Early Military Service
Prior to World War II, he was in 1938 a Colonel in command of 27th Infantry Regiment. In 1941 he was promoted to Brigadier General and Assistant commander of the 9th Infantry Division.
Harding had an agile mind. He could quote T. S. Eliot or Tennyson or Kipling, and discuss history or astronomy like an Ivy League professor. Harding understood the modern military and had literally written the book on it. During 1934, Col. George Marshall was assistant commandant at Fort Benning and selected Harding as an instructor and put him in charge of the Infantry School's publications. He edited Infantry in Battle, a book that codified new ideas on how to organize infantry in battle. Harding was responsible for planning the book and supervising preparation and editing of the manuscript.
The triangular division structure it described was composed of three regimental combat teams each supported by its own simplified support and command structure. The organizational structure emphasized speed, agility, a lower casualty rate, and adaptability. This contrasted with the square division structure of World War I which was designed for attrition combat characteristic of trench warfare. Infantry in Battle is still used as an officer's training manual in the Infantry Officer's Course, and was the training manual for most of the infantry officers and leaders of World War II.
Read more about this topic: Edwin F. Harding
Famous quotes containing the words early, military and/or service:
“I could be, I discovered, by turns stern, loving, wise, silly, youthful, aged, racial, universal, indulgent, strict, with a remarkably easy and often cunning detachment ... various ways that an adult, spurred by guilt, by annoyance, by condescension, by loneliness, deals with the prerogatives of power and love.”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“The transformation of the impossible into reality is always the mark of a demonic will. The only way to recognize a military genius is by the fact that, during the war, he will mock the rules of warfare and will employ creative improvisation instead of tested methods and he will do so at the right moment.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)