Page:John Banks Wilson - Maneuver and Firepower (1998).djvu/274

 252 To improve the balance within Regular Army divisional forces after the Korean War, General Ridgway, who had become Army Chief of Staff in 1953, decided to revise the ratios among infantry, armored, and airborne units. In June 1954 the Fourth Army activated the 4th Armored Division, the first division to be equipped with the new M48 90-mm. tank. Ridgway planned to organize another armored division, raising the Regular Army total to four, but tank production lagged, preventing its formation until 1955. The 3d Armored Division was then converted from a training to a combat unit.

Although total Army strength declined and the reserves were released, the Army remained committed to an active force of twenty divisions. The Department of Defense, therefore, authorized the activation of the 23d and 71st Infantry Divisions. Those units, dubbed "Wilson Divisions" after Secretary of Defense Wilson, who approved their activation while cutting the strength of the Army, made use of existing regimental combat teams. The 23d Infantry Division, the former Americal Division of World War II fame, controlled units stationed in the Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, and the southeastern United States from its headquarters at Fort Amador, Panama Canal Zone. The 71st, with its headquarters at Fort Richardson, Alaska, included units in Alaska and the northwestern United States. Because of their scattered divisional elements, the Army Staff labeled the divisions "static units," indicating that they were not capable of early deployment.

With further cuts on the horizon for the Regular Army, the Army Staff had to economize on manpower if it was to maintain twenty divisions. A review of all divisional tables of organization resulted in slightly smaller divisions. For example, without a change in structure, the infantry division dropped from 18,212 men of all ranks to 17,452. In addition, the tables provided for a reduced peacetime strength division, with some 2,700 fewer men for each division in the General Reserve. Before its divisions were sent into combat, they would, of course, need sufficient time and personnel to be brought to war strength as required for sustained operations. The lessons of Task Force Smith and the deployment of other units to Korea in the summer of 1950 thus appeared to be already lost. General Reserve divisions adopted the new tables in the summer of 1955. In addition, because of the Army's severe manpower shortages divisions in Europe were also reorganized under the reduced tables that same summer, and the tables were applied to the 25th Infantry Division, posted at Schofield Barracks, the following year.

Besides looking at the organizational tables for possible personnel cuts, the Army examined the individual replacement system. The system traditionally required the Army to maintain a large manpower overhead as a substantial percentage of its soldiers were always in transit. Lt. Gen. John E. Dahlquist, Chief of Army Field Forces, and Maj. Gen. Robert N. Young, the Army Staff's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (G–1), believed that a unit replacement system would be more economical, improve esprit de corps, and provide more efficient units. In response, the Army Staff developed the program, which paired a division in the United States with an overseas division. Personnel from the paired