of oppression by foreign powers, and wary of if not 

outright hostile to a sustained American presence. Ethnic and political ties 

extended well beyond their borders, producing additional potential for 

mischief. Iran’s fundamentalist Shia government appealed to many Iraqi 

Shi’ites, who constituted about 60 percent of the population. A number 

of prominent Shia leaders had waited out the worst of the Hussein 

years in exile in Iran and now returned with organizations of followers 

intact. Kurds lived in Turkey and Iran as well as in Iraq, and those nations 

worried that a prosperous and autonomous Kurdistan might inspire their 

own minorities to further separatism. Ba’athists were dominant in Syria 

as they had been in Iraq, and armed men flowed back and forth across 

that porous and troubled border. Pan-Arab hostility to the West was also 

at play in Iraq, and popular international media networks like al-Jazeera

put a spin on news that did not favor the coalition allies and what they 

were trying to accomplish. This attitude garnered support from some 

for the use of foreign mercenaries, zealots, and terrorists, first to defend 

Hussein’s regime and then, when it fell, to carry on the fight on the part 

of Ba’athist diehards or in addition to them.

Coalition objectives depended heavily on convincing the Iraqis 

that they were better off with Saddam Hussein gone. This effort was 

compromised initially by the sorry state of the country’s infrastructure. Hussein’s regime had more in common with gangster-like extortion and extraction than it did with responsible government. Saddam 

had looted the country of billions of dollars and plowed much of that 

Infantrymen provide security near an essential bridge crossing south of Baghdad.
Map 37

X X

101

X X

3

X X X

V

CJTF 7 (FWD)

I I I

2 ACR

I I I

3 ACR

X

2 82

Euphrates River

Tigris River

Al H ̧asakah

Dayr az Zawr

Cizre

Dahu ̄k

Mosul

(Al Maws ̧il) 

Tall 'Afar

T

Ar Rut ̧bah

Ar Rama ̄dı ̄

Al Fallu ̄jah

K

'Ar 'ar

Rafh ̧a ̄'

S A U D 

A R A B I 

T U R K E Y

S Y R I A

J O R D A N

1 June 2003

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

INITIAL OCCUPATION ZONES

Operational Boundary 

0 150

0 150 Kilometers

Miles
X X

4

X X

1

X X

1 UK

X X X

1

USMC

MEF

CJTF 7 (MAIN)

BASHUR

CAMP DOHA

Tigris River

Euphrates River

H ̧ awr al Hamma ̄r

Wa ̄dı ̄ al Ba ̄t ̧ in

Yüksekova

Arbı ̄l 

As Sulayma ̄nı ̄yah 

Kirku ̄k

BAGHDAD

Ba'qu ̄bah

ikrı ̄t

Sa ̄marra ̄'

Karbala ̄'

As Sama ̄wah

Al H ̧illah Al Ku ̄t

An Najaf

Al Ku ̄fah

Al 'Ama ̄rah

Ahva ̄z

Khorramshahr

Aba ̄da ̄n

Al Bas ̧rah

KUWAIT

Ba ̄khtara ̄n

An Na ̄s ̧irı ̄yah

I

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K U W A I T
American Military History

494

back into magnificent palaces for himself and his family. Much was 

simply stashed away, some in overseas banks and some in great bundles 

of money coalition troops found hidden in walls, under floors, or in 

basements. Given UN sanctions following Desert Storm and Saddam’s fiscal style, the black-market economy was in many cases more 

robust than the conventional economy. Saddam’s adherents lived well, 

but most of the population lived in poverty. Routine recapitalization of 

oil-producing, electricity-generating, and transportation infrastructures 

simply did not occur, and there was not enough private investment to 

support a healthy economy.

Iraq’s economic dysfunction manifested itself in the paroxysmal 

looting associated with the regime’s fall. As Saddam’s security apparatus collapsed and the allies proved too few and too distracted to 

police the country, impoverished masses saw their one clear chance to 

seize something—anything—for themselves. Palaces were stripped of 

furniture, doorknobs, and electrical wire. Hospitals were stripped of 

diagnostic equipment and medical supplies. Power-transmission lines 

were toppled and the copper and other metals in them melted down for 

resale abroad. Government buildings were left as empty shells. There 

was no particular rhyme or reason for most of the looting. It was a 

simple orgy of the dispossessed stealing anything that could possibly 

be used or sold. Some of the damage was more sinister, however. In 

power stations and fuel refineries, coalition forces found evidence of 

sabotage as well as looting. Regime diehards so wanted coalition efforts 

to fail that they were willing to inflict untold further suffering on the 

Iraqi people. 

Looting and lawlessness quickly tarnished the allied victory. The 

breath-taking success of the attack from a rolling start left a relatively 

tiny force in the midst of a vast country. Further troops had not yet 

arrived. Fighting continued on a small scale, and the relatively few units 

on hand necessarily took some time to transition from a warfighting 

posture to a security posture. In the interval lawlessness continued, 

A soldier of the 3d Infantry Division scans the rooftops in Baghdad as part of a patrol to 

deter looting.
The Global War on Terrorism

495

with much of it more organized, 

violent, and criminal than had been 

the case earlier. Ordinary Iraqi citizens 

found themselves terrorized by tales 

of robbery, car theft, rape, and murder, 

many of which were true. Even when 

reinforced, American troops could not 

be everywhere. As they spread out to 

secure schools, hospitals, banks, and 

traffic-control points, they made themselves increasingly vulnerable to sniping 

and ambush by diehard Ba’athists.

The original plans for postwar Iraq 

had envisioned a modest reconstruction effort under retired Lt. Gen. James 

(“Jay”) Garner, the man who had supervised the reconstitution of Iraqi Kurdistan during Operation Provide Comfort. As the scale and intractable nature 

of the lawlessness, factional squabbling, 

and infrastructure collapse became 

clear, however, the need for a more comprehensive reconstruction effort became clear as well. Although some progress was being made, day 

after day the media reported electrical outages, fuel shortages, nonpotable water, crimes of violence, and attacks on American troops. 

The Bush administration decided to upscale the reconstruction 

effort by devoting more resources and putting a prominent statesman 

favored by both the State Department and the Pentagon, L. Paul 

Bremer, in charge. Bremer determined early that half measures would 

not do and decided to totally disband the Iraqi Army and to ban a far 

larger proportion of Ba’athists from government employment than 

Garner had considered wise. Iraq would not merely be tinkered with; it 

would be rebuilt from the ground up. Whatever the long-term advantages of such a dramatic renewal, the short-term effect was leaving 

large numbers of soldiers unemployed and Ba’athists desperate. 

Many of these Ba’athists had blood on their hands and knew what 

their fate would be if they gave up local levers of power. These men 

were fighting for their lives. Others saw livelihoods slipping away and 

believed they had nothing to lose by joining the diehards.

Iraqis continued to attack American tactical units but had no more 

success than they had during the course of earlier combat. Even when 

isolated, Bradley platoons generated volumes of fire that lightly armed 

assailants could not withstand, and armored reinforcements were generally close at hand. The residual Iraqi resistance soon turned its attention 

to sniping at convoys. Since most supplies still flowed into central Iraq 

from far-off Kuwait, there was no lack of convoys to choose from. 

The RPG was the Iraqi weapon of choice. If the attackers could pick 

off a truck or two from a distance, they could hope to escape before 

retaliation followed. The Americans tightened their convoy procedures, 

embedded tactical vehicles, gravitated toward routes with open shoulders, secured key terrain en route, and rehearsed countermeasures. 

Potshots at armed convoys became riskier, with fewer of the attackers 

Fallujah, Elzie R. Golden, 2004
American Military History

496

getting away. Convoy security did become expensive, however. Bradleys 

escorting convoys began to average 1,200 miles a month rather than the 

customary 800 miles a year and thus had to change tracks every sixty 

days rather than biannually.

Rationalization of the American logistical structure in Iraq inevitably led to elaborate base camps, logistical support areas into which 

supplies of all types would muster. These and other facilities became 

the targets of daring mortar attacks as Ba’athists attempted to lob a few 

rounds into a base camp and then flee into the darkness. Infantry companies deployed to secure the base camps played cat and mouse to hunt 

down the mortarmen. At Logistics Support Activity (LSA) Anaconda

north of Baghdad, one enterprising Bradley company commander was 

in pursuit of the source of a recent mortar volley when a helicopter 

overhead reported a puzzling thermal hot spot on ground from which 

rounds were thought to have come. Returning to that location, the 

company commander unearthed a recently fired mortar from the soft 

sand. The Americans had been attempting to apprehend a mortar party 

fleeing in a pickup truck or on foot with their weapon, when instead 

the attackers had fired their weapon, buried it, and then drifted off unarmed. A quick search of the area revealed ten men hiding in a chicken 

coop. The local farmer who owned the chickens did not know the men, 

whom the Americans quickly apprehended. They unearthed two more 

mortars in the course of the night.

Over time the preferred Iraqi method of attack shifted from direct 

fire and mortars, both increasingly dangerous to use, to improvised 

explosive devices. Often adapted from munitions or mines, these could 

be planted along roadways to detonate when run over or perhaps by 

remote control. A few men could employ such a device with relatively 

little risk to themselves. The devices were indiscriminant, however; as 

Desert Boots, 2003

Street Fight, Elzie R. Golden, 2004
The Global War on Terrorism

497

the American soldiers became warier and their vehicles more protected, 

the victims were often innocent Iraqis.

As grim as the Phase IV combat could occasionally be, it did not 

approach previous guerrilla warfare in scale or intensity. Even in the 

seemingly embattled Sunni region north and west of Baghdad, only 

a tiny fraction of the resident manpower engaged in active hostilities. 

The proportion of the population actively hostile and under arms was 

at least two orders of magnitude smaller than the American experience 

in Vietnam or the Russian experience in Afghanistan. American casualty rates were correspondingly smaller as well. 

Resistance proved more akin to terrorism than to guerrilla 

warfare as most envision it. Foreign terrorists flowed into the country 

to join the fight. Soft targets such as unprotected oil pipelines, refineries, water mains, and the unarmed Iraqis attempting to restore them 

became popular for the terrorists. Attempts to assassinate Americans 

guarding hospitals, banks, and schools transitioned to attacks on the 

Iraqi security personnel who eventually replaced them. Even UN 

relief workers, who often eschewed American protection, came under 

attack. The most egregious such attack was a truck-bombing of a UN 

compound on 19 August 2003 that killed at least twenty-three people, 

including Brazilian Vieira de Mello, the highly respected head of 

mission. The terrorists were determined to reverse whatever progress 

Iraq was making in the direction the coalition preferred, regardless of 

the suffering the Iraqi people would endure. The terrorists also aimed 

for purely civilian targets, both to reinforce a sense of insecurity 

and to promote trouble between the ethnic groups. Horrific suicide 

bombings of Shi’ite pilgrims and Kurdish well-wishers on respective 

religious holidays were cases in point. 

President Bush had uneven results in attempting to garner international support for his efforts. As of October 2003 the British sustained 

a division in Iraq and the Poles, Italians, Spaniards, Ukrainians, and a 

few others each contributed yet another, coming to about 30,000 allied 

troops as compared to 146,000 Americans. To this add 60,000 Iraqis 

by that time assisting in coalition-sponsored security. Financial support 

was problematic, and Bush presented a bill for $87 billion to the U.S. 

Congress. Many nations did agree to forgive much of Iraq’s foreign 

debt, removing a major obstacle to eventual recovery. Costs in lives and 

treasure proved contentious as a political issue, exacerbated by a failure 

to find the weapons of mass destruction so prominent in the original 

logic for the war. Nations not yet participating indicated an unwillingness to do so without a more substantial role for the United Nations 

in rebuilding postwar Iraq, yet there was no guarantee they would be 

forthcoming with troops and money even if that larger UN role was 

arranged. For better or worse, the United States had to continue the 

struggle or face incalculable international consequences.

The American response remained vigorous and attempted a 

balance between developing rapport with and support from the average 

Iraqi and smashing diehard Ba’athists and terrorists. Across most of 

the country, schools and hospitals were functioning normally within a 

few months. Local councils, some elected and some appointed, took 

on most aspects of local governance. Iraqi police and security guards 

progressed from coalition-sponsored training through joint patrols Hussein Shortly after His Capture in Tikrit
American Military History

498

with the allies to assuming full responsibility. With policemen back on 

the streets, the worst of the crime wave subsided. By September over 

60,000 Iraqis were employed in coalition-sponsored security activities, 

and many local leaders had their own tribal or clan militias or contingents of personal bodyguards. American soldiers were happy when they 

no longer found themselves pulling guard in front of schools, banks, 

hospitals, and museums or enforcing traffic control or curfews—where 

they felt like sitting ducks. This freed them for other missions.

If the carrot was such nation-building activities, the stick was nighttime raids to seize Ba’athist diehards and terrorist imports. With persistent 

coalition presence, intelligence improved as a population more confident 

in its own security became confident enough to inform. One by one, 

regime adherents identified on the deck of cards fell into coalition hands. 

Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay perished in a spectacular shootout. 

Foreign mercenaries were apprehended en route from the borders, flush 

with cash they had been paid to kill Americans. Tons of weapons and 

ammunition were uncovered and destroyed. On December 14, 2003, 

American soldiers pulled Saddam Hussein himself out of a tiny hole in 

which he was hiding near his hometown of Tikrit. They found valuable 

documents with him, and bit by bit the Ba’athist terrorist infrastructure 

was further disassembled and destroyed. Whatever Iraq’s future, Saddam 

Hussein’s regime was a thing of the past.

The capture of Saddam Hussein did not, contrary to some expectations, “break the back” of the by-now decentralized Iraqi insurgency. In 

fact, the extent of Hussein’s influence in the growing insurgency was 

doubtful and the insurgency continued to gain strength even after his 

capture and execution. Each hopeful trend or development that seemed 

to portend increased effectiveness of the Iraqi government or decreased 

intensity of insurgent attacks was followed by renewed violence that 

continued to spiral out of control. While U.S. military and political leaders 

tried to move quickly to place more responsibility on an interim Iraqi 

government and its fledgling military and police forces, the ill-trained 

Iraqi forces failed time and again to step up to the mark. The drafting of 

a Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) in the spring of 2004 seemed 

a positive step; but the reluctance of the three major ethnic/religious 

groups in the country—Sunni Arab, Shi’ite Arab, and Kurd—to compromise on power sharing or even to agree on the nature of the proposed 

new government stymied all attempts at effective governance. 

Future Combat System

The Future Combat System (FCS) was an unprecedented attempt to capitalize on emerging technologies and 

to develop and field the majority of a brigade-level unit’s combat equipment as a single, integrated package. Its 

most visible component was a family of combat vehicles sharing a common chassis to reduce logistical and maintenance requirements. The main differences from the existing force were its highly integrated computer networks and 

unmanned reconnaissance platforms that were to provide the lightly armored force its early-warning and longdistance strike capabilities. The cost of the system, combined with the newly emerging requirements of the War on 

Terrorism, caused Congress to drop funding for the full program. However, the Army changed its focus and began 

applying “spinoff” technologies from the FCS to the force in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary fashion.

General Schoomaker
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The military situation in Iraq took a turn for the worse in March 

2004 when four American contractors were killed in Fallujah, a Sunni 

insurgent stronghold, and their charred and mutilated remains were 

hung from a bridge for all to see. U.S. Marine and Army mechanized 

forces moved to clean out the city during Operation Vigilant Resolve

in April; but their initial success was frustrated when under Iraqi pressure U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority Chief Paul Bremer halted 

and withdrew U.S. units as they were on the verge of success. When 

ill-led and poorly organized Iraqi Army and police forces were ordered 

to Fallujah by their government to replace the U.S. units, they were 

completely unprepared for the reality of battle and most deserted the 

field. A second attempt to organize an Iraqi counterstrike, the formation of the “Fallujah Brigade,” failed as well when it was infiltrated 

by insurgents and its leader, a former Republican Guard general, was 

arrested for war crimes committed during the 1991 Shi’a uprising. The 

result was an emboldened insurgency, safe within a new sanctuary, and 

an embarrassed and weakened U.S., Iraqi, and Coalition force seemingly 

helpless against it. 

The enemy success at Fallujah seemed just one of the instances of 

the emergence of other factions that sought to capitalize on perceived U.S. 

weakness. That same month the radical leader of a Shi’ite faction, Moqtada 

al-Sadr, unleashed his militia—the self-styled Mahdi Army—in a series of 

attacks on U.S. forces. The militiamen seized radio and television stations, 

blew up bridges, and threatened numerous U.S. supply routes in their attacks 

on U.S. forces. Attempts to arrest some key followers of the fiery cleric and 

close down one of his newspapers failed, leading to greater violence and 

calls by him for a national “jihad” against the American “occupiers.” In 

response, elements of the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment pushed into Sadr 

City, a Mahdi Army stronghold in the northeastern, and poorest, section 

Stryker

In October 1999 General Eric K. Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, announced the creation of a prototype 

organization to pave the way for wide-ranging changes in Army doctrine, organizational design, and leader 

development. The Army selected a unit at Fort Lewis, Washington, the 3d Brigade, 2d Infantry Division, to 

convert to the new medium-weight design. On November 16, 2000, the Army announced that the mediumweight brigade would be equipped with a wheeled, 

third-generation light armored vehicle (LAV III) that the 

Canadian armed forces were acquiring. On February 

27, 2002, the Army christened the medium-weight 

wheeled vehicle the Stryker after two unrelated infantrymen with the same last name who had each received 

the Medal of Honor. The 3d Brigade, 2d Infantry 

Division, deployed to Iraq in November 2003. The 

creation of the first Stryker-equipped brigade combat 

team, from inception to combat deployment, spanned a 

little more than four years. 
American Military History

500

of Baghdad. Units of the 1st and 2d Infantry Divisions, including the 2d 

Division’s 3d Brigade equipped with the new Stryker combat vehicles, 

conducted operations to quell violence in An Najaf, Al Kut, and Karbala. 

But each time U.S. forces would complete an operation and drive off or 

kill the insurgents and move on to the next crisis spot, the resistance would 

reemerge behind them. The new Iraqi security forces were unable to hold 

what had been cleared by the U.S. military. This led to a series of frustrating 

“whack-a-mole” operations, so called after the popular amusement parlor 

game where a player hits the head of an emerging mole to “kill it,” another 

appears, and then still another in seemingly endless succession. 

U.S. efforts at pacifying Iraq—while simultaneously attempting to 

stand up an Iraqi government viewed as legitimate by its own people—at 

times suffered from self-inflicted wounds as dangerous as the insurgent 

attacks. It was important that the U.S. forces maintain their standing 

as an entity that was helping Iraq as a disciplined and ethical military. 

The U.S. posture in Iraq and around the world was certainly not helped 

when in April 2004 graphic photographs were released showing U.S. 

soldiers involved in abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison—a 

prison with an already notorious reputation as one of Saddam Hussein’s 

torture factories. The detailed and disturbing photographs released to 

the world seemed to show U.S. soldiers physically and psychologically 

abusing prisoners. Further investigations highlighted a breakdown in 

authority and control within the prison and led to numerous charges 

and courts-martial. However, the damage was done: no matter how 

much the U.S. soldiers found culpable were punished, the images 

remained burned into the minds of the entire world.

It was soon apparent that all hopes of U.S. military and political 

leaders that the occupation could be quickly wrapped up and U.S. 

troops withdrawn by the end of the year were doomed to disappointment. The U.S. Army’s V Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. Ricardo 

S. Sanchez, was designated Coalition Joint Task Force–7 (CJTF-7) 

on June 15, 2003, and was the principal headquarters charged with 

the Iraq mission. But by mid-2004 the deteriorating security situation 

prompted the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to create three 

new headquarters. In preparation for granting Iraq full sovereignty 

on June 30, CENTCOM redesignated CJTF-7 as Headquarters, 

Multi-National Force–Iraq (MNF-I), and temporarily placed General 

Sanchez in command. On July 1 Sanchez was replaced by General 

George W. Casey, Jr., who as a full general and former Vice Chief 

of Staff of the Army served to bring additional prestige, visibility, 

and clout to the position. Along with MNF-I, Casey had under him 

two new major subordinate commands: Multi-National Corps–Iraq 

(MNC-I) to handle the operational and tactical fight and MultiNational Security Transition Command–Iraq (MNSTC-I) to coordinate the training of Iraq’s security forces. 

One of General Casey’s major goals in 2004 was to improve 

the security posture of the country enough so that the national 

elections, planned for December 2004 or January 2005, would be 

conducted with a minimum of violence. The ultimate legitimacy of 

the Iraqi government and the U.S. hope that such legitimacy would 

improve the chances for a speedy exit from the country depended 

on those elections running reasonably smoothly. 

The experiences in the Balkans 

and Afghanistan and during Iraqi

Freedom suggested the need to 

deploy smaller, nimbler, selfcontained units—tactical and 

operational “small change”—to 

fit contingency circumstances.
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501

Maintaining a sense of safety in Iraq, however, continued to be 

elusive. U.S. security operations, such as Operation 

BatonRouge

conducted in October by the 1st Infantry Division in the troublesome 

city of Samarra about seventy-five miles north of Baghdad, showed the 

degree to which the Sunni insurgents were dug in. Elements of the Big 

Red One fought a series of block-to-block, house-to-house fights in 

Samarra accompanied by a handful of poorly trained and equipped Iraqi 

soldiers. The division killed dozens of insurgents, discovered numerous 

caches of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and captured many 

stockpiles of small arms. Yet Samarra continued to be a hotbed of 

insurgent violence even after what appeared to have been a successful 

operation. Again it proved impossible for the 

fledgling Iraqi security 

forces, in particular the venal and sectarian-dominated national police, 

to hold onto the gains made by combat operations. 

After Samarra, U.S. forces turned their attention to the troublesome city of Fallujah, where the abortive Coalition offensive operation 

the previous April had seemed only to strengthen the insurgents. Now 

in Operation 

al-Fajr (or The Dawn), called by U.S. forces Operation 

PhantomFury, U.S. units and their Iraqi counterparts were determined to 

clear out the city. Beginning on November 8, two U.S. Marine regimental 

combat teams, each with an attached U.S. Army mechanized battalion, 

led the way into the city. Iraqi Army units, this time better prepared and 

led, were present to help secure the city once it was taken. The allies 

had instructed all noncombatants to leave the city before the attack in 

an attempt to reduce civilian casualties and have fewer civilians for the 

insurgents to hide behind. The combined-arms attack with helicopters, 

artillery, airstrikes, and armor slowly and methodically cleared out the city 

block by block. In the final phase of the operation, Iraqi Army and police 

established outposts, police stations, and security roadblocks throughout 

Fallujah and began slowly to allow citizens back in to start reconstruction. 

With approximately 2,000 insurgents killed and 1,200 captured at the cost George W. Casey, Jr. (1948– )

General George W. Casey, Jr., Commander of Multi-National 

Forces–Iraq from July 1, 2004, to February 10, 2007, was a 

member of a distinguished Army family. His father, Maj. Gen. 

George W. Casey, Sr., Commanding General of the 1st Cavalry 

Division, had been one of the most senior officers killed in Vietnam 

when his helicopter crashed on July 7, 1970. The younger Casey 

was commissioned into the infantry through ROTC at Georgetown 

University in 1970 before embarking on a career that encompassed 

a variety of command and staff jobs including Commanding 

General, 1st Armored Division; Director of the Joint Staff; Vice 

Chief of Staff of the Army; and MNF-I Commander. Upon relinquishing command of forces in Iraq to General David H. Petraeus, 

General Casey returned to Washington in April 2007 to assume the 

position of thirty-sixth Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
American Military History

502

of 70 Americans and 7 Iraqis killed, the city was liberated and no longer 

served as a sanctuary for the insurgents or as a base for their operations. 

The promise of an improved security climate in Iraq seemed 

fulfilled with the peaceful and genuinely popular countrywide elections 

in January 2005. For the first time, Iraqis got a chance to vote and 

take charge of their own future. There were remarkably few security 

incidents as Iraqis guarded the polls with U.S. units generally out of 

sight in a backup role. Proud Iraqis, many shown on worldwide television brandishing their purple-inked forefingers as proof that they had 

voted, exercised their new franchise despite threats of violence and 

elected a slate of candidates for a national government. However, the 

boycott of the elections by the minority Sunnis—no longer the dominant political force in the country—and the mechanism of voting by 

slates of candidates rather than for individuals that skewed the vote 

toward religious party candidates were ill omens for the future. 

Contrary again to all hopes and expectations, the nationwide elections in Iraq did not diminish the level of violence in the country or 

“defang” the insurgency. If anything, the elections seemed to isolate 

even more the Arab-Sunni minority. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, now led by a 

Jordanian terrorist named Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, capitalized on their 

fears and began a systematic campaign to terrorize Shi’a Muslims in 

order to instigate them to conduct revenge attacks on Sunnis in an 

ever-downward spiral of violence. A few diehard Ba’athists continued 

their attacks, as well, in their attempt to turn back the clock. Added 

to this lethal mixture was the still-powerful Sadr whose Mahdi Army 

had not disbanded but had merely taken a lower profile after the rebel-

lion had failed in April and was still strong in Baghdad and Basra. The 

militiamen had the advantage of being able to infiltrate the Shi’itedominated army and national police and use those official covers as 

they conducted their own terror attacks. In addition, with the Shi’ites 

in firm control of the government but the government itself only a 

shaky coalition, politicians of all parties hesitated to move against Sadr 

or oppose his followers because of the possible political consequences. 

The need to stabilize Iraq while retaining as few troops as possible 

in that troubled country created a strategic dilemma both to those who 

wanted to leave Iraq quickly and to those who felt that the United 

States needed to stay and pursue a new strategy to “win.” The result 

was a measure of strategic policy drift as General John P. Abizaid, 

the CENTCOM commander who had replaced General Tommy R. 

Franks in 2003, directed U.S. and Coalition forces to slowly withdraw 

from the cities into more easily defensible base camps with the goal 

of turning over more security functions, and even the administration 

of whole provinces, as quickly as possible to a slowly improving Iraqi 

government and army. This would, in time, perhaps allow U.S. forces to 

leave and in the short run minimize casualties. But in order to ensure 

that security was maintained, many military thinkers and policymakers 

foresaw that more U.S. forces were needed in Iraq. However, the stress 

and strain on the constantly deploying Army units made that politically 

and practically difficult.

The stress on the force, especially on the U.S. Army whose units, 

even when divided into the more numerous modular brigades, found 

themselves rotated in and out of Iraq with ever-decreasing time for 
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503

training and “dwell-time” back at home station, had a powerful impact 

on any strategic plan. Enlistment rates were low, and ever-greater incentives were needed to maintain the end strength of the Army. A broken 

Army could not be expected to be effective in the long run in any 

attempt to stabilize Iraq. Yet “cutting and running,” as some critics 

referred to it, might well damage the force and U.S. interests even more. 

On the positive side, despite the fact that the War on Terrorism was 

the toughest test yet of the volunteer Army, retention rates continued 

high with over 100 percent of expected reenlistments being achieved 

year after year. Despite family strain, the continuing dangers of deaths 

or debilitating wounds, and the back-to-back rotations, the Army was 

still a well-trained and disciplined force capable of completing a mission 

that was clearly laid out for it. And in a departure from the national 

climate during the Vietnam War, the nation continued to provide moral 

support for the troops even while remaining divided by the policy that 

had launched them into Iraq in the first place.

Despite the continuing security challenges and under some pressure 

from Washington, General Casey began planning on drawing down the 

American forces in Iraq beginning in 2006. He planned to reduce the 

number of combat brigades in the country from fifteen to ten in the 

course of the year with the intent of forcing the Iraqis to shoulder more 

of the responsibility for their own security and governance. The U.S. 

presence could not be sustained indefinitely, and he and other senior 

Army leaders were fully aware of the strain on the Army as it faced 

back-to-back rotations into Iraq with the additional stress of having to 

maintain a small but important force level in Afghanistan, the Horn of 

Africa, and other locations around the world. All of his plans were put 

on hold, however, when the Golden Mosque at Samarra, one of Shi’a 

Islam’s most holy shrines in a city that was still immersed in violence, 

was heavily damaged in an explosion on February 22 perpetrated by the 

terrorists of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Zarqawi’s hopes of fomenting ethnic and 

sectarian strife seemed about to be fulfilled.

In the months following the bombing of the Golden Mosque, 

it appeared that Iraq was sliding into such a high level of ethnic 

violence and sectarian fighting that some commentators deemed it to 

be in a state of civil war, with the United States and other members 

of a dwindling Coalition caught in the middle. The violent sectarian 

cleansing of neighborhoods accelerated as Sunnis were driven 

from their homes by Shi’ites and Shi’ites from theirs by Sunnis in a 

paroxysm of violence and hatred. Internal refugees numbered in the 

tens of thousands while many of those who could afford to leave the 

country did so. According to some reports, over one hundred fifty 

bodies of dead Iraqis, murdered execution style, were being dumped 

on the streets of Baghdad every night to be discovered every morning. 

The spiraling level of violence did not seem to abate even when U.S. 

airstrikes killed Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Nor did it 

help when Iraq had its first regularly elected government put in place 

on May 20, 2006. The new prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, the leader 

of a powerful Shi’ite faction who had spent years in exile in Syria and 

Iran, was viewed with great suspicion by the Arab Sunnis and seen by 

many outsiders as either a weak tool of the religious parties or a pawn 

of the Iranians.
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504

Militarily the choices for the United States were few: withdraw 

as quickly as possible and let the Iraqis sort out their own problems 

(even if it meant a Shi’ite victory in a civil war with the possibility of 

increasing Iranian in

fluence as a result) or increase the U.S. force level 

enough to make a dramatic difference in security levels throughout the 

country with the concomitant strain upon the already stressed force. 

The first strategy hoped that Iraqis would “step up to the plate” once 

they saw the U.S. forces leaving and further believed that U.S. forces 

were a part of the problem—an irritant that once removed would help 

preempt some of the claims of the insurgents that they were only 

fighting the “foreign occupiers.” Increasing U.S. forces was the only 

other alternative, but not one without considerable risk.

The second strategy of a “surge” of forces relied upon the belief 

that a larger force, even if only slightly larger, could prove decisive if 

used properly. If the additional troops were committed to securing 

the people in accordance with counterinsurgency doctrine, the result 

might be a lull in the violence. This could provide the necessary 

“breathing space” for the new government of Iraq to make the political deals necessary to forge a more broad-based, national, representative government. Either way, the risks were great but the vital interests 

of the United States in the Middle East—regional security, protection of allies, and the free flow of essential oil—militated against a 

precipitous withdrawal. Such an exit in defeat from the region would 

shake the very foundations of America’s leadership role in the Middle 

East with only terrorists and the states that sponsored them being the 

gainers. U.S. casualties remained relatively low but were on the rise in 

2006. By the end of that year some 2,400 Americans, most of them 

Army, had been killed in action and over 20,000 had been wounded. 

Many had lost limbs or suffered severe head injuries from evermore 

powerful roadside bombs. The status quo was simply not the answer.

The Doctrine

The U.S. Army, one of the quickest militaries in the world to adapt 

to new battlefield conditions and adjust training, organization, and 

equipment to new circumstances, had not been complacent as the war 

shifted from conventional attack to security assistance to fighting an 

insurgency. In late 2005 and into 2006, the Army and Marine Corps 

teamed up to reenergize the doctrine necessary to prepare, intellectually and practically, for counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. These operations reemphasized population control, 

police-like functions, information operations, and nation building. Both 

services had a long history of fighting such wars, especially the grueling 

struggle in Vietnam only thirty years before; but both had turned their 

backs on what they had learned from that con

flict as soon as they could 

in order to focus on new competencies necessary to fight a conven-

tional conflict in Europe. Neither service, despite a temporary surge in 

interest in low-intensity con

flict in the 1980s, had retained the doctrinal 

focus or training commitment necessary to conduct counterinsurgency 

operations. Such operations were perhaps the most challenging of all 

missions to prepare for, given the emphasis on political negotiations, 

reconstruction activities, regional expertise, language skills, and other 
The Global War on Terrorism

505

nontraditional military skills necessary for success. Even the U.S. Army 

Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, traditionally the Army center tasked to prepare to wage insurgencies and 

counterinsurgencies, had become dominated in recent years by special 

operations elements that conducted direct-action missions. Those more 

“glamorous” missions had received much of the attention and funding 

for the past decade. Those officers who saw the Iraq war turning into a 

protracted counterinsurgency fight, however, began to turn their minds 

and energies to writing a new doctrine that would capture their experiences, provide them an intellectual focus, and set in motion the training 

institutions to prepare the force for that mission.

In late 2006, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus of the Army’s Combined 

Arms Center and Lt. Gen. James F. Amos, Deputy Commandant of the 

Marine Corps’ Combat Development Command, put their signatures 

on a new Field Manual 3–24 (Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 

3–33.5), Counterinsurgency, to provide the doctrinal basis for the reemphasis on this mission. Although not promulgated without controversy 

(some critics thought it overemphasized soft power and the nonmilitary 

aspect of operations and thus took the focus off the military’s primary 

mission of warfighting and so-called kinetic, or strike, operations), the 

new doctrine was widely hailed as re

flecting the reality of the struggle in 

Iraq. It returned the attention of the institutional and operational Army 

to those skills that had lain dormant for decades but were now needed 

to fight the continuing Global War on Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, 

and other locations around the world.

This new counterinsurgency doctrine, together with a companion 

doctrine on stability operations published in 2009, gave the Army and 

Marine Corps the intellectual and training tools to prosecute the fight in David H. Petraeus (1952– )

General David H. Petraeus was commissioned into the 

Infantry from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1974. 

In addition to the usual assignments of company and battalion 

command and schooling at the Advanced and Command and 

General Staff Officers Courses, Petraeus took the unusual step 

of earning a doctorate in International Relations at Princeton 

in 1987 with a dissertation entitled “The American Military 

and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study of Military Influence 

and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era.” Before taking 

command of Multi-National Force–Iraq in 2007, he served as 

the Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division (Air 

Assault) in the opening days of Operation 

IraqiFreedom; as the 

Commanding General of the Multi-National Security Transition 

Command–Iraq; and the Commanding General of the Combined 

Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth. From MNF-I, Petraeus was 

given command of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, in 

October 2008.
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506

Iraq. But was it too late? Had the situation in Iraq by 2007 deteriorated 

so dramatically that no doctrine, however useful and thoughtful, and no 

Army, however skilled and battle tested, could retrieve the Iraqis from 

the headlong rush into civil war and chaos? Was the stress on the Army 

and its family members so severe that its recruitment and retention 

base would crumble and no longer be able to sustain the fight effectively even if ordered? Would the national resolve continue to back the 

troops in the fight as the complexity of the struggle only seemed to 

compound the lack of trust of many in the very rationale for the war 

in the first place? And even if the military was successful, would it be 

able to do what was necessary to help solve the critical political questions that had to be addressed in order to establish the basis for a free, 

independent, and stable Iraq? The very success of the long war in Iraq 

hung in the balance.

The Surge

The crisis in Iraq in 2006–2007 led to a number of critical military 

and political decisions. On February 10, 2007, the man who was one of 

the moving forces behind the new focus on counterinsurgency, General 

Petraeus, took command of Multi-National Forces–Iraq. He had testified in his confirmation hearings in favor of an increase, styled by some 

a Surge, of U.S. forces into Iraq. This would be the first necessary step 

to halt the slide into civil war, to provide the forces necessary for the 

exercise of a robust counterinsurgency strategy to restore a measure 

of stability and security for the Iraqi people, and to signal to Iraq and 

the region the resolve of the United States to finish what it had started. 

Although far from being the sole originator of the Surge idea, it was 

now General Petraeus who would be most closely identified with its 

success or failure. He believed that in a counterinsurgency campaign, 

Spec. Ross A. McGinnis (1987–2006)

On December 4, 2006, while serving as an M2 .50-caliber 

machine gunner of the 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 

26th Infantry, then Private First Class McGinnis was on mounted 

patrol with his platoon in Adhamiyah in Baghdad. An insurgent 

threw a grenade into the open hatch of McGinnis’ HMMWV 

(high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, commonly called a 

Humvee). Private McGinnis yelled “Grenade!” But then, perhaps 

realizing that the four other crewmates could not escape the 

vehicle quickly enough, McGinnis threw himself 

on the grenade. He absorbed most of the explosion but was mortally wounded while saving his 

comrades. He was awarded the Medal of Honor 

posthumously and promoted to specialist.
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507

having “boots on the ground,” ground units composed of well-trained, 

culturally aware soldiers, was the key to local security, building up the 

host nation’s forces, and ultimate success. 

The phased arrival of five additional Army combat brigades and 

two more Marine battalions, a total of around 30,000 troops, would 

provide the extra forces to help train more Iraqi units and begin a series 

of robust security operations. These operations, focused initially on 

the key population and political center of the country, Baghdad and its 

immediate suburbs, would help restore the confidence of the people 

that their lives and property would be secure. U.S. troops teamed with 

Iraqi units would man hundreds of small security outposts throughout 

the city to stabilize the situation. Then, a more carefully planned 

followup by Iraqi security forces to hold those areas and provide a 

permanent (and helpful) government presence would tip the balance 

permanently to the forces of stability. 

The military operations surrounding the Surge of U.S. forces were, 

however, only one of the essential precursors of the main “battle”: the 

battle for political reconciliation in Iraq without which no military gains 

would be truly permanent. All of the military aspects of the Surge—

more troops on the ground, more trainers, more presence of U.S. 

and Iraqi forces in neighborhoods, more killed or captured terrorists, 

and more captured bomb factories—were important but could only 

shape the security conditions on the ground that made political success 

possible. They could not guarantee that success.

One of the important aspects of that Surge, however, was the 

renewed sense by all factions, and by all the countries in the region, 

that the United States was committed to finding a solution and was 

not about to abandon Iraq. This had, it appears, a positive effect on a 

number of factions previously opposed to the government who now 

determined it was time to switch sides and work with the government. 

This initiative, beginning in Al Anbar Province and thus picking 

up the nickname Anbar Awakening, saw a number of Sunni tribal 

leaders in the embattled province of Anbar to the west of Baghdad 

determine that they had had enough of interference in their local 

affairs by heavy-handed and violent al-Qaeda in Iraq and wanted arms 

to defend themselves. These predominantly Sunni tribes had previously supported the Hussein regime and thus were not trusted by the 

new Shi’ite-led government. However, even though it was a risk, the 

United States decided to support these tribes, pay them, and work to 

convince the Iraqi government to integrate them into their security 

forces in the future. 

The Anbar Awakening and similar movements in nearby provinces held out the promise that Sunni tribes could fight back against 

al-Qaeda, maintain order in their provinces, and provide the confidence 

that they would not be cut out of future political settlements with the 

national government. Despite mistrust on both sides, this Awakening 

held out the promise of both security and political settlement, provided 

the government handled this opportunity well. While not a direct result 

of more troops in their province, the Surge did provide the necessary 

reassurance of continued U.S. support that made the Anbar Awakening 

possible, even if it could not guarantee its ultimate success. That lay in 

the hands of the Iraqi government.
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Operations such as the long-planned Baghdad security plan went 

into effect in early February 2007 spearheaded by troops of MNC-I 

commanded by Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno. The U.S. Army also 

faced the challenge of implementing the ambitious concept of bringing 

security to Iraq while absorbing the new troops of the Surge over a 

six-month period. As security gained by these troops and the Anbar 

Awakening spread to more areas, the Iraqi Army began to gain more 

confidence. The Maliki administration finally moved decisively against 

Mahdi Army strongholds in Baghdad and Basra in early 2008, and it 

began to look as if a strong national government that represented 

all the major parties in Iraq was at least possible. With the change of 

administration in the United States in early 2009 and President Barack 

H. Obama’s decision to retain Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates 

(who had replaced Donald Rumsfeld in December 2006), an Iraqi 

political solution and gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops became distinct 

possibilities. However, as force levels in Iraq slowly decreased, the other 

major front of the War on Terrorism, Afghanistan, began to be recognized by more national leaders as needing additional attention.

Back to Afghanistan

In early 2002 General Tommy R. Franks, Commander of the U.S. 

Central Command, established a new command to oversee operations 

in what appeared to be a relatively peaceful Afghanistan. General Franks 

and his staff were increasingly preoccupied with planning the impending 

invasion of Iraq. They hoped that a stronger command in Afghanistan 

would be able to maintain control of operations there while they 

devoted their attention to the preparation for the march to Baghdad. As 

things stood, the headquarters that commanded conventional forces in 

Afghanistan, Coalition Forces Land Component Command (Forward), 

Raymond T. Odierno (1954– )

General Raymond T. Odierno was commissioned into the 

Artillery in 1976 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. 

He served in numerous command and staff positions during his 

career in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Balkans, and the United 

States. He commanded the 4th Infantry Division in the early days 

of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the III Corps at Fort Hood and 

later in Iraq as it became the Multi-National Corps–Iraq in 2006. 

He took command of the Multi-National Force–Iraq from General 

Petraeus in September 2008.
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was very small, being little more than an augmented division tactical 

command post of the 10th Mountain Division (Light). 

To create a more capable headquarters, in May 2002 General Franks 

established Combined Joint Task Force–180 and placed it in the charge 

of Lt. Gen. Dan K. McNeill, Commanding General of the XVIII 

Airborne Corps. General McNeill formed the new headquarters around 

that of his own corps, which deployed from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 

and augmented it with joint and Coalition staff and liaison officers. With 

a larger staff that incorporated international elements, General Franks 

hoped that CJTF-180 would be more capable of overseeing tactical operations while simultaneously taking control of an increasingly complex 

military and political situation at the operational level.

Taking charge of Combined Joint Task Force–180, General McNeill 

reorganized the command structure of his subordinate elements. The 

units of Maj. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck’s 10th Mountain Division, 

which were already in Afghanistan, continued operations against antiCoalition forces as Combined Joint Task Force Mountain. That task 

force was replaced in June by units of the 82d Airborne Division. The 

Special Operations Forces units hunting for fugitive al-Qaeda and 

Taliban leaders—including Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar—

fell under the new Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force 

(CJSOTF). The Combined Joint Civil-Military Operations Task Force 

(CJCMOTF), comprised mostly of civil affairs units and individual 

augmentees, conducted humanitarian assistance missions in conjunction with international development and relief agencies. 

Combined Joint Task Force–180 forces conducted a series of military operations to keep the Taliban off balance throughout 2002, 2003, 

and 2004. Typically, these efforts involved series of assaults conducted 

by heliborne company- or battalion-size units against small bands of 

insurgents that invariably suffered tactical defeats if they resisted. In 

August 2003, for example, Operation 

Mountain Viper targeted antiCoalition forces throughout Afghanistan with the aim of denying them 

sanctuary and destroying organized resistance. Operation 

Mountain

Resolv

e followed in November and targeted Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, 

a militia led by the Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and other 

insurgent groups active in the mountainous region of the Hindu Kush 

near the border with Pakistan. The next month, by striking Taliban 

insurgents in Operation 

Avalanche, Maj. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin (who 

had replaced General Hagenbeck in command of the 10th Mountain 

Division) sought to set favorable security conditions for the grand 

assembly, or loya jirga, which would meet in January 2004 to frame a 

new constitution for Afghanistan. Operation 

MountainBlizzard

took place from January to March 2004, targeting anti-Coalition forces 

operating along the southern and southeastern border with Pakistan. 

A follow-on operation, 

MountainStorm, began in March 2004. All 

these operations inflicted heavy casualties on the scattered insurgents 

and resulted in the discovery of hundreds of caches of weapons and 

ammunition. When the first units of the Afghan National Army began 

to operate alongside Coalition forces, they also helped to demonstrate 

early signs of the viability of Afghanistan’s fledgling democratic govern-

ment. However, the insurgents were resilient and used the terrain and 

nearby sanctuaries in Pakistan to keep up the fight.
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510

The Afghan National Army was one of the first institutions 

established by the interim Afghan government, and it would soon 

become an important element of U.S. and Coalition strategy in 

Operation 

EnduringFreedom. At first, in early 2002, the training 

of the Afghan National Army was the responsibility of the North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) International Security 

Assistance Force (ISAF). During this stage, British and Turkish 

troops formed the recruits into kandaks, battalion-size units of 

about 600 soldiers. In 2002, the ranks of the Afghan National Army 

numbered between 2,000 and 3,000 volunteers. Initial plans called for 

five kandaks to report to a corps-level headquarters based in Kabul, 

but later plans expanded the size of the Army to more than 67,000 

soldiers. Combined Joint Task Force–180 received the mission to 

take control of the training process and assigned it to the Combined 

Joint-Civil Military Operations Task Force. Later, CENTCOM established an Office of Military Cooperation–Afghanistan in Kabul to 

oversee training and to coordinate security assistance efforts under 

the command of Maj. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry. 

In July 2003, General Abizaid succeeded General Franks as 

Commander, U.S. Central Command. General Abizaid wanted to create 

a coherent and cohesive strategy by synchronizing the ongoing effort 

to build the Afghan National Army with other international efforts to 

create a police and judiciary for the Afghan government; to disarm, 

demobilize, and reintegrate armed factions and militias into civil society; 

and to confront a growing problem of narcotics production. Toward 

that end, he took steps to forge communications and working procedures between military commands and civilian agencies in Afghanistan. 

He also began work to establish a new command, initially named 

Combined Forces Command–Central Asia and then Combined Forces 

Command–Afghanistan, which would help ensure better cooperation 

with the Army’s international and interagency partners. 

Maj. Gen. David W. Barno assumed command of the new organization in October 2003 and immediately formulated a new strategy. 

The focus in Afghanistan thus shifted from counterterrorism to counterinsurgency. Identifying the Afghan people as its center of gravity, 

or decisive strategic focus, the approach sought to help win their 

allegiance to their new government by combining security and reconstruction actions into a coherent master plan. To build support for 

the approach, General Barno established close connections with U.S. 

embassy personnel and Afghan government leaders and began a public 

communications campaign directed at the Afghan people to emphasize 

the accomplishments of their own government.

The year 2004 began with signs of hope for the campaign in 

Afghanistan. Since Coalition forces had produced an unbroken string 

of tactical victories, General Barno wanted to follow them with more 

robust counterinsurgency and reconstruction operations, which he 

hoped would bring long-term strategic success. He lacked the forces 

at the time to implement such an ambitious plan; however, he had 

some reasons to be optimistic. The loya jirga that began in January 2004 

approved an Afghan constitution on February 5 that created a new 

legal and political framework for the 

fledgling government. In April the 

Afghan National Army demonstrated its increased effectiveness when 
The Global War on Terrorism

511

its troops quelled a revolt by militia in the Faryab Province located in 

the north of Afghanistan along the nation’s border with Turkmenistan. 

Cooperation with Pakistan along Afghanistan’s unstable southern 

border also seemed to be improving. Pakistani forces were engaging 

Taliban and other anti-Coalition forces in their own territory with 

greater frequency than before.

The situation in Afghanistan, however, was far from secure. The 

nation’s President, Hamid Karzai, had an interim appointment to office, 

and it would take months to organize and carry out a national election. 

Determined to disrupt or prevent that election, anti-Coalition forces in 

Afghanistan were demonstrating an ability to learn from their tactical 

defeats at the hands of Coalition forces. Recognizing the futility of trying 

to meet Coalition troops in force-on-force engagements, for example, 

they had begun to adopt tactics from the rapidly escalating insurgency in 

Iraq, including the use of improvised explosive devices and later suicide 

bombers. Meanwhile, if the region near the capital of Kabul was relatively 

safe because of the strong presence of NATO forces, local governance 

and security were still uncertain for most Afghans.

This lack of security made it more difficult for the Afghan national 

government and the Coalition to begin the task of rebuilding a shattered nation still suffering from decades of Soviet occupation, civil war, 

and Taliban tyranny. To assist in rebuilding the nation, planners from 

U.S. Central Command, the Department of State, and the U.S. Agency 

for International Development established a number of Provincial 

Reconstruction Teams. These groups were composed of small units of 

troops (for security) augmented with civilian reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, and governance experts. These teams expanded 

in size and type over the next few years and increasingly included a 

greater number of teams organized and manned by NATO partners. 

By mid-2008 there would be twenty-six teams operating throughout 

Afghanistan, twelve under U.S. control and the rest under the command 

of various NATO partners.

New units continued to rotate in and out of Afghanistan as the 

various Coalition headquarters shifted names and focus over the next 

few years. Brigades of the 82d Airborne Division were replaced by 

similar units of the 10th Mountain Division; they in turn were replaced 

in quick succession by units of the 25th Infantry Division, the 173d 

Airborne Brigade, the 82d Airborne Division, and then elements of 

the 10th Mountain Division again. Marine, National Guard, and Army 

Reserve units augmented the Regular Army forces along with individual 

replacements from all services. Combined Task Force–180 was renamed 

Combined Task Force–76 in April 2004 to focus on the tactical fight 

while Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan remained committed to 

operational and strategic issues. Regional commands were set up in the 

south, west, and east to combine security with reconstruction responsibilities on an area-support basis. A series of operations followed in 

2004 and 2005 (including 

LightningResolve andLightningFreedom) 

focused on keeping the Taliban off balance, especially along the volatile 

border regions in Paktia and Paktika provinces in the eastern reaches 

of Afghanistan. Under General Barno’s and later General Eikenberry’s 

direction, CJTF-76 (called CJTF-82 in March 2007 and CJTF-101 in 

April 2008 as the unit headquarters shifted from division to division) 
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512

synchronized the tactical operations with allied reconstruction and relief 

initiatives. On September 18, 2005, the soldiers of Combined Joint Task 

Force–76 replicated the previous year’s electoral success by ensuring a 

largely peaceful parliamentary election. 

By the end of 2005 it seemed as if the United States and its international allies had accomplished a great deal in Afghanistan. However, 

there were disturbing trends in the rugged mountains of the country. 

In 2006 and 2007 there were indications that the Taliban and its 

al-Qaeda allies, operating with relative impunity in the sanctuary of the 

border regions with Pakistan and well-shielded there by fellow Pashtun 

tribesmen, were determined to retake the initiative. A series of attacks 

on U.S., Afghan, and Coalition strongpoints and patrols drove up casualties and announced the resurgence of the insurgency. The insurgents 

gained much of their funding and support from the return of the illegal 

drug trade in opium and heroin, booming again after years of suppression. All U.S. and allied attempts at crop substitution programs, which 

attempted to wean farmers off the opium poppy, as well as stepped-up 

antismuggling campaigns, foundered on the remoteness of the fields 

and the lucrative nature of the crop. 

The campaign for stability in Afghanistan was far from over. 

Much of the country remained beyond the control of Coalition 

forces. Many NATO units, handicapped by unique and often highly 

restrictive rules of engagement, were often unable or unwilling to 

suppress the resurgent Taliban even after assuming full responsibility 

for the restive Regional Commands South and East in 2006. President 

Karzai’s government, although bolstered by two successful elections, 

could not provide consistent or effective governance in many of the 

provinces outside of Kabul; and Afghan military and security forces 

remained incapable of operating without foreign assistance. In addition, the endemic corruption of Afghan officials and police contrived 

to thwart all attempts by Coalition units to get the Afghan people to 

trust their own government. By late 2008 it seemed apparent to all that 

Afghanistan was continuing to suffer from endemic insurgency with 

increasing military and reconstruction efforts needed by the Western 

allies to prevent it from relapsing into a failed state. As Iraq seemed to 

quiet down by early 2009, the new administration of President Obama 

initiated a series of lengthy studies of strategic options and changed the 

U.S. command structure in Afghanistan as it wrestled with the cost of 

pursuing a counterinsurgency war in support of a weak Afghan government. Neither the administration nor its often weak and equally hesitant NATO allies saw a clear path to victory over a resurgent Taliban. 

Afghanistan, needing massive infusions of cash and international help, 

remained on the very edge of instability as 2009 began.

Transforming While at War

The campaign requirements of the Global War on Terrorism understandably had an effect upon Army Transformation. Generals Gordon 

R. Sullivan, Dennis J. Reimer, and Shinseki (in the first half of his tenure) 

had believed that they were in an interval between wars and that they had 

been afforded an opportunity to prepare for the next one. Operations 

in Latin America and the Balkans and security requirements around the 
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513

globe needed daily attention, but the lion’s share of their focus could 

be on the future. Prolonged campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq forced 

current operations back into top priority, and new balances had to be 

struck if the Army was to maintain momentum toward transformation.

By the time General Peter J. Schoomaker became Army Chief of 

Staff in the summer of 2003, there already was considerable fluidity 

between the test-bed 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) experimenting 

with the most modern digital technologies, the Interim Brigade Combat 

Teams anticipating Shinseki’s Objective Force, and the larger army in 

the field. Appliqué versions of many of the advances were available 

to improve upon legacy equipment. Schoomaker’s experience was 

grounded heavily in the Special Operations community with its marked 

ability to draw off-the-shelf technology for immediate use. Shinseki’s 

Transformation Campaign Plan had, of course, been a forcing function to generate technology to draw upon, especially as more money 

became available in times of crisis. Believing the term Objective Force 

implied a neatness of time frames that would be impossible to sustain 

under wartime circumstances, Schoomaker dropped the use of the 

terms Objective Force, Interim Force, and Legacy Force in the favor of 

Current Force and Future Force, while maintaining most of Shinseki’s 

program intact. The Army was no longer in an interval between wars, 

and technical advances would be applied as quickly as was practical. 

Development of the Future Combat System (FCS) would continue, 

but innovations intended for it would be applied to vintage vehicles as 

well, when practical.

The Operation 

IraqiFreedom experience related by Lt. Col. John 

W. Charlton, Commander of Task Force 1/15 Mechanized Infantry, 

offers a graphic example of migrations of technology from selected 

units to the Legacy Force at large, in this case the 3d Infantry Division 

(Mechanized). Contractors had adapted the full-up Force XXI Battle 

Command Brigade and Battalion (FBCB2) digital system into a simplified version, called the BLUEFOR tracking system, and installed it in 

key leader vehicles throughout the division. As Charlton’s task force 

first rolled into combat, he gave little attention to the small screen 

installed in his turret and instead relied on the old standby of 1:100,000 

map sheets—thirteen of them mounted on 18x24-inch map boards 

with task force graphics superimposed. 

This worked satisfactorily, even with interruptions when crossing 

from one map sheet to another while on the move, until the task force 

was drawn into an unexpected hot fight for the town of As Samawa. 

The 1:100,000-scale maps had no usable detail of As Samawa as an 

urban area; the task force had no overhead imagery of it either, since 

it had not intended to fight there. FBCB2, on the other hand, offered 

digital imagery allowing the viewer to zoom in and out and appreciate the streets in whatever scale. A few days later the task force 

was caught in the huge sandstorm south of Baghdad. With visibility 

near zero, vehicles with FBCB2 were nevertheless able to navigate 

through the sandstorm, following their own plot on the screen as 

they worked around obstacles and key terrain. For the rest of the 

campaign Charlton never used another paper map product. As the 

campaign progressed, such digital technology became so popular, 

pervasive, and generally used that the theater as a whole became 
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514

concerned with lack of sufficient satellite communications bandwidth 

to accommodate all users. The experience nevertheless underscored 

the pace at which the current force could take advantage of developments intended for the future force.

Technology was not the only venue for transformation efforts, of 

course. Another was achieving an appropriate balance in the expectations of the reserve components. Since the Vietnam War, the National 

Guard and the organized reserve had increasingly transitioned from 

being an inventory of mobile units that could reinforce the active 

component in due course to being enablers that rounded out the active 

component’s capabilities and were essential for its success from early in 

an operation. Since Desert Storm, the reserve components had consistently deployed as an important fraction of every major mission and 

had even routinely assumed some overseas missions. 

Since 9-11 large numbers had been called up for homeland security and for operations overseas, with the mobilization being particularly large and lengthy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. By 

September 2003, 144,000 National Guardsmen and reservists were 

on duty, with 28,000 of these mobilized for homeland security. 

Modularity

To meet the force requirements of units constantly rotating to Iraq and Afghanistan, in September 2003 

the U.S. Army began converting from an organization centered on divisions numbering from 10,000 to 18,000 

soldiers to one based upon brigades totaling at most 3,900. Each division would create four separate brigades 

mixing combat, combat support, and combat service support in the same brigade to make each capable of 

independent operations. Each brigade was also “modular” in the sense that as many separate brigades as 

necessary for a particular mission could be plugged into any division headquarters. The means for doing this 

became known as Modularity, which the Army defined as a design methodology aimed at creating standardized, expandable Army elements capable of being tailored to accomplish virtually any assignment. The new 

units would be as capable as their predecessors, but they would also be able to transform to meet a broad 

range of missions. Over the fifteen months that followed, the service completed a design, tested it, and then 

deployed the first of forty-five new modular brigade combat teams to Iraq.

Chart 3—Organization of a Modular Infantry Brigade, September 2004

Source: Adapted from Army Comprehensive Guide to Modularity, vol. 1, version 1.0, 8 October 2004, p. D-2.
The Global War on Terrorism

515

Manpower requirements in Iraq dictated a twelve-month tour actually in that country, more than doubling the six-month mobilization 

many had come to expect. Many reserve component soldiers were 

mobilized for two years. Not without a sense of humor, a number 

of reservists in Iraq made national television with a battle-weathered 

truck sporting the jaunty slogan, “One Weekend a Month—My Ass!!!” 

Clearly, the operational tempo was muddying the distinction between 

service in the active and reserve components. Soldiers who thought 

they had volunteered in cases of major national emergency now 

found themselves continually on call. The Army had to reexamine the 

force structures, roles, and missions of the reserve components if 

recruiting was to sustain itself in an atmosphere of trust.

The reserve components were challenged not only by the sheer 

numbers being called up, but also by departures from familiar systems 

whereby mobilizations and movements were managed and tracked. 

During the Cold War, contingency planning had been dominated by 

the expectation of gigantic slugfests in Central Europe and Korea. 

Comprehensive war plans identified the units involved in elabo-

rate detail and gave each an appropriate mission. Courses of action 

were supported by an automated time-phased force deployment list 

(TPFDL) that assured an appropriate mix of combat, combat support, 

and combat service support units throughout a buildup and married 

deploying units and transportation in the most efficient manner. 

TPFDL was the apotheosis of detailed planning, and therefore a bit 

cumbersome: once initiated, it ran on like a vast and not particularly 

compromising machine.

The executors of 

IraqiFreedom wanted more internal flexibility 

than TPFDL tended to allow. In some cases, for political reasons, they 

wanted force packaging to restrict overall force 

flow, accelerate the 

arrival of some types of units, decelerate the arrival of other types 

of units, and rapidly adjust deployment sequences as circumstances 

suggested. Enormous strides with respect to information management, the argument went, should enable far more flexibility with 

respect to force flow. Unfortunately, dramatic changes on short notice 

in the midst of a wartime deployment did not work well. The finite 

physical hardware of airlift and sealift could not morph as quickly as 

force packages could be redesigned; hasty reconfigurations typically 

did not allow for appropriate combat service support; and the imbroglio of not being allowed to move through Turkey put additional 

stress on an already challenged deployment. To many a guardsman 

and reservist, the result seemed to be chaos, with soldiers mobilized 

in accordance with the TPFDL waiting idly for weeks or months, 

rushing overseas only to find they had not been time-phased with the 

arrival of their equipment, or finding an imbalance between the scope 

of their mission and the resources available. The situation got worse 

when troops already away from their jobs and families for months 

awaiting deployment were told they would have to stay at least a year 

in Iraq to meet force requirements.

The inconveniences associated with the abandonment of TPFDL 

underscored another of Schoomaker’s priorities, the development of 

more modular units. For generations the combined-arms framework 

of choice had been the division. The division had been the lowest level 
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516

at which one had a robust representation of all branches and services 

assigned and could optimize the synergy of working them together. It was 

also the lowest level at which significant joint operations were feasible. 

This worked well when one’s adversary was also a massive multidivisional 

force. The experiences in the Balkans and Afghanistan and during 

Iraqi

Freedom suggested the need to deploy smaller, nimbler, self-contained 

units—tactical and operational “small change”—to fit contingency 

circumstances. Reimer and then Shinseki had experimented with alternate possibilities. The combined-arms framework of choice came to be 

the brigade combat team, a development that Schoomaker approved; 

this was intended to be nimbler than the brigade combat team of yore. 

Subordinate units would be trained to a high standard, and training would 

include the expectations of quickly mixing and matching units to achieve 

precisely tailored solutions at any point on the combat spectrum.

The notion of smaller, nimbler, highly trained units tracked with 

yet another transformation, unit manning. Since 1907 the U.S. Army 

had relied on individual replacements to keep units up to strength 

overseas and in turbulent or casualty-prone circumstances. The system 

had its advantages and disadvantages. Its critics argued that constant 

back-and-forth movement of unit personnel degraded unit cohesion 

and guaranteed a rapid loss of the value added by combat experience or 

training. A half-dozen times since World War II, the Army had experimented with systems featuring unit manning and rotation, wherein 

soldiers stayed together as a unit for a long time and deployed together, 

without success for various reasons. The emphasis on modularity, the 

nature and scale of recurrent deployments overseas, and improvements 

in airlift and sealift all seemed to argue for yet another attempt to make 

unit manning work. The smaller, nimbler, superbly equipped and painstakingly trained units of the transformed Army should profit from the 

further cohesion unit manning would bring.

Conclusion

By the end of 2008 the United States had been engaged in the 

Global War on Terrorism for just over seven years. During that time, 

broad preparations for a variety of possible post–Cold War operations focused quickly on specific adversaries and identified missions 

in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, and the Philippines. At the 

same time, the Army could not afford to ignore continuing missions 

where the presence of U.S. headquarters and units were essential to 

maintaining worldwide U.S. commitments to peace and stability. U.S. 

Army units continued their watch in South Korea, manned a peacekeeping battalion in the Sinai, kept a corps headquarters and several 

brigades in Germany, sustained an active engagement policy in South 

America, and maintained an essential institutional training base in the 

United States, all with fewer than 550,000 active soldiers. The continual 

pace of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would stretch the force to 

greater limits than expected as rotation followed rotation in the largest 

series of unit movements in Army history. The strain on families, the 

training base, recruiting, retention, equipment, and units continued 

throughout those years, with only a glimmer of hope at the start of 

2009 that the pace might slow in the near future. The Army continued 
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517

to evolve and transform itself into a more powerful force with new 

technology that could be ready for the next adversary while coping 

with the current ones. Expanding only slightly in size (from 485,000 in 

2001 to nearly 550,000 at the start of 2009), the active force, powerfully 

supplemented by the strongest and most heavily deployed reserve and 

National Guard structure since World War II, was tested and tested 

again and proved up to its tasks. With no near-term closure in sight, 

transformation, modernization, and warfighting would have to go hand 

in hand as the Army continued to prepare itself for whatever missions 

the nation would ask of it. Discussion Questions

1. What impact did the events of September 11, 2001, have on the 

U.S. Army? How ready was the Army to respond to the initial challenges of the Global War on Terrorism? How does this war increase the 

need for joint operations?

2. What was the key to success in Afghanistan during Operation 

EnduringFreedom? How did the small numbers of U.S. ground 

troops in Afghanistan achieve such a quick result, and what can we 

learn from that success?

3. To what extent was the invasion of Iraq justified by the Global 

War on Terrorism? What were some other reasons for our attack on 

Iraq, and how persuasive were they?

4. The rapid military success of Operation 

IraqiFreedom was 

followed by the extensive involvement of the Army in peacekeeping, 

occupation duties, and nation building. To what degree are these appropriate roles for our Army?

5. To what extent does the Army role in the homeland security of 

the United States blur the lines of authority between strictly military 

and civic authorities in domestic affairs? What are some of the dangers 

of greater military involvement in such matters?

6. In what ways and how well did allies and alliances play in the 

Global War on Terrorism? 

7. How has the Global War on Terrorism affected the continuing 

Army Transformation?Recommen

ded Readings

Atkinson, Rick. In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat. New 

York: Henry Holt and Co., 2004.

Berkowitz, Bruce. The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 

21st Century. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Brown, Todd S. Battleground Iraq: Journal of a Company Commander. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007.

Fontenot, Gregory, E. J. Degen, and David Tohn. On Point: The United 

States Army in Operation 

Iraqi Freedom. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: 

Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004.

Hoffman, John, ed. Tip of the Spear: Small-Unit Actions in Iraq, 2004–2007. 

Washington, D.C: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2009.
American Military History

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Koontz, Christopher N., ed. Enduring Voices: Oral Histories of the U.S. 

Army Experience in Afghanistan, 2003–2005. Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 2008.

Reardon, Mark J., and Jeffery A. Charlston. From Transformation to Combat: 

The First Stryker Brigade at War. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 2007.

Stewart, Richard W. Operation Enduring Freedom: The U.S. Army in 

Afghanistan, October 2001–March 2002. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 2004.

Wright, Donald P., Timothy R. Reese, et al. On Point II: Transition to the 

New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 

May 2003–January 2005. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies 

Institute Press, 2008.

Other Readings

Briscoe, Charles, et al. Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Forces in 

Afghanistan. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute 

Press, 2004.

Friedman, Richard S. Advanced Technology Warfare: A Detailed Study of 

the Latest Weapons and Techniques for Warfare Today and into the 21st 

Century. New York: Harmony Books, 1985.

Gordon, Michael, and Bernard Trainor. Cobra II: The Inside Story of the 

Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. New York: Pantheon Books, 2006.

Gunaratna, Rohan. Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. New York: 

Berkeley Books, 2003.

Macgregor, Douglas A. Transformation under Fire: Revolutionizing How 

America Fights. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.

Robinson, Linda. Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the 

Search for a Way Out of Iraq. New York: Public Affairs, 2008.

West, Bing. The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq. New 

York: Random House, 2008.
519

FOA field operating agency

FORSCOM Forces Command

FROG Free Rocket Over Ground

G–1 Personnel

G–2 Intelligence

G–3 Operations

G–4 Supply

G–5 Training

GHQ General Headquarters

HAWK Homing All the Way Killer

HQDA Headquarters, Department of the 

Army

ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile

IRB immediate reaction battalion

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JRTC Joint Readiness Training Center

KATUSA Korean Augmentation to the United 

States Army

KMAG Military Advisory Group to the 

Republic of Korea

KP kitchen police

KPA Korean People’s Army

LST Landing Ship, Tank

MAAG Military Assistance Advisory Group

MACOM major Army command

MACV Military Assistance Command, 

Vietnam

MIS Military Intelligence Service

MLRS Multiple-Launch Rocket System

MRBM medium-range ballistic missile

MVA Modern Volunteer Army

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NSC National Security Council

NTC National Training Center

AAF Army Air Forces

ABDA American-British-Dutch-Australian

ACR Armored Cavalry Regiment

AD Air Defense

AEF American Expeditionary Forces

AGF Army Ground Forces

AMC Army Materiel Command

AMSP Advanced Military Studies Program

ARTEP Army Training and Evaluation Program

ASF Army Service Forces

BAR Browning Automatic Rifle

CBI China-Burma-India

CCC Civilian Conservation Corps

CCS Combined Chiefs of Staff

CDC Combat Developments Command

CENTO Central Treaty Organization

CIDG Civilian Irregular Defense Group

CINC Commander in Chief

CMTC Citizens’ Military Training Camp

CMTC Combat Maneuver Training Center

CONARC Continental Army Command

CONUS Continental United States

CONUSA Continental United States Army

CORDS Civil Operations and Rural 

Development Support

COSVN Central Office for South Vietnam

CPVF Chinese People’s Volunteer Force

CS combat support

CSS combat service support

DCSOPS Deputy Chief of Staff for Military 

Operations

DEW distant early warning

DIVAD Division Air Defense weapon 

(Sergeant York)

DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

FEAF Far East Air Forces

FEC Far East Command

FMLN Farabundo Marti Liberacion Nacional

Abbreviations
American Military History

520

SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

SHAPE Supreme Headquarters, Allied 

Powers Europe

SOG Studies and Observations Group

SOUTHCOM Southern Command

STRAC Strategic Army Corps

SWPA Southwest Pacific Area

TDA Table of Distribution and Allowances

TO&E Table of Organization and Equipment

TOW Tube-launched, Optically tracked, 

Wire-guided antitank missile

TRADOC Training and Doctrine Command

UMT Universal Military Training

UN United Nations

UNC United Nations Command

UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force

USAREC United States Army Recruiting 

Command

USAREUR United States Army, Europe

USARV United States Army, Vietnam

VOLAR Volunteer Army

WAC Women’s Army Corps

WPB War Production Board

WSA War Shipping Administration

OAS Organization of American States

OPD Operations Division

ORC Officers’ Reserve Corps

OSS Office of Strategic Services

PAC Patriot Antitactical ballistic missile 

Capability

PAVN People’s Army of Vietnam

PDF Panama Defense Force

PF Popular Forces

PLAF People’s Liberation Armed Forces

POA Pacific Ocean Area

PRC People’s Republic of China

PROVIDE Project Volunteer in Defense of the 

Nation

RCT regimental combat team

RF Regional Forces

ROAD Reorganization Objective Army 

Division

ROK Republic of Korea

ROTC Reserve Officers’ Training Corps

SAC Strategic Air Command (U.S. Air 

Force)

SAM-D Surface-to-Air Missile–Developmental

SAMS School of Advanced Military Studies

SAMVA Special Assistant for the Modern 

Volunteer Army
Mechanized Infantry

Psychological Operations Group

Armored Cavalry

Field Artillery

Aviation

Airborne

Armor

Air Assault

Air Cavalry

Infantry

Special Operations Forces

Cavalry

Map Symbols

SOF

Function

Platoon •••

Battery, Company, or Cavalry Troop I

Battalion or Cavalry Squadron II

Regiment III

Brigade X

Division XX

Corps XXX

Army XXXX

Army Group XXXXX

Size
X X

5

X X X

I

X X

1

I

A 4/6

SOF

I I

1 4

X X

82

X X

101

I I I

2ACR

X X

2

USMC

X

41

X

12AVN

X X

3

1CAV

X X

A Co, 4th Bn, 6th Infantry (Mechanized)

1st Bn, 4th Psychological Operations Group

2d Armored Cavalry Regiment

41st Field Artillery Brigade

12th Aviation Brigade

82d Airborne Division

2d Marine Division

3d Armor Division

101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

1st Cavalry Division (Vietnam)

1st Cavalry Division (Post Vietnam)

5th Infantry Division

1st Corps

Special Operations Forces

Examples
523

in Bosnia, 444–45

against Communist bases in Cambodia, 355

against Communist bases in Laos, 357, 358

in Iraq, 483, 486–87, 489, 501

in Kosovo, 450–52

in the Pacific, 171, 178, 179, 180, 188, 199

in Vietnam, 310, 311, 313, 314, 316

See also Aircraft; Airplanes; Army Air Corps; 

Army Air Forces; Aviation.

Air Service, 59, 64

Air Strike Force, 260, 261

Air supremacy, 403, 419–20, 469

Air War College, 395

Airborne Brigade (Separate), 173d, 307, 315–16, 

319, 320–21, 332–33, 489, 511

Airborne Corps, XVIII, 402, 417, 418, 419, 425, 

438, 509

Airborne Divisions, 121–22, 155, 280

11th, 93, 191

82d, 49, 50, 149, 231, 248, 270, 273, 343, 

395–96, 399, 417, 425, 438, 481, 488, 509, 

511

101st, 149, 161, 270, 274, 309, 330–31, 333, 

342, 352, 359–60, 363, 425, 481, 487–88, 

505

Airborne Infantry Battalion Task Force, 3/325, 446

Airborne Regimental Combat Team, 187th, 231

Aircraft

availability in World War II, 95

bombers, 64, 147, 186, 193

development of, 69, 88

fighter planes, 95

fixed-wing, 300–301

AC–130 Spectre, 402, 403

B–52 bomber, 313, 364

C–130, 332, 364, 402

CV–2/C–7 Caribou, 300, 314

MC–130, 431

OV–1 Mohawk, 300

tactical, 366

U–2, 267

for Lend-Lease program, 95–96

AAF. See Army Air Forces.

Abbeville Agreement, 29–30. See also World War I.

ABDA. See American-British-Dutch-Australian 

Command.

Abizaid, General John P., 502, 510

Abrams, General Creighton W., 345–46, 349, 354, 

359, 360, 363, 379–83, 384

Abrams tank. See M1/M1A1 Abrams tank.

Abu Ghraib prison, 500

Abu Sayyaf, 478–79

Acheson, Dean G., 219, 233

ACRs. See Armored cavalry regiments.

Active Defense, 245, 382

Admiralty Islands, 179

Advanced Military Studies Program (AMSP), 394

AEF. See American Expeditionary Forces.

Afghan National Army, 509–11

Afghanistan, 387, 464–70, 471–72, 473–74, 494, 

503, 509–12, 516

Africa, 433–37, 438, 503

African Americans, 274

discrimination against in the Army, 286

and integration of military units, 208

in segregated units, 122

in World War I, 27–28, 33

in World War II, 122, 154, 161

AGF. See Army Ground Forces.

Aideed, Muhammed, 434–35

Air Assault Division, 11th, 281

Air Assault Division, 101st, 425, 481, 487–88

Air-carrier task forces, 170, 180, 182, 183, 187, 

188, 192

Air Corps Act of 1926, 61, 64

Air Defense Command, 32d, 388

Air Defense Missile Battalions, 270

Air Force, Fourteenth, 197

Air Force, U.S. See U.S. Air Force.

Air forces/ground forces coordination, 144, 145, 

158, 179, 180, 193, 200. See also AirLand 

Battle; Army Air Forces; Army Ground Forces.

Air operations

in Afghanistan, 469, 470, 472

Index
American Military History

524

American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) 

Command, 89–90

American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), 10–52

Air Service, 23

dependence on allied equipment, 23–24, 41, 42, 50

organization of, 11–15, 18, 24, 35, 36, 40, 50

Services of Supply, 24

strength, 35, 45

Tank Corps, 23

training, 11–13, 15, 18, 22, 24, 25–26, 27, 35, 

48, 50

zone of operations, 36–43, 44–49, 50

See also Pershing, Maj. Gen. John J.; World War I.

“American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam, 

A Study of Military Influence and the Use of 

Force in the Post-Vietnam Era” (Petraeus), 505

Amerine, Capt. Jason, 470, 472

Amos, Lt. Gen. James F., 505

Amphibious operations, 126, 138, 142, 143, 145, 

146, 165, 178, 180–81, 183, 186, 187, 188, 191, 

196, 231, 232. See also Submarine warfare.

AMSP. See Advanced Military Studies Program.

An Khe, Vietnam, 311

An Nasiriyah, Iraq, 486, 488

Anbar Awakening, 507, 508. See also Iraq.

Andrews, Maj. Gen. Frank M., 64

Antiaircraft units, 15, 121–22, 207, 216 

Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, 466

Antiwar protests, 275, 276, 286, 339. See also

Public opinion.

Antwerp, Belgium, 154, 155, 158, 159

Anzio, Italy, 145–46

APC. See M113 armored personnel carrier.

Arab countries

and the Global War on Terrorism, 475, 477

and the Persian Gulf War, 416, 417, 424–25

and the war in Iraq, 480

Arab-Israeli War (1973), 381, 386, 392

Arcadia Conference, 85, 86, 87, 89, 97. See also 

World War II.

Ardennes, 122, 125, 155, 159–62, 163

Argonne Forest, 44, 50

Arias, Arnulfo, 401

Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 437, 438–39, 440

Armed Forces Staff College, 207

Armed services unification, 206–08, 278

Armies

First, 40–43, 44–49, 50–51, 148, 152–53, 154, 

155, 158, 159, 162, 163, 164

Second, 48, 50, 243

Third, 57, 152–53, 154, 155, 158, 162, 163, 270

Fifth, 145, 146

Sixth, 187, 188, 192

Seventh, 142, 153, 158, 163, 232, 248

Eighth, 188, 192, 226, 229–30, 231–32, 233, 

234–35, 236–37, 238–42, 232–44, 245, 

246–47, 248, 249, 252

Aircraft—Continued

produced for Great Britain, 74

production in World War II, 83

range, 144, 180

strategic bombers, 256

unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 457, 489

World War I use, 3, 23, 42

and war in Afghanistan, 469

World War II, 144, 180, 183, 187, 188

See also Air operations; Airplanes; Army 

Air Corps; Army Air Forces; Aviation; 

Helicopters.

Aircraft carriers, 66, 144, 170, 180, 188, 417

AirLand Battle, 382–84, 389, 392, 394, 396, 399

Airplanes, 3, 52, 63–64, 83, 88, 165, 456. See 

also Air operations; Aircraft; Army Air Corps; 

Army Air Forces; Aviation.

Airport security, 465

Aisne-Marne Campaign, 36–40. See also World 

War I.

Aisne River, 2, 31, 44, 45, 47

Al-Jazeera, 491. See also Cable News Network; 

Media; Press.

Al-Qaeda, 468–74, 475–76, 477–78, 502, 503, 507, 

509. See also Bin Laden, Osama; Global War 

on Terrorism.

Al-Maliki, Nouri, 503, 508

Al-Sadr, Moqtada, 499, 502

Al-Zarqawi, Abu Musaab, 502, 503

Alabama, 275–76

Alamo Scouts, 191

Alaska, 73, 80, 89, 98, 170, 173–74, 206, 257

Albania, 80, 211, 443, 445, 450, 451–52, 453

Albanian Kosovars, 450–55

Aleutian Islands, 78, 98, 170, 193, 257

Alexander, General Sir Harold R. L. G., 135, 

139–41, 141–42

Alexander, Maj. Gen. Robert, 45

Algeria, 133, 135, 138, 268

Ali, Hazrat, 473

Allied Airborne Army, First, 155

Allied Command Central Europe, 272

Allied Control Council, 208, 209

Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), 445, 453

Almond, Maj. Gen. Edward M., 231–32, 234, 235, 

236, 237, 238

Alvim, Lt. Gen. Hugo Panasco, 274

Amalgamation, 9, 18, 27, 28, 29–30. See also 

World War I.

Ambushes

in Afghanistan, 473, 478

in Iraq, 480, 486, 495 

in Somalia, 434 

in Vietnam, 296, 303, 313, 317–18, 322, 329, 

339, 346, 350, 351, 361

See also Surprise.

AMC. See U.S. Army Materiel Command.
index

525

recruiting, 458

strength, 283, 381

support units, 283, 379

training units, 283

See also National Guard.

Army Service Forces (ASF), 88–89, 90, 123, 128, 

216. See also Army Air Service; Army Ground 

Forces; Services of Supply.

Army Specialized Training Program, 122

Army Staff, 117–18, 278–80, 406

Army Training and Evaluation Program (ARTEP), 395

Arnim, General Juergen von, 138–39

Arnold, Lt. Gen. Henry H. “Hap,” 86, 102

ARRC. See Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.

ARTEP. See Army Training and Evaluation Program.

Artillery battalions, 14, 121, 140, 281

ASF. See Army Service Forces.

Assistant Chief of Staff for Force Development, 280

Assistant Secretaries for Manpower and Reserve 

Affairs, 285

Assistant Secretary of War, 19, 59–60, 64

Assistant Secretary of War for Air Affairs, 64

Atlantic Charter, 75

Atlantic Ocean

German attacks on shipping, 73, 81, 96, 108, 

120, 146–47

military air routes over, 73

protection of shipping, 73–74, 96–97, 108, 

146–47

U.S. Navy operations, 73

Atomic bomb, 117, 123, 199, 202, 214, 215, 456. 

See also World War II.

Atterbury, William W., 24

Attrition, wars of

Japan’s attempt to wage, 170

in Vietnam, 305, 337, 351, 366

and World War II, 108, 113, 119

Austin, Maj. Gen. Lloyd J., 509

Australia, 259

and Afghanistan, 478

and Korean War, 228

and Vietnam War, 308, 315

and World War II, 89–90, 91, 92–93, 97–98, 

170, 172, 178, 191, 192

Austria, 1, 6, 27, 58, 71, 163, 208, 445

Aviation, 3, 63–64, 200, 207, 216, 264, 281, 300–

301, 302, 304–05, 318, 417–18, 429, 435. 

See also Air Operations; Airplanes; Aircraft; 

Army Air Corps; Army Air Forces.

Aviation Group, 11th, 481, 486–87, 488

Azores, 75, 99

B–1 bomber, 469

B–52 bomber, 469

Ba’athist Muslims, 481, 489, 490, 491, 495–98, 

502. See also Shi’ite Muslims; Sunni 

Muslims.

Ninth, 154, 158, 159, 162, 163, 164

Tenth, 193

Armored artillery battalions, 121

Armored Cavalry Regiments (ACRs), 417

2d, 424, 499

3d, 425

11th, 318, 319, 320, 355

Armored Divisions, 121, 152

1st, 99, 139, 270, 271, 280, 426, 446, 501

2d, 208, 424, 426

3d, 426

4th, 161

9th, 162, 163

Armored Force School, 73

Armored infantry units, 121

Army 86 studies, 392

Army 2000 study group, 407

Army Air Corps, 61, 63–64, 65, 66, 69, 71, 72, 85. 

See also Air operations; Aircraft; Airplanes; 

Army Air Forces; Aviation.

Army Air Forces (AAF), 72–73, 88

bombing of Germany, 147

bombing of Japan, 175, 186, 196–98

bombing missions, 99

efforts to become separate service, 64, 88, 204

equipment for, 88, 89

operations in China, 196–97

and protection of shipping, 97

replacements, 123–24

strength, 121–22

See also Aircraft; Airplanes; Army Air Corps; 

Aviation; Army Ground Forces; Army Service 

Forces; Services of Supply; U.S. Air Force.

Army Air Service, 59, 64

Army of Excellence, 393

Army Field Forces, 216

Army Ground Forces (AGF), 88, 89, 96, 120, 

123, 216. See also Air forces/ground forces 

coordination; AirLand Battle; Army Air 

Forces; Army Service Forces; Services of 

Supply.

Army Groups

6th, 153, 161, 162, 163, 164

12th, 152, 161, 165

15th, 141

Army Industrial College, 60

“Army of One,” 458

Army Reorganization Act of 1950, 216

Army of the Republic of Vietnam. See South 

Vietnamese Army.

Army Reserve, 267, 429, 514–15

equipment for, 385, 387

and homeland security, 514

mobilized to provide postal service, 285

and Operation Iraqi Freedom, 514

organization, 280, 283, 285, 299

readiness, 284, 299
American Military History

526

British 21st Army Group, 148, 152, 154, 159, 163, 

164

British Army

1st Armoured Division, 481, 483

Second Army, 148, 150, 153

7th Armoured Brigade, 481

Eighth Army, 101, 135, 138, 140, 141, 144, 

145–46

American troops under the command of, 56

British Chiefs of Staff, 86, 87, 115

British Expeditionary Forces, 12

British Joint Staff Mission, 86

Browning, John M., 14

Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), 23–24

Brussels Treaty, 213, 218. See also World War II.

Buckner, Lt. Gen. Simon B., 193

Bulgaria, 1, 211, 453

Bulge, Battle of the, 125. See also World War II.

Bullard, Maj. Gen. Robert L., 30, 35, 37–38, 39, 

45, 50

Buna-Gona, New Guinea, 172

Bundy, McGeorge, 338

Bundy, Maj. Gen. Omar, 31, 32, 33

Burma, 87, 89–90, 91, 169–70, 173, 174, 193, 

195–96, 197

Burma Road, 91, 196

Bush, George H. W., 416, 418, 433, 438, 480

Bush, George W., 464, 466, 468, 474, 476–77, 

481, 497

Bush (George W.) administration, 466, 474, 495

Butros-Ghali, Butros, 438

Butts, Col. Edmund, 34

Byrnes, James F., 127

Cable News Network (CNN), 421. See also AlJazeera; Media; Press.

Cairo Conference, 111. See also World War II.

Callaway, Howard H. “Bo,” 377

Cambodia, 294, 297, 305, 309, 312, 313–14, 315, 

316–17, 320, 330, 331, 333, 349–50, 351, 

354–55, 357, 362, 363, 442

Cameron, Maj. Gen. George H., 38–39, 42, 45

Canada, 74, 76, 97, 133, 152, 174, 218, 228, 257, 

478

Canadian First Army, 152–53

Canadian Navy, 97

Cantigny, France, 30–31

Cap Haitian, Haiti, 439

Caribbean, 273–74

Caroline Islands, 170, 171, 172, 175, 181, 183, 

187

Carter, Jimmy, 438–39

Casablanca Conference, 107, 108, 109, 141, 147, 

174, 196. See also World War II.

Casey, General George W., Jr., 500, 501, 503

Casey, Maj. Gen. George W., Sr., 501

Castro, Fidel, 261, 267, 270

Baghdad, Iraq, 481–82, 483, 486, 487, 489–90, 

502–03, 506–07

Baghdad International Airport, 487

Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, 470, 473–74

Bahrain, 424

Baker, Col. Chauncey, 13

Baker, Newton D., 9–10, 11, 18–19, 20, 27, 28

Balfour, Arthur, 8

Balkan states, 80, 81, 110, 111, 112–13, 115, 

512–13

Ballistic missile defense, 272, 466

Baltic states, 71

Bangalore torpedoes, 42

BAR. See Browning Automatic Rifle.

Barbed wire, 2, 8, 42, 45

Barno, Maj. Gen. David W., 510, 511

Baruch, Bernard, 23

Bastogne, Belgium, 161

Bataan Peninsula, Philippines, 92–94, 191

Batista, Fulgencia, 261

Belgium, 7, 18, 57, 152, 154, 159, 228, 272

Belleau Wood, France, 32–33, 39

Berlin, Germany, 111, 115, 116, 208, 217–18, 

268–69, 270–71, 298, 413

Berlin Airlift, 217

Biak Island, 182–83

BIDS. See Biological integrated detection system.

Bin Abdul Azziz, Fahd, 417. See also Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden, Osama, 468, 473–74, 475, 509. See 

also Al-Qaeda; Global War on Terrorism.

Binh Dinh Pacification Campaign, 326, 328–29. 

See also Vietnam War.

Biological integrated detection system (BIDS), 466

Bir, Lt. Gen. Cevik, 434

Bismarck Sea, Battle of the, 172. See also World 

War II.

Bliss, Maj. Gen. Tasker H., 9, 19, 29

BLU–82 “Daisy Cutter” bomb, 469

BLUEFOR tracking system, 513–14

Boatner, Brig. Gen. Haydon L., 246, 247

Bonin Islands, 187

Bonus Marchers, 65. See also Civil disturbances; 

Domestic disorders/disturbances.

Border security, 465–66. See also Homeland 

security.

Borneo, 192

Bosnia-Herzegovina, 443

Bosnian Peace Agreement, 445

Bougainville, 178

Bradley, General Omar N., 142, 148, 152–53, 165, 

207, 216. See also World War II.

Braun, Wernher von, 258

Brazil, 75, 274

Bremer, L. Paul, 495, 499

Brereton, Lt. Gen. Lewis H., 155

Bridges, Maj. Gen. G. M. T., 8, 9

Brigade combat teams, 457, 499, 514, 516
index

527

See also Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Changjin Reservoir, North Korea, 234–35, 236, 237

Charlton, Lt. Col. John W., 513

Chechnya, 475

Chemical Company, 310th, 466

Chemical Warfare Service, 26, 59

Cheney, Richard, 378

Chennault, Maj. Gen. Claire L., 196–97

Chernomyrdin, Viktor, 452

Chiang Kai-shek, Generalissimo, 87, 195, 196, 

197, 198, 211, 218

Chicago, Illinois, 275

Chief, Army Reserve, 280, 285

Chief, National Guard Bureau, 279–80

Chief of Staff, Army, 19, 60, 216

Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander 

(COSSAC), 108

Chief Supply Officer, 19

China. See People’s Republic of China. See also 

Chinese People’s Volunteer Force.

China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater, 87, 117, 123, 

195–98. See also World War II.

Chinese Nationalist forces, 240, 242, 292

Chinese People’s Volunteer Force (CPVF), 235, 

241–42, 244, 245, 247, 249–50, 252

Choctaw Indians, 48

Churchill, Winston, 75–76, 113, 116, 128, 211

and invasion of Southern France, 112

and Mediterranean Theater, 99, 101, 103, 108, 

110, 111, 113

and North Africa, 99

and political considerations in World War II, 116

and World War II strategy, 85, 107–08, 109, 115

CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency.

CIDG. See Civilian Irregular Defense Group.

Citizens’ Military Training Camp (CMTC), 63

Civil defense, 257, 465, 466

Civil disturbances, 274–77, 283, 343. See also

Domestic disorders/disturbances; Racial 

disturbances.

Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development 

Support (CORDS), 346–47, 366

Civil Operations and Rural Development Support 

(CORDS), 346–47, 366

Civil rights, 208, 274–77, 286, 343

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 65–66

Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), 298–300, 

330, 351–52

CJCMOTF. See Combined Joint Civil-Military 

Operations Task Force.

CJSOTF. See Combined Joint Special Operations 

Task Force.

CJTF. See Coalition Joint Task Force–7; Combined 

Joint Task Force–76/82/101; Combined 

Joint Task Force–180.

Clark, General Mark W., 144, 145–46, 165, 

246–47, 249, 250

Casualties

American

on 9-11, 463, 464, 465

intervention in Russian civil war, 58

in Iraq, 486, 490, 504

Korean War, 227, 229, 237, 245, 247, 248, 

249

in Panama, 402, 406

at Pearl Harbor, 80

during the Persian Gulf War, 418, 427

in the Philippine Islands, 191

in Somalia, 434

during the Vietnam War, 313, 316, 321, 

333, 338, 346, 353, 361, 368

during World War I, 26, 30, 31, 33, 35, 38, 

43, 49, 51

during World War II, 122, 124, 149, 161, 

172

civilian, 191, 403, 450, 452

Korean War, 227, 229, 237, 239, 242, 243, 

245, 247–49

in Kosovo, 448–49, 451, 452

in Panama, 402, 406

at Pearl Harbor, 80

during the Persian Gulf War, 427

in the Philippine Islands, 191

in Sicily, 142

in Somalia, 434

in Vietnam, 306, 312, 313, 316, 321, 

326–27, 333, 343, 348, 351, 352, 362, 

370

during World War I, 2, 6, 26, 28–29, 30, 

31, 33, 34–35, 38, 43, 51

during World War II, 143, 149, 161, 162, 

172, 189, 191

Cavalry, 7th, 313

Cavalry Division, 1st, 179, 226, 229, 235, 281

Cavalry Division (Airmobile), 1st, 281, 301, 311, 

312, 314, 326, 328–29, 330–31, 342–43, 

349–50, 355, 360, 363, 421, 424

Cavalry units, 15, 313

CBI. See China-Burma-India Theater.

CCS. See Combined Chiefs of Staff.

CDC. See U.S. Army Combat Developments 

Command.

Cedras, Lt. Gen. Raoul, 437–40

CENTCOM. See U.S. Central Command.

CENTO. See Central Treaty Organization.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 108, 222, 299, 

347, 358, 401

Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), 297, 

319, 321, 349–50, 355, 366

Central Pacific Area, 175, 181, 182, 187, 192

Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), 261

Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 91

Chaffee, Adna R., Jr., 74

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 207, 406. 
American Military History

528

Communications, lines of

in China-Burma-India Theater, 196

enemy in Vietnam, 321, 324, 331, 342, 354–55, 

357–58, 360–62, 364

German in World War II, 145

in Iraq, 487, 495

Japanese in World War II, 169–70, 173, 179, 

186

Korean War, 229, 233–34, 237

NATO, 272

North Korean, 229, 230, 239, 242, 243, 247

World War I, 11–12, 13, 15, 24, 37, 38, 41, 44, 

46, 49

World War II, 119, 126–30, 155, 158, 170–71, 

187

Communism, 210–14

and China, 211–12, 218, 219

expansion in Southeast Asia, 272–73

and Korea, 219

in Vietnam, 289, 290, 292–93, 295, 333, 339, 

342–43, 344

See also People’s Republic of China; North 

Vietnam; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Comptroller, 279, 280

CONARC. See U.S. Continental Army Command.

Concentration, 103, 108, 113, 115, 116, 126, 186. 

See also Mass.

Concentration camps, 163

Concepts Analysis Agency, 390

Congress. See U.S. Congress.

Conner, Lt. Col. Fox, 11, 13

Conscription, 2, 20–21, 76, 252. See also Draft, 

the; Selective Service.

Containment policy, 211, 212, 214, 215, 218, 

219, 252, 272–73. See also Union of Soviet 

Socialist Republics.

Continental Air Defense Command, 257

Continental United States (CONUS), 55, 60, 61, 

68, 71, 73, 74, 95, 125, 248, 259, 389, 390, 

395, 465, 467

Continental United States Armies (CONUSAs), 390

Contractors, 446, 450, 467, 499, 513

CONUS. See Continental United States.

CONUSAs. See Continental United States Armies.

Coolidge, Calvin, 64

Coral Sea, Battle of the, 98, 101, 170. See also 

World War II.

CORDS. See Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support; Civil Operations and 

Rural Development Support.

Corps

I, 29, 35, 36, 38–39, 40, 42–43, 45, 49, 50–51, 

234, 235, 241, 243, 245

II, 35, 48, 49, 139, 140, 142

III, 35, 37–38, 39, 40–41, 45, 48–49, 50

IV, 35, 42–43

V, 42–43, 45, 48–49, 50, 159, 161, 481, 487, 500

Clark, General Wesley K., 452–53

Clay, General Lucius D., 217

Clemenceau, George, 29–30

Clinton, William J., 435, 438, 442

CMTC. See Citizens’ Military Training Camp; 

Combat Maneuver Training Center.

CNN. See Cable News Network.

Coalition command relationships 

during the Persian Gulf War, 419

in Vietnam, 308–09

during World War II, 85–91, 108, 129, 111–14, 

126, 128–30

Coalition Forces Land Component Command 

(Forward), 508–09

Coalition Joint Task Force–7 (CJTF-7), 500

Coast artillery units, 122

Coast Guard, U.S. See U.S. Coast Guard.

Coastal fortification, 69, 80, 118

Combined Joint Task Force–76/82/101, 511–12

Combined Joint Task Force–180 (CJTF-180), 500

Code talkers, 48

Cold War, 210–12, 217–19, 267–68, 271–72, 413, 

437

Collins, General J. Lawton, 240

Colombia, 228, 401

Comanche Indians, 48

Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC), 395, 

443

Combat service support (CSS), 380, 417, 429, 514, 

515

Combat support (CS), 122, 214, 362, 377, 379, 

380, 392, 417, 429, 514, 515

Combined Arms Center, 505

Combined Arms and Services Staff School, 394

Combined Bomber Offensive, 108, 109, 110, 147. 

See also World War II.

Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), 86, 127, 147, 196

Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan, 510, 

511

Combined Forces Command–Central Asia, 510

Combined Joint Civil-Military Operations Task 

Force (CJCMOTF), 509, 510

Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force 

(CJSOTF), 509

Combined Joint Task Force–76, 511–12

Combined Joint Task Force–180, 509, 510, 511

Combined Joint Task Force Mountain, 509

Command and control, 240, 264, 281, 282, 293, 

383, 389

in Iraq, 480

joint operations difficulties with, 401, 406

of Kosovo operations, 452

in UN peacekeeping operations, 442

in Vietnam, 300, 308–09, 314

Command and General Staff School, 60

Commander in Chief, Pacific, 302, 308

Commanders in Chief, 207, 406
index

529

Department of Defense (DOD), 207, 281, 285, 406

budgets, 277

and centralization of activities, 278

Directorate of Research and Development, 262

and planning for the all-volunteer force, 374–75

and technology to produce superior armed 

forces, 383–89

and war on drugs, 465–66

See also Secretary of Defense.

Department of the Navy, 64, 127, 205, 206, 207. 

See also U.S. Navy.

Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations 

(DCSOPS), 280

DePuy, General William E., 319, 382, 383, 386, 

390–92, 407. See also Vietnam War.

Detroit, Michigan, 276

Devers, Lt. Gen. Jacob L., 153, 165

DEW. See Distant early warning.

DeWitt, Lt. Gen. John L., 84

Dickman, Maj. Gen. Joseph T., 31–32, 34, 35, 

42–43, 51

Diego Garcia, 417

Diem, Ngo Dinh, 290, 292, 293–95, 297, 299, 

302–03, 304–05. See also South Vietnam; 

Vietnam War.

Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam, 290, 295, 311, 340

Dill, Field Marshal John, 86

Directorate for Civil Disturbance Planning and 

Operations, 276

Directorate of Military Support, 276

Distant early warning (DEW), 257

DIVAD. See Division Air Defense.

Division 86, 392–93

Division Air Defense (DIVAD) weapon, 384

Division Restructuring Study Group, 391–92

Divisions

1st, 11, 13, 18, 25–26, 30–31, 36, 37–38, 43, 

48, 49, 149, 319, 350, 352, 362

2d, 25, 31, 32–33, 37–38, 40, 47, 500

3d, 31–32, 34, 38, 39, 46, 47, 48

4th, 35, 38–39, 45, 48, 331

5th, 49, 349, 352

6th, 183

7th, 174

25th, 172, 316, 351

26th, 25, 30, 36, 38, 43, 139, 320, 506

27th, 48, 180

28th, 34–35, 36, 39, 40, 48

30th, 34, 48

31st, 183

32d, 39, 40, 48, 49, 98, 172, 178

35th, 8, 48

36th, 49

37th, 48, 98, 178, 189

38th, 191

41st, 98, 192

42d (Rainbow), 25, 33, 39

VI, 145–46

VII, 418, 419, 421, 422, 425–27

VIII, 159

IX, 235, 239, 241, 243, 245

X, 231–32, 233, 234, 235–36, 237, 238, 240, 

244–45

XXIV, 344, 358–59

Corregidor, Philippines, 92, 93, 94, 191

COSSAC. See Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied 

Commander.

Costa Rica, 274

COSVN. See Central Office for South Vietnam.

Council of National Defense, 23

Counterinsurgency, 282, 283, 295, 298, 301, 

302–04, 305, 318, 347, 348, 381, 391, 477, 

504–07, 510

Counterterrorism, 416, 474–75, 477, 510. See also

Global War on Terrorism.

CPVF. See Chinese People’s Volunteer Force.

Craig, Col. Malin, 35

Crerar, Lt. Gen. Henry D. G., 152

Crete, Greece, 80

Croatia, 444, 445

Cross-Channel Attack (Harrison), 113

Crowder, Maj. Gen. Enoch, 21

Crowell, Benedict, 19

CS. See Combat Support.

CSS. See Combat Service Support.

Cuba, 261, 267, 268–71, 273, 298, 399, 401, 

438

Cuban Missile Crisis, 268, 270–71, 298

Current Force, 513

Czech Republic, 445

Czechoslovakia, 72, 165, 213, 250, 284, 343

Da Nang, Vietnam, 307, 340, 342, 363, 368

Dak To, Battle of, 330, 332–33, 364. See also

Vietnam War.

Dawes, Charles G., 24

Dayton, Ohio, 445

Dean, Maj. Gen. William F., 227

Deception, 149, 383, 424

Defense Authorization Act of 1997, 466

Defense Department. See Department of Defense.

Defense Intelligence Agency, 278

Defense Supply Agency, 278, 279

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) 

(North Korea), 212, 221–22, 223–24, 226, 

230, 232, 233, 242, 244, 246, 249, 250, 252, 

343. See also Korean War; Republic of Korea.

Dempsey, Lt. Gen. Miles, 148

Denmark, 72, 165, 228

Department of the Air Force, 206, 207. See also

U.S. Air Force.

Department of the Army, 206, 207, 218. See also

Headquarters, Department of the Army; U.S. 

Army.
American Military History

530

and national security strategy, 255

and organization of the military establishment, 

262–63

and organization of the national security 

system, 206, 215–16

responsibility for political decisions in World 

War II, 115, 116

and school desegregation, 274

and the Sicily Campaign, 141

and strategy against Germany, 99, 116

as Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary 

Force, 148–49, 152, 153–54, 155, 161, 162

and Vietnam War, 290, 292

See also World War II.

Eisenhower Doctrine, 260

El Salvador, 274, 397–99, 442

human rights issues, 398, 399

military advisors to, 397, 398, 399

Ely, Col. Hanson, 30–31

Emergency Conservation Work Act, 65

Engineer units, 15, 29, 318, 446. See also U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers.

English Channel, 100–101, 108, 141, 143, 146–53

Enigma, 144. See also Ultra.

Enright, Pvt. Thomas F., 26

Equipment

maintenance, 203

modernization, 68, 69, 72, 262, 264, 292, 298, 

379, 383–89

shortages, 74, 95, 121

Estonia, 445

Ethiopia, 67, 228

Ethnic rivalries, 443–47, 450–55

Europe

American forces in during the Cold War, 232, 

256–57, 262

detente in, 271–72

Soviet threat to, 208–09, 210–12, 248, 256–57

European Recovery Program, 213

European Theater of Operations, 87, 114, 123, 

206. See also World War II.

Evey, Lee, 467

Expeditionary Division, 1st, 9

Faid Pass, Tunisia, 139

Failed states, 437, 442

Faith, Lt. Col. Don C., Jr., 236

Fallujah, Iraq, 499, 501

Far East Air Force, 79, 92, 169

Far East Air Forces (FEAF), 226, 229–30, 236, 

239, 247

Far East Advisory Committee, 209

Far East Command (FEC), 224, 226, 229, 235, 239. 

See also U.S. Army Far Eastern Command.

Far East Naval Forces, 226, 229

Farabundo Marti Liberacion Nacional (FMLN), 397–

99. See also Operations, combat, Just Cause.

Divisions—Continued

43d, 172

77th, 40, 45, 48, 49, 189, 193

79th, 48

81st, 183

82d, 49, 50

86th, 193

93d, 27–28, 33, 35, 122

Americal, 172

organization of

pentomic, 263, 264, 280

ROAD, 280, 314

square, 9, 13–14, 70

triangular, 70, 121

in World War I, 9, 11, 13–14, 18, 32

in World War II, 121–23

Djibouti, 479

DOD. See Department of Defense.

Domestic disorders/disturbances, 57–58, 

62, 64–66, 275, 465, 467. See also Civil 

disturbances; Racial disturbances.

Domestic Preparedness Training Initiative, 466

Dominican Republic, 273–74, 308

Donovan, William J., 108

Doolittle, Col. James H., 170

Dostum, General Abdul Rashid, 470

Douhet, Giulio, 64

DPRK. See Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Draft, the, 20–21, 73, 205, 265, 266, 283–85, 

309, 374–75, 376, 377, 380–81. See also

Conscription, Selective Service.

Drugs, war on, 401, 465–66

Drum, Maj. Hugh, 11, 13

Dulles, John Foster, 255

Easter offensive, 363, 364, 366, 367. See also

Vietnam War.

Economic aid and U.S. containment policy, 212–13, 

218, 249, 252, 259, 261

Economy of force, 2

Allied use in World War II, 166, 183

coalition use in the Persian Gulf War, 421, 425

Communist use in Vietnam, 351

Japanese use, 80

and U.S. operations in Vietnam, 329

See also War, principles of.

Edwards, Maj. Gen. Clarence, 30

Egypt, 80, 101–03, 134, 261, 381, 395, 424, 440, 

445

Eichelberger, Lt. Gen. Robert L., 188, 192

Eikenberry, Maj. Gen. Karl W., 510, 511

Eisenhower, General Dwight D., 87, 112, 246, 290

and command of Allied forces in North Africa, 

135, 138–39

and the Italian Campaign, 141–44

and the Korean War, 248–49

and military spending, 261–62, 267
index

531

Leavenworth, Kansas, 24–25, 60, 382, 394, 505

Lewis, Washington, 392, 499

McPherson, Georgia, 390

Monroe, Virginia, 390

Ord, California, 375–76

Polk, Louisiana, 395

Sam Houston, Texas, 9

Stewart, Georgia, 428–29

Foulois, Lt. Benjamin, 3 

Fragging, 353, 354, 373

France, 268

American forces in, 11–15

American supplies for in World War II, 74, 126

Château-Thierry region, 31–32, 36

and Indochina, 259, 289–90

invasion in the south of, 112, 153

and the Korean War, 228, 240–41

and Kosovo, 450

Lorraine region, 2, 12, 13, 15, 27

and NATO, 268, 272, 289

and Operation Provide Comfort, 432

and the Persian Gulf War, 419, 425

resistance fighters, 149, 151–52

and World War I, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7–9, 11–13, 15, 18, 

28–29

and World War II, 72, 74, 134, 138, 141, 

148–49

See also French Army.

Franks, Lt. Gen. Frederick M., Jr., 419. See also 

Operations, combat, Desert Storm; Persian 

Gulf War.

Franks, General Tommy R., 481, 482, 502, 508–

09, 510. See also Iraq; Operations, combat, 

Iraqi Freedom.

Fratricide, 142

Fredendall, Maj. Gen. Lloyd R., 139, 140

Free French forces, 134, 153. See also World War 

II.

French Army

First Army, 153, 158, 163

III Corps, 36

Fourth Army, 44, 45, 49

Fifth Army, 37

Sixth Army, 37, 39, 40

Ninth Army, 37, 38

Tenth Army, 37–38

10th Colonial Division, 32

XVII Corps, 49

XX Corps, 37–38

XXXII Corps, 35

XXXVIII Corps, 39

47th Chasseur Alpin Division, 26

125th Division, 34

167th Division, 36, 39

and African-American units, 27, 33

under American commanders in World War I, 

41, 42

FBCB2. See Force XXI Battle Command Brigade 

and Battalion.

FBI. See Federal Bureau of Investigation.

FCS. See Future Combat System.

FEAF. See Far East Air Forces.

FEC. See Far East Command.

Fedayeen, 480–81, 486, 488. See also Iraq.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 85, 275

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 

467

Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), 

209, 256–57, 272

FEMA. See Federal Emergency Management 

Agency.

Field Artillery, 6th, 9

Field artillery regiments, 9, 15

Field Force, I, 317, 330, 332

Field Force, II, 317, 319

Field Manual 3–24, Counterinsurgency, 505

Field Manual 100–5, Operations, 382–83, 391, 

396, 428

Fiji Islands, 98

Filipino Scouts, 93

Finland, 71, 445

Fleets

Second, 271

Sixth, 261

Seventh, 183, 224, 226

Asiatic, 90, 92

flexible response, 272, 293, 298, 313, 415

Pacific, 77, 98, 169, 170, 180, 182, 183, 187, 

198, 200

Ready Reserve, 428

See also U.S. Navy.

FMLN. See Farabundo Marti Liberacion Nacional. 

Foch, General Ferdinand, 29, 30, 31, 36–37, 40, 

41, 43–44, 48

Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Battalion 

(FBCB2), 513–14

Force XXI Functional Area Analyses, 391

Ford, Gerald R., 367

Formosa, 79, 175, 182, 183, 186–87, 198

Forrestal, James V., 206, 207

FORSCOM. See U.S. Army Forces Command.

Forsythe, Lt. Gen. George I., 350, 375

“Fortress America,” 69, 397

Forts

Benning, Georgia, 270, 281, 375

Bliss, Texas, 395, 429

Bragg, North Carolina, 375, 402, 428–29, 505, 

509

Campbell, Kentucky, 429

Carson, Colorado, 375

Chaffee, Arkansas, 395

Dix, New Jersey, 450

Hood, Texas, 270, 429, 508

Irwin, California, 395, 396
American Military History

532

Graves, Maj. Gen. William S., 58

Great Britain, 67, 271

air battles over, 81

American supplies for in World War II, 74, 76, 

99–100, 125–26, 165

as base for air attacks on Germany, 100, 108, 110

and the China-Burma-India Theater, 173, 

195–97

and the Global War on Terrorism, 475

and Indochina, 259

industrial production in World War II, 114

and the Korean War, 228, 230

and Kosovo, 453

logistics buildup in for cross-channel invasion, 

146, 147, 149

and the Mediterranean region, 80–81, 102–03, 

107–08, 109–10, 113

and the Middle East, 261

Ministry of War Transport, 127

and North Africa invasion, 133, 135

and Operation Provide Comfort, 432

and the Persian Gulf War, 419, 425, 426

and planning for cross-channel invasion, 

99–100, 101–02

and protection of shipping, 75–76, 96–97

strategy against Germany, 99–103, 107–09, 

112, 113–15, 116

and the war in Iraq, 481, 483, 488, 497

and World War I, 1, 2–3, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 18, 27, 

28–29, 41, 42, 43–44, 46, 47

and World War II in the Pacific, 117, 126, 196–201

See also American-British-Dutch-Australian 

(ABDA) Command; Royal Air Force; British 

Army; British Chiefs of Staff; Royal Navy.

Greece, 211, 212, 218, 228, 243

Greenland, 75

Grenada, 388, 399, 401. See also Operations, 

combat, Urgent Fury.

Gresham, Cpl. James B., 26

Guadalcanal, 99, 170, 171–72

Guam, 90, 169, 183, 201, 313

Guam Doctrine, 381

Guantanámo Bay, Cuba, 71, 270, 476–77

Guerrilla warfare, 282–83, 297–98

in Afghanistan, 469, 478

in El Salvador, 397, 398–99

in Korea, 222, 223, 232

in Kosovo, 450

in Philippine Islands, 187–88, 295

in Vietnam, 282–83, 292, 294–95, 296, 353, 367

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 306. See also Southeast 

Asia.

Haan, Maj. Gen. William G., 40

Hagenbeck, Maj. Gen. Franklin L., 509

Haig, Lt. Col. Alexander M., 320

Haig, Field Marshal Douglas, 27, 29, 41, 48

French Army—Continued

American units serving under, 27, 31–32, 34–35

coordination with American forces in World War I, 

27, 30–31, 35, 36–40, 41–42, 44, 49–50, 52

mutinies, 6, 27

French North Africa, 99, 102, 134–36, 138

FROG. See Missiles, Free Rocket Over Ground.

Fronius, S. Sgt. Gregory A., 398

Future Combat System (FCS), 457–59, 498, 513

Garner, Lt. Gen. Jay M., 432, 495

Gas masks, 26

Gates, Robert M., 508

Gates Commission, 374

Gaulle, Charles de, 268, 272

Geiger, Lt. Gen. Roy S., 193

General Organization Project, 13–14, 21

Geneva Conference of 1954, 259, 290, 293

German Army, 1–2

in Afghanistan, 478

on the defensive in Europe, 141–46, 153–66

Italy occupied by, 143–46

Germany

Allied plans for the defeat of, 75, 85–86

American forces in during the Cold War, 232, 388

attacks on shipping, 75, 81, 96, 108, 120, 134, 

146–47

bombing of, 98, 100, 108, 120, 146, 147

and the Global War on Terrorism, 475

Great Britain as base for air attacks against, 

100, 108, 110

and Kosovo, 453

and North Africa in World War II, 80–81, 133–41

occupation of, 57, 58, 208–10, 217

and Sicily, 142–43

Soviet Union invaded by, 75

strategy for the war against, 107–10, 113–15

unification, 407, 413

and World War I, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 15, 18, 27, 28–35, 

36–37, 38, 39–40, 41–49

and World War II, 71, 75, 76

See also Federal Republic of Germany.

Ghormley, Vice Adm. Robert L., 87, 171

GHQ. See General Headquarters.

Giap, General Vo Nguyen, 295

Gilbert Islands, 169–70, 175, 180–81

Glider-borne units, 121–22, 142, 155

Global positioning systems (GPS), 430, 453, 456, 469

Global War on Terrorism, 464, 474–77, 503, 505, 

508, 512, 516. See also Counterterrorism; 

Homeland security; Prisoners of war; Public 

opinion; September 11 attacks; Terrorism.

Goethals, Maj. Gen. George W., 19, 20, 23

Goldwater-Nichols Defense Act, 406

Göring, Hermann, 205

Government Code and Cipher School (British), 144

GPS. See Global positioning systems.
index

533

Honduras, 274, 397

Hong Kong, 90, 230

Hoover, Herbert C., 65

Hopkins, Harry, 99, 100, 103

House, Edward, 27

Howze, General Hamilton, 281

Howze Board, 281

HQDA. See Headquarters, Department of the 

Army.

Hue, Vietnam, 340, 342–43, 344, 352, 364, 368

Humanitarian relief

in Afghanistan, 477, 509

in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 444

and the Global War on Terrorism, 477–78

in Iraq, 483

for Kosovars, 450

for the Kurds, 430–33, 443

organizations, 432, 434, 454

for Somalia, 433–37, 443

in the United States, 65, 466–67

See also Operations, humanitarian relief.

Hungary, 445, 446

Hussein, Saddam, 410, 416, 418, 427, 430, 480–

81, 483, 487, 489, 490–91, 493, 498. See 

also Iraq; Operations, combat, Desert Storm, 

Iraqi Freedom; Persian Gulf War; Republican 

Guard.

Hutier, General Oskar von, 28

Hutier tactics, 28

I MEF. See Marine Expeditionary Force, I.

Ia Drang, Battle of the, 281, 312–13, 332–33. See 

also Vietnam War.

ICBMs. See Missiles, Intercontinental ballistic 

missiles.

Iceland, 75, 99

IEDs. See Improvised explosive devices.

IFOR. See Implementation Force.

Immediate reaction battalions (IRBs), 397

Immigration and Naturalization Service, 466

Implementation Force (IFOR) (Bosnia), 445–47

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), 496–97, 501, 

511

Inch’on, Korea, 226, 231–32, 233, 234, 240

India, 90–91, 145, 170, 173–74, 195–96, 197, 

228, 250

Indochina, 259, 272–73, 289

Indonesia, 475, 479

Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 207–08, 

395–96

Industrial mobilization

planning for, 70–71, 83–84, 206

to provide materials for allies, 74

World War I, 23–24

World War II, 114–15, 116, 118–19, 127, 197

Infantries

16th, 9, 11

Haiti, 437–40

Halsey, Admiral William F., 171, 172, 175, 178–79, 

187–88

Harbord, Maj. Gen. James G., 10–11, 24, 38

Harkins, General Paul D., 301–02, 304

Harrison, Gordon, 113

Hawaii, 60, 62, 76, 79–80, 85, 89, 95, 97, 170, 

171, 186, 262

HAWK. See Missiles, Homing All the Way Killer.

Hay, Pvt. Merle D., 26

Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA), 

390, 407. See also Department of the Army; 

U.S. Army.

Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin, 509

Helicopters, 264, 281

in Afghanistan, 478

AH–1/AH–1G Cobra, 360, 387, 425

AH–56A Cheyenne, 282, 387

AH–64/AH–64A Apache, 387, 425, 487

attack, 384, 387

Cayuse, 282

for command and control, 300, 314

control of use, 392

Gazelle, 425

H–21 Shawnee, 300

in Haiti, 439

and humanitarian aid, 431

Hughes YAM–64, 387

in Iraq, 487

in Kosovo, 451–52

modernization of, 387

in the Persian Gulf War, 417, 425

in Somalia, 434, 435

UH–1 Iroquois (Huey), 300

UH–60A Black Hawk, 387–88, 434

utility, 387–88

in Vietnam, 300, 301, 306, 311, 314, 318, 320, 

326, 330, 340, 347, 350, 360–62, 364, 366, 

368, 387

See also Aircraft.

Hess, Rudolf, 205

Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, 509

High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle 

(HMMWV), 388, 506

Hines, Maj. Gen. John, 45, 50, 51, 52

Hitler, Adolf, 67, 71, 75, 81, 143, 159, 163, 164. 

See also World War II.

HMMWV. See High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled 

Vehicle.

Ho Chi Minh, 289, 293, 294. See also North 

Vietnam; Vietnam War.

Ho Chi Minh Trail, 297, 302, 304, 337, 357–58, 

359, 361–63. See also Vietnam War.

Hodges, Lt. Gen. Courtney H., 152

Homeland security, 118, 464–68, 514. See also

Global War on Terrorism; U.S. Department of 

Homeland Security.
American Military History

534

during World War II, 81–82

See also Operations, combat, Desert Storm, 

Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom; Operations, 

humanitarian, Provide Comfort.

IRBs. See Immediate reaction battalions.

Ireland, 99. See also Great Britain.

Iron Curtain. See under Union of Soviet Socialist 

Republics.

ISAF. See International Security Assistance Force.

Islamic terrorists, 468, 475. See also Al-Qaeda; 

Bin Laden, Osama; Global War on Terrorism.

Island warfare, 180–81. See also World War II.

Israel, 260, 381–82, 420, 440, 468, 483

Italian Campaign, 143–46. See also World War II.

Italy, 228, 475, 497

and Kosovo, 453

and World War I, 1, 6, 15, 27

and World War II, 67, 80, 107, 110–11, 112, 

113, 133, 138–39, 141, 142, 143–46, 208

Iwo Jima, Japan, 187–88, 192–93, 198

Jamerson, Maj. Gen. James L., 431

Japan, 58, 67, 71, 80–81, 124

airpower, 91, 98–99, 170, 187, 189, 193, 197

American strategy for the defeat of, 116–17

atomic attack on, 117, 198–99

bombing of, 170, 174–75, 182–83, 186, 192, 

191–93, 198

and China in World War II, 195

naval power, 91, 92, 98–99, 172, 178, 180, 181, 

182–83, 186, 188, 199–200

occupation of, 208, 209–10, 217, 246

Pearl Harbor attacked by, 79–80, 83–84, 169, 170

and the Philippine Islands, 76–77, 79, 80, 83, 

90, 92–94, 169, 187–92

planning for the defeat of, 80, 117, 170, 175–

83, 186–87

strategy in World War II, 76–77, 79–80, 92, 94, 

98–99, 169–70, 188, 189

Japanese Air Force, 79

Japanese Americans, 85, 180, 477

JCS. See Joint Chiefs of Staff.

JDAMs. See Joint direct-attack munitions.

JFC-E. See Joint Forces Command–East.

JFC-N. See Joint Forces Command–North.

JNA. See Yugoslav National Army.

Joffre, Marshal Joseph, 8–9

Johnson, General Harold K., 307–08

Johnson, Brig. Gen. Hugh, 23

Johnson, Capt. Hugh S., 29

Johnson, Louis A., 215, 218

Johnson, Lyndon B., 276

and civil rights movement, 274–75

and the Dominican Republic, 273

and Vietnam War, 284, 305, 306, 307, 309, 

334, 343–44, 380

Johnson administration, 277, 337, 338, 358

Infantries—Continued

18th, 9

26th, 9, 320, 506

28th, 9

30th, 34

38th, 34–35

Infantry Battalion, 100th, 85

Infantry Division 86, 392

Infantry Divisions, 121, 217

1st, 148, 232, 309, 316, 317–19, 320–21, 

324, 333, 342, 349–50, 355, 382, 421–22, 

425–26, 500, 501

2d, 230, 237, 238, 240, 244, 281, 499, 500

3d, 34, 231, 235, 332, 364, 481, 483, 486–87, 

489, 490, 513

4th, 149, 319, 331–32, 351, 355, 481, 482, 

508, 513

5th, 99

5th (Mechanized), 280, 343–44, 349, 352

7th, 226, 229, 231, 233–34, 236, 237, 244

9th, 310, 321, 322, 324, 340, 342, 349, 355, 392–93

23d (Americal), 172, 332, 348, 352, 360, 364

24th, 226, 227–28, 229, 230, 425

25th, 172, 226, 229, 230, 273, 310, 314, 

316–17, 318–19, 320–21, 324, 330, 331, 

333, 340, 350–51, 355, 511

29th, 148, 149

32d, 98, 172, 178

34th, 99

37th, 98, 178, 189

41st, 98, 192

92d, 122

93d, 122

106th, 159

Infantry fighting vehicles, 386, 388, 426, 446. See 

also M2/M3 Bradley fighting vehicle.

Infantry Regimental Combat Team, 442d, 85

Information technology, 262, 415, 504

Interim Brigade Combat Teams, 513

Interim Force, 457, 458, 513

Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance 

(Rio Treaty), 213

International Committee of the Red Cross, 477

International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 204

International Military Tribunals, 208–09

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 

474, 510

Iran, 211, 212, 218, 261, 416, 430–31, 475, 491, 

503, 504

Iraq, 261, 440, 514, 515, 516

and the Global War on Terrorism, 480–90

insurgency, 496–97, 498–502

internecine conflict, 491, 494–95

and the Persian Gulf War, 407, 416–18, 419–27

the Surge, 506–08

and weapons of mass destruction, 466, 480, 

481, 497
index

535

Kennedy, John F., 260, 267, 268, 269–70, 271, 

273, 274–75, 277, 282, 297–98, 300, 301

Kenney, Lt. Gen. George C., 187

Kent State University, 276

Kenya, 433, 468

Kernan, Maj. Gen. Francis J., 24

Kerner Commission, 276

Kesselring, Field Marshal Albert, 144, 145

KFOR. See Kosovo Force.

Khafji, Saudi Arabia, 418

Khan, General Bismullah, 470

Khan, General Fahim, 470

Khan, Ismail, 470

Khe Sanh, Vietnam, 331, 339–40, 343, 344, 359

Khrushchev, Nikita, 257, 267, 268–69, 270, 271. 

See also Cuban missile crisis; Cold War; 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Kim Il Sung, 221–22, 223, 229–30, 232. See 

also Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; 

Korean War.

King, Maj. Gen. Edward P., Jr., 94

King, Admiral Ernest J., 86, 101, 102, 103, 117, 

186, 187

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 276

Kinkaid, Vice Adm. Thomas C., 187, 188, 189

Kinnard, Maj. Gen. Harry W. O., 311

KLA. See Kosovo Liberation Army.

KMAG. See U.S. Military Advisory Group to the 

Republic of Korea.

Koje-do prisoner of war camp, 246–47

Korea

demilitarized zone, 250

occupation of, 208, 210, 212, 221–22

unification issue, 223, 233, 234, 242, 252

See also Democratic People’s Republic of 

Korea; Korean War; Republic of Korea.

Korean Augmentation to the United States Army 

(KATUSA), 231

Korean People’s Army (KPA) (North Korea), 

223–24, 227–28, 229–31, 232, 233–34, 

237, 238, 239, 242, 243–44, 245, 246, 247, 

249, 250

Korean War, 221–53

armistice implementation, 250–52

armistice negotiations, 244–45, 249, 250

casualties, 227, 229, 237, 239, 242, 243, 245, 

247–49

guerrilla warfare, 22, 223, 232

lines of communications, 229, 233–34, 237

logistic support, 226, 230–31, 232, 233, 234

mobilization of National Guard, 231, 240

Pork Chop Hill, 244

prisoners of war, 245–47, 249–51

public opinion, 242–43, 247–48

soldier replacements, 229, 230, 231, 250

strategic planning, 231–36

training for the ROK Army, 247

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)

Chairman, 207, 406

and China in World War II, 195, 196

consultation with Roosevelt, 109, 115

functions of, 206–07, 262, 277

and Haiti, 440

and the invasion of Southern France, 110

Joint Staff, 262

and the Korean War, 228–29, 231, 233, 237, 

240, 242, 244

and logistics, 127, 128

and manpower for World War II, 119

and military budgets, 261–62

and military strategy, 206

and officer education, 207–08

and organization of unified commands, 206–07

and strategy for World War II, 86, 87, 99, 103, 

107–08, 110–11, 115, 170–71, 173–79, 

182, 187

and the Vietnam War, 301–02, 359

and war in the Pacific, 87, 170–71, 173–79, 

182, 187

Joint direct-attack munitions (JDAMs), 482. See 

also Precision-guided munitions.

Joint Forces Command, 467

Joint Forces Command–East (JFC-E), 424–25

Joint Forces Command–North (JFC-N), 424–25

Joint Logistics Committee, 86

Joint operations

command and control, 399, 401, 406

World War II, 87–88

Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), 395, 443

Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF), 

435

Joint Staff Planners, 86

Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 86

Joint Task Force–6, 465–66

Joint Task Force–17, 476

Jordan, 261, 445, 479–80

Journalists. See Media; Press. See also Public 

opinion.

JRTC. See Joint Readiness Training Center.

JSOTF. See Joint Special Operations Task Force.

Jungle warfare, 172, 316

Kabul, Afghanistan, 470, 473–74, 477, 510–11, 

512

Kalergis, Maj. Gen. James G., 390

Kandahar, Afghanistan, 470, 472, 473–74

Karshi Khanabad Air Base, Uzbekistan, 470

Karzai, Hamid, 470, 472, 473, 474, 478, 511, 

512. See also Afghanistan.

Kasserine Pass, 139

KATUSA. See Korean Augmentation to the 

United States Army.

Keane, General John M., 489

Kennan, George W., 244
American Military History

536

Limited wars, 293, 298

Lippmann, Walter, 82

Lithuania, 445

Little Rock, Arkansas, 275

Lloyd George, David, 27

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 334

Logistic support

allied in World War I, 12, 15

for amphibious operations, 143

centralized control over, 20

and China in World War II, 195, 196–97

and cross-channel attack, 99–102, 147, 149

and fuel efficiency, 457, 458

German problems in World War I, 2, 13, 18, 23, 

36–37, 38

information technology effect on, 429–30

for island warfare, 180

Korean War, 226, 230–31, 232, 233, 234

and network-centric warfare, 456–57, 458

pentomic divisions, 263

planning for, 128–29

and pre-positioning, 429

for units in unified commands, 262–63

Vietnam War, 307, 308, 311, 314, 318, 342, 344

World War II, 86–87, 123–24, 126–30

in Europe, 146, 147, 152, 154, 155, 

158–59, 154, 162

in the Pacific, 195, 197

strategy, 100, 102, 126–27

Logistical Command, 1st, 307

Logistics Support Activity (LSA) Anaconda, 496

Louisiana Maneuvers (LAM), 72, 428

Lucas, Maj. Gen. John P., 145

Ludendorff, General Erich von, 28

Luxembourg, 57, 159, 213, 228

M1/M1A1 Abrams tank, 385–86, 410, 426, 489

M113 armored personnel carrier (APC), 264, 386, 

387, 403, 425–26

M2/M3 Bradley fighting vehicle, 386–87, 410, 418, 

426, 486, 489, 490, 495–96

MAAGs. See Military assistance advisory groups.

MacArthur, General Douglas, 61, 65, 68, 76, 243, 

246

and the Korean War, 229, 231–32, 233–34, 

235–36, 237–38, 239, 240, 242–43, 246, 252

and occupation of Japan, 209

and the Philippine Islands, 89–90, 92, 93, 187–92

and war in the Pacific, 87, 90, 98, 117, 129

and World War II, 87, 93, 171, 172, 175, 178, 

179–81, 182, 183–92

MacLean, Col. Allan D., 236

Macedonia, 443, 445, 450, 451–52, 453

Machine Gun Battalion, 7th, 31–32

Machine-gun companies, 14

Machine guns, 14

MACOMs. See Major Army commands.

Korean War—Continued

weather, 237, 238, 239, 244

See also Australia; Communism; Eisenhower, 

General Dwight D.; France; Great Britain; 

Joint Chiefs of Staff; MacArthur, General 

Douglas; People’s Republic of China; 

Truman, Harry S.; Union of Soviet Socialist 

Republics; United Nations; United Nations 

Security Council.

Kosovo, 450–55

Kosovo Force (KFOR), 453–55

Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), 450, 451–52

KPA. See Korean People’s Army.

Krueger, Lt. Gen. Walter, 187, 191

KTO. See Kuwaiti Theater of Operations.

Kurds, 432–33, 443, 480, 483, 489, 491, 495, 498. 

See also Iraq; Operations, humanitarian, 

Provide Comfort.

Kurile Islands, 169–70, 173–74

Kuwait, 407, 410, 416, 418, 419–27, 429, 430–31, 

480, 481, 482–83, 488, 495. See also 

Operations, combat, Desert Storm; Persian 

Gulf War.

Kuwaiti Theater of Operations (KTO), 419, 425

Ky, Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao, 310

Laird, Melvin R., 379, 380

LAM. See Louisiana Maneuvers.

Lam, Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan, 358–59, 361, 364

Lampert, Florian, 64

Landing craft, 112, 128, 138, 142, 153

Landmines, 446

Laos, 260, 272–73, 290, 297, 299, 300, 302, 306, 

307–08, 309, 330, 331, 354, 357–62, 364, 

367

Latin America, 67, 218, 267, 274, 397, 437–38, 

443, 512–13

Latvia, 445

LAVs. See Light armored vehicle.

Leahy, Admiral William D., 86

Leavenworth Schools, 24–25, 60

Lebanon, 261, 292, 442

Ledo Road, 123, 196, 197

Legacy Force, 457–58, 513

Lejeune, Maj. Gen. John A., 49

Lend-Lease, 74, 82, 89, 95–96, 119–20, 123, 127, 

128, 162, 165

Leyte Gulf, Battle of, 187. See also World War II.

Libya, 80, 81, 101, 133–34, 475

Liddell Hart, Basil H., 383

Liggett, Maj. Gen. Hunter, 35, 36, 38–39, 45, 49, 

50–51, 52

Light armored vehicles (LAVs), 418, 499. See also

Stryker vehicle.

Light Infantry Brigade, 196th, 319, 320–21, 331, 

363

Light Infantry Brigade, 199th, 322
index

537

See also Concentration; War, principles of.

Massive retaliation, 255–56, 267, 272, 292

Matsu, 260

Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, 470, 473

McAlexander, Col. Ulysses Grant, 34

McAuliffe, Brig. Gen. Anthony C., 161

McCaffrey, Lt. Gen. William J., 360

McDonnell-Douglas Helicopter Company, 387

McGarr, Lt. Gen. Lionel C., 293 

McGinnis, Spec. Ross A., 506

McKiernan, Lt. Gen. David D., 481, 483, 488

McNair, Lt. Gen. Lesley J., 88, 89, 96, 120, 123–24

McNamara, Robert S., 277–78, 279, 280, 281, 301

McNamara Line, 331, 344

McNeill, Lt. Gen. Dan K., 509

Media, 376, 388, 421, 439, 447, 451, 452–53, 483, 

486, 490, 491, 495. See also Al-Jazeera; Cable 

News Network; Press; Public opinion.

Mediterranean Theater, 153. See also World War II.

Mekong Delta, 300, 303, 307, 317, 321–22, 340, 

342, 366

Mello, Vieira de, 497

Merchant shipping, 83, 127

Meredith, James H., 274–75

Messina, 141–42, 143

Meuse-Argonne Campaign, 43–49. See also World 

War I.

Meuse River, 42, 44–45, 51

Mexico, 57, 60

Michigan, 276

Middle East

Arab hostility toward Israel, 260, 468

Arab hostility toward the United States, 416, 

468, 491

British concerns in World War II, 80–81, 100–

101, 102–03, 110

Midway, Battle of, 98–99, 101, 170. See also World 

War II.

Military aid programs, 218, 232, 249, 252, 259, 

261, 304–05, 397

Military Armistice Commission, 250

Military assistance advisory groups (MAAGs), 218, 

259, 289, 295

Military District of Washington, 262, 389, 465

Military draft. See Conscription; Draft, the; 

Selective Service.

Military Intelligence Service (MIS), 198

Military Police Battalion, 716th, 340

Military police units, 15, 121, 440

Military Technical Agreement (Kosovo), 453

Military Traffic Management Command, 391

Milner, Alfred, 29, 30

Miloševic, Slobodan, 443–44, 445, 450–51, 452, 

453. See also Yugoslavia.

MIS. See Military Intelligence Service.

Missile commands, 263

Missile defense systems, 272

MACV. See U.S. Military Assistance Command, 

Vietnam.

Maguire, Thomas P., 464

Mahdi Army, 499, 502

Major Army commands (MACOMs), 389, 391

Malaya, 89, 90, 91, 169–70, 303

Malaysia, 435, 445, 475

Malik, Jacob, 244

Manchuria, 210, 211, 233, 234, 236

Maneuver

Allied exploitation, 152–53, 165–66, 183

Japanese use of, 80, 91

See also War, principles of.

Manila, Philippines, 189

Mao Zedong, 211, 235. See also Korean War.

March, Maj. Gen. Peyton C., 19–20, 22

Mariana Islands, 170, 175, 181, 182–83, 186, 187, 

198–99

Marine Amphibious Force, III, 317, 331

Marine Brigade, 1st Provisional, 230

Marine Brigades, 25, 32–33, 99

Marine Corps, U.S. See U.S. Marine Corps.

Marine Divisions

1st, 171, 179, 183, 231–32, 234–35, 236, 237, 

239, 483

2d, 172, 180, 192

3d, 192, 349, 359

4th, 192

5th, 192

6th, 193

Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 5th, 421, 424

Marine Expeditionary Force, I (I MEF), 424–25, 

481, 483

Maritime Administration, 428

Marne River, 2, 31–32, 34, 36–40

Marshall, General George C., 43, 44, 72, 73, 74, 

86, 130, 211

and manpower planning, 118–19, 124–25

and the Mediterranean, 101–02, 103, 108, 110

and military strategy, 115–16

and the national security system, 206

as Secretary of State, 213

and strategy for World War II, 97, 100–101, 103, 

108, 112, 114, 115–17

and training, 121

and War Department reorganization, 88–89, 96

and the war against Japan, 117

See also World War I; World War II.

Marshall Islands, 170, 175, 180, 181

Marshall Plan, 213, 267–68

Martin, Joseph W., 242

Masoud, Shah Ahmed, 470

Mass, 2

and Allied strategy in World War II, 99, 103, 

108, 113, 130, 142, 165–66, 182

Japanese use of, 80

U.S. failure to practice in Korea, 226–27
American Military History

538

Multi-National Force–Iraq (MNF-I), 500, 501, 505, 

506–07, 508

Multi-National Security Transition Command–Iraq 

(MNSTC-I), 500, 505

Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), 388, 410

Munguia, Ricardo, 477

Munition Assignments Board, 127

Munitions Standards Board, 23

Muslim charities, 476

Muslims, Bosnian, 443–47

Mussolini, Benito, 67, 143. See also World War II.

Mutual Defense Assistance Program, 218

Mutual defense treaties, 249, 252, 259, 261

MVA. See Modern Volunteer Army.

My Lai, Vietnam, 353

Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 261

National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 

276

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 

258

National Army, 21

National Defense Act of 1916, 19, 23, 59, 63

National Defense Act of 1920, 59–61, 62, 64–65

National Fallout Shelter Survey, 257

National Guard, 21, 57, 75, 279–80, 514

Alabama, 275

and antiwar demonstrations, 276–77

Arkansas, 274

budget for, 62

and civil disturbances, 274–77

equipment for, 62, 283, 284, 385, 387

federalization

for domestic disorders, 274–77

to provide postal service, 285

for World War II, 73

and humanitarian relief efforts, 65, 466–67

Michigan, 276

Mississippi, 274–75

Missouri, 8

mobilization of

on 9-11, 464

for airport protection, 466

during the Cold War, 269

for Korean War, 231, 240

and natural disasters, 466–67

New England, 25, 43

New York, 464

officers, 284

and Operation Iraqi Freedom, 514

organization, 264, 279, 280, 283–84

Pennsylvania, 34–35

in the Persian Gulf War, 420

planning for wartime use, 70, 495

readiness, 62, 266, 284, 380–81

recruitment, 515

strength, 18, 62, 72, 214, 267, 283, 374, 381, 428

Missiles, 256, 262, 268–69

air defense, 384, 388, 420–21

Ajax, 257

antiaircraft, 257–58

antitank, 385, 386–87

ballistic, 258, 277

Free Rocket Over Ground (FROG), 388

Homing All the Way Killer (HAWK), 388

Hellfire, 387

Hercules, 257, 270

intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 258–59

Iraqi use in Persian Gulf War, 420–21

Jupiter, 258

medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), 270

Nike surface-to-air missiles, 257–58, 270, 388

nuclear, 277

Patriot, 384, 420–21

Pershing, 258

Redstone, 258

Scud, 416–17, 421

Soviet AT–3 Sagger antitank missile, 366

Soviet SA–7 handheld antiaircraft missile, 366

Surface-to-Air Missile–Developmental (SAM-D), 

388

Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs), 483

Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided 

(TOW) missile, 366, 386, 387, 418

Mississippi, 270–71

Mitchell, Brig. Gen. William, 62

MLRS. See Multiple-Launch Rocket System.

MNC-I. See Multi-National Corps–Iraq.

MNF-I. See Multi-National Force–Iraq.

MNSTC-I. See Multi-National Security Transition 

Command–Iraq.

Mobile Riverine Force, 322–23, 340, 342

“Modern Louisiana Maneuvers” Task Force, 428

Modern Volunteer Army (MVA), 375–76

Modularity, 514, 515–16

Mogadishu, Somalia, 433, 434–35, 481

Mohammed, Ali Mahdi, 434

Montagnards, 294, 299, 300, 311, 331. See also

South Vietnam; Vietnam War.

Montgomery, Field Marshal Bernard L., 135, 

138–40, 141–43, 144, 152, 154, 158

Morgan, Lt. Gen. Frederick E., 147

Morocco, 133, 135, 445

Morrill Act of 1862, 63

Morrow, Dwight W., 64

Morrow Board, 64

Moscow Conference, 110. See also World War II.

Moscow Declaration, 205

Mountain Division, 10th, 433–34, 435, 439, 466, 

470, 473, 509, 511

MRBMs. See Missiles, medium-range ballistic 

missiles.

Mujahideen, 468–69

Multi-National Corps–Iraq (MNC-I), 500, 508
index

539

Normandy, 146–53, 155

North Africa, 87, 99, 102, 103, 110, 133–41

North American Aerospace Defense Command 

(NORAD), 467

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 215, 

218, 232, 246, 256–57, 259, 268, 272, 289, 

298, 343, 381, 382, 383, 391, 392, 416, 

429

and Afghanistan, 477, 510–12

International Security Assistance Force, 510–11

and Operation Provide Comfort, 430, 431

and states of the former Yugoslavia, 444–47, 

450–55

North Korea. See People’s Republic of Korea.

North Vietnam

air strikes against, 305–06, 310, 344, 357, 367

Communist government in, 289, 290, 293–94, 

333

infiltration from, 297, 304, 306, 307–08, 310, 

311, 319, 324, 326–29, 337, 340, 351–52, 

357–58, 360–62, 363

and negotiations to end the war, 339

See also South Vietnam; Vietnam War.

North Vietnamese Army, 297, 304, 306, 311, 

319, 333, 339, 342–43, 345, 349, 363, 364, 

367–68. See also People’s Army of Vietnam; 

People’s Liberation Armed Forces; South 

Vietnamese Army.

Northern Alliance, 468–69, 470, 472, 473, 474. 

See also Afghanistan.

Norton, Maj. Gen. John, 326

Norway, 72, 82, 165, 228, 478

Norwich University, Vermont, 63

NSC. See National Security Council.

NSC 68, 219

NTC. See National Training Center.

Nuclear weapons

and American military strategy, 218–19, 255, 

263–65

arms race, 218–19, 257, 259

delivery systems, 277

and France, 271, 272

proposed use of, 249, 290

Soviet, 218–19, 256, 257

tactical, 256–57, 263

test ban treaty, 271, 272

U.S. production of, 232, 247, 252, 256, 264

See also Cold War; Cuban missile crisis.

OAS. See Organization of American States.

Obama, Barak H., 508, 512

Objective

American use in World War II, 166, 183

Japanese use, 80

and World War I, 11, 12, 13

See also War, principles of.

Objective Force, 458, 513

training for, 59, 62, 68, 73, 266, 267, 276, 284, 

379

in World War I, 25, 34–35

See also Reserve Forces.

National liberation, wars of, 257, 267, 268, 294, 

297–98

National Military Establishment, 206, 207

National Security Act of 1947, 206, 207

National Security Council (NSC), 206, 218–19, 228

National security policy

and the Eisenhower administration, 255–56

and nuclear weapons, 255–56

between the World Wars, 68–71, 73, 76–77, 84

National Security Resources Board, 206

National Training Center (NTC), 395, 396, 429, 

443, 487

National War College, 208, 395

Nationalist China, 260. See also People’s Republic 

of China.

NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Navajo code talkers, 48

Navy, U.S. See U.S. Navy.

Netherlands, 89–90, 155, 164, 228, 272

Netherlands Indies, 89, 90, 91, 92, 169, 173

Network-centric warfare, 456, 458–59

Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, 250, 252

Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, 250

New Britain, 91, 98, 170, 171, 178, 179

New Caledonia, 98

New Guinea, 91, 98, 170, 172, 171, 175, 178, 181, 

182, 183

New Look strategy, 239

New Zealand, 91, 98, 99, 145, 178, 179, 228, 259, 

308

NGOs. See Nongovernmental organizations.

Nhu, Ngo Dinh, 292, 302–03. See also South 

Vietnam; Vietnam War.

Nicaragua, 274, 397, 399, 401, 442

Night-vision equipment, 387, 403, 415, 426, 457, 

488

Nimitz, Admiral Chester W., 87, 171, 180–81, 182, 

183, 186, 187, 192–93, 199. See also World 

War II.

Nixon, Richard M.

and the draft, 285, 374, 375

Guam Doctrine, 381

and the Vietnam War, 285, 349, 355–56, 363, 

367, 379

Nixon administration, 354, 375

Nixon Doctrine, 349

Nol, General Lon, 354, 357

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 432, 454

Nonstate terrorists, 415, 466

NORAD. See North American Aerospace Defense 

Command.

Noriega, General Manuel Antonio, 401, 406. See 

also Panama; Operations, combat, Just Cause.
American Military History

540

 Restore Hope, 433

 Rolling Thunder, 306, 307, 308

 Sledgehammer, 100, 102

 Toan Thang 42, 355

 Torch, 102–03, 104, 107, 133–35

 Urgent Fury, 399, 406

 Vigilant Resolve, 499

humanitarian

 Provide Comfort, 430–31, 441, 495

 Provide Promise, 444–45

 Provide Relief, 433

multinational, 440–43

peacekeeping, 430, 434, 440, 444–47, 442–43, 

453–55, 459, 477

 Able Sentry, 445

 Northern Watch, 482

 Southern Watch, 482

reconnaissance

 Daniel Boone, 358

 Prairie Fire, 358

 Salem House, 358

 Shining Brass, 358

Operations other than war, 428

ORC. See Officers’ Reserve Corps.

Organization of American States (OAS), 270–71, 

437–38

Organized Reserve Corps, 59, 60, 62, 73

OSS. See Office of Strategic Services.

Overman Act, 19–20

Oxford, Mississippi, 275

Pacific Ocean Area (POA), 87, 171

Pagonis, Maj. Gen. William G., 420

Paik Sun Yup, Maj. Gen., 235

Pakistan

and Afghanistan, 468, 470, 475, 478, 509, 511, 

512

peacekeeping, 434–35, 440

treaties, 259, 261

Palau Islands, 175, 181, 182, 183, 186, 187

Palmer, Lt. Gen. Bruce, Jr., 270

Palmer, Brig. Gen. John M., 9, 214

Panama, 388, 401–06. See also Operations, 

combat, Just Cause.

Panama Canal Zone, 60, 62, 80, 82, 97, 401, 406

Panama Defense Force (PDF), 401–03, 406

Panzer divisions, 80, 139, 142, 155. See also Tanks.

Papua Campaign, 172. See also World War II.

Parachute Battalion, 1st, 73

Parachute Regiment, 503d, 178

Parachute units, 121–22, 138, 142, 144, 155–56, 

183, 402, 470

Paraguay, 274

Paris, France, 2, 11, 12, 31, 39–40, 153–54

Parker, Maj. Gen. D. S., 389

Parker Panel, 389–90

Partnership for Peace, 443

ODA. See Operational Detachment Alpha.

O’Daniel, Lt. Gen. John W., 293

Odierno, General Raymond T., 508

Offensive, 99

Allied pursuit in World War II, 133–46, 163–64

Japanese use, 80

See also War, principles of.

Office of Civilian Defense, 118

Office of Military Cooperation–Afghanistan, 510

Office of Military Government, 208

Office of the Provost Marshal General, 21

Office of Reserve Components, 279–80

Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 108

Office of War Mobilization, 127

Officer Personnel Management System, 443

Officers’ Reserve Corps (ORC), 59, 63

Okinawa, 187, 192–93, 198

Olympics, 465, 466

Oman, 424, 472, 479–80

Omar, Mohammed, 470, 473, 474, 509

OPD. See War Department General Staff, 

Operations Division.

Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA), 470–71

Operational Test and Evaluation Agency, 390

Operations

combat

 Al-Fajr, 501

 Anaconda, 478

 Anakim, 174, 196

 Attleboro, 319, 320

 Avalanche, 509

 Baton Rouge, 501

 Cartwheel, 175, 178

 Cedar Falls, 320, 321

 Desert Fox, 482

 Desert Shield, 417–18, 420, 421, 428, 429

 Desert Storm, 388, 418, 419–27, 429, 430, 

431, 453, 456, 469, 480, 481, 514

 Dragoon, 153

 Enduring Freedom, 469, 510

 Fairfax, 322

 Husky, 141–43

 Iraqi Freedom, 486, 487, 490, 505, 513, 

514, 515

 Junction City, 320–21, 331

 Just Cause, 401–02, 406

 Lam Son 719, 359–60, 361–62

 Lightning Freedom, 511

 Lightning Resolve, 511

 Mountain Blizzard, 509

 Mountain Resolve, 509

 Mountain Storm, 509

 Mountain Viper, 509

 Overlord, 110, 111, 112, 113, 124–25, 

148

 Phantom Fury, 501

 Queen, 158
index

541

coalition strategy, 419–20

strategic planning, 417

use of reserve forces, 421

See also Aircraft; Arab countries; France; Great 

Britain; Missiles; Operations, combat, Desert

Shield, Desert Storm; Republican Guard; U.S. 

Marine Corps; U.S. Navy; Tanks.

Pétain, General Henri Philippe, 13, 29, 30, 31, 

36–37, 40–41, 42, 45, 52

Petraeus, General David H., 501, 505, 506–07

PGMs. See Precision-guided munitions.

Philippine Army, 76, 92, 479

Philippine Islands, 60, 62, 78, 91–94, 218, 228, 259

American return in World War II, 165, 167, 171, 

174–75, 180, 182–88, 191

Islamic militants in, 478–80

Japan and, 78, 79, 80, 83, 90, 92–94, 169, 

187–92

U.S. defense of, 93–96, 98

and World War II, 76, 79, 83, 90, 92–94, 169, 

171, 175, 178–79

Philippine Scouts, 61, 91–92

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 357

Phoenix program, 347, 348. See also Vietnam War.

PLAF. See People’s Liberation Armed Forces.

Plattsburg Movement, 22

POA. See Pacific Ocean Area.

Poland, 162, 250, 445, 497

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 439–40

Ports

Vietnam, 342

World War II, 128, 152, 153, 154, 155, 158, 

159, 191

Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, 466

Post closings, 62

Post Office Department, 65, 285

Potsdam Conference, 199, 208. See also World 

War II.

Potsdam Declaration, 199

Potter, Brig. Gen. Richard W., 431, 432

Power projection, 428

Prague, Czechoslovakia, 115, 116

PRC. See People’s Republic of China.

Precision-guided munitions (PGMs), 415, 451, 

453, 455, 456–57, 458, 469, 472, 473, 482, 

489. See also Joint direct-attack munitions.

Press, 338, 455, 476. See also Media; Public opinion.

Prisoners of war

American in World War II, 159, 191

from the Global War on Terrorism, 476–77

Iraqi, 424, 426, 427

Korean War, 245–47, 249–51

repatriation of, 246, 250–51

Sicily, 143

World War I, 28–29, 30, 38, 43, 46, 47, 49, 50

World War II, 143, 153, 164, 180

Private volunteer organizations (PVOs), 432

Pataki, George, 464

Patch, Lt. Gen. Alexander M., 153

Pathet Lao, 260. See also Laos.

Patterson, Robert P., 89

Patton, Lt. Gen. George S., Jr., 140, 141–43, 152, 

153, 155. See also World War II.

PAVN. See People’s Army of Vietnam.

PDF. See Panama Defense Force.

Peacekeeping. See Operations, peacekeeping.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 76–77, 79–80, 82, 83, 84, 

169, 170. See also World War II.

Pentagon, attack on, 463–65, 467. See also Global 

War on Terrorism; Homeland security; 

September 11 attacks.

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 295

1st Division, 349–50, 353

3d Division, 326, 329

12th Regiment, 326

22d Regiment, 326

24th Regiment, 330

29th Regiment, 352

32d Regiment, 312

33d Regiment, 312, 313

66th Regiment, 312, 313

People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF)

2d Regiment, 326

5th Division, 364

9th Division, 319, 351

271st Regiment, 321

272d Regiment, 321

People’s Republic of China (PRC), 58, 71, 218, 271

Communist assumption of power in, 211–12, 

218, 219

expansionism, 267, 292

and the Korean War, 224, 232, 233, 234, 235–

37, 238–39, 240, 242, 244–45, 246, 249–50, 

252

and Nationalist Chinese, 260, 292

and Vietnam, 289, 305

and World War II, 85, 88–89, 115, 126, 165, 

173–74, 175, 183, 186, 187, 195–98, 199

See also Chinese People’s Volunteer Force.

Pershing, Maj. Gen. John J., 13, 21, 34, 57

and AEF organization, 24, 35, 47–48

and AEF use, 9–12, 15, 18, 27, 28, 29–30, 36, 

40, 41–43, 45, 46–49, 50, 52

as Chief of Staff, 60

staff officers, 24–25

and training, 22, 24, 25–26

See also World War I.

Persian Corridor, 82

Persian Gulf Command, 123

Persian Gulf War, 378, 416–30

air campaign, 419–20, 424, 431

ground war, 419–20, 421, 424–27

casualties, 418, 427

coalition air supremacy, 419–20, 469
American Military History

542

Rangers, 191, 399, 402, 470

RCTs. See Regimental Combat Teams.

Read, Maj. Gen. George W., 35, 49

Ready Reserve, 265–67, 269, 284, 381, 385, 387, 

514–15

Ready Reserve Mobilization Reinforcement Pool, 266

Reagan, Ronald W., 379, 398

Red Ball Express, 122, 154, 155

Red Crescent, 432

Red Cross. See International Committee of the Red 

Cross.

Reforger. See Training, exercises, Return of Forces 

to Germany.

Refugees

from Haiti, 437–38

Kurds, 430–33, 444

from Yugoslavia, 444, 447, 450, 452, 453

See also Operations, humanitarian, Provide

Comfort.

Regimental Combat Teams (RCTs), 121, 224, 236, 

239

3d, 240–41

5th, 230

23d, 240–41

29th, 226, 229

158th, 191

187th Airborne, 231

Regiment, 18th, 31

Regiment, 28th, 30

Regional Military Training Center (Honduras), 397

Reimer, General Dennis J., 442–43, 512–13, 516

Remagen bridge, 162. See also World War II.

Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD), 

280, 313–14

Republic of Korea (ROK) (South Korea), 212, 218, 

222–23, 232–33, 250, 252, 259, 262, 281, 

308, 326, 331–32, 344, 395. See also Korean 

War; People’s Republic of Korea.

Republic of Korea Air Force, 223

Republic of Korea Army, 223–24, 228, 229, 231, 

232, 234–35, 236, 240, 243–44, 245, 247, 

249–50, 252

Republic of Korea Marine Corps, 231

Republic of Vietnam. See South Vietnam. See also

South Vietnamese Army.

Republican Guard, 416, 418–20, 425, 426–27, 480, 

486–87, 489, 490. See also Iraq; Operations, 

combat, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom.

Reserve, Standby, 265–66

Reserve Component Training Program, 62

Reserve Corps, Enlisted, 59, 63, 73

Reserve Corps, Officers’, 59, 63

Reserve Corps, Organized, 59, 60, 62, 63, 73, 214, 

231, 240, 514

Reserve Force, Selected, 280, 304

Reserve Forces

“Bill of Rights,” 285

Project Phoenix, 467

Project Volunteer, 374

Project Volunteer Army (VOLAR), 375–76

Project Volunteer in Defense of the Nation 

(PROVIDE), 374

Protective Mobilization Plan of 1937, 70

PROVIDE. See Project Volunteer in Defense of the 

Nation.

Psychological warfare, 282, 301, 328, 347, 490

Public opinion, 55

and Bonus Marchers, 65

and Global War on Terrorism, 476–77, 481

and Haiti, 437–38

and internment of Japanese Americans, 84–85

and Iraq war, 481, 491, 497

in Italy in World War II, 143

in Japan in World War II, 197–98

and Korean War, 242–43, 247–48

and Kosovo, 451, 452–53

and MacArthur, 242–43

and Somalia, 435, 437

on standing army, 55

of the United States in the Arab world, 416–17, 

468, 491

on U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic, 

274

on universal training, 55, 214

and the Vietnam War, 285–86, 310, 337, 338–

39, 343, 346, 349, 353–54, 355, 357, 367, 

380, 397

Vietnamese, 343, 351, 368

and World War II, 71, 72, 76–77, 82–83, 84–85, 

118, 205

See also Media; Press.

Puerto Rico, 73

Pusan, Korea, 224, 227, 229, 231, 232, 233, 234, 

237, 240

PVOs. See Private volunteer organizations.

Qadir, Haji Abdul, 470

Qatar, 417, 429, 480

Quadrant Conference, 108, 110. See also World 

War II.

Quartermaster Detachment, 14th, 420

Quebec Conference, Second, 107, 117. See also

World War II.

Queen Elizabeth, 97, 101

Queen Mary, 97

Quemoy, 260

Rabaul, New Britain, 98, 170, 171–72, 173, 175, 179

Racial disturbances, 274–77, 373. See also

Civil disturbances; Domestic disorders/

disturbances.

Railroads, 12, 13, 15, 18, 24, 38, 39–40, 43, 44, 51

Railway War Board, 23

Rambouillet, France, 450
index

543

SAC. See U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command.

SACEUR. See Supreme Allied Commander, 

Europe.

Saigon, Vietnam, 290, 304, 306, 314–24, 340, 

343, 344, 349, 350–51, 354–55, 366, 368

SAM-D. See Missiles, Surface-to-Air Missile–

Developmental.

SAMS. See School of Advanced Military Studies.

SAMVA. See Special Assistant for the Modern 

Volunteer Army.

Sanchez, Lt. Gen. Ricardo, 500

Sarajevo, Bosnia, 1, 445

Sardinia, Italy, 110, 135

Satellite communications, 430, 469, 514

Saudi Arabia, 407, 416–17, 418–19, 420–21, 425, 

430–31, 475. See also Operations, combat, 

Desert Shield, Desert Storm; Persian Gulf 

War.

Schlesinger, James R., 379, 380

Schlieffen, Alfred von, 2

Schlieffen Plan, 2

School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), 394

School desegregation, 275

Schoomaker, General Peter J., 513, 515–16

Schwarzkopf, General H. Norman, Jr., 417. See 

also Operations, combat, Desert Storm; 

Persian Gulf War.

Schweiter, Brig. Gen. Leo H., 332

Scott, Maj. Gen. Hugh L., 9, 19

Sea Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises, 

429

SEALs. See under U.S. Navy.

Seaman, Lt. Gen. Jonathan O., 319

Seaports, 69, 428

SEATO. See Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.

Secretary of the Army, 216, 467

Secretary of Defense, 206, 207, 257, 262, 263, 406

Secretary of State, 206

Secretary of War, 19–20

Security, 78. See also War, principles of.

Selective Service, 266, 285, 373. See also

Conscription; Draft, the.

Selective Service Act, 20–21

Selective Service and Training Act, 73, 82–83, 373

Seoul, Korea, 223–24, 231, 232, 238–39, 241, 243

September 11 attacks, 463–64, 468, 473. See also 

Global War on Terrorism; Homeland security; 

Pentagon, attack on; World Trade Center.

Serbs, 1, 443–50, 450–55. See also Yugoslavia.

Services of Supply, 24, 88. See also Army Air 

Forces; Army Ground Forces; Army Service 

Forces.

Sextant Conference, 108, 175–76, 197. See also

World War II.

SFOR. See Stabilization Force.

SHAEF. See Supreme Headquarters, Allied 

Expeditionary Force.

and the Civilian Conservation Corps, 66

and homeland security, 465

Persian Gulf War, 421

and Vietnam, 310, 344

See also National Guard; Ready Reserve.

Reserve Forces Act of 1955, 267, 283–84

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), 60, 63, 

214, 266, 280, 284, 389, 390, 501

Revolution in military affairs, 415, 455, 457

Rhee, Syngman, 222, 223, 229, 234, 249. See also

Republic of Korea; Korean War.

Rhineland, 57

Ridgway, General Matthew B., 232, 238–43, 

244–45, 246, 256, 290, 292

Riga, Latvia, 28

Rio Treaty, 213

RO-RO. See Roll-on roll-off.

ROAD. See Reorganization Objective Army Division.

Roberts, Maj. Gen. Elvy B., 350

Robertson, General Brian, 217–18

“Rock of the Marne.” See Infantry Divisions, 3d.

Rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), 468, 480–81, 

495–96

ROK. See Republic of Korea.

Roll-on roll-off (RO-RO) shipping, 428–29

Romania, 445, 453

Rommel, Field Marshal Erwin, 80–81, 100–101, 

134, 135, 138–40. See also World War II.

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 65, 66, 71, 74, 75–76, 

76–77, 81–82

consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 111

and homeland defense, 96

and industrial mobilization, 83, 84, 130

and invasion of Southern France, 112

and Japanese American internment, 84–85

and Mediterranean Theater, 107–08, 109, 113

and the Middle East, 101–02, 103

and supplies for Allies, 130

and the war in the Pacific, 93, 98, 101, 194

and World War II strategy, 85, 99, 107, 108, 

109–10

ROTC. See Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

Royal Air Force (British), 81, 147

Royal Navy (British), 135, 138

Royall, Kenneth C., 208

RPGs. See Rocket-propelled grenades.

Rules of engagement, 439–40, 486, 504, 512

Rumsfeld, Donald H., 467, 508

Rundstedt, Field Marshal Gerd von, 152, 163

Russell Islands, 172

Russia, 445–46

and Kosovo, 452, 453

and Muslim terrorists, 475

U.S. intervention in civil war, 56

and World War I, 1, 6, 27

See also Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Ryukyus Islands, 188–88, 193
American Military History

544

Highway 1, 342, 352

Highway 4, 322

Highway 13, 317–18, 319, 321, 324, 350–51, 364

Ia Drang Valley, 312–14, 330

infrastructure, 318, 324, 342

Iron Triangle, 320, 321

land reform, 348–49

National Liberation Front of, 294–95

pacification campaign, 293, 297, 304–05, 307, 

310, 317, 318, 320, 321–22, 326, 328–29, 

333–34, 337–38, 343, 345, 346, 348, 351, 

353, 354, 357, 366

paramilitary forces, 294–96, 302–03, 304, 305, 

317, 322

People’s Self-Defense Force, 346

political problems in, 290, 292, 293–94, 302–03, 

304, 305–06, 310, 329, 339, 348–49, 368

Popular Forces, 304–05, 328, 346–47

refugees, 322, 324, 327, 360, 364

Regional Forces, 304–05, 328, 346–47, 351–52

strategic hamlet program, 302–03, 304–05

U.S. advisers in, 345, 346–47

See also North Vietnam; Vietnam War.

South Vietnamese Army (Army of the Republic of 

Vietnam), 292, 297

American advisers with, 293, 301, 317, 355, 

357, 362, 364, 367

American personnel assigned to support of, 

301–02, 304–05

border control operations, 299, 330–31, 333, 

344, 349–50, 354–55, 357–62

Communist strategy of attacking units of, 339–40

cooperation with irregular forces, 300

desertions, 306, 348

discipline, 357

equipment for, 302, 303, 347, 362, 367

joint operations with U.S. forces, 316, 317, 322, 

326, 330, 332, 328, 342–43, 346, 350–51, 

352–53, 355, 357, 358–59

leadership problems, 294–95, 301, 348, 357, 

360–62

logistical support, 348, 357

morale, 339, 348

operations in Cambodia, 354, 355, 357

operations in Laos, 357, 358–62

opposition to serving under an American 

commander, 308

organization, 293

performance, 306, 343, 346, 347–48, 352–53, 

357, 359–60, 364, 367–68

replacements, 306

and the strategic hamlet program, 302–03

strength, 293, 347

training for, 293, 294–95, 346

U.S. air support for, 306, 357, 359–60, 363, 

364, 366–67

and Vietnamization, 345–49, 354, 357, 362, 363

Shalikashvili, General John M., 432

SHAPE. See Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers 

Europe.

Sharzai, Gul Agha, 470, 473

Shepard, Alan B., Jr., 258

Shi’ite Muslims, 430–31, 480, 487, 488–90, 497, 

498, 502, 507. See also Ba’athist Muslims; 

Sunni Muslims.

Shinseki, General Eric K., 455, 457, 480, 499, 

512–13, 516

Ship construction, 120

Shipping

for American troops in World War I, 29–30, 35–36

assault, 117, 128, 180, 192

British vessels used in World War II, 96, 100–102

of equipment and supplies for World War II, 96, 

102, 120

manpower requirements in World War II, 119

protection in the Mediterranean, 133–34, 142, 143

RO-RO ships, 428, 429

shortages, 96, 99, 100, 102, 103

submarine attacks on, 7, 75–76, 80–81, 96, 

108, 120, 146–47, 198

of troops for World War II, 96, 100–101, 102

and the war against Japan, 117

Shipping Board, 23

Shoemaker, Brig. Gen. Robert L., 355

Siberian Expedition, 58

Sibert, Brig. Gen. William L., 9

Sicily, Italy, 107, 108, 110, 135, 138, 141–43, 144

Sidi Bou Zid, Tunisia, 139

Signal units, 15. See also U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Sihanouk, Norodom, 354

Simplicity, 166. See also War, principles of.

Simpson, Lt. Gen. William H., 154, 165

Singapore, 90, 173

Smith, Lt. Col. Charles B., 227

Smith, Maj. Gen. O. P., 237

Smith, Sfc. Paul R., 487

SOCEUR. See Special Operations Command, Europe.

SOG. See Studies and Observations Group.

Somalia, 433–37, 440, 443, 480–81

Somervell, Lt. Gen. Brehon B., 88–89, 90, 179

South Africa, 228

South Korea. See Republic of Korea.

South Pacific Area, 87, 171, 178, 179

South Vietnam, 272–73

A Shau Valley, 324, 352–53

Binh Dinh Province, 326, 328–29, 333

Central Highlands, 294, 326, 332, 351–52, 364, 

368

Civilian Irregular Defense Group, 298–99, 300, 

324, 330, 351–52

Communist efforts to weaken the government 

of, 339, 342–43, 344

Communist Party organizations in, 294–95, 

296, 297
index

545

for the defeat of Japan, 82, 117, 170, 175–81, 

186–87, 197

and the end of the Cold War, 415–16

and force projection, 391

Korean War, 231–36

logistics role in, 126–27, 158

for Persian Gulf War, 417

 Rainbow war plans, 71, 75, 82

responsibility for, 280

“shape, prepare, respond,” 442–43

simulation and modeling in, 428

Victory Program, 83–84

for the Vietnam War, 310, 311, 314–16, 317, 

319, 321–22, 329, 343, 358–59

World War I, 15, 18

World War II, 71, 75, 117, 126–27, 128–30, 154, 

155, 169, 170, 173–79, 186–88, 197

Stryker vehicle, 499, 500

Studies and Observations Group (SOG), 358

Submarine warfare, 7, 75–76, 80–81, 97, 108, 

118, 120, 146–47, 198, 199. See also

Amphibious operations.

Sudan, 475

Sullivan, General Gordon R., 428, 512–13

Sultan, Lt. Gen. Dan I., 197

Summerall, Maj. Gen. Charles, 38, 50–51

Sunni Muslims, 430, 491, 492, 497–98, 502, 503, 

507. See also Ba’athist Muslims; Shi’ite 

Muslims.

Supply Program, 89. See also Army Service Forces; 

Services of Supply.

Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR), 

452–53

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force 

(SHAEF), 148

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe 

(SHAPE), 272

Supreme War Council, 29. See also World War I.

Surge. See under Iraq.

Surprise

Allied use of

against Japan, 179, 180–81

in Operation Overlord, 148–49

in Operation Torch, 138

in Sicily, 142

in World War I, 38, 42

in World War II, 138, 148–49, 155–56, 

165–66, 179

and the atomic attack on Japan, 117

Communist use in Vietnam, 340

failure to achieve in Laos, 359

German use, 2, 3, 159

Japanese use, 80, 91, 170

in the Persian Gulf War, 421, 424

U.S. use in the war against Iraq, 482

See also War, principles of.

Surveillance equipment, 264–65

weaknesses of, 303, 304, 348, 357, 359, 360–

61, 364

SOUTHCOM. See U.S. Southern Command.

Southeast Asia, 169–70, 259, 260

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 259, 

273, 293

Southern Department, 9

Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), 86, 87, 93, 98, 

117, 171, 172, 175, 179, 186, 192, 195

Spain, 67, 475, 497

Special Assistant for the Modern Volunteer Army 

(SAMVA), 375

Special Forces

and El Salvador, 397, 398

and Grenada, 399

and Haiti, 439–40

units, 273, 282–83, 295, 298–99, 300, 301, 

302, 311–12, 319, 324, 329, 330–31, 332, 

351–52, 358, 431–32, 433–34, 435

Special Forces Group, 5th, 351–52

Special Forces Group (Airborne), 7th, 398

Special Forces Group (Airborne), 10th, 431

Special Forces Operational Detachment Teams, 

469, 470, 472

Special Operations Command, Europe (SOCEUR), 

431

Special Operations Forces

in Afghanistan, 478, 509

and Haiti, 438, 439–40

and Iraq, 483, 488–89

and Operation Provide Comfort, 431

Special Operations Support Command, 7th, 431

Special Operations Wing, 39th, 431

Special Warfare Center and School, 505

Sputnik, 258

Srebrenica safe area, 444

St. Mihiel salient, 15, 18, 30, 35–36, 40–43, 44

Stabilization Force (SFOR) (Bosnia), 447, 455

Stalin, Joseph V., 71, 108, 111, 199, 223, 232, 

236, 246, 249, 256. See also Korean War; 

World War I; World War II.

Stanton, Col. Charles E., 11

Stark, Admiral Harold R., 86

Starry, General Donn A., 383, 386, 392, 407

State Department. See U.S. Department of State. 

See also Secretary of State.

Stilwell, General Joseph W., 87, 90–91, 193, 195, 

196, 197

Stimson, Henry L., 72, 83, 99, 102, 125

STRAC. See Strategic Army Corps.

Strategic Air Defense, 261

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, 272

Strategic Army Corps (STRAC), 263–64, 278

Strategic Army Forces, 284

Strategic bombing, 64, 71, 146, 197, 483

Strategic mobility, 68, 263, 427–28, 429

Strategic planning
American Military History

546

Tet offensive, 284, 339–45, 348, 352, 353. See also

Vietnam War.

Thailand, 169–70, 228, 259, 273, 302, 308

Thanh, Nguyen Tat. See Ho Chi Minh.

Theater Support Command, 377th, 488

Thieu, Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van, 310, 343, 347, 

348–49, 359, 364, 367

Thunder Runs, 489

Thurman, General Maxwell, 401–02

Tientsin, China, 58

Time-Phased Force Deployment List (TPFDL), 

515–16

TLAMs. See Missiles, Tomahawk Land Attack 

Missiles.

TO&E. See Table of Organization and Equipment.

Tora Bora Mountains, 473. See also Terrain, in 

Afghanistan.

Total Force Policy, 379–81

TOW. See Missiles, Tube-launched, Optically 

tracked, Wire-guided.

TPFDL. See Time-Phased Force Deployment List.

TRADOC. See U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command.

Training

of air units, 73–74, 88

for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, 293, 

294–95, 301

of aviation cadets, 122

combined arms, 22, 68

counterinsurgency, 282

counterterrorism, 479–80

in deployment procedures, 428, 429

for the El Salvadoran Army, 397–98

and equipment shortages, 121

exercises

 Bright Star, 395

combined arms, 68, 396

command post, 25, 407

deployment procedures, 429

with foreign forces, 443

 Homeward Bound, 407

 Intrinsic Action, 482

in Kuwait, 429

for mass casualties, 466

with the Navy, 68

readiness, 395–96

Return of Forces to Germany (Reforger), 

395–96, 429

summer maneuvers, 68

 Team Spirit, 395

of forces for World War II, 96, 121

for foreign armed forces, 218, 247, 273, 282–83, 

293, 300, 301, 397–98

individual, 21–22, 70, 394–95

for law enforcement, 466

National Guard, 68, 381

in night fighting, 403

Sutherland, Lt. Gen. James W., 358–59, 360–61

Sweden, 228, 250, 445

Switzerland, 250, 252

SWPA. See Southwest Pacific Area.

Syria, 80–81, 381, 424, 475, 503

Table of Distribution and Allowances (TDA), 380, 

390

Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E), 

380

Tactical nuclear weapons, 256, 257, 263

Taejon, Korea, 227

Taiwan, 175, 180, 182–83, 218, 240, 260, 299

Tajikistan, 475

TAL. See Transitional Administrative Law.

Taliban, 468–69, 470, 472–73, 473–74, 475, 

477–78, 509. See also Afghanistan.

Tank battalions, 23, 70, 121

Tank corps, 59, 64

Tank-destroyer units, 121

Tank regiments, 121

Tanks, 42,143, 264

development of, 69

modernization of, 384–86

in the Persian Gulf War, 425–26

size of, 457

in Vietnam, 318

in World War I, 3, 23, 38, 42, 45

in World War II, 83

See also M1/M1A1 Abrams tank.

Tanzania, 468

Target-sensing equipment, 387

Task Force Hawk, 451–52, 453. See also Albania; 

Kosovo.

Task Force MacLean, 236

Task Force Smith, 227

Tay Ninh Province, 315–17, 319–20, 350–51, 366

Taylor, General Maxwell D., 244, 249, 256, 292, 

305–06

Tchepone, Laos, 357

TDA. See Table of Distribution and Allowances.

Tehran Conference, 108, 110, 111, 112, 115, 124, 

199. See also World War II.

Terrain

in Afghanistan, 469, 473–74, 478

in former Yugoslavia, 444–45, 446, 452

and Korean War, 227, 234, 236–37, 241–42, 244

and Vietnam War, 313, 318, 329

and World War I, 44–45, 46

and World War II, 141–42, 152, 191

Terrorism

and 9-11, 463–64, 468, 475

funding for, 475–76

and Iraq, 480–81, 496–97

protection from, 464–68

See also Counterterrorism; Global War on 

Terrorism; Homeland security.
index

547

Ultra, 77, 144, 149, 155, 159

Ultra Secret, The (Winterbotham), 144

UMT. See Universal Military Training.

UN. See United Nations.

UN International Security Assistance Force 

(Afghanistan), 474

UNC. See United Nations Command.

Unconditional surrender, 109, 114, 129–30

Unified commands, 206–07, 228–29, 262, 263

UNIFIL. See United Nations Interim Force in 

Lebanon.

Uniform Code of Military Justice, 208, 216

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 69

in Afghanistan, 486

American supplies for in World War II, 100, 

101, 120, 127, 128, 162

American wariness of during World War II, 130

Army equipment, 381, 384, 386

and Berlin, 115, 116, 164, 269–70

and the Cold War, 267

and Cuba, 261, 298

and detente in Europe, 271–72

disintegration of, 407, 413

emergence as a military power, 111, 114–15, 116

expansionism after World War II, 210–14, 252, 

268, 269–70

German invasion of, 75, 81

and Italian Campaign, 110

and the Iron Curtain, 210–11

and Korea, 210, 212, 222–23, 224, 226, 232, 

233, 234, 236, 240, 244–45, 247, 249, 252

military buildup in Europe in the early 1970s, 

381, 384

and nuclear weapons, 218–19, 256, 257

and occupation of Germany, 208, 209, 217–18

and occupation of Korea, 210

and planning cross-channel attack, 100

and Sputnik, 258

as supplier of arms to Iraq, 416

and Vietnam, 367

and the war against Japan, 111, 117, 199

and World War II, 67, 71, 100, 111, 114–15, 

117, 162–63, 164

See also Russia.

United Arab Emirates, 424

United Kingdom. See Great Britain.

United Nations (UN), 203–04

and Afghanistan, 477

and Haiti, 437, 438

and Iraq, 480, 481, 494, 497

and Korea, 212, 222, 233, 242

and peacekeeping operations, 434, 440, 442–43

and Somalia, 433–34, 437

and Yugoslavia, 444–47

United Nations Command (UNC), 228–29, 230–31, 

232–33, 234, 235, 236, 239, 240, 243, 

245–46, 247, 249, 250–52

of noncommissioned officers, 395, 396

of officers, 24–25, 35, 60, 207–08, 284, 354, 394, 396

for peacekeeping operations, 443

in the period between the World Wars, 62

planning for expansion during mobilization, 70

of replacement troops, 22, 70, 121

of reserve forces, 60, 283, 381

responsibility for, 89, 389–90, 394

for riot control, 283

shortage of experienced personnel for, 309

simulation used in, 428

Special Forces, 282–83, 431–32

in trench warfare, 25–26

of troops for Vietnam, 305

of troops for World War I, 8–9, 11–13, 15, 18, 

21–22, 24, 25–26, 27, 29, 35, 48

unit, 21–22, 25, 62, 65–66, 68, 70, 72, 73–76, 

121, 394, 395–96

for women soldiers, 377–78, 390, 389, 394

See also Louisiana Maneuvers; Universal 

Military Training; U.S. Army Training and 

Doctrine Command.

Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), 498. See 

also Iraq.

Transportation Battalion, 159th, 342

Transportation Security Administration, 465

Transportation Service, 56

Trident Conference, 108, 196. See also World War II.

Truman, Harry S., 8, 108

and the atomic bomb, 199, 214–15

and China, 211–12

and Communist expansionist policies, 211

and economic aid programs, 212–13, 218

and integration of the armed forces, 208, 248

and Japan, 209

and Korea, 210

and the Korean War, 224, 228–29, 232–33, 

234, 242–43, 244–45, 247–48, 249

and military spending, 205, 214–15, 219, 

247–48

and military training, 214

and organization of the national security 

system, 206

Truman administration

containment policy, 210, 211–13, 215

and foreign economic aid, 215

and military spending, 214–15

Truman Doctrine, 213

Truong, Lt. Gen. Ngo Quang, 362

Truscott, Lt. Gen. Lucian K., 146

Tudjman, Franjo, 445

Tunisia, 133, 134, 135, 138–41, 166

Turkey, 1, 144, 211, 212–13, 218, 228, 271, 430, 

431, 432, 481, 491

UAVs. See Aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles.

U-boats, 7, 81, 96, 97, 108, 120, 146–47

Ukraine, 445
American Military History

548

budgets, 61, 68, 205, 215, 261–62, 278, 292, 

379–80, 407, 429, 459

and close air support, 281–82, 302

communications, 264–65

discipline, 354, 373, 376

distribution of forces, 99, 261

doctrine, 64, 165, 180–81, 216, 279, 283, 293, 

295, 381–83, 384, 387, 389, 391, 392, 393, 

396–97, 406, 407, 428, 477, 504–06

and drug abuse, 285, 286, 354, 396

forward deployment policy, 391

fraternization problems, 378

General Headquarters, 68, 73–74, 88, 89

General Reserve, 231, 240, 248

homeland security role, 464–68, 514

humanitarian missions, 430–33, 433–37

industrial mobilization planning, 23, 70, 82–83

information technology, 264–65, 282, 415, 456, 

498

Japanese American soldiers, 85

jurisdictional disputes with U.S. Air Force, 258, 

281–82, 301

manpower

in the all-volunteer Army, 375, 376

planning, 68–69, 82, 83, 118–19, 124–25, 

265, 497

shortages, 122, 231, 240, 248

in Vietnam, 307

Vietnam draft, 309

of the volunteer Total Army, 381

mechanization, 68

and missile development, 258

missions, 280–83

mobility, 68, 70, 72, 264, 281, 300–301, 318, 

425, 427–30

mobilization planning, 82–83, 214, 379

morale, 227–28, 238, 239, 241, 245, 309–10, 

353–54, 373, 375–76

motorization, 70, 72

occupation duties, 57–58, 204, 216–17, 221

officers

promotions, 59

retention, 263

strength, 59, 61, 95, 309–10

training, 207–08, 284, 354, 394, 396

Operation Steadfast (reorganization), 390–91

organization, 21, 59–60, 65, 70, 118–19, 120–21, 

262–65, 278–83, 379, 389–93, 407, 429–30

pay, 62, 265, 374–75, 377

peacekeeping, 436, 438

peacetime missions, 55–57, 58, 68, 217–18

personnel retention, 252–53, 375–76, 503, 506, 

516

pre-positioning of military equipment, 391, 

428, 429

procurement, 59, 71, 72, 88, 123, 127, 278–79, 

383, 410

United Nations General Assembly, 203, 210, 233, 

252, 465

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), 

442

United Nations Mission in Haiti, 440

United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), 

444–45, 446

United Nations Security Council, 203

and Haiti, 438

and Korea, 224, 228–29, 252

and peacekeeping operations, 442

United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), 374, 381, 

446, 455

United States Army Recruiting Command 

(USAREC), 375, 390

Unity of command

Allied use in World War II, 87–88, 140, 141, 166

Axis failure to establish in North Africa, 138–39

failure to achieve in Vietnam War, 308–09

failure to establish for operations in Laos, 359

failure to practice in Somalia, 435

Japan’s failure to practice in the Philippines, 189

in Korea, 228–29

lack of in U.S. naval forces in the Pacific, 188–89

in the Pacific, 188–89, 193, 197, 199

See also War, principles of.

Universal military training (UMT), 22, 55, 63, 214

UNPROFOR. See United Nations Protection Force.

U.S. Agency for International Development, 511

U.S. Air Force, 206

air support in Korea, 226, 229, 236, 247

appropriations, 255

and Berlin Airlift, 217–18

and close air support for the Army, 281–82, 301

jurisdictional disputes with U.S. Army, 258, 

281–82, 301

missions, 281–82, 300, 301

and nuclear weapons, 258–59

responsibilities, 207

as separate service, 64, 88, 206, 207

strength, 215

support for airmobile units in Vietnam, 314

See also Air Force, Fourteenth; Army Air Forces.

U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC), 

206–07, 215, 270

U.S. Armored Forces, 74

U.S. Army

administrative personnel, 123, 279

and African Americans, 27–28, 33, 122, 161, 

208, 248, 286, 373

air-assault tactics, 300, 301

aircraft models, 282

airmobile tactics, 300, 301

all-volunteer issue, 285, 373, 374–79

appropriations, 59, 65–66

Army Transformation, 455–59, 512–16

aviation roles and missions, 264, 281, 300–301, 302
index

549

U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, 499

U.S. Coast Guard, 75

U.S. Congress, 398, 468, 497

and the all-volunteer force, 376, 377

and Army strength, 55, 57, 61, 68

and border security, 465

foreign economic aid funding by, 212–13

and Future Combat System, 498

funding for modernization, 384, 386

and joint warfighting operations, 406

manpower needs, 20–21, 61, 73, 75, 266, 285

and the Middle East, 260

and military appropriations, 68–69, 72, 247–

48, 269, 459

pay, 265

training, 214

and Nationalist Chinese, 260

neutrality acts, 67

and organization of the military establishment, 

206–08, 262

and organization of the Regular Army, 59

and the reserve forces, 266, 283

and universal training, 55

and the Vietnam War, 306, 367

U.S. Constabulary (Berlin), 209

U.S. Continental Army Command (CONARC), 262, 

279, 389–91

U.S. Customs Service, 465

U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 468

U.S. Department of State, 218, 228, 398, 511

U.S. European Command, 217, 272

U.S. Marine Corps, 26, 58–59, 124, 207, 231

in Afghanistan, 473–74

and code talkers, 48

Combat Developments Command, 505

in the Dominican Republic, 273–74

in Haiti, 439–40

in Iraq, 486, 489, 490

and the Persian Gulf War, 419, 421, 424–25

and the Philippines, 92

strength, 215

in Thailand, 273

in Vietnam, 307, 326, 328, 331, 344, 352

in World War II, 178

See also various Marine units.

U.S. Merchant Marine, 96, 119

U.S. Military Academy, 60, 377

U.S. Military Advisory Group to the Republic of 

Korea (KMAG), 223, 229, 230

U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group, 

Indochina, 289, 293

U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam, 

293, 295, 302

U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 

(MACV), 301–02, 305, 308, 309, 317, 320–21, 

322, 333–34, 337, 340, 345–49, 357, 359, 

363, 367, 368, 380

public trust in, 370, 373

racial integration, 208, 248

racial problems, 286, 373, 376

 Rainbow plans, 71, 75, 82, 99

readiness, 62, 69, 203, 216, 226, 248, 252, 

263–64, 298, 393–94, 480, 481

recruitment, 376–77, 379, 458

reliance on reserve forces in deployments, 214, 

429

service personnel and units, 122, 469–70

sexual harassment, 378

soldier replacements

in the Korean War, 229, 230, 231, 250

in World War I, 15, 22

in World War II, 120, 122, 124, 158, 161

strategic reserve forces, 122–23, 125, 230, 240, 

248, 263–64, 308, 309, 332, 343

strength, 9, 18, 21, 55, 57, 58–59, 68, 71, 95, 

119, 122, 204, 214–15, 232, 261–62, 267, 

269–71, 277–78, 285, 292, 298, 376–77, 

379–81, 407, 428, 429, 454

tactical organization, 13–14, 280, 389, 391

technical services, 57, 89, 127, 216, 279, 389

technology, 513, 514

and women, 122, 377–79, 430

See also various units.

U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), 308, 360

U.S. Army Armor Center and School, 386

U.S. Army Combat Developments Command 

(CDC), 279, 389–90, 391

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 

382, 394, 505

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 465, 467

Manhattan Project, 123

navigation and flood control, 65

and Pentagon reconstruction, 467

U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, 391

U.S. Army Far Eastern Command, 216–17

U.S. Army Forces, China-Burma-India, 87, 99, 

117, 123

U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM), 390, 

391

U.S. Army Health Services Command, 390

U.S. Army Information Systems Command, 391

U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC), 279, 389

U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy, 395

U.S. Army Signal Corps, 3, 216

U.S. Army Support Command, Vietnam, 302

U.S. Army Support Group, Vietnam, 302

U.S. Army Tactical Mobility Requirements Board. 

See Howze Board.

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command 

(TRADOC), 382, 386, 393–94

U.S. Army War College, 60, 71, 390, 394

U.S. Border Patrol, 466

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), 417, 500, 

502, 505, 508, 510, 511
American Military History

550

secret zones, 317, 318–19, 322, 324, 351

strategy, 316–17, 339

strength, 297

training camps, 318–19

See also People’s Liberation Armed Forces; 

Vietnam; Vietnam War.

Viet Minh, 289–90, 304, 393–94. See also North 

Vietnam; Vietnam War.

Vietnam

demilitarized zone, 331, 344, 349, 352, 364, 

368

disease, 314

negotiations regarding, 339, 344, 345, 349, 

363, 367

unification issue, 273, 290, 294, 333, 368

war against the French, 259, 289–90

See also North Vietnam; South Vietnam; 

Vietnam War.

Vietnam, Army of the Republic of. See South 

Vietnamese Army.

Vietnam War

I Corps area, 317, 326, 328, 331–32, 333, 342, 

344, 347–48, 349, 351, 352–53, 359, 360, 

364, 366

II Corps area, 317, 324, 325, 333, 351, 355, 

360, 364, 366

III Corps area, 314–24, 333, 349–51, 355, 360, 

364

IV Corps area, 317, 322, 347–48, 349

air operations, 310, 311, 313, 314, 316

atrocities, 353–54

attrition, 305, 337, 351, 366

casualties, 306, 312, 313, 316, 321, 326–27, 

333, 338, 343, 346, 348, 351, 352, 353, 362, 

368, 370, 361

Central Highlands, 294, 299, 306, 311–14

combat operations, 315–16, 317–18, 322–24, 

326, 328–29

command and control, 300, 308–09, 314

dissent among soldiers, 285–86, 354

elusiveness of enemy forces, 316–17, 318–19, 

320–21, 329, 330, 355, 357

enemy strategy, 316–17, 326, 329, 333, 339, 

342–43, 344, 366, 367–68

enemy troop strength, 337–38

guerrilla warfare, 282–83, 292, 294–95, 296, 

353, 367

Hamburger Hill, 352

helicopters, 300–301, 311, 313, 314, 318, 320, 

326, 330, 340, 347, 350, 360–62, 366, 368, 

370

enemy lines of communications, 321, 324, 331, 

342, 354–55, 357–58, 360–62, 364

logistical support for U.S. forces, 307, 308, 311, 

314, 342

opposition to, 285–86

ports, 342

U.S. Navy

and arms embargo against former Yugoslavian 

states, 444

convoy-escort duties, 75–76, 94–95

demobilization, 200–201

as first line of national defense, 55, 61, 70, 72

manpower requirements for World War II, 117

and nuclear weapons, 252

and Operation Torch, 136

in the Pacific, 115, 122, 127, 178–79

and the Persian Gulf War, 413, 417

and the Philippine Islands, 91

Rainbow plans, 73

responsibilities, 203

SEALs (Sea Air Land), 435, 489

in Somalia, 431

strength, 211

supplies for, 23

two-ocean program, 70

and Vietnam War, 318–20

See also Fleets.

U.S. Navy War College, 394–95

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), 401–02

U.S. Special Operations Command, 406

U.S. Strike Command, 278

USAREC. See United States Army Recruiting 

Command.

USAREUR. See United States Army, Europe.

USARV. See U.S. Army, Vietnam.

USS America, 439

USS Cole, 468

USS Eisenhower, 439

USS Harlan County, 438

USS Pueblo, 343

USSR. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Uzbekistan, 470, 473–74, 475

Van Fleet, Lt. Gen. James A., 211, 243–44, 245, 

247, 249

Vandenberg, Arthur H., 213

Vann, John Paul, 364

Verdun, 44

Versailles Peace Conference, 57. See also World 

War I.

Vichy government, 80–81, 134, 138. See also 

France; World War II.

Office of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, 280

Victory Program. See under World War II.

Video-telephone conferences (VTCs), 453

Vien, General Cao Van, 359

Viet Cong, 294–97, 299, 302–04, 305, 306, 310, 

317–18

defectors from, 351

political underground, 322, 348

recruitment, 37

rural operations, 321–22, 326, 328, 333, 339, 

343, 366
index

551

mobilization planning, 59–60, 68

organization of, 15, 19–20, 88

and training, 68

War Department General Staff

industrial procurement responsibility, 59–60, 88

Operations Division (OPD), 88, 216

organization of, 19–20, 60, 88–89, 214

planning for demobilization after World War II, 

204–06

Supply Division, 88

War Plans Division, 60, 67, 88

and World War I, 9, 13, 19–20

See also Assistant Secretary of War; Secretary of 

War.

War Food Administration, 24

War Industries Board, 23, 127

War Production Board (WPB), 127

War Shipping Administration (WSA), 127

Warsaw Pact, 381, 382, 383–84, 391, 395, 407, 

413, 443. See also Albania; Bulgaria; 

Czechoslovakia; Poland; Romania.

Washington, D.C., 64–65, 276–77

Washington Naval Conference (1922), 67

Wavell, Lt. Gen. Archibald P., 90

Weapons of mass destruction, 466, 480, 481, 497. 

See also Global War on Terrorism.

Weather

in Iraq, 482, 487

and the Korean War, 237, 238, 239, 244

and the Vietnam War, 318, 324, 359

and World War I, 48

and World War II, 142, 148–49, 154, 159, 161, 

166, 188, 191

in Yugoslavia, 444, 446, 452

Wedemeyer, Maj. Gen. Albert C., 95, 109, 197, 198

West Coast

defense in World War II, 95, 96

security in World War II, 80, 89, 94

West Germany. See Federal Republic of Germany.

Western Defense Command, 84, 96

Western Front, 7–8, 12, 14, 15, 18, 27–31. See 

also World War II.

Westmoreland, General William C. 

as Chief of Staff, 305, 375, 389–90

and the Vietnam War, 304, 305–06, 307–08, 

309, 310, 311, 312–13, 314–15, 316–18, 

319–21, 322, 324, 330, 331, 332, 333–34, 

337–38, 339, 340, 342, 343–44, 345

See also Vietnam War.

Wheeler, General Earle G., 342

Wickham, General John A., Jr., 393

Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 1

Williams, Lt. Gen. Samuel T., 293

Wilson, Field Marshal Henry M., 145

Wilson, Woodrow, 7, 9, 11, 18, 27, 29, 58, 203

Wilson administration, 22

Winterbotham, F. R., 144

public opinion, 285–86, 310, 337, 338–39, 343, 

346, 349, 353–54, 355, 357, 367, 380, 397

riverine operations, 322–24

role of U.S. combat forces, 307–09, 311, 317, 

319, 321

soldiers missing in action, 370

strategic planning, 310, 311, 314–16, 317, 319, 

321–22, 329, 343, 358–59

terrain, 313, 318, 329

training, 293, 294–95, 301, 305

U.S. command arrangements, 301–02, 317

U.S. military strength in, 307, 309, 310, 318–

19, 337, 343–44, 346, 363–64

U.S. reluctance to engage in ground war, 

285–86, 290, 292, 305–06, 308

U.S. strategy in, 310, 311, 314–16, 317, 319, 

321–22, 329, 343, 352

U.S. troop withdrawals from, 347, 353–54, 362–68

use of reserve forces, 310, 344

Vietnamization, 345–49, 354, 357, 362–68

War Zone C, 319, 320–21, 324, 333

War Zone D, 315–16, 321

weather, 318, 324, 359

See also Australia; Communism; Easter 

offensive; Eisenhower, General Dwight D.; 

Johnson, Lyndon B.; Joint Chiefs of Staff; 

Nixon, Richard M.; People’s Republic of 

China; Tet offensive; Union of Soviet Socialist 

Republics; U.S. Congress; Westmoreland, 

General William C.

Viviani, René, 8

Vogelkop Islands, 175, 182

VOLAR. See Project Volunteer Army.

VTCs. See Video-telephone conferences.

WAC. See Women’s Army Corps.

Wadi al Batin, 419, 421, 424

Wainwright, Lt. Gen. Jonathan M., 93–94

Wakde Island, 182

Wake Island, 90, 169–70, 234

Walker, Lt. Gen. Walton H., 226–27, 229, 230, 

232, 234, 235–36, 237, 238. See also Korean 

War.

Wallace, Lt. Gen. William S., 487, 488

War, principles of

American devotion to, 165–66

Japanese use, 91

violated in Vietnam, 370

See also Economy of force; Maneuver; Mass; 

Objective; Offensive; Security; Simplicity; 

Surprise; Unity of command.

War Department

appropriations for, 61

and demobilizations, 56–57

and expansion of the Army for World War I, 18

and industrial mobilization, 19, 127

and internment of aliens, 84–85
American Military History

552

in Europe, 146, 147, 150, 152, 154–55, 158

industrial mobilization, 114–15, 116, 118–19, 

127, 199

intelligence operations, 179, 181, 183, 187

joint operations, 87–88

lines of communications, 119, 126–30, 155, 

158, 170–71, 187

logistic support, 88–89, 123–24, 126–30, 172

Mediterranean region, 80–81, 100–101, 102–03, 

107–11, 112–13, 129, 133–43, 146, 153

military diplomacy, 108–09, 114–15

munitions production, 119–20, 127–28

in the Pacific, 178, 187, 197, 199

planning for postwar Army, 204

and political considerations, 115–18

ports, 128, 152, 153, 154, 158, 191

prisoners of war, 143, 159, 164, 191

public opinion, 71, 72, 76–77, 82–83, 84–85, 

118, 205

shipping, 96, 100–102, 119, 120

soldier replacements, 120–21, 122, 124, 161

strategic planning, 71, 75, 81–82, 117, 126–27, 

128–30, 152, 155, 169, 170, 175–81, 186–

87, 195

strategy, 100, 102, 126–27

supply distribution, 128–29, 130

tank production, 83

terrain, 141–42, 152, 189

training, 96, 121

troop distribution, 123–29

Victory Program, 82–83, 95, 120

weather, 142, 152, 154, 158, 159, 161, 188, 187

and West Coast, 80, 89, 94, 95, 96

See also Australia; Churchill, Winston; 

Eisenhower, General Dwight D.; France; 

Germany; Great Britain; Italy; Japan; Joint 

Chiefs of Staff; MacArthur, General Douglas; 

Marshall, General George C.; Midway, Battle 

of; People’s Republic of China; Philippine 

Islands; Roosevelt, Franklin D.; Union of 

Soviet Socialist Republics.

WPD. See War Production Board.

Wright brothers, 3

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, 445

WSA. See War Shipping Administration.

Yalta Conference, 117, 199, 208. See also World 

War II.

Yalu River, 233, 234–35

Yamamoto, Admiral Isoroku, 201

Yamashita, General Tomoyuki, 189, 191

Yemen, 468, 479–80

York, Sgt. Alvin C., 50

Yugoslav National Army (JNA), 444

Yugoslavia, 415, 442, 443–47, 450–55

Zais, Maj. Gen. Melvin, 352

Women’s Army Corps (WAC), 122, 377–78, 216

Wonsan, Korea, 233, 234

Wood, Maj. Gen. Leonard, 9, 22

World Trade Center, 463, 464, 476. See also 

Global War on Terrorism; Pentagon, attack 

on; September 11 attacks; Terrorism.

World War I

African Americans and, 27–28, 33

aircraft, 3, 23, 42

Allied logistic support, 12, 15

Allied Powers, 1

amalgamation proposal, 9, 18, 27, 28, 29–30, 31

American casualties, 26, 30, 31, 33, 35, 38, 43, 51

Army demobilization after, 56–57

casualties, 2, 6, 26, 28–29, 30, 31, 33, 34–35, 

38, 43, 51, 52

demobilization after, 56–57

division organization, 9, 11, 13–14, 18, 32

field armies, 13, 14–15

industrial mobilization, 23–24

lines of communications, 11–12, 13, 15, 24, 37, 

38, 41, 44, 48, 51

National Guard troops overseas, 25, 34–35

prisoners of war, 28–29, 30, 38, 43, 48, 49, 51, 52

proposed use of American troops in foreign 

armies, 9, 18, 27, 28, 29–30, 31

shipping for American troops, 29–30, 35–36

soldier replacements, 15, 22

strategic planning, 15, 18

tanks, 3, 23, 38, 42, 45

terrain, 44–45, 48

troop training, 8–9, 11–13, 15, 18, 21–22, 24, 

25–26, 27, 29, 35, 50

U.S. role in, 7–52

U.S. zone of operations in, 11–12, 15, 18

weather, 45–46

Western Front, 7–8, 12, 14, 15, 18, 27–31

See also France; French Army; German Army; 

Germany; Great Britain; Italy; Russia; War 

Department; War Department General Staff.

World War II

African Americans, 122, 154, 161

air operations in the Pacific, 172, 179, 180–81, 

182, 192–93, 198

aircraft availability, 95

aircraft carriers, 144, 180, 187, 188

Allied strategy, 85–91, 113–15, 124, 126–30, 

133–41

American casualties, 124, 149, 161, 165, 174

demobilization after, 204–05

attrition, 113, 118–19

British concerns about the Middle East, 80–81, 

100–101, 102–03, 107, 109–10

casualties, 149, 153, 161, 163, 165, 174

concentration of forces, 103, 108, 113, 115, 126

division organization, 121–22

diplomacy and planning, 109–10, 114–15
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