How's It Coming?

Last week the U.S. people got two reports on the state of their new Army. One was from Chief of Staff George Catlett Marshall. The other was from Brigadier General Harry Lewis Twaddle,/- who last week took over the General Staff division (G3) in charge of Army mobilization, operations, organization and training. Gist of both reports: the Army is over the hump. It is far better off than was the U.S. Army of 1917. It will soon be the first Army-in-being, ready to fight, which the U.S. ever had before entering a war. But big as is the hump that the Army has ably surmounted, citizens will make a great mistake if they think it is already an army able to fight any first-class power.

Marshall. The Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army is also the Commanding General of its field forces--a double job too big for most men, that may yet be divided between two (as it was in World War I). The job has worn George Marshall, but it has not broken him. When he appeared last week before Senator Harry Truman and other members of a special committee investigating defense, General Marshall talked easily and precisely, without notes, pulled many a fact & figure out of his greying head.

His was a tale of enormous progress: from a skeletal Regular Army of 169,000 in 1939, unable to conduct a real field maneuver, to one of 1,210,600 men and officers last week. Give it three more months, said General Marshall, and it would be a real army. And, he bitterly added, progress would have been even faster if the U.S. people had been more realistic before Hitler thrust military realism upon other peoples and armies.

A favorite Marshall theme of late has been the U.S. Army's technological debt to the Germans. Last week he frankly expounded this subject. Not until two months ago, said he, did the Army learn the details of the German campaign in Poland, the Lowlands, France, and begin to profit in full from the lessons. The organization and tactics of German air and armored forces, especially the coordinated use of air and land forces in simultaneous attack--all these, General Marshall confessed, were astounding news to the peace-starved, peace-drugged U.S. Army.

George Marshall could say that the Army was doing a good job of catching up with the Germans (in the new armored divisions, for instance). But catching up on old lessons will not be enough. The current, authoritative Command and General Staff School Military Review quoted an address to a Staff School class of Army officers: "It is not sufficient to pattern our doctrines, organization, training and tactics after those adopted by any other nation. We have to base our solution on our national characteristics, economic situation and on the principles of war, and doctrines that we have developed in our own service. It is not enough to be equal, we must be superior. This calls for original thought, initiative on the part of all military personnel and constant study and experimentation."

Twaddle. Husky, benign Harry Twaddle read a prepared statement which painted a rosy picture of great progress against great handicaps, of war-timed mobilization plans adapted to a pre-war expansion which the Army had never expected. As of last week, said he, the Army had 470,000 Regulars (on three-year enlistments), 267,000 National Guardsmen (mobilized for one year), and 413,000 one-year draftees in training. Said General Twaddle:

"We have created a fighting army in less than a year. . . . By June 30, 1941, exclusive of strong overseas garrisons, we will have 27 divisions in being and at, or nearly at, their full fighting strength. We will likewise have four armored divisions. We had none a year ago. We will have approximately 40 regiments of anti-aircraft artillery, 27 regiments of corps field artillery (for use as needed in support of cavalry, infantry, armored units), and 15 regiments of . . . army engineers. We will have some hundreds of other units of all arms and services--most of which were on paper only a year ago. We will, in fact, have an army--not trained, as yet, as well as it will be trained later; and not equipped, as yet, as well as it will be equipped later. . . . It is, however, right now, an army in fact and not in theory and it could fight tomorrow if it had to."

With What? General Twaddle also gave some up-to-date figures on Army goals: 1,418,097 men in all by mid-1941, plus 152,589 more men for whom authorization is provided in a pending bill. Beyond that, he explained, the Army has paper plans for a still larger force of 2,800,000 men--when & if Congress finds such a force necessary. The War Department is already ordering essential equipment for the bigger force, on the sound theory that it will be easy to call and train the additional men once the weapons are in hand.

When Senator Truman yanked Witness Twaddle away from his prepared statement, a fundamental fact emerged: the U.S. now has 1,210,600 men and officers more or less under arms, will not have an Army of that size until the) are fully equipped--which they are not now. General Twaddle, listing his imposing total of divisions "at, or nearly at, their full fighting strength" last week, meant strength mainly in man power. Said he, when Senator Truman asked whether the divisions had their equipment now: "No, sir. Their equipment is not complete. They have sufficient equipment for training purposes . . . only a few are ready to move into the theater of operations." Senator Truman observed that General Twaddle's "fighting army" was by no means ready to fight last week. General Twaddle agreed.

What these reports added up to: the U.S. is getting a huge school army which still needs more schooling, more equipment. Unless the tours of one-year Guardsmen and draftees are extended (as was rumored in Washington last week), a big segment of the Army must continue to be a school force.

/- The nearly 30,000 regular officers in the pro fessional establishments include: Rear Admiral Felix Xerxes Gygax, Major Cyril Walter Martyr, Captain Andrew Hero 3rd, Ensign Strong Boozer, Lieut. Lee S. Pancake, Lieut. Jud F. Yoho, Lieut. Clarence Clapsaddle, Colonel Rollo Ditto, Cap tain Donald N. Wackwitz, Lieut. Theodore Clink-scales.

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