u.s. army innovation history

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A History of

I NNOVATION U.S. Army Adaptation in War and Peace

Jon T. Hoffman

General Editor

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORYUNITED STATES ARMY

WASHINGTON, D.C., 2009


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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A history of innovation : U.S. Army adaptation in war and peace / Jon T. Ho man, general editor.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.1. United States. Army Equipment History 20th century. 2.United States. Army Drill and tactics History 20th century.3. Military weapons United States History 20th century. I.Ho man, Jon T., 1955- II. Center of Military History.

UA25.h675 2009355.80973 dc22 2009024607

First Printing CMH Pub 4061


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ContentsPage

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 M1 Garand Ri e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3 The Benning Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

4 Air Observation Posts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

5 Armored Force Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

6 Tank Destroyer Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 7 The Bazooka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

8 Upgunning the Amphibian Tank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

9 Conquering the Hedgerows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

10 Special Patrol Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

11 Airmobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

12 Airborne Radio Direction Finding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 13 Artillery Speed Shi er . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

14 National Training Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Suggested Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165


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Illustrations Page

A soldier aims his M1 ri e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 John C. Garand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Garand in his workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Soldiers man an SCR268 radar set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Col. William R. Blair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19The 1938 prototype of the SCR268 radar set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24The 29th Infantry musters at Fort Benning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Lt. Col. George C. Marshall Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Marshall with some of his sta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34An L4 of the 29th Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36A light plane takes on fuel during maneuvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Col. William W. Ford and Lt. Col. Gordon J. Wolf . . . . . . . . . . . 45M4 medium tanks line a street . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50A unit mounted on half-tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56An M8 75-mm. self-propelled howitzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59A panzer unit sweeps across the Russian steppe . . . . . . . . . . . . 62An M6 tank destroyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66An M10 tank destroyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69A soldier res a bazooka over a hedgerow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722d Lt. Edward G. Uhl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Uhl holds an improved bazooka model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80Tracked landing vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Col. William S. Triplet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Soldiers rest in front of an LVT(A)4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Tanks maneuver through hedgerow country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92Sgt. Curtis G. Culin III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98A Sherman tank plows through a hedgerow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Soldiers in their forward trench line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102Men of the 3d Ranger Infantry Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Soldiers of the 35th Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Helicopters of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) . . . . . . . . 116Maj. Gen. Hamilton H. Howze inspects a helicopter . . . . . . . . 119Troops deploy a er Sikorsky H34s li o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123Operators station in a modi ed U6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128Herbert S. Hovey Jr. and other engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132Harold M. Ja e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134M114 155-mm. howitzers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138An artilleryman raises the ring jack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141Two soldiers maneuver their six-ton howitzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143An M2 Bradley infantry ghting vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146A Sheridan tank rigged to look like a BMP vehicle . . . . . . . . . . 151Observer/controllers conduct an a er action review . . . . . . . . . 153


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ForewordArmies rely so much on past experiences to validate current prac-tices that they are o en regarded as inherently conservative orga-nizations, resistant to meaningful change and innovation. Armedwith doctrines and traditions developed over decades and evencenturies to guide and sustain soldiers in combat, they have beenunderstandably hesitant to adopt new, unproven methods of warwithout conducting extraordinarily time-consuming and detailedtests and reviews. Yet armies have o en stood at the cu ing edge oftechnological, organizational, and methodological change, for in theviolent competition that marks their trade, survival has o en goneto the smartest and most innovative force rather than to the largestor best armed one. Thus, however risky, innovation has over theages become the hallmark of successful military establishments.

In the United States, the U.S. Army has a long history of innovation,

from the exploits of the Lewis and Clark Expedition at the beginningof the nineteenth century to the medical and engineering advancesassociated with the construction of the Panama Canal begun at itsend. But this particular collection of essays in A History of Innovation:U.S. Army Adaptation in War and Peace speaks to the purely militaryinitiatives in weapons, tactics, organization, training, and other areasthat directly impacted ba le eld performance in the twentieth cen-tury. While many were successful, some were premature and oth-ers even failures, quickly abandoned or signi cantly modi ed a er

undergoing the test of combat. How Army leaders approached theseinnovations how they sought to manage change are stories wellworth the telling since even those enterprises that proved problem-atic imparted their own lessons learned. This work then begins theimportant task of identifying those factors that encourage a cultureof change and innovation and those that militate against it. Howmuch is due to institutional exibility and how much to personalleadership are only some of the factors examined. By describing andanalyzing the Armys experiences in past innovations, these historicalessays can assist todays military leaders to become be er thinkersand be er innovators, making the past a servant of the future.

Washington, D.C. JEFFREY J. CLARKE1 October 2009 Chief of Military History


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ContributorsTerry L. Beckenbaugh is an assistant professor in the Departmentof Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General StaCollege, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He received his Ph.D. fromthe University of Arkansas in 2001, specializing in the AmericanCivil War and Reconstruction. He is currently working on a bookabout Maj. Gen. Samuel Ryan Curtis and the 1862 White RiverCampaign in Arkansas.

Thomas A. Bruscino Jr. is an assistant professor in the School ofAdvanced Military Studies, U.S. Army Command and GeneralSta College. He earned an M.A. in American history and a Ph.D.in U.S. military history from Ohio University (Athens, Ohio).His publications include Out of Bounds: Transnational Sanctuary inIrregular Warfare (2006).

Anne W. Chapman , a historian now retired from the U.S. ArmyTraining and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia, is anactive researcher in the elds of women in the military and theSchool of the Americas. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degreesfrom the College of William and Mary. She has wri en several books, including The Origins and Development of the NationalTraining Center, 19761984 (1997); The Armys Training Revolution19731990: An Overview (1991); and The National Training Center

Matures, 19851993 (1997).William M. Donnelly received his Ph.D. in history from OhioState University. An Army veteran of the Persian Gulf war, heis a senior historian in the Historical Support Branch, HistoriesDivision, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair,District of Columbia. He is the author of Under Army Orders: The

Army National Guard During the Korean War (2001); We Can DoIt: The 503d Field Artillery Ba alion in the Korean War (2000); and

Transforming an Army at War: Designing the Modular Force, 1991 2005 (2007).

Christopher R. Gabel is an instructor and curriculum coordina-tor for the Department of Military History, U.S. Army Command


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and General Sta College. He holds a Ph.D. in history from OhioState University. His publications include The U.S. Army GHQ

Maneuvers of 1941 (1991) and Seek, Strike, and Destroy: U.S. ArmyTank Destroyer Doctrine in World War II (1985). Other areas of inter-est and scholarship are Civil War logistics and the Vicksburgcampaign.

James L. Gilbert , a command historian now retired from the U.S.Army Intelligence and Security Command, Fort Belvoir, Virginia,earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Oklahoma.His books include The Most Secret War (2003), In the Shadow of the

Sphinx (2005), and U.S. Army Signals Intelligence in World War II (2004).

Jon T. Ho man is chief of the Contemporary Studies Branch,Histories Division, U.S. Army Center of Military History. A retiredMarine Corps Reserve o cer, he has an M.A. in military historyfrom Ohio State University and a J.D. from Duke University. He isthe author of USMC: A Complete History (2002); Chesty: The Story ofLieutenant General Lewis B. Puller, USMC (2001); and Once a Legend:Red Mike Edson of the Marine Raiders (1994).

John R. Maass received his Ph.D. in early U.S. history from OhioState University. A former o cer in the Army Reserve, he is ahistorian in the Contemporary Studies Branch, Histories Division,U.S. Army Center of Military History.

Edgar F. Raines Jr. received his Ph.D. from the University of

Wisconsin. He is a senior historian in the General Histories Branch,Histories Division, U.S. Army Center of Military History. His pub-lished works include Eyes of the Artillery: The Origins of Modern U.S.

Army Aviation in World War II (2000), and he is presently completinga manuscript on operational logistics in the Grenada campaign.

Mark J. Reardon , a retired armor o cer, received his B.A. in his-tory from Loyola College (Baltimore, Maryland) and an M.S. ininternational relations from Troy State University. He is a senior

historian in the Contemporary Studies Branch, Histories Division,U.S. Army Center of Military History, specializing in World WarII and the Global War on Terrorism. He is the author of Victory at

Mortain (2002) and coauthor of American Iliad: The 18th InfantryRegiment in World War II (2004) and From Transformation to Combat:


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The First Stryker Brigade at War (2007).Wendy Rejan is the command historian for the U.S. Army

Communications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command,Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. She holds an M.A. in history fromMonmouth University. Her areas of historical specialization arecommunications and electronics, the history of Fort Monmouth,Signal Corps research and development, and European history.

Mark D. Sherry received his M.A. and Ph.D. in history fromGeorgetown University. He is a historian in the ContemporaryStudies Branch, Histories Division, U.S. Army Center of Military

History, specializing in institutional history. He is the author ofChina Defensive (1996) and The Army Command Post and DefenseReshaping, 19871997 (2008).


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AcknowledgmentsIn addition to the authors of the chapters in A History of Innovation ,many other experts and professionals contributed in signi cantways. Noted military historians Allan R. Mille and HaroldR. Winton shared their insights on innovation while review-ing an early dra of the manuscript. Eric Voelz of the NationalPersonnel Records Center was invaluable in tracking down factsabout soldiers and Army civilians. Molly A. Bompane of the U.S.Army Military History Institute assisted with photo research.Dennis Buley, Robert Giordano, Thomas N. Hauser (U.S. ArmyIntelligence and Security Command), Thomas Hurt, and DavidNoyes contributed photos and information for the chapter onairborne radio direction nding. John Moltz provided assistanceon the speed shi er chapter. James T. Stensvaag of the U.S. ArmyTraining and Doctrine Command helped nalize the National

Training Center chapter. David Stieghan of Fort Benning suppliedphotos for that chapter.At the U.S. Army Center of Military History Chief Historian

Richard W. Stewart thoroughly reviewed the manuscript and pro-vided valuable guidance. Others at the Center also read dra sand o ered useful suggestions: Chief of Military History Je rey J. Clarke, Assistant Chief of Military History John F. Shortal, andHistories Division Chief Joel D. Meyerson. Under the directionof Publishing Division Chief Keith R. Tidman, sta members

Diane S. Arms, Beth F. MacKenzie, Carl E. Snyder

shepherdedthe manuscript into printed form.

Washington, D.C. JON T. HOFFMAN1 October 2009 General Editor


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A History of

I NNOVATION


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2 A HISTORY OF INNOVATION

can eventually add up to a major improvement in overall capabil-ity, as occurred with the U.S. Army in World War II. Most of the

innovations covered in this volume t in this category of small butnevertheless important advances.To be included in this volume, an innovation generally had

to meet four key criteria. First, it constituted a signi cant changein the Armys way of doing things. Second, it proved to be e ec-tive in accomplishing the mission. Third, it was either unique or,if created at roughly the same time by other services or nations,came into being in the U.S. Army with li le or no knowledge of, orcopying from, the e orts of those competitors. Fourth, the Armyor some element within it, not outside institutions or industry,drove development and implementation.

The few exceptions to these criteria merit a ention becausethey round out a fuller picture of the innovation process. Neitherthe tank destroyer force in World War II nor the special patrolgroups in Korea performed up to expectations, but these failureshighlight the di culty of making innovations achieve their desiredends. General George C. Marshalls reforms at the Infantry School,

the Korean patrol groups, and the National Training Center werealso not entirely new ideas, but they illustrate changes that mainlyinvolved methods rather than equipment. All too o en discus-sions on innovation become overly focused on the advent of newtechnology and overlook the vital role of other less-tangible con-cepts that have just as much impact on ultimate success in ba le.

It might seem overly restrictive to limit the scope of this workto innovations developed within the Army, especially since thescienti c community and defense industry have increasingly

been the source of new capabilities. While those outside entitieswill continue to play an important role, the growing signi canceof al-Qaeda and other nonstate actors is altering the landscape ofcon ict. Compared to past decades when the prospect of wag-ing a massive war with the Soviet Union required sophisticatedsystems and the most advanced technology available, todaysterrorists blend into the population; ght primarily with simpleweapons, such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs); and thuspose a di erent set of problems. Not only are their tactics more

primitive, but the very austerity of their force (no eets of tanksor helicopters) allows them to change their methods much morerapidly and easily. In this realm, technology is still useful but o ensecondary to critical factors, such as doctrine and organization.Frontline improvisation also assumes much greater importance,


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3INTRODUCTION

as we already have seen in the form of soldiers nding their ownways to defeat or defend against IEDs rather than waiting for

solutions from the research and development community. TheInformation Age, perversely enough, is perhaps reinforcing thistrend away from the primacy of technology. It may rely on satel-lites and computers, but the way in which these devices are usedis o en more critical than their relative technical capability. Theside that best manages the acquisition and processing of informa-tion for its internal use, while externally fashioning public percep-tions rst or making the deepest impression, will o en have theupper hand.

Even if one sets aside the nature of warfare today, the factremains that it is the soldiers in the eld those who have toght who should play a major role in determining what equip-

ment they need to have and how they will operate. They will noto en build their own devices, as Sgt. Curtis G. Culin III did atNormandy or the men of Ba ery B, 8th Ba alion, 6th Artillery,1st Infantry Division, did in Vietnam. And they may not come upwith new tactics or new organizational methods. But they fullyunderstand the situations they face and therefore should drive thee orts of scientists and engineers and doctrine writers to developthe capability required to achieve victory. As the selected exam-ples in this volume demonstrate, the Army has a long history ofsuccessfully developing new equipment, new organizations, andnew methods, and has done so with a wide variety of processes.Transformation may be the latest buzzword for change, but it rep-resents a challenge that earlier generations of soldiers and Armycivilians have answered time and again. A culture of innovation isa part of the Armys heritage, and that experience should inspirethose who now serve to nd equally creative answers to the prob-lems of today and tomorrow.


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A soldier aims his M1 ri e during ghting in Italy, June 1944. TheGarand semiautomatic was widely considered to be one of the most

effective American weapons of World War II. (George Silk/Time &Life Pictures/Getty Images)


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1M1 GARAND RIFLEThomas A. Bruscino Jr.

The Spring eld Model 1903 was a sturdy, accurate, reliable ri ethat served as the standard infantry arm of the U.S. Army for overthree decades. Soldiers carried it onto the ba le elds of World WarI, and it was a constant companion in interventions throughoutLatin America. Everyone who used it loved it. There was nothingwrong with the M1903, but the Army hoped to eld an improvedmodel that provided more repower.

Like most other ri es of the time, the Spring eld was bolt-

action, that is, a er every shot the soldier had to pull back the bolt to eject the shell casing and push it forward to load the nextround. The Army put great faith in the importance of the ri emanin ba le and wanted to make him even more e ective by increas-ing his volume of re. 1 A semiautomatic ri e that could eject thespent cartridge and load a new round with no action other thanthe pull of the trigger would speed up the rate of re. The mostpromising method for doing this was a gas-operated system. Thedriving force behind a bullet was the expanding gas generated

by the explosion of the gunpowder in the shell casing. In theory,some of that gas could also be employed to drive back the boltand eject the spent casing. Once the gas dissipated, a spring couldpush the bolt forward again and insert a new round into the ringchamber.

The Army had begun work on the concept around the beginningof the twentieth century, but developing a practical semiautomaticproved to be a di cult challenge. Although a variety of privateinventors inside and outside the United States already had designedand built semiautomatic small arms for civilian use, a combat

1Kenneth Finlayson, An Uncertain Trumpet: The Evolution of U.S. Army InfantryDoctrine, 19191941 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001).


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weapon presented a di erent set of problems. An e ective infantryri e needed to have enough power to in ict damage at long range, it

had to be light enough for the average ri eman to carry it over longdistances, and it needed to be durable enough to withstand highrates of re and the rigors of eld use. Commercial versions at thetime were either too small or too fragile to handle the job.

Inventors from all over the world submi ed their experimen-tal ri es for testing by the Army. In addition, civilians and o cersin the Armys Ordnance Department were hard at work on theirown designs. Despite all these e orts, nothing workable emergedfor decades. The task, seemingly simple, was proving extremely

complex.2

In fact, no other country would succeed in developing astandard service semiautomatic ri e by the outbreak of World WarII. Since no ash of inspiration was providing a solution, the onlyother alternative was a determined process of trial and error.

One man, John C. Garand, would prove up to the challenge.Born on New Years Day, 1888, in the small town of Saint Rmi,

Quebec, Canada, Garand moved to Connecticut with his familywhen he was twelve. He came from a modest background andhad li le formal education, but he was a tinkerer from a youngage. Shortly a er arriving in the United States, he dropped outof school and began working as a oor sweeper in a textile mill.He applied for his rst patent before he was een, and withina few years became a machinist at the mill. He also developed aserious interest in guns, working one summer at a shooting gal-lery, where he became an avid and rst-rate target shooter. He joined the National Guard, but during World War I his design fora machine gun made him more valuable at home and earned hima job at the Bureau of Standards. Based on his e orts there, theArmys Spring eld Armory in Massachuse s hired him in 1919.He immediately began work on a semiautomatic ri e. 3

Throughout the 1920s, the Army tested a variety of designs,none entirely satisfactory, including Garands. Part of the prob-lem came from ammunition; no one could agree on a standard

2 Constance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, and Peter C. Roots, TheOrdnance Department: Planning Munitions for War , United States Army in World

War II (Washington D.C.: O ce of the Chief of Military History, Department ofthe Army, 1955), pp. 17577.3 John McCarten, The Man Behind the Gun, New Yorker , 6 February 1943,

pp. 2228; Edwin Teale, He Invented the Worlds Deadliest Ri e, Popular Science ,December 1940, p. 68; American National Biography , s.v. John C. Garand; CurrentBiography, 1945 , s.v. John C. Garand.


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John C. Garand tests an early version of his ri e in 1922. Hispersistence led to the rst semiautomatic adopted by anycountry as a standard service ri e. (National Park Service)


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caliber for Army ri es. By the end of the decade it seemed that the.276-caliber bullet o ered more promise for use in a semiautomatic

ri e, which compelled Garand to redesign his (though he wiselycontinued work on his .30-caliber version). His strongest competi-tion came from John D. Pedersons .276-caliber weapon. A ba ery ofArmy tests indicated that both showed promise. But in 1932 ArmyChief of Sta General Douglas MacArthur insisted that any ri e be .30-caliber, to match the ammunition used with the Browningautomatic ri e and Browning machine guns. Garands larger-boreri e, already well-developed, took a lead it never relinquished. 4 His advantage did not come from some leap in technology; his

designs were consistently more simple, stable, and reliable thanthe competition. By the late summer of 1933 the Army designatedhis weapon U.S. Semiautomatic Ri e, Caliber .30, M1. In January1936 the Army adopted the M1 as its standard ri e.

That decision did not mean that innovation stopped. The basicsof the ri e stayed the same; it weighed roughly nine and a halfpounds, was made up of slightly more than seventy parts, wasapproximately forty-three inches long, and held an eight-roundclip that loaded into the top of the gun. But over the next ve yearsGarand, the Ordnance Department, and various Infantry Boardssubjected the ri e to a series of brutal tests involving heat, cold,mud, sand, rain, rust, and high rates of re. Based on these trials,Garand made signi cant enhancements to the design, includingnew front and rear sight assemblies, a more durable ring pin,improved clip action, and a be er gas cylinder. 5 As he later told aninterviewer, A ri e isnt much di erent from any other machine.You can always make improvements. 6 Many of the aws in the

4 Julian S. Hatcher, The Book of The Garand (Washington, D.C.: Infantry JournalPress, 1948), pp. 11011.

5 See ibid., p. 120 (some in the Army had assumed that Garands role in theproduction of the weapon was now complete, with one o cer even suggestingthat Garand be let go to save the money from his salary); Infantry Board test

ndings in Infantry Board Reports, boxes 165, Record Group (RG) 177, NationalArchives and Records AdministrationCollege Park (NARACP), College Park,Md.; Engineering Branch, Industrial Service Small Arms Division, reports on testsof ri es and ri e parts, 19251943, in M1 Ri e le, box 3, RG 156, Records of the

O ce of the Chief of Ordnance, NARACP. See also O ce of Under Secretaryof War, Security, [formerly] Classified General Correspondence, December1940March 1943, PetroleumRussia, Ri es le, box 8, RG 107, Records of theO ce of the Secretary of War, NARACP; Bruce N. Can eld, The Unknown M1Garand, American Ri eman , 142 (January 1994): 4649.

6 McCarten, Man Behind the Gun, p. 24.


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9M1 GARAND RIFLE

M1 during these years came from problems with the speci c andexacting machine tools necessary to manufacture the various partsof the gun. Most of the tools at the armory at the time of the initialproduction of the M1 were at least twenty years old, and some ofthem dated as far back as the Civil War. Garand tackled this prob-lem as well, designing and building many of the tools that would be used in the mass production of his ri e. 7

7Harry C. Thomson and Lida Mayo, The Ordnance Department: Procurement andSupply , United States Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: O ce of the Chiefof Military History, Department of the Army, 1960), pp. 16065. On the complexity

Garand in his workshop. His design of newmachine tools to manufacture precision partsmade it possible to mass produce a reliableweapon. (National Park Service)


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Even with these initial problems, the M1 began to win overmany diehard M1903 proponents with its durability, ease of use,

accuracy, and high rates of re. And it outperformed all challeng-ers, including a late charge between 1938 and 1940 from the much-heralded semiautomatic ri e designed by Marine Corps reservistCapt. Melvin M. Johnson Jr. By 1941 the Marine Corps, a stubbornadherent to the Spring eld, also adopted the Garand as its stan-dard service ri e. 8 The men of the Armys 27th Infantry Divisionhad the usual reactions upon ring the ri e for the rst time inNovember 1940; they found it to be accurate, with a well-designedsafety, and they appreciated the smaller kick of the Garand com-

pared to the Spring eld. Lt. Gen. Ben Lear, commander of theSecond Army, said, From what everybody here tells me, this is ane ri e. They should know. 9

With war on the horizon, production of the Garand at theSpring eld Armory ramped up slowly but steadily. In September1937 the armory made ten ri es a day; two years later, one hundredper day; and by January 1941, six hundred a day. With the Armygrowing rapidly at that point, the government began placing largeorders with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The civil-ian rm would produce over a half million Garands during thewar, while Spring eld, at its peak, turned out four thousand a day.All of the M1s produced by the end of World War II over fourmillion came from Spring eld and Winchester. The e ciency ofmass production resulted in the cost dropping from over $200 perri e in the beginning to just $26 per copy by 1945. 10

of the machine tools necessary to produce a ri e like the Garand, see Hatcher, Bookof The Garand , pp. 11424.

8 For information on the Garand-Johnson controversy and the M1 and Johnson ri es demonstration (9 May 1940 report), see Industrial Service SmallArms Division, Administrative Branch, General Administrative Correspondence,19221942, RG 156, Records of the O ce of the Chief of Ordnance, NARACP;Thomson and Mayo, Ordnance Department , pp. 16568; Hatcher, Book of The Garand ,pp. 12839, 14153. The so ening of Marine opinion on the Garand was apparentin 1940; see J. H. Berry, Notes on the M1 Ri e, Marine Corps Gaze e 24 (June 1940):24. Johnson himself wrote an article approving of the decision for the Marine CorpsGaze e in 1941, which was reprinted in Then and Now: The M1 Ri e, MarineCorps Gaze e 85 (April 2001): 5152.

9

Anthony H. Leviero, Men of 27th Hail the Garand Ri e A er Its First Useon the Range, New York Times , 19 Nov 1940.10 For material on M1 production and on ordnance facilities expansion, see

pertinent folders in boxes I-489, I-490, I-494, Industrial Service Small Arms Division,Administrative Branch, General Administrative Correspondence, 19221942, RG156, NARACP. See also Thomson and Mayo, Ordnance Department , pp. 17374;


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11M1 GARAND RIFLE

The Garand got its test in combat when the United Statesentered World War II in December 1941. From the very rst,

o cers and enlisted men alike praised the weapon. GeneralMacArthur, commanding forces in the Philippines, reported thatthe M1 operated magni cently, even in constant action in mudand dirt when it could not be cleaned or lubricated for days at atime. The press widely reported his conclusions, which dispelledany lingering doubts about replacing the Spring eld. An editorialin the New York Times lauded the weapon: There is every rea-son why John C. Garand, if he were that kind of inventor, shouldput his thumbs in his armpits, pu on his cigar and say, I told

you so ten years ago.11

The ghting on Guadalcanal in the summer and fall of 1942con rmed these impressions. The Marine Corps made the switch tothe Garand later than the Army, and production of the ri e laggedrequirements early in the war, so many of the marines on the islandstill carried Spring elds. When elements of the U.S. Armys 164thInfantry arrived to reinforce a Marine ba alion in a desperate night ba le in October, the marines immediately noted the di erence asthe sound and the tempo of ring picked up tremendously. 12 An Army o cer who fought there recalled: From almost the rstminutes of combat on Guadalcanal the Marines began wishing fora basic semiautomatic ri e. By the time we landed, we had to keepours tied down with wire. Leathernecks were appropriating allthey could lay hands on by moonlight requisition. 13 It was easyto see why. One soldier, Harry Wiens, remembered: One excited

Green, Thomson, and Roots, Ordnance Department , pp. 5859; Hatcher, Book ofThe Garand , pp. 119, 153; John P. McConnell, Ri e Factory, Leatherneck 35 (July1952): 5457; and Bruce N. Can eld, The Winchester Garand, American Ri eman 153 (April 2005): 4649.

11For information on M1 marketing, see pertinent folders in box I-489, IndustrialService Small Arms Division, Administrative Branch, General AdministrativeCorrespondence, 19221942, RG 156, NARACP; Garand Ri e Praised By Gen.MacArthur, New York Times , 23 Feb 1942; The Garand in Action, ibid., 26 Feb1942; Bataan Proves Garand Worth, Washington Post , 23 Feb 1942; GarandsTest, ibid., 26 Feb 1942; Garand Ri e Praised by Gen. MacArthur, Los AngelesTimes , 23 Feb 1942; MacArthur Puts O.K. on Garand Ri e in Combat, Chicago

Daily Tribune , 23 Feb 1942; MacArthur Praises New Garand Ri e, ChristianScience Monitor , 24 Feb 1942.12 Jon T. Ho man, Chesty: The Story of Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller, USMC

(New York: Random House, 2001), pp. 18788 (quoted words).13 Hatcher, Book of The Garand , pp. 14142. See also Gerald H. Shea, Lessons

of Guadalcanal, Marine Corps Gaze e 27 (August 1943): 1522.


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Marine guide returned to the CP [command post] with a rm pro-nouncement that he was going to get himself an M1, even if he

had to steal it. He had been guiding one of our sergeants, with hismen following, when they met ve [Japanese]. The Marine saidhed shot one, and the sergeant, armed with an M1, dispatched theother four before he could retract his bolt and chamber anotherround. 14

Praise for the Garand came from all services, ranks, and the-aters. Many men appreciated its power, especially compared tothe smaller carbine. As Richard E. Baumhardt, a Marine o cer,recalled, O cers are only supposed to carry a carbine. But the

rst time I ever shot anybody with a carbine the guy kept on run-ning. And I said to myself that is not the weapon for me. So therst man who went down with an M1, I got his weapon and kept

it with me. 15 Arnold L. Crouch, a soldier, came to a similar con-clusion ghting in Europe:

My weapon was a carbine, a 30-caliber carbine a short, light ri e.By short, I mean small. That was great during training back in thestates because it weighed about half as much as an M1 ri e. But thatnight, out there in the foxhole, with all this activity going on youneeded more power. When we went back to replenish our ammuni-tion I found our company kitchens in the rear area and looked upone of the cooks. Their TE weapon (table of equipment) was an M1.I said, Would you like a carbine? Ill trade you mine for your M1.And he said, Gladly, I dont want this damn thing. And I said,Well I want yours. And so from then on I carried an M1. I wantedsomething that would reach out there with a li le more accuracy. 16

The troops also appreciated the weapons durability. A veteransaid:

It was heavy. A er marching ten or een miles with the M1 slungover my shoulder, the M1 became very heavy. But bless John C.Garand who invented it. The M1 took rain, mud, windblown sand,

bruises and abrasions. On a few occasions I took pieces of shrapnelout of the stock, but the M1 kept on working. If you banged some-one on the head with the M1, even if they wore a helmet they knewtheyd been hit. The army manual calls the M1 Garand a robustweapon. Indeed it was. . . . I dont know all that much about the

14Eugene H. Grayson Jr., The 164th Infantry Regiment on Guadalcanal, 1942,Infantry 88 (MayAugust 1998): 2429 (quotation).

15 Robert G. Thobaben, ed., For Comrade and Country: Oral Histories of WorldWar II Veterans (Je erson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003), p. 118.

16 Ibid., pp. 27172.


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13M1 GARAND RIFLE

other implements of war infantrymen might have used, but the M1was the best thing the army ever gave me. 17

The troops became devoted, even a ectionate, toward theM1. At the end of the war Audie L. Murphy, the most decoratedAmerican soldier of that con ict, remarked: I believe in theforce of a hand grenade, the power of artillery, the accuracy ofa Garand. 18 Even when the men had li le faith in other weap-ons, especially tanks, they still gave credit to the M1. One privatewrote: Its true, all too true, that many of Germanys weaponsare superior to ours, in fact, sometimes Ive thought the only two

things we outclass Germany with is the Garand ri e and the ght-ing heart of the GI. 19 It was li le wonder that in January 1945General George S. Pa on declared the M1 ri e the greatest ba leimplement ever devised. 20

For his e orts, the unassuming John C. Garand became some-thing of a celebrity. He received many awards, including the Brig.Gen. John H. Rice Gold Medal of the Army Ordnance Associationfor meritorious service, the Alexander L. Holley Medal from theAmerican Society of Mechanical Engineers, and one of the rst

Medals of Merit from the U.S. government. His name became syn-onymous with what was widely considered one of the greatestAmerican technological advantages of the war.

Garands stature grew when he refused the opportunity toreceive royalties for his invention. A New York Times editorialin November 1939 noted of the M1: No other nation can everuse the ri e. Its self-e acing French-Canadian inventor, stillan employee at the Spring eld arsenal on a modest salary, hasrefused substantial o ers both from foreign Governments andarms companies here. All his rights are vested exclusively in thecountry of his adoption. 21 The fact that he handed over the patentto the government earned him a great deal of credibility. Thoughhe earned no royalties, he maintained that the invention gave him

17 Jerry Countess, Le ers from the Ba le eld (West Conshohocken, Pa.: In nityPublishing, 2005), p. 36.

18 Audie Murphy, To Hell and Back (New York: MJF Books, 1949), p. 273.19

Hanson W. Baldwin, Tanks and Weapons I, New York Times , 5 Feb1945.20 Ltr, Pa on to Chief of Ordnance, 26 Jan 45, quoted in Edward Clinton Ezell,

The Great Ri e Controversy: Search for the Ultimate Infantry Weapon from World WarII Through Vietnam and Beyond (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1984), p. 1.

21 Our New Army Ri e, New York Times , 27 Nov 1939.


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a lot of pleasure. 22 When the ri e became famous during thewar, he shrugged o suggestions that he should be considered a

hero. When asked about the M1, his typical response was: She isa pre y good gun, I think. 23The M1 remained the standard service ri e throughout the

Korean War and saw duty as a sniper ri e for many years a erthat. Armies all over the world copied it with only slight varia-tions. Garand himself continued working at the Spring eldArmory until 1953, developing a follow-up service ri e and con-stantly tinkering to improve his designs. The M1 Garand, one ofthe great examples of Army innovation, came from hard work and

constant experimentation. John C. Garand was the perfect man forthe job.

22 Garand Gave Ri e to U.S., New York Times , 4 Mar 1942.23 McCarten, Man Behind the Gun, p. 22.


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Soldiers of the 68th Coast Artillery man an SCR268 radar set atthe Anzio beachhead in Italy in February 1944. The ability to deploymobile radar sets with troops in the eld helped defeat enemyairpower during World War II. (National Archives)


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2RADAR Wendy Rejan

The advent of aircra as useful weapons during World War I ledto an immediate search for ways to provide adequate warning oftheir approach, guide ghter planes to intercept them, and directthe re of antiaircra artillery to shoot them down. The U.S. Army began experimenting with various methods as early as 1918. Anumber of other military forces around the world, most notably in Great Britain, Germany, France, and Japan, were pursuingthe same objective. Both the Armys Coast Artillery and the U.S.Navy, as well as other major naval powers, were simultaneously

looking at ways to detect ships beyond visual range. All of thesee orts would go through two decades of trial and error, but by thelate 1930s a number of researchers would reach a similar conclu-sion that re ected radio waves provided the best solution. Armyscientists and engineers were among the leaders in this eld,though they eventually adopted the Navys terminology for themethod and its related equipment radio detecting and ranging,soon shortened to radar. The U.S. Armys radar work would be animportant contribution to Allied victory in World War II.

The technical challenges were daunting enough, but theArmys e ort would stumble repeatedly over the competing inter-ests of the branches. The Corps of Engineers had responsibility forsearchlights and looked for a means to guide them rapidly ontotheir target. The Ordnance Corps was interested in a way to directantiaircra re, and the Coast Artillery wanted to locate ships aswell as planes. The Signal Corps began looking at radio detectionfor the same purposes because it involved electronics. At varioustimes each branch ran its own development program and com-peted for extremely limited funds during the lean years of the1920s and 1930s. Moreover, the Navy and Army independentlypursued similar e orts but generally did not share information.

There were two basic approaches to detect distant objects. One-way methods relied on picking up some form of energy radiated


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from the target; two-way, or round-trip, techniques involved send-ing out some form of energy and gathering up that part re ected

by the object being tracked. The initial focus was on one-way sys-tems, since they seemed simpler and more practical. The typesof radiant energy evaluated spanned the spectrum from infraredlight and heat to sound and radio waves.

The U.S. Army looked at almost every conceivable approachand pursued some of them for many years. The transmission ofradio messages by a ship or plane provided one possible meansof location, but the target could easily avoid this by maintainingradio silence, so scientists discarded this option at an early stage.

Engine ignition systems sent out another detectable signal, but thatenergy could be shielded at the source. Both the Air Service andthe Signal Corps began looking at heat detectors in 1918 and pro-duced a working system the following year. The Ordnance Corpspicked it up but nally returned the e ort to the Signal Corpsin 1930. The Coast Artillery, however, kept an independent pro-gram in the same eld for several more years. The interest of both branches cooled by 1936, when it became clear that the devices didnot have su cient range and were as likely to identify a cloud asa plane. Much early work also focused on sound, but because thisform of energy traveled relatively slowly, it never did more thanindicate where a plane had been. As the speed of aircra increasedin the 1920s and 1930s, this method grew increasingly obsolete.The growing destructive capability of bombers added urgency tothe endeavor even as a solution continued to elude military forcesaround the globe.

The Army program took a signi cant step forward in 1926 whenMaj. William R. Blair became the o cer in charge of the SignalCorps Research and Engineering Division. He had emigrated fromIreland with his parents at the age of ten in 1884, earned a doctoratein mathematics and physics from the University of Chicago in 1906,and spent a decade working for the U.S. Weather Bureau. Taking acommission as a major in the Army during World War I, he headedthe Meteorological Section for the American Expeditionary Forcesin France. A er the war he joined the Signal Corps and begandemonstrating a penchant for invention. One of the rst deviceshe developed was a balloon-borne miniature weather station thatradioed its information back to the ground. 1

1 Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 7, 19611965, s.v. Blair, WilliamRichards; Dulany Terre , The Signal Corps: The Emergency , United States Army


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19RADAR

Blair was instrumental incu ing o work on sound detec-

tion and focusing the SignalCorps meager resources on heatand radio. While the formeralready existed in a limited butworking fashion, he believed thela er held greater promise eventhough it remained entirely theo-retical. In 1930 he became directorof the Signal Corps Laboratories,

a new entity created by consoli-dating several research e orts atFort Monmouth, New Jersey, in bare-bones wooden buildingserected for temporary use duringWorld War I. Blairs organizationwas small less than a hun-dred o cers, enlisted men, andcivilians and got even smallerfollowing Depression-inspired budget cuts in 1933. The tinyout t had to juggle many proj-ects, and its task of locating air-cra had to compete with otherpriorities. 2

The Navy rst veri ed thepossible use of re ected radiowaves as a detection methodagainst aircra in 1930, asan accidental by-product ofexperiments in radio direction nding. Navy scientists foundthat passing airplanes created noticeable interference in the sig-nals received from the transmi er involved in the tests. 3 Theprocess of monitoring this di erence in strength in the signal

in World War II (Washington, D.C.: O ce of the Chief of Military History,Department of the Army, 1956), pp. 3132.2 Harry M. Davis, History of the Signal Corps Development of U.S. ArmyRadar Equipment, Part I, Early Research and Development, 19181937, p. 18,U.S. Army Communications and Electronics Command Historical O ce (CECOMHO), Fort Monmouth, N.J.

3 Ibid., p. 21, CECOM HO.

Col. William R. Blair became

known as the fa therof American radar. Hisdevelopment of the conceptof pulse detection formedthe basis of Army researchin the field of aircraftdetection in the latterhalf of the 1930s. (U.S.

Army Communications andElectronics Command)


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came to be known as beat detection. This system could warn thatan aircra was in the area but not provide location information.

Moreover, the transmi er and the receiver had to be placed farapart, because the strong signals generated by the former wouldotherwise drown out the weak re ection from the target.

The Army soon learned of the Navys activities in this eld, but Blair thought the utility of that method was limited. In 1934he expanded upon the concept and described the theory of pulsedetection sending out radio waves in bursts and using the inter-vals to acquire them as they bounced back o the tracked object.Measuring the time a signal took to return provided a means to

calculate range. Using narrowly focused antennas to send andreceive the signals would determine the direction of the aircra .He noted, however, that no radio equipment existed that couldadequately perform this function. 4 The transmi ers were notstrong enough, the receivers were not sensitive enough, and amethod to coordinate the rapid pulsing of the two devices or mea-sure time in millionths of a second was not available. 5 The NavalResearch Laboratory began pursuing the idea at the same time.

In the meantime, the Signal Corps, Corps of Engineers, andOrdnance Corps fought a bureaucratic ba le over responsibilityfor developing this emerging concept. The War Department nallycentralized all such e orts under the Signal Corps in February1936. But budgetary regulations prevented any transfer of fundsfrom the other branches, and the department ruled that the SignalCorps would have to divert money from its existing programs tocarry on the work. In the next scal year Blair devoted $75,000 about half of his entire annual appropriation to the task whilestill maintaining work on thirty-eight other projects that involvedeverything from portable radios (the eventual walkie-talkie) tosound-powered telephones, all of which would prove valuable inthe coming war. 6

By 1936 the Navy had a functioning pulse detection systemsimilar to that envisioned by Blair, although the transmi er andreceiver antennas were each hundreds of square feet in size andstill deployed hundreds of yards apart, which made it impractical

4

Ibid., p. 24, CECOM HO, shows Blair describing this method in his annualreport submi ed in July 1934, whereas Robert M. Page, The Origin of Radar (GardenCity, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1962), p. 36, says the Navy came up with the idea inMarch 1934. Both accounts avoid mentioning the other claim.

5 Page, Origin of Radar , p. 17.6 Davis, Signal Corps Development, Part I, pp. 3234.


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21RADAR

for shipboard use. 7 While the Naval Research Laboratorys pro-gram was more advanced than the Armys, for the time being the

two services continued their independent e orts to achieve thesame goal. The Signal Corps surveyed corporate research centersin October to see if any could take over the aircra detection e ort, but determined that its own program was far ahead of anythingthen under way in American industry. The Army did make useof improved radio tubes being produced by civilian rms in theUnited States and overseas, though it also continued to perfect itsown. These powered ever-stronger transmi ers. Over the winterof 19361937 the Signal Corps Laboratories kept developing new

antennas, each one smaller and be er than the last. The transmit-ter antennas enhanced and focused the signal they emi ed, whilereception antennas became ever more sensitive in picking up faintreturn signals.

The Signal Corps Laboratories mounted these arrays of metalrods on the chassis developed for the old sound locators, whichallowed the antennas to swing and tilt easily to scan the sky.Initially, two receiving antennas were used. A tall narrow oneobtained readings for the elevation or height of the aircra , whilea low wide one provided the azimuth or direction of the target.Blairs engineers also solved the toughest technical challengeof synchronizing the pulses of the transmi er and receiver. TheArmy Air Corps regularly provided planes for eld tests of eachnew iteration of the equipment.

In May 1937 the Signal Corps Laboratories successfully dem-onstrated the concept in the eld to the secretary of war, seniorgenerals, and several congressmen. 8 The objective of the nigh imetest was to guide a searchlight onto the target so that when thelight icked on the aircra was already in the beam. The radarset achieved the goal nearly every time, though not entirely onits own as it turned out. Harold A. Zahl, one of the lead civilian

7 Page, Origin of Radar , p. 85.8 Ibid., pp. 12829, places the Navys rst successful test of a jury-rigged

system on a ship in April 1937 and states that Army o cials had observed theseand earlier tests and that all designs were given to the Signal Corps Laboratories.

Page provides no source to support his claims. The timing of the Armys successfultest in May 1937 would indicate that the Army had independently produced itsown working version rather than copying from the Navy in the space of a month.Even if the Navy provided information to the Army, if it merely con rmed whatthe Army already was doing, that would not contradict Daviss account that li leor nothing came from the Naval Research Laboratory.


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scientists working on the project, had noted that one searchlightin particular was most e ective. A er the dignitaries departed, he

spoke to the corporal in charge. The soldier explained that in mostcases he had been able to nd the bomber in his binoculars withthe aid of a local towns lights re ecting o the clouds, thus allow-ing him to precisely direct the searchlight. His purpose had not been to make radar look be er, but merely to outdo the aviatorsin the cat-and-mouse game the two branches habitually playedagainst each other. He allowed, however: That new secret gadgetis all right. Why, every time you fellows turned on the control lightit was pre y close to the target almost as good as my eyes. 9

While the tests had not been as scienti c in their methodol-ogy as planned, the radar set was proving increasingly practical.The e ective range of detection had grown from a few miles withearly models to more than 20 now, while azimuth and elevationreadings were routinely within three degrees. It was but a shortstep, everyone realized, from using radar to guide a searchlightto transmi ing the information directly to antiaircra guns to aimthem. Impressed by these tests, the Coast Artillery now wantedradar sets to nd ships, while the Air Corps asked the SignalCorps Laboratories to develop a model to detect planes at longranges (out to 120 miles) to provide early warning and trackingin support of ghter aircra . 10 Oddly enough, the Air Corps hadonly just canceled a separate program to develop radar for use inaircra . That concept would languish for awhile until advancesin ground radar helped solve the technical challenges inherent insmaller airborne sets.

Shortly a er the tests the War Department provided $200,000for further development, the rst money allocated speci cally tothe Signal Corps to fund radar. At the same time, the Signal CorpsLaboratories divided the radio section into two groups, one over-seeing traditional communications work and the other focusingsolely on what was then termed radio position nding.11 A mix ofcivilian and military engineers and scientists continued to collabo-rate on the e ort but without Blair, who had retired at the rank of

9 Harold A. Zahl, Electrons Away or Tales of a Government Scientist (New York:

Vantage Press, 1968), p. 45.10 Harry M. Davis, The Signal Corps Development of U.S. Army RadarEquipment, Part II, p. 53, and idem, The Signal Corps Development of U.S.Army Radar Equipment, Part III, Long Range Radar SCR270 and SCR271,p. 5, CECOM HO.

11 Idem, Signal Corps Development, Part II, p. 15, CECOM HO.


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23RADAR

colonel in 1938. Although many had contributed valuable parts tothe design, Blairs original conception and overall direction would

earn him the reputation of being the father of the American radar.While the radar team members knew they had much workto do to perfect their creation, they already had solved the vastmajority of the technical and scienti c issues. Now it primarilywas a ma er of making the equipment smaller and more reliable.Even as the demonstration took place in spring 1937 with a setutilizing three separate antennas, the Signal Corps Laboratorieshad a new model under fabrication that would employ a singleantenna to accomplish all the tasks.

Success brought a di erent problem, though, since the Armychief of sta now deemed the concept so important that he thoughtit required much greater secrecy. During the eld tests he hadnoted civilian vehicles parked near the base and determined thatanyone could easily observe the equipment and guess its purpose.He decreed a move of the radar section to the more-inaccessibleenvironment of Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook. The transfer andthe associated construction of new facilities resulted in a delay ofseveral months. Tougher weather conditions in the new locationalso hampered the work, while a hurricane in the fall of 1938 actu-ally destroyed parts of the latest model and delayed the tests nec-essary to approve it for service use. 12

The Signal Corps deployed its radar set to Fort Monroe,Virginia, at the end of November 1938 for a major series of eldtests. While the device fell somewhat short of the desired goal ofno more than one degree of error in azimuth and elevation, oneincident highlighted a new use. A strong wind had blown a target bomber far o course over the ocean, and the pilot was lost in thenigh ime clouds. The radar operators radioed directions to getthe plane back to base before it ran out of fuel, thus inauguratingthe use of radar as an aid to navigation. 13 In March 1939 the Armyo cially accepted the radar set as standard equipment, designat-ing it as the SCR268. The le ers stood for Signal Corps Radio, anomenclature speci cally adopted for security reasons to concealthe true nature of the device. 14

This initial model did not go into production, as the SignalCorps Laboratories continued work on a much be er design. At

12 Ibid., p. 45, CECOM HO.13 Ibid., p. 52, CECOM HO.14 Ibid., p. 26, CECOM HO.


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the behest of the Army, civilian rms built ever-improving radiotubes, which translated into higher frequencies, smaller anten-nas, and greater accuracy. The Signal Corps built the rst produc-tion SCR268 in December 1940, just three months a er Germanyinvaded Poland and initiated World War II. 15 By the time theUnited States entered the con ict following the a ack on PearlHarbor, the operating forces had more than 350 sets. This device,with periodic enhancements, would be the mainstay for antiair-cra ba eries of the Army and Marine Corps through 1944.

15 Page, Origin of Radar , pp. 13334, indicates that the Navy had tested asystem meant for employment on ships in January to March 1939, had made a

production decision at once, and had 19 sets installed on ships by the time ofPearl Harbor. The Army, by contrast, had tested a set for eld use in late 1938,had made a production decision in March 1939 and built the rst production setin December 1940, and had 350 operating sets by Pearl Harbor. In later pages Pagemakes it clear that the production model of March 1939 underwent signi cantimprovement in subsequent months, just as the Army set did.

The 1938 prototype of the SCR268 radar set. This rst mobileversion proved effective in eld tests at detecting the locationof aircraft, and also led to an unanticipated new use of groundradar to direct air traf c. (U.S. Army Communications andElectronics Command)


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25RADAR

From 1938 on, the Signal Corps Laboratories also worked onthe Air Corps requirement for a long-range early-warning radar.

This device did not have to be as accurate on azimuth and did notneed to determine elevation at all, so the main task was to boostthe power of the transmi ers to increase distance. By June 1938the Signal Corps had a working model that consistently locatedtargets at 85 miles. It received production approval following eldtests in late 1939, at which point it obtained ranges in excess of 130miles. The Army designated the mobile version as the SCR270and its xed counterpart as the SCR271. The rst sets were inactive use guarding the Panama Canal by October 1940. Hawaiihad SCR270 units in place by August 1941.

At 0702 on 7 December 1941, two minutes a er they werescheduled to shut down operations for the day, two soldiers man-ning one of the radars on the island of Oahu noted the largestecho they had ever seen. The range was 136 miles. Thinking theequipment was malfunctioning, they checked it out but con rmedthe target. At 0720 they reported their ndings to the islands airdefense information center. The o cer on duty, there just for train-ing, believed it was a ight of B17 bombers due in from the main-land and he took no action. Thirty- ve minutes later, the Japanesedropped their rst bombs on the vital installations and warshipsat Pearl Harbor. Although radar had not prevented surprise in this

rst ba le, it had proven that it was technically ready to ful llthe task for which it had been designed. The Signal Corps woulddevelop even be er models later in the war, but the SCR270 and271 were good enough to remain in service till the very end.

The U.S. Army was not alone in developing e ective radar

equipment. The British had a system of early warning radars(using xed towers up to 350 feet tall) in place to help themdefeat the German Lu wa e in the summer and fall of 1940 in theBa le of Britain. The Navy also had radar installed on nineteenwarships by Pearl Harbor. Germany had functioning systems aswell. Nevertheless, the work of the Signal Corps was concurrentwith and independent of these e orts. Moreover, the Armys rolewas important, because its radar sets were mobile and meant toaccompany troops into combat. This made it possible to deploy

the capability on short notice wherever it was needed, includingto remote and tiny islands such as Midway, where it played a partin that critical ba le in June 1942. By the end of the war, Armyradar systems developed for a wide array of tasks had made asigni cant contribution to victory.


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The 29th Infantry musters in front of its barracks at Fort Benning in1928. The regiment served as the laboratory for student of cers whohoned their war ghting skills leading units during force-on-forceexercises. (U.S. Army Military History Institute)


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3THE BENNING REVOLUTIONJohn R. Maass

In the decade following the end of World War I in 1918, the train-ing of infantry o cers of the U. S. Army regulars, reservists andNational Guardsmen remained mired in outmoded techniques.The Armys leading training institution, the Infantry School at FortBenning, Georgia, set the standard in its Company O cer Course(for lieutenants and junior captains) and its Advanced Course (forsenior captains and majors). 1 In November 1927 Lt. Col. George C.Marshall Jr. became assistant commandant of the school and headof the Academic Department, which gave him direct responsibility

for the curriculum. He set out on a bold course to overhaul both themethod and the content of the instruction. Within a few short yearsMarshall and his sta remade the Infantry School into an institutionthat developed exible, e ective leaders for the modern ba le eld.

George Marshall had graduated from the Virginia MilitaryInstitute in 1901, serving as cadet commander during his senioryear and earning a commission in the infantry. He spent WorldWar I in senior sta positions, playing a prominent role in plan-ning the American Armys two great o ensives at St. Mihiel and

the Meuse-Argonne. His work brought him recognition from theArmys top commanders, and a er the war he was General John J.Pershings chief aide. Marshall then served in the Philippines andChina and taught brie y at the Army War College before takingup his duties at Fort Benning. 2

1 A. B. War eld, Fort Benning, the Home of the Infantry School, Infantry Journal 32 (June 1928): 57380; Larry I. Bland, ed., The Papers of George Catle Marshall , 5 vols. to date (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981),

1:31920; Kenneth Finlayson, An Uncertain Trumpet: The Evolution of U.S. ArmyInfantry Doctrine, 19191941 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001), pp. 7576;Ed Cray, General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (New York:W. W. Norton, 1990), p. 111.

2 The Oxford Companion to World War II , s.v. Marshall, General of the ArmyGeorge C.; Biographical Dictionary of World War II , s.v. Marshall, George Catle ;


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Marshall had a reputation, going back to his days as a cadet,of being cool, aloof, and formal. His sti , austere manner was for-

bidding, particularly to those who served under him. This distantdemeanor notwithstanding, his level-headed, imperturbable a i-tude compelled respect and spread a sense of authority andcalm. 3 Although instructors and students at the Infantry Schoolthought of him as a taskmaster, many came to praise his quietcreativity, innovative spirit, and sense of mission as he restruc-tured the o cer courses. Marshall always set high expectations,demanded results, and rewarded those who performed well. Buthe seemed to bring an added drive and reserved personality to his

new billet. Shortly before he came to Benning, his wife had died ofheart disease. Omar N. Bradley, an instructor at the school and afuture ve-star general, surmised that to help overcome his grief,[he] threw himself into the job completely. 4

In early 1927 the chief of infantry reported that he had justrevised the curriculum of the Infantry School with great care. 5 A survey of regimental commanders a few months later foundalmost all of them satis ed with Benning graduates. Only threelamented the overemphasis on weapons ring, close order drill,physical training, and other basic subjects at the expense of tacticsand troop leading. 6 Marshall also saw the same shortcomings; he believed that the tactical training had become increasingly theo-retical, with much of it devoted to classroom lectures on doctri-nal principles and the details of sta processes, such as the proper

American National Biography , vol. 14, s.v. Marshall, George Catle , Jr.; RichardW. Stewart, ed., American Military History, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. ArmyCenter of Military History, 2005), 2:43.

3 Omar N. Bradley, A Generals Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983),pp. 6365 (quoted words); Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education ofa General, 18801939 (New York: Viking Press, 1963), pp. 54, 286; Barbara W.Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 19111945 (New York:Macmillan, 1970), pp. 102, 370; Cray, General of the Army , pp. 5, 27; J. LawtonCollins, Lightning Joe: An Autobiography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1979), p. 50.

4 Bradley, Generals Life , pp. 64 (quoted words), 65; Pogue, Marshall , p. 286; D.K. R. Crosswell, The Chief of Sta : The Military Career of General Walter Bedell Smith (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991), pp. 7984.

5

Memo, Chief of Infantry for The Adjutant General, 26 Mar 1927, box 2032,Record Group (RG) 407, Records of the Adjutant Generals O ce, 1917, NationalArchives and Records AdministrationCollege Park (NARACP), College Park,Md.

6 Memo, Col C. W. Weeks for The Adjutant General, 1 Nov 1927, box 1949,RG 407, NARACP.


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The school would also teach students how to prepare and conductchallenging eld training for their own units. By the time Marshall

departed Benning, the number of hours devoted to tactics instruc-tion in the Company O cer Course had nearly doubled from 221to 400. For the Advanced Course, it totaled almost 800 hours. 10

Marshall further focused the tactical work on a very practicalsystem suited to o cers who will be responsible for the devel-opment of a hastily raised wartime force. 11 The U.S. Army hadfaced that type of situation in World War I, but Marshall worriedthat the hard lessons had been forgo en in the a ermath of vic-tory. He knew that the majority of troops in a future mobilization,

even o cers, would come directly from civilian life and wouldnot have the skills and the experience to execute the type of com-plex operations that a professional standing army might be ableto handle. We must develop a technique and methods so simpleand so brief that the citizen o cer of good common sense canreadily grasp the idea, he maintained. 12 He began by doing awaywith the production of overly detailed operations orders, arguingthat commanders rarely had the time to develop and issue longwri en orders in wartime. He taught his o cers to rely on briefwri en or even oral orders and stressed the use of basic, straight-forward language rather than the jargon and rigid format foundin training manuals. 13

Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Pershing, Marshallwas a devotee of open warfare o ensive maneuver and wanted

10Infantry School Schedules, 24 Apr 1928, box 1948; Commi ee Rpt to AssistantCommandant, Infantry School, Fort Benning, Ga., 21 Apr 1928, box 519; Memo,Brig Gen Edgar T. Collins for The Adjutant General, 24 Apr 1928, box 1948;Infantry School Annual Rpt, 30 Jun 1933, box 2048; Memo, G. D. Arrowsmith forThe Adjutant General, 31 Oct 1927, box 1949; Record of Communication Receivedfrom Lt Col Donald D. Hay, 19 Nov 1927, box 1949; Memo, Col C. W. Weeks forThe Adjutant General, 1 Nov 1927, box 1949; Program of Instruction, InfantrySchool, 19291930, box 518. All in RG 407, NARACP.

11 Ltr, Marshall to Brig Gen Frank McCoy, 13 Apr 1929, in Bland, Papers ,1:341.

12 Marshall Lecture, Development in Tactics, in Bland, Papers , 1:336;Crosswell, Chief of Sta , p. 49; Pogue, Marshall , p. 251 (quotation); Infantry SchoolAnnual Rpt, 30 Jun 1929, box 11, RG 177, Records of the Chief of Arms, NARACP;

ibid., 30 Jun 1933, box 2048, RG 407, NARACP.13 Larry I. Bland, George C. Marshall and the Education of Army Leaders, Military Review 68 (October 1988): 2737; Marshall Lecture, Development inTactics, in Bland, Papers , 1:336; Ltr, Marshall to Heintzelman, 4 Dec 1933, inBland, Papers , 1:410; Infantry School Annual Rpt, 30 Jun 1928, box 1948, RG 407,NARACP; ibid., 30 Jun 1929, box 11, RG 177, NARACP.


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31THE BENNING REVOLUTION

to avoid the static trench ba les that had entangled the Europeancombatants in World War I and cost them millions of casualties.

Marshall was convinced that the capability to execute uid opera-tions would be even more critical in future con icts. To that end,he was one of the leaders in driving the Army to revamp its orga-nization and doctrine. He wanted a triangular structure in whicheach unit had three subordinate maneuver elements, a more ex-ible arrangement than the existing square formations with fourmaneuver elements. He championed the concept of the holdinga ack as the standard operation that commanders at any levelcould adapt to a wide variety of situations. While one element

xed the a ention of the enemy with re or a frontal a ack, anotherwould maneuver against a ank, and the third would remain inreserve to exploit whatever opportunity arose. He believed thatany leader could grasp this simple yet highly adaptable system. 14

To ensure that students could actually implement these con-cepts, Marshall moved most of the tactics course out of the class-room and into the eld. Several important modi cations to theprogram reinforced this change of venue. He placed more empha-sis on using the bases infantry regiment as an element of practi-cal instruction rather than simply a demonstration unit. Instead ofwatching a company or ba alion execute a maneuver, the studento cers now lled the command billets and led the way. To giveeach student more hands-on experience, Marshall argued for andwon the right to reduce the size of the annual class. As a result, theyoung o cers had more opportunities to talk through the mate-rial with instructors, whether in the eld or in a classroom. Whilethe reduction in class size at rst blush seemed counterproductivesince it resulted in fewer o cers undergoing training, the Benninggraduates, when they returned to their regiments, were expectedto impart what they had learned to their contemporaries via unitschools. Thus, the overall impact of a smaller but be er educatedclass was bene cial for the Army. 15

The tactical problems themselves grew ever more challenging.When Marshall discovered that the instructors were repeatedly

14Marshall Lecture, Development in Tactics, in Bland, Papers , 1:335; Bradley,

Generals Life , p. 66.15 Chief of Infantry Annual Rpt, 19281929, p. 40, box 11, RG 177, NARACP.See also Infantry School Annual Rpt, 30 Jun 1933, p. 31, box 2048; Ltr, Marshallto the Infantry School Commandant, 19 Nov 1928, box 1946; Ltr, Maj Gen P.C.Summerall to Brig Gen Edgar T. Collins, 24 Jan 1929, box 1946. All in RG 407,NARACP.


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returning to the same training areas for eld exercises, he insistedon using all of the posts hundred thousand acres to develop the

skills of students and teachers alike. He believed that good tac-tics instruction demands a wide variety of terrain and frequentcontact with unfamiliar ground. 16 For similar reasons he replacedhighly detailed maps, which were not likely to be available forreal operations overseas, with simpler ones that had imperfectionsand conveyed less information; leaders thus had to look moreclosely at the actual terrain and evaluate it with their own eyes. Hewanted to solve one of the biggest shortcomings in many youngo cers a failure to use terrain to best advantage in maneuvering

their unit and in positioning their heavy weapons.17

Marshall also put an end to what he called rehearsed demon-strations of tactics, adopting instead more realistic free maneu-vers, which allowed student commanders wide latitude to reactto the situations that developed. 18 He added more night trainingand put the o cers in charge of understrength units, thus replicat-ing additional realities of combat. 19 In every exercise he routinelythrew unexpected scenarios or surprise situations at o cers to getthem used to reacting to the unforeseen. By pu ing students in the

eld leading a real unit across real terrain, he forced them to dealwith real problems. His pedagogical approach was not to teachthem how something could be done perfectly, but how to respondto adversity and learn from their mistakes.

To further emphasize the strain and confusion of the ba le-eld, Marshall invited senior o cers to the Infantry School to

talk about their wartime experiences. 20 The program already hada block of historical instruction, but Marshall made it both moreinteresting and more demanding. Instead of requiring studentsto research and write a paper on a World War I ba le, he allowedthem to pick any military subject they wanted, including studiesof great combat leaders. The young o cers took turns presenting

16 Memo, Marshall for Commandant, [Infantry School], 22 Dec 1927, in Bland,Papers , 1:323 (quotation); Infantry School Annual Rpt, 30 Jun 1928, box 1948, RG407, NARACP.

17 Commi ee Rpt to Assistant Commandant, Infantry School, 21 Apr 1928,

box 519, RG 407, NARACP.18 Ltr, Marshall to Heintzelman, 4 Dec 1933, in Bland, Papers , 1:410.19 Infantry School Annual Rpt, 30 Jun 1928, p. 24, box 1948; ibid., 30 Jun 1933,

box 2048. Both in RG 407, NARACP.20 Memo, Infantry School for The Adjutant General, 14 Jan 1930, box 1948,

RG 407, NARACP.


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their ndings to the entire class, which trained them not only toanalyze historical examples but also to defend their conclusions in

discussions with others.21

One of Marshalls most fundamental changes to the programwas to reduce the emphasis on what was called the school solu-tion, the pre-approved answer that students were expected tocome up with when facing a given tactical situation. Instead, heencouraged the o cers to generate original and even unorthodoxideas. To reinforce this, he made it a policy that any studentssolution of a problem that ran radically counter to the approvedschool solution, and yet showed independent creative thinking,

would be published to the class.22

Equally important, o cersin the course found that they were free to disagree at times onquestions of military education, regardless of rank, in an atmo-sphere of tolerance of ideas which encourages open and freediscussion. 23

Marshall set this tone by personal example. He routinely joined the class in the eld and initiated impromptu debateson military topics. O en he would describe a tactical situation,then pick out one student to give an o -the-cu oral operationsorder. A er fellow o cers critiqued it, the colonel weighed inwith his thoughts. He implemented a similar program for thefaculty, holding occasional meetings during the school year toreview and discuss emerging tactics and weapons. His goalwas to continually update the curriculum and not allow it toremain xated on how things had been done. Marshalls tutor-ing had the desired e ect. Infantry school students noted thatthe instructors were ready to look beyond existing manuals fornew ideas. 24

Marshalls reforms at the Infantry School carried far beyond,changing the approach to training o cers throughout the Army foryears to come: Approximately two hundred future generals passedthrough the course as students or instructors during his tenure. Aveteran of the program remarked that Marshall had underminedthe Infantry Schools complacency, renewed its enthusiasm, and

21 Infantry School Annual Rpt, 30 Jun 1928, p. 26, box 1948, RG 407,

NARACP.22 Bradley, Generals Life , p. 66.23 Bernard Lentz, Refreshing at the Infantry School, Infantry Journal 36

(January 1930): 57, 58 (quoted words), 59.24 Bland, Papers , 1:320; Infantry School Annual Rpt, 30 Jun 1929, box 11, RG

177, NARACP; Lentz, Refreshing at the Infantry School, pp. 5759.


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trained a new generation of ground force leaders. 25 By the timethe United States entered World War II, Marshalls changes hadmade the Infantry School an important factor in the Armys mobi-lization plans. In the course of that massive con ict he directed just the type of force he had envisioned, one composed of mil-lions of citizens. They were able to rapidly transform into soldierslargely due to the training concepts, doctrine, and force structureMarshall had advocated a decade earlier.

To be sure, Marshall was not the rst military educator toimprove instructional techniques or enhance the realism of mili-tary training. Nevertheless, through innovation and determina-

25 Bland, George C. Marshall, pp. 2729, 30 (quoted words), 3137;Biographical Dictionary of World War 11 , s.v. Marshall, George Catle ; Ltr, Marshallto Brig Gen Courtney Hodges, 15 Jan 1941, in Bland, Papers , 2:389.

Marshall with some of his staff at the Infantry School, includingfuture Generals Joseph W. Stilwell (seated second from left) and Omar N. Bradley (standing second from left) . (George C.Marshall Foundation)


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tion he was able to change the content and methodology of thecourses available to Army infantry o cers in the years leading up

to World War II and thereby make his mark on an entire service.His success partially explains how the Army, which came rela-tively late to armored, airborne, amphibious, and other advancedforms of war ghting, was able to catch up so quickly with andin some cases surpass other armies around the world. The revo-lution that Marshall instigated at Fort Benning illustrates what asingle enlightened leader can achieve when he is determined toput good ideas into practice.


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4AIR OBSERVATION POSTSEdgar F. Raines Jr.

Not long a er American entry into World War II, the U.S. Armyeld artillery acquired its own aircra , pilots, and ground crews

to function as air observation posts. The primary mission was toprovide exible and responsive aerial observation for directing the

re of ba eries. Although the Armys aviation component strenu-ously objected to this innovation, it came about due to a con u-ence of many factors changes in the art of war; the evolution of

eld artillery doctrine in the United States; technological advancesin airframes, engines, and communications; tactical adaptation to

the realities of combat; the personalities and leadership skills ofcertain individuals; and pure chance. 1World War I had highlighted a key facet of modern industrial-

ized warfare, the increasing ability of indirect repower to in u-ence the maneuver of ground forces. To be successful, a ackersneeded enough supporting repower to neutralize or outweigh thatemployed by the defenders. Coordination between artillery andinfantry on the o ensive, however, was problematic at best becausecommunications in the form of pigeons, runners, wire, and spark

gap radios were so primitive. Most artillery support consisted ofmap re, the only method of concentrating the re of more than one ba ery. Guns dropped high explosives on certain speci ed coor-dinates for xed lengths of time and then moved to another set of

1 This account is drawn from Edgar F. Raines, Jr., Eyes of Artillery: The Originsof Modern U.S. Army Aviation in World War II , Army Historical Series (Washington,D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2000). In addition, the followinggeneral works are invaluable: Boyd L. Dastrup, King of Ba le: A Branch History of

the U.S. Armys Field Artillery (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of MilitaryHistory, 1993); Janice E. McKenney, The Organizational History of Field Artillery,17752003 , Army Lineage Series (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of MilitaryHistory, 2007); and John B. Wilson, Firepower and Maneuver: Evolution of Divisionsand Separate Brigades , Army Lineage Series (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Centerof Military History, 1998).


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targets, all according to a prearranged schedule that gave the infan-try no exibility once the operation got under way. Aerial observers

also could control re, but even greater communications di culties between air and ground severely limited their utility. Although theU.S. Army achieved victory using these methods, its heavy casual-ties produced widespread agreement that the tactics and techniquesof the war were only a starting point requiring further work. 2

Beginning in 1929 a series of mid-level and junior o cers at theField Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, notably Maj. CarlosBrewer, Maj. Orlando Ward, and 1st Lt. Edwin L. Sibert, developedthe ba alion re direction center, which used improved radios and

a standard plot to mass the res of physically separated ba eries onan unplanned target. Proponents spent much of the decade of the1930s simplifying methods and overcoming skepticism and down-right opposition in some quarters within the eld artillery. By 1938the new chief of eld artillery, Maj. Gen. Robert M. Danford, hadconcluded that the last major gap in the new system was the lack ofa dedicated, reliable aerial observer to ll in when terrain shieldedtargets from ground observation. Obtaining that capability, how-ever, was an ongoing problem that proved di cult to solve. 3

Arguments over the organizational ownership of air observersdated back to World War I. The artillery had taken the positionthat its own o cers should serve in this role. When not in the airthey would be with their regiment and thus up to date on the loca-tion of friendly and enemy forces and the ground commandersscheme of maneuver. Aviators took the stance that any individualassigned to man an aircra in any capacity had to be trained byand belong to the aviation force. The la er view prevailed in theWar Department and persisted as se led policy until 1942 despitethe e orts of senior artillerymen to reverse it. 4

2 The best overview of the American experience in World War I is EdwardM. Co man, The War To End All Wars: The American Military Experience in WorldWar I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968). For the tactical employment ofartillery and its liaison with infantry, see Mark E. Grotelueschen, The AEF Wayof War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2006), pp.19, 83141, 23879, 34364.

3 David A. Shugart, On the Way: The U.S. Field Artillery in the Interwar

Period (Ph.D. diss., Texas A&M University, 2002), provides the most detailedaccount of the development of the re direction center.4William J. Snow, Signposts of Experience (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Field Artillery

Association, 1941), pp. 15859; Rpt, Maj Gen Mason W. Patrick, n.d., sub: FinalRpt of Chief, Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, in Maurer Maurer,ed., The U.S. Air Service in World War I , 4 vols. (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., and


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39AIR OBSERVATION POSTS

The two branches also had more fundamental disagreementsregarding overall war ghting doctrine. In seeking to more e ec-

tively integrate its operations with the infantry, the eld artil-lery was pursuing a combined arms approach. Only by kni ingtogether the e orts of all the arms, argued proponents, could theArmy achieve victory, because the combat power generated bythe integrated whole was greater than the sum produced by itsvarious parts. The Air Corps, on the other hand, was seeking todistance itself from the remainder of the Army. Many air poweradvocates asserted that long-range bombardment, operatingindependently of ground forces, could deliver a knockout blow

against government centers and industry, thus making it impos-sible for an opponent to continue the war. Centralized control ofair assets under the command of an experienced aviation o cerwould permit their e cient employment against these strategictargets. Parceling out aircra to support ground force command-ers, as was common in World War I, would merely divert preciousresources from the main aerial campaign. In this intellectual envi-ronment, aviation o cers devoted their energy and enthusiasm to bombardment, and observation became a backwater. 5

Technological development created a third discontinuity between the aviation and artillery communities. By 1938 the AirCorps was well along in the transition from biplanes to high-speed

u.s. army innovation history

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