Evening star., 1939-08-27
National Guard Takes Crucial
Mock War Tests in Full Stride
$4,000 Officers and Men Perspirine in Peace in
Battle Exercises to Avoid Bleeding
in War
By Joseph s. Edgerfon.

OF individual units, lacking adequate
Army corps and divisional troops, par
TALLY equipped and woefully short in the
manpower, weapons, motors, etc., which
experience has proven to be essential to
an efficient field army"
The 1st Army, which would have to do
the best it could with what it now has
in event of an unexpected emergency,
has only % per cent of it's proper man
power, or 75,l16 officers and men instead
OF the 321, ATS called for under the initial
protective force plan. 1t is short ST per
cent in machine guns, 83 per cent in
trucks, 81 per cent in 3-inch anti-aircraft
buns, 83 per cent in 155-millimeter guns
and 81 per cent in automatic rifles, &C
cording to Gen. Drum
Under the War Department plan
adopted in 1885, each of the four armies
was ordered to hold maneuvers yearly
in order to train all echelons of COM
mand in the functioning of higher units.
The 1st Army maneuvers were divided
into the two phases in Virginia and New
York, overlapping by one week. At each
training area the participating troops
were given eight days of field training,
just as they would in case of a general
mobilization, before participating in the
major problem.
This problem involved the simulated
invasion of the United States by coal
1tlon OF powers-the Blacks" The main
invasion took place through New Eng
land. The Virginia exercises simulated
attQnk 10
highly mechanical force landed at
Quantico, Va, after BLACK" naval ac-
ton had won control of Chesapeake Bay.
The Virginia attack was to create a
diversion, distracting attention of the
defense and withdrawing troops from in
front OF the main New England attack.
How the Period Is Planned.
I'm considering this eight-day period"
Sd Corps Area staff officers said in dis
cussing the training phase, "it should be
borne in mind that units both of the
Regular Army and the National Guard,
while existing on paper as members Of
higher units such as brigades, divisions,
corps, armies, etc, are, except for their
few periods in the field, actually engaged
in the multifarious peacetime duties of
any military organization. These in
clude necessary administration. individ-
ual training of officers and enlisted men
and such practical training of units from
squads to battalions as may be accom-
plished at their home stations. While
the Regular Army devotes its entire time
to these objectives, the National Guard
Is limited by law to 48 drill periods
yearly, supplemented by its yearly 15-day
encampment. These maneuvers take
the place of the 15-day encampment
for the National Guard units in this
corps area for this year and of the yearly
lOO-mile hike for Regular Army units
engaged.
This means that actual operations
IN the field of units larger than a
regiment are rare and while the me-
chanics of operations of higher units
are taught in the schools conducted
within all organizations from a COM
pany up, the opportunities for practical
employment of these lessons come at
the most once a year.
For this reason it is necessary to
spend the first week of these maneuvers,
after the concentration period, in a series
of progressive exercises which will
harden the individual men to living
under field conditions and at the same
time will train organizations in operat-
ing as parts of progressively larger units,
until the second period of maneuvers."
Equipment Used.
Nearly $4,000 weapons and more than
l,7O0 motor vehicles of various types
were required to equip the troops
engaged in the Virginia maneuvers.
Among the weapons employed were 20
mortars, 20 37-millimeter guns, "a sub
caliber infantry guns, 100 75-millimeter
field guns which are improvements of
the famous World War type; 36 1885,
millimeter howitzers, "a 3-inch anti-air
craft guns, 48 .50-caliber anti-aircraft
machine guns, Sill .30-caliber machine
guns, 9,044 .30-caliber rifles, 1120 auto
matte rifles and 10000 pistols or revolvers.
Rolling equipment included rs light
tanks, LAS trucks, 410 cars, 80 ambu-
lances and So motorcycles
Gen. Drum is firm believer in the
value OF training of the type held by
his command. He declared that train.
ing of the United States Army today
is tagging behind the peacetime supply
OF war materials and that the Nations
greatest defense problem today is the
training of man power and especially the
training of the high commands.
He quoted pungent statement of
China's Chang Kai-shek: THE more
you perspire in peace, the less you
bleed in war"
An outstanding weakness of the Amer
ican Army, he pointed out, always has
been the lack of training for the head
quarters stats of large units. This lack
was a primary reason for our delay in
getting into the World War, he said.
The British and French were prepared
to equip our troops as rapidly as they
could be sent forward, Gen. Drum said.
but the arrival of American troops in
the battle zone was postponed for nearly
year, even in the case of the lst Army
OF Regulars, because of the lack of train.
ing, especially in the higher commands.
One of the most difficult phases of
training programs is to get the compile
Gated military units working as team
an absolute essential to success, which
can be achieved only when the higher
STATS are thoroughly trained and are
mutually acquainted with each Others
methods and reactions to work together
/, smoothly toward q common oooJ rr-h;.