Louisiana Maneuvers (1940-1941)

[SIZE=-1]Column of armored scout cars advancing through Sabine Parish during the 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers. Photo Credit: Rickey Robertson Col[/SIZE]

 

Now there is something you'd never see today: US troops practicing their trade in a town firing a machinegun next to somebody's house. The only thing that would have made the picture better would have been a couple of civilians standing there watching them!

 

Here is some more that you don't see alot of.



SC128589 - Second Army Maneuvers in Arkansas…Loading platform at Thebes, Arkansas. Light machine gun set up for action. Gunner Pfc. Urel Ellis, Ozan, Arkansas, No. 1; Pvt. Elliot Brown, Leavenworth, Kansas, No. 2; Pvt. Warren Anderson, Stephens, Arkansas. All three men are from Troop C, 10th Cavalry. Aug. 27, 1941.


SC128630 - Second Army Maneuvers in Louisiana…Sgt. Andrew Favors, Hqs. Troop, 9th Cavalry, with 45 Sub. Thompson machine gun. Aug. 30, 1941.

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SC128688 - Second Army Maneuvers in Louisiana…Pvt. Chester Arthur Burnett, Picket line Troop G, 9th Cavalry (colored) from Aberdine, Mississippi, cleaning frog of horse, while Staff Sgt. Columbus Rudisal, Goffney, S.C., looks on. Sgt. Rudisal is directing Troop G, 9th Cavalry, 4th Brigade. Sept. 12, 1941.

http://www.history.army.mil/photos/WWII/maneuvers/maneuvers.htm

 

Soldiers manning a 75mm. anti tank gun in during the Louisiana maneuvers.

 

Men manning a 155mm. Howitzer gun from within the tall grass and shady trees.

 

[SIZE=-1]A scout car passing a column of mounted cavalry showing the new concept of the horse/mechanized unites being tried by the Army during the maneuvers. These units were operating between Plainview and Hornbeck in south Sabine Parish. Photo Credit: Rickey Robertson Collection[/SIZE]

 

I have always liked the contrast of the old and new . The passing of one type of warfare to the more modern.

[SIZE=-1]General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, as he disembarks from his aircraft at Esler Field in 1941. General's Ben Lear and Jacob Dever's are waiting on the Chief of Staff. Photo Credit: Rickey Robertson Collection[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Red attack bombers zoom upward after bombing Mount Carmel and strafing it with machine-gun fire. Planes came over again and again to delay and confuse Blues in organizing newly won Positions. Trucks in clearing should have been put under trees immediately and were ruled out of action. With anti-aircraft protection planes might have been shotdown, too. Photo Credit: Dmitri Kessel/Ralph Morse/TIMEPIX[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Mock orchard is painted on runways. Camouflage like this deceives camera at 15,000 ft., visual observation at 10,000 ft., below which anti-aircraft fire prohibits reconnaissance. Photo Credit: Dmitri Kessel/Ralph Morse/TIMEPIX[/SIZE]

 

3.in AA guns

 

THE BATTLE OF THE BAYOUS
THE LOUISIANA MANEUVERS
By Terry Isbell


It was May, 1940, and Natchitoches Parish was about to be invaded by 66,000
soldiers. These soldiers would battle rain, mud, mosquitoes and each other in
the largest war games ever attempted, the Louisiana Maneuvers



On September 01, 1939, the German Panzer divisions rolled over the Polish
Army and a new word entered our vocabulary -"blizkieg" - lighting war. The
ease with which the Nazi tanks crushed the elite Polish Calvary was a wake-up
call to America.
Eight months later, in May of 1940, 66,000 American troops would battle
rain, mud and mosquitos in Natchitoches and surrounding parishes, training for
the possibility of war.
This mobilization would be called the Louisiana Maneuvers and would be
larger than any "war games" ever previously attempted by the U.S. Army.
One week after the Polish invasion, President Roosevelt declared a
"limited state of emergency" and ordered the Army to modernize so it could
deal effectively with this new type of war.
The U.S. Army was in bad shape at the time. Neither it's structure or
armament had changed since the end of WWI. Soldiers were still armed with
bolt-action Springfield rifles and the Army had only a handful of light tanks,
none of them a match for the Nazi Panzers.
American officers were still being trained in trench warfare strategies
and the Army was badly under-manned. The only Division even close to full
strength was the Calvary, which like the Polish Army, still relied on horses.
On the eve of World War II, the U.S. Army was ranked 17th in the world,
just behind Rumania and just ahead of Argentina. One reporter said that
compared to the German Army, the U.S. Army was just "a bunch of nice boys
playing with BB guns".
The Army Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, quickly rose to the
challenge. He ordered the implementation of a new organizational structure,
adapted from the German Army, to efficiently use tanks and air power. General
Marshall also purchased a wide array of armored fighting vehicles, transports
and tanks, and new semi-automatic rifles for the soldiers.
He then decided that troops, and more importantly, their commanders,
needed to be trained in the new concepts of mechanized warfare. General
Marshall believed in the 4-H Club motto of "learn by doing" and begin planning
a series of training maneuvers, splitting his army into two opposing forces
and letting them attack and defend.
After smaller war games in different parts of the country proved that this
type of training was useful, a large scale maneuver involving half the
standing army was proposed.
Such an exercise had never been attempted and General Marshall had several
problems to contend with.
The first was equipment. While the Army had purchased new trucks and
tanks, most had yet to be delivered. General Marshall had to pressure the
factories to meet their delivery schedules.
Another, and more immediate concern, was the political pressure being
brought to bear from all over the country. Politicians correctly saw the
Maneuvers as a way to help their Depression ravaged economies.
Despite the pressure, Marshall knew exactly what he wanted - an
economically feasible, underpopulated site that could sustain the damage
the maneuvers would produce. Scouts were sent all over the country and after
sifting through their reports, Marshall I settled on the "Sabine River area".
Once the site was selected, events moved quickly. With the help of local
organizers, particularly Louisiana Adjutant General Raymond Fleming,
permission was obtained from 6,500 separate landowners. The landowners were
told it was their patriotic duty and within weeks of starting the process,
the Army had acquired the rights to use 3,400 square miles, excepting three
and a half square miles who's owners wouldn't agree and 10 square miles where
the owners couldn't be found.
The process of securing permission led to one of the "tallest of the tall
tales" associated with the Maneuvers. Supposedly, after a "backwoods woman"
refused to sign, a Lieutenant asked her "Didn't you know that Louisiana is
at war with Texas? Don't you want Louisiana to win?" She thought for a second
and said "of course I do! Give me that paper".
Still despite such demonstrated patriotism, when the national media
covered the start of the Maneuvers, it focused on the few signs that could be
seen saying "ARMY-STAYOUT".
To prepare for the Maneuvers, Army divisions were transported to bases
throughout the South and Southwest. As the ordered equipment became available,
troops were split into two groups, with one group massing itself along the
Texas side of the Sabine River and the other group "digging in" at positions
stretching south from Mansfield to Leesville. The largest concentrations of
these troops were in Natchitoches and Alexandria General Marshall set the
stage for the upcoming "hostilities" by supplying his commanders with the
following scenario:
"Blue (East) is a small nation with a common boundary at the Sabine
River with another small nation, Red (West). Blue has a small army, normally
scattered throughout the country. Red has an even smaller army. These troops,
however, are highly trained and are concentrated along the border."
"Boundary disputes, local border incidents and alien minorities have
resulted in increasing tension between the two nations. On April 20, the Red
government provocatively announced it would hold it's spring maneuvers just
west of the Sabine River."
The Blue government became alarmed, increased it's garrison at it's border
town of Alexandria and announced that it would move it's Army to the vicinity
of Alexandria for large scale maneuvers."
With the stage set, the air war started on the 6th of May and the ground
war on the 9th of May. The Red Army poured across the Sabine River at Burr
Ferry, Merryville, and Pendleton. To help with the attack, they constructed
a newfangled 367 foot long pontoon bridge at Toledo Ferry.
The northern forces of the Red Army advanced quickly towards their
objective, which was to capture the "capitol" of the Blue country, Alexandria.
It looked as if the Red Army would make a clean sweep, but they were stopped
cold at Natchitoches, where they ran into a large force of the Blue Army dug
in at the Normal School.
For the next few days of the Maneuver, there were attacks and
counterattacks throughout the area, with the end result that the Blue forces
successfully pushed the Reds back to the River.
For the local residents, it was great fun to watch the troops, and the
airplanes and tanks were a novelty. Many of the area schools let students out,
(and students in the other schools let themselves out) to watch the show.
Young people would lay on the banks of the Cane River and watch the formations
of fighter planes and bombers overhead.
At the end of each scheduled phase of the games, troops were allowed to
"stand down" and relax in the communities closest to their bivouac areas. For
the Red Army that meant either alcohol dry East Texas, with "hot dogs and ice
cream socials", or Leesville, Louisiana with it's wide open bars like the
Red Hound and the Silver Dollar.
Blue Army troops in the Natchitoches area were entertained with
community sponsored dances at the Natchitoches Country Club. These were lively
affairs with a lot of laughing and jitterbug music, but with enough slow music
to make romance possible. More than one Natchitoches Parish belle lost her
heart to a dashing soldier and the Maneuvers did result in a few marriages.
Not every resident of Natchitoches Parish appreciated the presence of the
soldiers as much as the Natchitoches belles did. Some saw it as more like an
occupation by an invading army. In Robeline, Don Stoker remembers soldiers
"borrowing" his fathers prize possession, a mechanical hay mower, and hooking
it to a jeep to clear a landing field for observation planes. They hit a
survey marker and cracked the casing, spilling all the oil and destroying
the mower. His father, Dewitt Stoker, put in a claim for the damage and a
"smart aleck' Army Captain came to discuss his claim. They argued over the
cost of the mower, and the Captain started to leave. He came back and told
Mr. Stoker that the whole parish was trying to steal from the Army, and that
Mr. Stoker "was a ragged, deadbeat farmer, just like the rest." Mr. Stoker, a
WWI veteran, hit the Captain so hard that his feet flew off the ground and
he was knocked cold.
Later that evening, the Natchitoches sheriff and an Army officer came out
and told Mr. Stoker he'd have to go to a hearing for breaking the Captain's
jaw. At the hearing, both the Captain's driver and his assistant testified
as to how the Captain provoked Mr. Stoker. He didn't go to jail and he was
compensated for his mower.
There were other incidents of soldiers turning out livestock to sleep in
dry barns, tearing down fences to get their convoys through, draining farmer's
wells dry, and burning all the wood farmers had cut and stacked for syrup
making. The armored vehicles destroyed a number of country road bridges that
were simply not built for that kind of weight and use. Overall, however, such
incidents were relatively few and Natchitoches and the surrounding area
enjoyed a much needed economic boom from the two million dollars spent on the
Maneuvers.
An event with the scale and impact of the Louisiana Maneuvers is bound to
produce some local legends and one of the most endearing and enduring legends
for Natchitoches Parish residents involves General George S. Patton. One
morning, troops under Patton were approaching Bermuda Bridge with orders to
secure it.
Patton was famous for "never losing a battle". This is true only if you
don't count the skirmish known locally as the "Battle of Bermuda Bridge". As
Patton's troop approached the bridge, the sound of light artillery rang out
from the woods. Troops scurried for cover and their commanders halted the
advance while they tried to figure out the location of the enemy.
Reconnaissance had shown no opposing forces in the area.
The column was halted for several hours while new air reconnaissance was
ordered and scouts were sent out. Imagine the look on George Patton's face
when scouts came back with three local boys (Prudhomme brothers) and their
brand new toy, a foot-long carbide cannon. Years later, radio commentator Paul
Harvey would hear the story of the "Battle of Bermuda Bridge" and use it in
his "Rest of the Story" radio broadcast.
The last phase of the Maneuvers began on May 2Oth. That night Leesville
High School graduated a class of 52 Seniors. It is one of the sad ironies of
the Maneuvers that the Class President, a young man proudly named John Paul
Jones, would become the first man from Leesville to die in World War II. In
recognition of this young man's sacrifice, a street in Leesville bears his
name.
This last phase was marked by heavy rains, which turned roads and fields
into mud. The rain changed the nature of the war games, and left the soldiers
in the field wet and miserable.
In a scene from the WWII movie "A Walk in the Sun", when soldiers are
asked to take a farm house held by the enemy, one soldier comments that as bad
as the fighting might get "It can't be worse than the Louisiana Maneuvers".
The conditions were so rigorous that one of the officers in charge,
Colonel Gruber, stated that "in addition to the enemy, there are two
redoubtable antagonist lurking to.... break up the best laid plans of a
commander - Old Man Fog and his twin brother, Bog".
Speaking of commanders, there were over 4,000 officers at the Louisiana
Maneuvers. The list of officerrs there reads like a who's who of WWII
commanders including: Dwight Eisenhower, "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell, George
Patton, Jonathan Wainwwright, Omar Bradley, and John Miliken. While a lot is
known about the commanders, the media of the time was also interested in the
common soldier.
National magazines and local newspapers all worked to find a "typical"
soldier. The composite solder was 20 years old and probably came from Texas
(12,000 of the 66,000). Their monthly pay was $21 for a buck privates:
$30 for privates first class: $42 for corporals: and $54 for sergeants. Most
had either attended or graduated high school.
The average soldier weighed 145 pounds, stood five feet, eight inches
tall, had blue eyes, brown hair and had at least 12 of his original teeth. We
assume that he was fairly good looking as "just plain facial ugliness" was a
reason for rejection of would-be Army recruits.
During the maneuvers, the soldiers had few comforts in the field. They
were given one mosquito bar to be shared between two soldiers. Sleeping bags
were not issued although they could buy one from the quartermaster for five
dollars.
While the Army used the Maneuvers to try out new mobile field kitchens,
a number of soldiers were denied access to hot foods so they could try out a
brand new invention, the C-ration. Each soldier was issued a 12 ounce can of
meat and beans, one of beef stew, one of meat and vegetable hash, and three
companion cans of crackers, sugar, and pulverized coffee. These rations would
be a source of soldier's jokes and complaints for generations to come.
The Maneuvers were designed to train commanders in coordinating
air/ground operations, deploying troops across open terrain (as opposed to
trench warfare) and effective deployment of mechanized forces. That they fell
somewhat short of success in these goals was illustrated by Major General
Herbert Brees' harsh comments during the debriefing of officers.
Brees, in no uncertain terms, told the officers that they had failed the
games in both performance and spirit. He cited the lack of artillery support,
pointed out that the attacks were so weak that they would have failed against
an actual defense, and that the commanders ignored air defense to the point
that if the air attacks had been real, there would have been "sure murder" of
"helpless infantry".
Brees squarely blamed the officers, saying that they had "failed to play
the game", and that their attitude had infected the troops in the field. His
criticisms were so harsh (and public) that the Army soon issued new
guidelines for softer, and private, debriefings.
Other officers shared Brees' views. Omar Bradley commented on "the
undistinguished and unimaginative leadership by the generals". It is worth
noting that a number of these senior commanders retired from the Army in the
year after the Maneuvers.
Bradley also referred to the close air support as "a joke...of 34 air
missions requested by the ground commanders, only two were carried out". In
addition, there was a very real human cost. At least 13 soldiers died during
the Maneuvers.
Despite the shortcomings, The Louisiana Maneuvers had two very important
results for the Army. First, the Maneuvers proved that such large scale
training exercises were both possible and desirable.
Over the next two years, corps vs. corps training exercises would take
place in New York State and again in Louisiana. The second result was to prove
that the Army was woefully short of men and materials. Bradley observed
that the Maneuvers showed the urgent need for "infantry divisions, more tank
and anti-tank units, armored vehicles, artillery and a dozen other major
items". As several powerful Senators, including Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr, had
observed the Maneuvers first hand, equipment funds were quickly forthcoming.
As a result of the 1940 Battle of the Bayous, the U.S. Army was in a much
better I position to respond nineteen months later to the "day that will live
in infamy forever". History would show that in those few short months, the
U.S. Army evolved from an army ranked just behind Rumania's, to an army which
could and did defeat the best trained and equipped soldiers the world had ever
seen. Years after the war, General George Marshall commented on the worth of
the Maneuvers with his statement that "the maneuvers were not only valuable,
they were invaluable. We never could have made our way m Europe without
these".
For Natchitoches Parish, the maneuvers produced a lasting memory of a time
when 66,000 soldiers "fought", loved, and in a few cases, died, on our soil.


http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/natchitoches/military/maneuver.txt

 

[SIZE=-1]Photo provided by Jackson Barracks Military Library [/SIZE]

 

[SIZE=-1]Photo provided by Jackson Barracks Military Library [/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]WET AND MISERABLE BUT STILL SMILING, DOUGHBOYS OF THE 37TH (OHIO) DIVISION SLOG UP TO THE FRONT THROUGH THE MUD OF A TROPICAL LOUISIANA RAINSTORM Photo Credit: Dmitri Kessel/Ralph Morse/TIMEPIX[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Blue parachute troops, after dropping in a cotton field, commandeer Red command cars, fight toward pontoon bridge across Red River at Clarence. After capturing some men of Red Signal Corps and Engineers, they blew up a bridge at Vobreiaux. Photo Credit: Dmitri Kessel/Ralph Morse/TIMEPIX[/SIZE]

 

Just reading Prisoners of the Japanese by Gavan Daws. Pretty detailed book on Allied pow's of the Japanese. Good in that it includes Commonwealth, British and American prisoners as one whole storyline rather than individual nations prisoners.

Guys from Uss Houston amongst them and then I found The Jacksboro Boys...and a great pic of them...131st Field Atrillery, 2nd battalion, F battery, pic of them setting up camp at the Louisiana manouvres. Some of their personel stories included.

Brings it home closer when reading now.

 

[SIZE=-1]Blue parachute troops, after dropping in a cotton field, commandeer Red command cars, fight toward pontoon bridge across Red River at Clarence. After capturing some men of Red Signal Corps and Engineers, they blew up a bridge at Vobreiaux. Photo Credit: Dmitri Kessel/Ralph Morse/TIMEPIX[/SIZE]


I wonder if this trooper was one that was actually in the river LOL? Look at how dark the uniform he wears is. And especially the garrison cap. Either that or from sweat considering the heat and humidity at the time.

 

Heres an online exerpt from the book,

Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of ... - Google Book Search

 

[SIZE=-1]The 4th Field Artillery, Mounted Pack Mule Train, passes a truck column, April 1940. Photo provided by Jackson Barracks Military Library [/SIZE]

 

1941 LOUISIANA MANEUVERS: THE BIG ONE


Troops are on the move in the field during the huge Louisiana
Maneuvers exercise in 1941. Maneuvers were held in Louisiana
in 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, and 1944, but the 1941 maneuver
was the largest and was called, “The Big One.” U.S. Army

By J.R. "Bill" Bailey

After Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the government leaders in America thought that the United States could become involved in a war. The military was expanding and needed a place to hold a large exercise. Louisiana seemed like a good place.

General Lesley McNair and Colonel Mark Clark, using a Louisiana road map, laid out the maneuver area. It involved 20,000,000 acres secured from 94,000 landowners and covered 3,400 square miles from the Sabine River, east to the Calcasieu River and north to the Red River. In Colonel Robert S. Allen’s book, Lucky Forward, he calls the area “a 40 by 90 mile sparsely settled, chigger and tick infested bayou and pitch pine section between the Sabine and Red Rivers.”

It would be the largest maneuver ever held at that time and would involve nearly half a million men and 19 divisions. Although the Army was starting to use tanks, some of the cavalry units were still using horses. Maneuvers were held in Louisiana in 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, and 1944, but the 1941 maneuver was the largest and was called, “The Big One.”



Horse cavalry with a modern M3 light tank. This is probably
the last time that horses were used by the U.S. military.
U.S. Army


Headquarters for the maneuvers was the newly built Camp Polk (later Fort Polk). The camp was named for West Point-educated Rev. Leonidas K. Polk, the Episcopal bishop of Louisiana. At the start of the Civil War, Polk put aside his clergy duties and was commissioned into the Confederate Army. The “fighting bishop” was killed in a skirmish at Marietta, Georgia in June 1864.

During the latter part of July 1941, soldiers were arriving at nearby camps with as many as 300 to 400 Army vehicles passing through Alexandria each day. On July 30, 5,000 troops arrived, 10,000 more came on July 31, and 5,000 more on August 1.

The maneuvers were scheduled for August and September 1941, but a week before the start of the maneuvers a hurricane struck Louisiana. All of the rivers were swollen, causing trucks to become stuck in the mud. This was just the beginning of the hardships for the soldiers.



Lieutenant General Ben Lear (left) was in command of the
Second (Red) Army, while Lieutenant General Walter Krueger
(right) was in command of the Third (Blue) Army during the
1941 Louisiana Maneuvers. U.S. Army


The Second (Red) Army, with 130,000 troops, was commanded by Lieutenant General Ben Lear and would be deployed in an “egg shaped” area in north-west Louisiana near Shreveport. It was comprised of the 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions with 600 tanks. To denote that they were the Red Army, the men wore a red armband and a “tin hat” (M17A1 helmet).

The Third (Blue) Army, was commanded by Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, who had come to the United States from Germany at age 8 and, after serving as an enlisted man in the U.S. Army, was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1901. The Third Army would be deployed near Lake Charles and Deridder in southwest Louisiana and was made up of 215,000 men with three anti-tank divisions — but fewer tanks during the first stage of the maneuvers. The men wore blue armbands and fatigue hats. The umpires wore white armbands and white bands around their campaign hats.

Some units did not even have weapons and used signs to indicate a weapon. James Bollich of Lafayette states in his book, Bataan Death March — A Soldier’s Story: “Instead of having actual machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, foxholes, etc., there were wooden signs all around to indicate these.” The Blue Army was to act as a foreign army that had invaded Louisiana from the coast. The maneuvers began in the early morning darkness of Monday September 15, 1941 with the Red Army making the first move. The advance guard of the 2nd Armored Division slipped across the Red River with the peep (later called the jeep), motorcycles and scout cars leading the way. They were followed by M-2 “Stuart” medium tanks, M-3 lighttanks, mobile infantry and artillery of Brigadier General George Patton’s 2nd Armored Division.

The Blue Army, using Colonel Dwight Eisenhower’s detailed plans, edged north toward the Red Army. As the two armies converged, the rain made the roads slippery and dangerous.

The Blue Army launched a powerful counteroffensive to the east, with infantry and cavalry moving toward Alexandria. The Blue Army captured Alexandria, but the Red Army tanks continued to attack in the west. The Blue Army stopped this attack by rushing in their anti-tank units. There was fighting around Peason Ridge, which was described as a stump-knobbed sector that had been part of the virgin pitch pine forests.

For several days, a battle was fought at Mt. Carmel, just to the south of Many, with the town changing hands several times along a 100 mile front. The Red Army tanks sprang a trap when they charged the Blue Army from camouflaged positions underneath the trees. U.S. Army Signal Corps trucks began blaring out the sounds of whining bullets, diving airplanes, booming artillery and tank sirens, adding realism to the battle. The Blue Army met them with 75mm cannon and 37mm anti-tank guns, putting four Red Army tanks out of commission. The Red Army was outnumbered and began a retreat covered by Red Army airplanes strafing and bombing the Blue Army. The umpires gave the battle to the Blue Army.

The Blue Army used Esler Field, near Camp Beauregard, and Lake Charles for their airplanes. At Esler Field they painted a mock orchard on the runways for camouflage, built false houses and dummy airplanes, and installed machine gun nests as protection against paratroopers.

The Blue Army positioned itself in front of the Red Army near Provencal, south of Natchitoches. On September 17, the Blue Army dropped 127 paratroopers behind the Red Army lines, where they fought toward a pontoon bridge across the Red River at Clarence, south of Campti. They captured truck drivers, rolled a smoke bomb into a Red Army command post and disrupted Red Army supply and communications. One paratrooper captured a Red Army headquarters where a general scolded the paratrooper for being foolish and ordered him to lay down his gun. The paratrooper refused and replied, “Nuts to you, General! This is war.”

Each army began the exercises with more than 400 airplanes. As the skies cleared, more surveillance airplanes were seen. The bombers found more targets and the fighter aircraft engaged in dogfights. The Blue Army had air supremacy by flying more missions and using more airplanes on each mission.

Red Army tanks were pinned down in swamps or destroyed by anti-tank guns. In 24 hours, General Patton’s 2nd Armored Division lost 20 percent of its tanks. The Red Army began to retreat in the Horse’s Head Maneuver Area near Natchitoches which led to the entire Red Army retreating along the one hundred mile front. The Blue Army aircraft began dropping propaganda leaflets on the retreating troops which stated, “Your commanders are withholding from you the terrible fact of your impending defeat...Your food stores have been captured. No one is going to bring up any of the steaks that the men of the 310 Army will have tonight. Rout, disaster, hunger, sleepless nights in the forest are ahead of you. Surrender while there is yet time.” General McNair monitored the reports and on Friday, Sept. 19, ordered a cease fire. This ended the first phase of the maneuvers after five days of “war.”

Although the Blue Army outperformed the Red Army in the first phase of the maneuvers, military authorities considered it a success. There were, however, 17 soldiers killed during the first week. Seven died in motor vehicle accidents, five were killed in airplane crashes, two drowned, two died from disease and one committed suicide. This was much lower than the 130 the army had predicted.
The second phase of the maneuvers began at noon on September 24, 1941 with General Krueger and the Blue Army making the first move.

The Blue Army held a large number of tanks in reserve near Lake Charles, including General Patton’s 2nd Armored Division, which had been moved from the Red Army to the Blue Army. The 1st Cavalry Division crossed the Sabine River into Texas and turned north while the Blue Army in Louisiana advanced along a front between the Sabine and Red Rivers.

Meanwhile, General Patton’s 2nd Armored Division crossed the Sabine River into Texas at Orange and on to Beaumont before turning north.

The Red Army stiffened its defenses in Louisiana with a battle erupting at Mansfield. The Blue Army’s 1st Cavalry crossed the Sabine River at Logansport, Louisiana and Carthage, Texas and attacked Shreveport from the south. Patton’s forces then crossed into Louisiana and attacked Shreveport from the north. The Red Army was caught in a vice and General McNair realized that the Red Army was surrounded. He called a halt to the second and final stage of the maneuvers on September 28, 1941, after only four days.

The 1941 Louisiana maneuvers, the largest ever held in the U.S. until that time, was considered a great success. All of the umpires agreed that the Louisiana weather was unpleasant with the American soldiers struggling through rain, mud, dust and heat.

General George Marshall stated before the end of the maneuvers, “I want the mistakes made in Louisiana, not made in Europe. If it doesn’t work, find out what we need to do to make it work.”
Some of the officers that were involved in the maneuvers went on to fame during World War II. General George C. Marshall served as Chief of Staff of the Army; Dwight D. Eisenhower became Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and Mark Clark commanded the 5th U.S. Army in Italy. J. Lawton “Lightning Joe” Collins, who was from New Orleans, commanded the 25th Infantry Division on Guadalcanal before going to England to command VIII Corps.

General Omar Bradley, known as the “Soldier’s General,” served as an observer during the maneuvers. He relieved General Patton as commander of the II Corps in North Africa, commanded the 1st Army during the D-day landings and then became commander of the 12th Army Group.

The flamboyant George Patton, known by his men as “Blood and Guts,” developed armored tactics during the Louisiana maneuvers and proclaimed at that time, “If you could take these tanks through Louisiana, you could take them through Hell.” He then commanded II Corps in North Africa and the 7th Army in Sicily. After the D-day invasion, he commanded the 3rd Army, which fought across Europe. He was injured in car wreck near Mannheim, Germany on December 9, 1945 and died on December 12.

Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair was killed on July 25, 1944 during Operation Cobra, the U.S. Army breakout from Normandy toward St. Lo, France, when bombs fell short of their targets and onto U.S. positions. Lieutenant General Walter Krueger went on to command the 6th Army in the Pacific, serving under General Douglas MacArthur. Lieutenant General Ben Lear became commander of European Ground Forces in 1944 after General McNair was killed. In the closing phases of World War II he became Deputy Commander of the European Theater of Operations.

In December 1944, Generals Marshall and Eisenhower were promoted to 5 star generals (General of the Army) to make them equal to the British rank of Field Marshal. General Bradley was promoted to 5 star general in September 1950.

Military Trader - 1941 LOUISIANA MANEUVERS: THE BIG ONE

 

I Thought this was an interesting statement.

"There were, however, 17 soldiers killed during the first week. Seven died in motor vehicle accidents, five were killed in airplane crashes, two drowned, two died from disease and one committed suicide. This was much lower than the 130 the army had predicted."

 

I thought some died from poisonous snake bites.