Horses on Wheels

Last week a strange squadron of cavalry clattered into El Paso, Tex. Its 180 horses and 200 men rode in trucks and trailers. They had just completed a tedious 630-mi. trip across the scorching Big Bend Desert to Terlingua and were returning to be reviewed by Major General Frank R. McCoy. The officers in charge felt they had proved the value of motorized cavalry travel to save the energy of men & mounts until the scene of battle is reached, just as racehorses are vanned to meets. The actual ''marching" time was three days; on foot it would have taken six days. The horses rode eight to a trailer, standing sidewise with hay to munch in their traveling stalls which soldiers had built for them out of the Fort Bliss junkyard.

The "marching" column stretched out for a mile and a half. It was kept in order with the help of radio networks, one relaying messages from Expedition Commander Major John A. Robenson in the vanguard to officers in the rear, another connecting the column with Fort Bliss at El Paso. When the caravan reached Terlingua the horses were unloaded and the cavalry proceeded under their own power 15 mi. to the Mexican border. A significant experiment in army transportation, the expedition indicated that U. S. borders could be protected by distant major posts, thus eliminating the cost of permanent border forts.

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