ed, it decided to organize 32 infantry divisions immediately, 16 in the National Guard and 16 in the National Army. The Army contemplated no additional Regular Army divisions. Although existing Regular Army regiments could be shipped overseas and organized into divisions if necessary, most regulars were needed to direct and train the new army. Unlike past wars, draftees rather than volunteers would fight World War I.[1]
To organize National Guard and National Army divisions, the Army Staff adopted extant plans. For the Guard it used the Militia Bureau's scheme developed following the passage of the National Defense Act, and for the National Army it turned to a contingency plan drawn up in February 1917 to guide the employment of draftees. Divisions in both components had geographic bases. As far as practicable, the area that supported a Guard division coincided with a National Army divisional area.[2]
The thirty-two new divisions needed training areas, but the Army had only one facility large enough to train a division, Camp Funston, a subpost of Fort Riley, Kansas. Therefore, the staff instructed territorial commanders to select an additional thirty-two areas, each large enough to house and train a division. Early in the summer Secretary Baker approved leasing the sites. To save money, he decided to build tent cities for the National Guard divisions in the southern states, where winters were less severe, while camps for National Army divisions, which were to have permanent buildings, were located within the geographic areas that supported them.[3]
Establishing a tentative occupancy date of 1 September, the Quartermaster Corps began constructing the training areas in June. It designed each site to accommodate a three-brigade division as called for under the prewar tables of organization. When Bliss approved the square division in August, the camps had to be modified to house the larger infantry regiments. Although the changes delayed completion of the training areas, the troops' arrival date, 1 September, remained firm.[4]
The War College Division and the adjutant general created yet another system for designating divisions and brigades and their assigned elements. Divisions were to be numbered 1 through 25 in the Regular Army, 26 through 75 in the National Guard, and 76 and above in the National Army. Within the Regular Army numbers, mounted or dismounted cavalry divisions were to begin with the number 15. The National Defense Act of 1916 provided for sixty-five Regular Army infantry regiments, including a regiment from Puerto Rico. From those units, excluding the ones overseas, the War Department could organize thirteen infantry divisions in addition to the 1st Expeditionary Division already in France. This arrangement explains the decision to begin numbering Regular Army cavalry divisions with the digit 15. The system did not specify the procedure for numbering National Guard or National Army cavalry divisions. It reserved blocks of numbers for infantry, cavalry, and field artillery brigades, with 1 through 50 allotted to the Regular Army, 51 through 150 to the National Guard, and 151 and
- ↑ WD Bull 32, 1917; WD GO 88, 1917; Henry Jervey, "Mobilization of the Emergency Army," lecture at the Army War College, 3 Jan 1920, copy in DAMH Library, Washington, D.C.; Chambers, To Raise an Army, p. 140.
- ↑ Memo, WCD for CofS, 20 Feb 17, sub: A plan for an expansible army of 500,000 men based on universal liability to the military service, localization of organizations, and decentralization of administration, TAG file 9433, RG 165, NARA (the memo offers the C/S three options to increase the size of the Army); Ltr, Ch of the MB, to TAGS of all States, Territory of Hawaii, District of Columbia, and inspector-instructors and officers in charge of militia affairs, department headquarters, 5 May 17, sub: Organization and entry in Federal service of National Guard. MB file 325.4, RG 168, NARA. Also see U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Military Affairs, The National Defense Hearings. 69th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 May 1917, pp. 303–04.
- ↑ Rpt of the Sec of War, ARWD, 1917, pp. 25–34.
- ↑ Ibid.; Rpt of the Construction Div, ARWD, 1918, pp. 1283–86.
