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December 2 - 8
Monday, 03 December 2007
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3d Division Goes Triangular
In this week in 1939 the Third Division, then headquartered at Fort Lewis, WA, was reorganizing from the square configuration it had had since its birth in 1917 to a new triangular formation. Only the recent reorganization of the division from the AOE to the new modular system begun in 2004 before the 3ID deployed to Iraq for OIF III and completed on its return has been a more complicated and far-reaching undertaking.
A change in the organization of divisions after World War I was not unexpected. The square configuration of almost 28,000 men built around two infantry brigades of two regiments each and a field artillery brigade of three FA regiments, had had several flaws. The huge divisions were unwieldy and lacked mobility, problems made even more difficult because the French transportation network could handle only so many men, guns and supplies. Lack of signal wire and the continual movement of infantry units hindered communications between infantry and artillery. As a result, during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, especially, divisions got bogged down and suffered excessive casualties. Still, heavy divisions had won the War. So the merits of large, powerful infantry divisions able to penetrate an enemy position with a frontal assault versus lighter, more mobile units able to outmaneuver an opponent were debated for almost twenty years.
In many respects, however, the debate was meaningless for a long time. Despite the desire of both sides to preserve an Army of well-trained, experienced, combat soldiers, divisional readiness sharply declined occurred after 1922 as Congress twice reduced the authorized strength of Army; by 1930 divisional units were as scattered around the country and as unable to train together as they had been before World War I. The only significant developments in the 20s were in motorization and mechanization, which proceded as much for monetary as for doctrinal reasons: Truck-drawn artillery was cheaper than horse-drawn. But as motorization and mechanization advanced, they shifted the debate in favor of the more mobile triangular division. The Army’s Modernization Board wrestled with the organization of the infantry division from 1936-39. Finally, on 16 September 1939, the new Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, approved a new, completely motorized, peacetime triangular division of 9,057 men. A few days later Marshall authorized the 3d Divison, along with the 1st and 2d Divisions to reorganize according to the new structure. The new TOE was outdated before it was published, as World War II had already begun in Europe with the Nazi blitzkrieg invasion of Poland. As World War II continued, the TOE for infantry divisions was further modified in both 1940 and 1943 ending up with an authorized strength of 14,253. But the triangular configuration was there in 1939 and it remained for the duration.
The effect of the triangular configuration on the 3d Division was great. It lost both its historic 4th and the 38th Infantry Regiments, the latter of which had played such an important role at the Battle of the Marne. It gained the 15th Infantry Regiment, which had served for twenty-six years in China. It lost the 18th and 76th FA Regiments and had the 10th FA Regiment broken up into separate light battalions, which in 1944 would become Divarty. Only one battalion remained of the Engineer Regiment and the old Trains were replaced by medical, signal and quartermaster units. Difficult as they were, however, the changes gave Third Infantry Division the mobility it would need in World War II. Without these changes the Truscott Trot would have been impossible. The Division could never have moved the 100 miles from Licata to Palermo in twelve days in 1943, it could never have moved the 400 miles from St. Tropes to the Vosges in one month in 1944, and it could never have moved in three weeks the 300 miles from Nürnberg to Salzberg and Berchtesgaden where it ended the War.
