Page:John Banks Wilson - Maneuver and Firepower (1998).djvu/171

 PRELUDE TO COMBAT Patton, commander of the 3d Cavalry at Fort Myer, Virginia; and other advocates of tank warfare met with the G–3, General Andrews, in a schoolhouse at Alexandria, Louisiana, to discuss the future of mechanization. All agreed that the Army needed to unify its efforts. The question was how. Both the chief of cavalry and the chief of infantry had attended the maneuvers, but they were excluded from the meeting because of their expected opposition to any change that might deprive their arms of personnel, equipment, or missions.

Returning to Washington, Andrews proposed that Marshall call a conference on mechanization. The crisis in Europe had by then increased congressional willingness to support a major rearmament effort, and at the same time the success of the German panzers highlighted the need for mechanization, however costly. Andrews' initiative, made three days after the British evacuated Dunkirk, noted that the American Army had inadequate mechanized forces and that it needed to revise its policy of allowing both infantry and cavalry to develop such units separately. He suggested that the basic mechanized combined arms unit be a division of between 8,000 and 11,000 men. With the chief of cavalry planning to organize mechanized cavalry divisions, which mixed horse and tank units, such a conference seemed imperative. Marshall approved Andrews' proposal.

From 10 to 12 June 1940 Andrews hosted a meeting in Washington centering on the organization of mechanized divisions. Along with the General Staff and the chiefs of the arms and services, Chaffee, Magruder, and other tank enthusiasts attended. Andrews disclosed that the War Department would organize an independent armored force, belonging to neither the Infantry nor Cavalry branches, in the form of "mechanized divisions." In such divisions the command and control echelon would consist of a headquarters and headquarters company and a signal company. A reconnaissance battalion with an attached aviation observation squadron would constitute the commander's "eyes," which would operate from 100 to 150 miles in advance and reconnoiter a front from 30 to 50 miles. At the heart of the division was an armored brigade made up of a headquarters and headquarters company, one medium and two light armored regiments, a field artillery regiment, and an engineer battalion. Using the two light armored regi-