The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-04
STATES JOIN IN ARMY DIVISION
Steps Taken To Form Corps Montgomery To Be
 Headquarters

Initial steps were taken In Bir- mingham Saturday morning to form an army division with troops from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana when Col. William P. Screws, Col Walter H. Bare, Capt. Russell walthour and Capt. Charles Heard met in conference.
 The division, composed of two brigades, Is expected to be in shape within six months, Colonel Screws stated Saturday, with an average of states named Alabama already has formed 42 companies.
 ' Except for divisional units, Colonel Screws said, AIabama's quota is or sanized.
 Alabama has been awarded di- vision headquarters, to be in Mont gomery, because of the action of the legislature in raising the states appropriation for national guard or ganizations from $50,000 to $S3, 900. This financial interest on the part of the state has taken Alabama to front rank of the states in the union fostering national guard units.
 The division Is being formed with the national guard outfits as nu- cleus, Colonel Screws said, with re- serve officers and men to be drawn in, in case of need, to bring the per sonnel of the element to war time strength. It will practically be a complete army, with four regiments of infantry, three regiments of ar tillery, full quotas of machine gun units for each regiment, airplane squadron. supply and ammunition trains, signal corps and other out fits.
 Colonel Screws said particular at tention is being paid to the schools for officers and noncommissioned of ficers for new developments in was standard year ago to the dis card.
 Assigning reserve officers and men to units will be started within the next two weeks or sooner, as soon as the board of officers work ing out plans for the division have progressed a bit further with their work.
 Movement Nationwide.
 Other divisions are being formed throughout the country, confined to the limits of some densely populated states and in other cases made up of two or more states.
 Each company, battalion, regiment and brigade will have its name and number and will retain them if called on for active service. Stress is being laid on assigning officers and men to their outfits. avoiding confusion in case of call to the colors.
 Because of the work being done on getting the division into shape it is probable inspections will not pc held until the latter part of Feb ruary or early in March. Plans for general inspection are being laid, but will be held off until the division is formed.
 Colonel Screws holds the rank of lieutenant colonel with the regular army and brigadier general with the guard. Another brigadier general IS to be chosen from the officers of the national guard as soon as the work is further advanced. A matcr gem eral will be appointed by the war department as soon as the division Is formed. The creation of these two high offices will make vacancies in the lists of colonels and so on down the line, and the creation of addi- tional units will open the way for more commissions.
 Colonel Screws will be in Birming- ham for day or so before the con- ferences are concluded here and he moves on to the next regimental center.