News from the Armored Force

Good armies are never too good to learn from each other. At Fort Benning, Ga. and Fort Knox, Ky. in 1936, Germany's Major General (then Colonel) Adolf von Schell was an honored guest of the U.S. Army. He saw its small, experimental mechanized units at work, took back many a valuable lesson for Hitler's Panzer divisions. Last month Chief of Staff George C. Marshall told a Congressional subcommittee: "In the last two weeks we have gotten more exact data than we have previously had as to the employment of German armored and motorized forces. . . ." When this information had been digested, said the General, the U.S. Army might have to make some changes in its new, belatedly organized Armored Force.

Last week some changes were announced. Most important change had to do with the use and tactics of the two armored divisions now in being, two more to be organized this month. When the Armored Force was founded last summer, its commanders were left to evolve their own doctrines. Trouble with this situation was that the Armored Force is only part of a modern army. Last week the General Staff recognized this fact, ordered the Infantry and the Armored Force hereafter to cooperate in joint studies of combat principles, joint application of their theories in the field. Reason: the Army knew that Germany's famed, headlined Panzer divisions had had motorized infantry (transported in trucks but fighting afoot) to back up the tanks, hold ground after mechanized units had broken through enemy lines. Far-sighted officers then began to hope that the General Staff would carry this principle a step further, make joint study and practice a three-way affair between infantry, armored forces and the Air Corps.

Armored School. Like the rest of the expanding Army, the Armored Force last week was more like a school than a combat force. The First Armored Division at Fort Knox (Ky.), the Second at Fort Benning, had about 75% of their required equipment in service. They had begun to receive a few 22-ton medium tanks, would have to wait two or three months for the newest, 25-ton model which the Army demonstrated last fortnight (TIME, April 14).

Both divisions were much better off in man power. In eight months of active training, the handful of veteran tankers in the Army had done a stupendous job of schooling raw men, turning them into instructors for still greener recruits. Result: considering the equipment at hand, the commanders of the First and Second Divisions last week could say that they could "function in any emergency." But not for long: as with all the U.S. Army of 1941, an armored division is no sooner trained than it must be broken up to form and school fresh outfits.

This week the Armored Force is to establisn two new divisions: the Third at Camp Polk, La., the Fourth at Pine Camp, N.Y. Selected to command the Third was an alert, progressive officer with an old Army name: Brigadier General Alvan Cullom Gillem Jr. His Union grandfather was in command of the outfit that pursued and killed Confederate General John Hunt Morgan in 1864; his father was a cavalry colonel. His son, Alvan C. Gillem 2nd, West Point basketballer, is now an Air Corps lieutenant. Commander of the Fourth will be Brigadier General Henry W. Baird, who, like General Gillem, began his army career as a private. Generals Baird and Gillem will be lucky to have a fifth of a division's complete equipment at the start.

Confirmed in command of the First Armored Corps last week was Major General Charles L. Scott, who until lately was also acting commander of the entire force. Out of hospital, back on duty as commander of the Armored-Force last week went Major General Adna Romanza Chaffee, a pioneer tanker who fought for recognition of armored units long before Hitler sold the idea of a separate Armored Force to the U.S. General Staff. Wan, reedy-thin in mufti, General Chaffee for his homecoming to Fort Knox had a review of the First Division. His men were happy to have him back, happy that last week's orders left him in command of the new Armored Force Headquarters at Fort Knox. For the word had gone down through the ranks that ailing Adna Chaffee wanted to stay in a tanker's harness as long as his health allowed.

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