above to the National Army. The designation of each Guard or National Army unit, if raised by a single state, was to have that state's name in parentheses. Soldiers in National Guard and National Army units were also to wear distinctive collar insignia showing their component.[1]
As the summer of 1917 advanced, the War Department announced additional details. In July it identified specific states to support the first sixteen National Guard and the first sixteen National Army divisions and designated the camps where they would train. At that time the department announced that the designations of the National Guard's 5th through 20th Divisions were to be changed to the 26th through the 41st to conform with the new numbering system. In August the adjutant general placed the 76th through the 91st Divisions, National Army units, on the rolls of the Army and announced the appointment of commanders for both National Guard and National Army divisions. In addition to the 1st Expeditionary Division in France, the War College Division adopted plans to organize six more Regular Army divisions. No plans were made to concentrate their divisional elements for training, but they were to be brought up to strength with draftees.[2]
When the initial planning phase for more divisions closed, the mobilization program encompassed 38 divisions—16 National Guard, 16 National Army, and 6 Regular Army. With these, exclusive of the 1st Expeditionary Division in France, redesignated on 6 July as the 1st Division, the War Department met Pershing's requirement for thirty divisions. The divisions in excess of Pershing's needs were to be held in the United States as replacement units.
Organizing the Divisions
Between 22 August 1917 and 5 January 1918, the Army Staff authorized one cavalry and three additional infantry divisions, for a total of forty-three divisions. But establishing these units proved a monumental task for which the Army was woefully unprepared. Besides unfinished training areas and the absence of a system for classifying new recruits as they entered service, the Army faced a shortage of equipment and officers. The quartermaster general claimed that the only items of clothing he expected to be available to outfit the National Army men were hats and cotton undershirts. Except for a handful of Regular Army officers, the National Army made do with newly minted officers fresh from twelve weeks of training.[3]
Formation of the new Army nevertheless began with the organization of the National Guard divisions. In August Guard units, which had been drafted into federal service and temporarily housed in state camps and armories, reported to their designated training camps and formed divisions in agreement with the 3 May tables. During September and October the division commanders reorganized the units to conform to the new square configuration as the 26th through 41st Divisions (Table 3).
- ↑ Memo, WCD for CofS, sub: Designation of force to compose the Army of the United States, 23 Jun 17, and Memo, WCD for Cold, sub: Designation of organizations, 23 Aug 17, WCD file 9876, RG 165, NARA; WD GOs 88 and 115, 1917; Special Regulations No. 41, Change 1, Uniform Regulations, 1917.
- ↑ WD GOs 90, 101, 109, and 114, 1917; Army War College (hereafter cited as AWC) Statement, Proposed organization of the increased military establishment and proposed plan for providing the necessary officers, 9 Aug 17, CofS files 1917–1921, file 1080, RG 165, NARA.
- ↑ Kreidberg and Henry, Mobilization, pp. 320–21; AWC Statement: Proposed organization of the increased military establishment, 9 Aug 17; Order of Battle of the United States Land Forces in the World War (1917–19), Zone of the Interior (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1949), pp. 79–80.
