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/nat...y/maneuver.txt
Re: Louisiana Maneuvers (1940-1941)
. The passing of one type of warfare to the more modern.
