Post by volkssturm on Sept 1, 2021 12:51:39 GMT -5
I'm about half-way through "The Rise of the G.I. Army: 1940-1941. The Forgotten Story of How America Forged a Powerful Army Before Pearl Harbor." By Paul Dickson.
I'm up to the Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941 at this point. Quite a story and almost unimaginable now. Think of a month long maneuver between two armies comprising around 400,000 men in an area covering a large part of the state of Louisiana and parts of Arkansas an Texas. (If they'd had Airsoft guns it would have been the all time record Airsoft game). At this point the US Army was about 1,500,000 men. In 1939 it had been fewer than 200,000. It's an amazing story how the Army was able to expand like it did. A lot of it comes down to one man, Gen. George C. Marshall, who was able to identify what needed to be done, pick the right people to do it, and convince Congress to allow it. Another factor that I'd never heard mentioned before was the Civilian Conservation Corps. When FDR created the CCC he called on the Army, the only organization with some degree of expertise in organizing and training masses of men, to run it. Marshall and other future leaders like Omar Bradley were involved with setting up and running the CCC camps. The experience gave them a blueprint for how to handle masses of draftees a few years later. Something that people who grew up in the post WWII era or the post Vietnam era or the current "Forever War" era probably don't realize is how isolated the Army was from civilian society in the 1920's and 1930's. It was a small and generally neglected institution occupying it's own little bubble that most people paid little attention to. In a reaction to WWI Americans leaned towards isolationism and anti-militarism. Europe's problems were their own concern and there was an active movement to keep the US out of it. The selective service bill passed by 1 vote in the House. Trying to rebuild the Army in this environment was incredibly difficult. We're lucky people like FDR, Secretary of War Stimson, and Gen. Marshall were there and able to pull it off.
I'm up to the Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941 at this point. Quite a story and almost unimaginable now. Think of a month long maneuver between two armies comprising around 400,000 men in an area covering a large part of the state of Louisiana and parts of Arkansas an Texas. (If they'd had Airsoft guns it would have been the all time record Airsoft game). At this point the US Army was about 1,500,000 men. In 1939 it had been fewer than 200,000. It's an amazing story how the Army was able to expand like it did. A lot of it comes down to one man, Gen. George C. Marshall, who was able to identify what needed to be done, pick the right people to do it, and convince Congress to allow it. Another factor that I'd never heard mentioned before was the Civilian Conservation Corps. When FDR created the CCC he called on the Army, the only organization with some degree of expertise in organizing and training masses of men, to run it. Marshall and other future leaders like Omar Bradley were involved with setting up and running the CCC camps. The experience gave them a blueprint for how to handle masses of draftees a few years later. Something that people who grew up in the post WWII era or the post Vietnam era or the current "Forever War" era probably don't realize is how isolated the Army was from civilian society in the 1920's and 1930's. It was a small and generally neglected institution occupying it's own little bubble that most people paid little attention to. In a reaction to WWI Americans leaned towards isolationism and anti-militarism. Europe's problems were their own concern and there was an active movement to keep the US out of it. The selective service bill passed by 1 vote in the House. Trying to rebuild the Army in this environment was incredibly difficult. We're lucky people like FDR, Secretary of War Stimson, and Gen. Marshall were there and able to pull it off.