War Babies

The first cellular growth of the new U.S. Army was complete before Pearl Harbor. More than 1,700,000 men were under arms, had been parceled out to tactical divisions, behind-the-lines outfits, housekeeping commands. Last week the cells were in division; the Army was off on another multiplication process. Lieut. General Lesley James McNair announced that he would form 32 more fighting divisions during 1942. General McNair's word was "activation"--military lingo for the birth of a new outfit in all the complex panoply of modern weapons, modern organization. He announced that three new divisions would be activated in March, two in May, three in June and four on the 15th of every month thereafter in 1942.

This is a big operation. Even under the war-spurred processes of 1942, a division is in gestation for three months before it is born, must be trained 10-12 months more before it can call itself a military adult, ready to take the field.

Some of the new divisions of 1942 have already been conceived, are close to birth. The process begins when the new division commander (a major general), his assistant and his artillery officer (both brigadiers) are selected. In the next week they must comb over the names of officers they know only from their records, to pick the general staff.

The staff goes off to school for four weeks; some officers to The Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth; some (artillery, signal corps, engineer, quartermaster and medical) to specialized branch schools.

Thirty-eight days before activation, the C.O. and his staff arrive at the camp where the division is to be trained. There they get acquainted, lay plans. Six days later the other top officers, along with 72 seasoned noncoms from trained regiments, pull in. More noncoms--1,118 corporals and sergeants--report a day later. Finally the outfit gets its junior officers--439 lieutenants from Officer Candidate Schools and officer pools.

Last growth is the biggest: the 624 officers and 1,190 noncoms are joined by 13,435 privates. The privates are draft-fresh. They have come straight from reception centers. Their uniforms don't fit, they look like Puss in Boots in their leggings.

But when the last bewildered rookie rolls off the train with his lumpy duffel bag, the division is born. Under the barking of the noncoms it grows from infancy to gangling, slack-kneed adolescence. It marches, shoots, gets wet in the field, straightens its legs, grows hard and smart. If its officers and noncoms are on the job, it finally grows up; its rookies become soldiers in less than a year. And each new division knows that many of the outfits on Bataan Peninsula had no longer a time to grow before they had to prove that they had come to man's estate.

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