Army Ground Forces - Organization of Ground Troops

Organization of Ground Troops

In 1942, it was estimated that between 200 and 350 divisions would be required to defeat Germany and Japan. However, only 89 divisions were ultimately readied. This was partially because requirements for service troops and overhead was greater than anticipated, and because the Army's overall strength became fixed at a lower lever than expected. Army strength was fixed at 7,500,000 enlisted men in 1942 and was subsequently cut to 7,004,000 enlisted men in 1943. Further cuts of 433,000 men were made by March 1945. As a result, Divisions scheduled for activation in the second half of 1943 were postponed to 1944, then canceled entirely, and no new divisions were formed after June 1943.

By May 1945, 96% of all tactical troops were overseas. No new units were forming and there were no reserves. Fortunately, these sufficed to bring about the defeat of Germany and Japan, largely because the Soviet Union carried most of the burden of fighting the German Army on the Eastern Front. However, it also meant that divisions were kept in the line longer than anticipated and took heavier casualties. In three months of intensive combat, an infantry division could expect 100% casualties in its three infantry regiments. Units were maintained by a continuous flow of individual replacements. Such conditions placed great strain on the combat soldier who remained in action until he became a casualty.

Energetic and painstaking efforts were made by Army Ground Forces to optimize the divisions for combat operations. Non-essential troops and equipment were eliminated. The principle was established that a unit would have only the equipment that it would normally need. Other economies were also made. For example, trucks were replaced, wherever possible, by trailers. While admittedly not as useful as trucks, not only were they cheaper to produce, but they required less personnel to maintain, and less space to ship. As a result of economies, 89 divisions were active in 1945 for the same number of personnel as required to man 75 in 1943. General Douglas MacArthur pointed out that the division, while initially well-balanced, soon became unbalanced in combat as the infantry took casualties faster than other arms, requiring the relief of the entire division when most of its components were capable of further effort.

This eventually brought the entire training program down. In 1941, replacements were produced by Replacement Training Centers (RTCs). As new divisions were mobilized, they took their manpower directly from reception centers. The RTCs provided replacements for filler, and were organized to provide replacements in the proportion of units in the army. Army Ground Forces was responsible for training replacements for the four statutory arms (infantry, cavalry, field and coast artillery) and the three new pseudo-arms (armor, antiaircraft artillery, and tank destroyer). Replacements for the other arms and services were handled by the Army Service Forces. Casualties in combat units, particularly infantry units, exceeded the capacity of the RTCs to replace them. By February 1944, some 35,249 men had been taken from combat units in training for use as replacements; another 29,521 had been transferred from low priority units to fill up units preparing to move overseas. Between April and September 1944, as casualties in Normandy began to bite, some 91,747 men were stripped from twenty-two divisions in the United States. Maintaining 700,000 men in infantry units required 1,800,000 men in the infantry arm by April 1945. Over 1,000,000 replacements were shipped between September 1943 and August 1945, of whom 82% were infantry. Volunteers for the infantry were accepted from other arms and services. By 1944, all new inductees were being sent to RTCs, where they were trained for 13 to 17 weeks before being sent to combat units. As casualties mounted, a massive comb-out began as the Army Ground Forces struggled to provide replacements. Personnel from non-combat assignments were pulled from duty, hastily trained, and then re-assigned to units as combat infantry replacements.

The result was that divisions embarking for overseas in late 1944 and early 1945 had much less training than those leaving earlier. The last division to depart for overseas, the 65th Infantry Division, fared worst of all: