Divisional Changes
The General Staff had approved several changes in the August 1917 structure when the Army began to organize the last group of infantry divisions for World War I. Changes included reducing the division's reserve machine gun battalion from a four-company organization to a two-company unit and increasing the infantry brigade's machine gun battalions from three to four companies. Although the total number of machine gun units remained the same, the realignment afforded better command and control within the infantry brigades. More Signal Corps men were added, and more motorized ambulances were provided for the sanitary trains. Usually each modification brought a change in the strength of the division, which by November 1918 stood at 28,105 officers and enlisted men.[1]
The demands of combat led to several changes in divisional weapons. The French agreed to replace all U.S. 3-inch guns with their 75-mm. guns in exchange for supplies of ammunition. The 3-inch Stokes mortars, optional weapons in the infantry regiment, were made permanent. To defend the division against enemy airplanes, antiaircraft machine guns were authorized in the field artillery regiments. The most significant change, however, involved machine guns and automatic rifles. In September 1918 elements of the 79th and 80th Divisions used new machine guns and automatic rifles invented by John M. Browning. The Browning water-cooled machine gun was a lighter, more reliable weapon than either the British Vickers or the French Hotchkiss, and the Browning automatic rifle (BAR) surpassed the British Lewis and French Chauchat in reliability. New Browning weapons, however, were not available in sufficient quantities for all divisions before the end of the war.[2]
Pershing formally modified the division staff during the war. In February 1918 he adopted the European functional staff, which he had been tentatively using since the summer of 1917. Under that system the staff consisted of five sections: G–1 (personnel), G–2 (intelligence), G–3 (operations), G–4 (supply), and G–5 (training). Each section coordinated all activities within its sphere and reported directly to the chief of staff, thereby relieving the commander of many routine details.[3]
Pershing and his staff also changed plans for assembling army corps to meet conditions in France. When four divisions had arrived in France, the 1st, 2d, 26th, and 42d, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) staff began planning a corps replacement and school division. After reviewing the readiness status of the divisions, the staff recommended that the 42d be reorganized as the replacement and school unit. Pershing disagreed. For political reasons, the "Rainbow" Division had to be a combat unit. Also, he did not agree that the army corps required a replacement and school unit at that time; he wanted a base and training division to receive and process replacements. For that job he selected the 41st Division, which had just begun to arrive in France.[4]
- ↑ Changes in the tables of organization and weapons can be traced through the following sources: T/O Series A, 14 January 1918, corrected to 26 June 1918 (printed in Organization, AEF, pp. 335–88), and tables printed in Genesis of the American First Army (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1938), pp. 59–61.
- ↑ George M. Chin, The Machine Gun, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1951), 1:173–86; Sevellon Brown, The Story of Ordnance in the World War (Washington, D.C.: James William Bryan Press, 1920), pp. 128–30.
- ↑ AEF GO 31, 1918.
- ↑ "Report of Assistant CofS, G–1, G.H.Q., A.E.F. and Statistics," United States Army in World War: Reports of Commander-in-Chief, A.E.F. (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1948), pp. 150–52, hereafter cited as Reports of CINC.
