The United States Army in World War II

General George C. Marshall became Army Chief of Staff in September 1939. He took command of a neglected army, 17th in the world in terms of size. He quickly took note of world events and communicated his concern immediately to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt had a strategic dilemma. He did not want but had to prepare for a war on two fronts, Germany in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific. He wanted to eradicate Nazism, but didn’t want to fight two wars at once that had essentially different causes and demands. He turned to Marshall to implement what he expected to be a war against Nazi Germany. In the event of war with Japan, the United States Navy would have to hold until the Army defeated Germany.

Marshall immediately recognized that massive reorganization was in order. The US Army had no tank corps; it was eliminated after World War I. The few tanks America had were outdated light tanks that could not compare with German tanks then employed in Blitzkrieg tactics in Poland.

The Louisiana Maneuvers of September 1941 showed the prowess of several American officers and led Marshall to notice Dwight D. Eisenhower. General George S. Patton moved his men 380 miles around his enemies’ rear at night. He would later employ similar tactics against the Germans.

When Marshall took office, the United States had 174,000 regular officers and men and 200,000 in the National Guard; by the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, 1,686,000 men in thirty-six active divisions were available. Most lacked both training and equipment.

But that was not enough. The two-front war would require 200, perhaps as many as 330 divisions. As the war progressed and landings were made all over the Pacific and in North Africa and Italy, the American High Command began to rethink their strategy. Eighty-nine divisions were active as of August 1943, far less than the combined manpower of Germany and Japan.

But the American equipment was proving superior. Artillery was an American specialty, and the heavy batteries of 105mm and 155mm were better than any other Army. The US Sherman tank, the mainstay of armored divisions by late 1943, was not as heavily armored or as powerfully gunned as their German counterparts, but they were more reliable and easier to maintain. The US Army Air Forces, soon after the war to be the US Air Force, joined with the RAF to hold almost total air superiority over the battlefield.

In subsequent after-action reports, an American invention, the GIs were found to fire their rifles far less that believed, fought for their buddies in their unit rather than for ideology or popular war aims, and were happy to go home when relived. Units were not withdrawn after combat, but stocked with replacements and sent back to the front. Units like the 1st Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne Division, and 2nd Armored Division, in constant battle for years, suffered 200% casualties.

By the end of 1944, on every battlefield except the China-Burma-India Theatre of Operations, American forces advanced confidently. Difficult terrain, long supply lines, and too few troops marked the CBI Theatre; small units like Merrill’s Marauders made tangible gains.

By 1945, the US Army had 8,300,000 men and women out of 12,350,000 Americans in uniform. When the Germans surrendered, the Army planned to transfer European Units to Japan for the final invasion. Over 1,000,000 casualties were expected (although that source has never been identified.) The use of the Atomic Bomb made an invasion unnecessary. 318,274 Army personnel were killed and 565,861 were wounded on the ground and in the air.

The miracle that Marshall created — a professional army out of civilians — is often overlooked in the massive quantities of war machines produced by the United States. In the absence of a long, continuous military tradition, the United States Army created a flexible, creative officer corps in command of motivated and well-equipped enlisted men that were the equal of the militaristic programs of education of both Germany and Japan.

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The Wehrmacht

Allied POWs

Crossing the Rhine

 

Internet Links

U.S. Army in World War II Series

AHEC

HyperWar: U.S. Army in World War II
History of the United States Army in World War II. Includes HTML versions of various volumes of 'U.S. Army in World War II', 'U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II', 'American Forces in Action', and the Order of Battle of the US Army.

US Army World War II Corps Commanders
Combined Arms Research Library.

Medical Department, United States Army, Organization and Administration in World War II
This volume is one of a series dealing with the administrative history of the Medical Department, United States Army, in World War II. As an account of the organization and administration of the medical service in the United States and major oversea theaters of operations, it necessarily includes not only a description of changes in structure and administrative techniques but the accompanying changes in functions and responsibilities, which are treated here in broad terms.

African-Americans in World War II

United States Army Uniform in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of United States Army divisions during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Military History Online - US Army in World War II
The United States Army in World War II

World War II, Illinois State Military Museum, Illinois National Guard

First U.S. Army History
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U.S. Army Infantry Homepage

The United States Army Home Page

U.S. Armed Forces in World War II

The United States Army Signal Corps

Kilroy Was Here

Bibliography From Amazon.com

 

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