attached to the various regiments and the mobile repair shop were grouped in an ordnance company, centralizing all ordnance maintenance. A signal company replaced the signal battalion, and it assumed responsibility for message traffic between division and brigade headquarters. Within the infantry and field artillery regiments, men from the combat arms were to handle all communications. The new division abandoned the train headquarters and military police organization, following the recommendation of the Superior Board, but retained a separate military police company. Given the many small separate companies in its structure (division headquarters, signal, tank, service, ordnance, and military police), the division included a new organization, headquarters, special troops, to handle their administration and discipline.
The committee substituted a medical regiment for the sanitary train and revamped health services. Three hospital companies replaced the four used during the war, and the number of ambulance companies in the regiment was similarly reduced. In addition, a sanitary (collecting) battalion comprising three companies corrected the need for litter-bearers, who had previously been taken from combat units. Veterinarians, formerly scattered throughout the division, now formed a veterinary company. A laboratory section, a supply section, and a service company completed the new regiment. Despite the innovations, the regiment fielded about the same number of men as its World War I counterpart.[1]
Attesting to the greater depth envisaged for the battlefield, an air squadron of thirteen airplanes was to serve as the reconnaissance unit for the division. As under the wartime configuration, units for ground reconnaissance were to be attached as needed.[2]
Although the committee's infantry division was larger than that contemplated in Pershing's proposal, the planners believed it had only those organic elements necessary for immediate employment under normal conditions. In an emergency, the new division could be quickly adjusted to meet an enemy armed with inferior arms and equipment. The problem the planners tried to address was how to design a division to deal with superior forces without significantly modifying it. The committee's division, nevertheless, had its opponents. Conner and Marshall of Pershing's staff still preferred the smaller triangular division for its mobility and ease of command and control. Years later Marshall recalled that if Heintzelman and King had not been such "kindly characters," the triangular division would have been adopted instead of Drum's large division.[3]
The question arises why Pershing, after becoming chief of staff on 1 July 1921, failed to replace the infantry division with one more compatible with his concept of battlefield mobility. Marshall pointed out later that the basic recommendation for retaining the square infantry division came from his own officers, the Superior Board. To disavow their advice would have been an embarrassment. Furthermore, by July 1921 the reorganization of the divisions had already begun. To undo so much work would have been unrealistic and would have implied a lack of leadership within the Army. Therefore, the square
- ↑ Lane, "Tables of Organization," pp. 489–91; App. 2 to Rpt of Special Committee, WPD, 8 Jul 20; T/O 1921, Table 1 War (W), Infantry Division, 4 May 1921.
- ↑ T/O, 1921, Table 1 W, Infantry Division, 4 May 1921; Field Service Regulations, 1923, p. 18.
- ↑ Lane, "Tables of Organization," pp. 489–90; Ltr, George C. Marshall to Fox Conner, 17 Jan 38, and Ltr, Marshall to William M. Spencer, 18 Mar 38, Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Research Foundation, Lexington, Va.
