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 Under
Army
Orders

M UNIV
A& E
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74
✩
✩
MI

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H I S T O RY
Under
Army
Orders
The Army National Guard
during the Korean War

William M. Donnelly

   

College Station
Copyright ©  by William M. Donnelly
Manufactured in the United States of America
All rights reserved
First edition

A portion of chapter  in a different form previously appeared in The

Journal of Military History and is reprinted here with permission from The
Journal of Military History. A portion of chapter  in a different form
previously appeared in Ohio History and is reprinted here with permission
from Ohio History.

The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements

of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, .-.
Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Donnelly, William M., –

Under Army orders : the Army National Guard during the Korean
War / William M. Donnelly.—st ed.
p. cm.—(Texas A&M University military history series; no. )
Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ---
. Korean War, –—United States. . United States.
Army—History—Korean War, –. . United States—
National Guard—History—Korean War, ‒ .
I. Title. II. Series.
. 
-
        

Corporal John Creed

Battery B, th Field Artillery Regiment

American Expeditionary Forces

Citizen Soldier
 CONTENTS

Preface 
Chapter . Rearming the Minutemen, – 

Chapter . Limited Mobilization during a Limited War 

Chapter . Postmobilization Training 

Chapter . In the Land of the Morning Calm 

Chapter . The Thunderbirds in Korea 

Chapter . Back to Europe 

Chapter . Lost in the Zone of the Interior 

Chapter . Untold Hardships and Suffering 

Conclusion 

Appendix A. Assignment of Mobilized Army National Guard Units:

As of September,  

Appendix B. Officer Profiles 

Appendix C. Comparison of General Officers in the Army National
Guard and Regular Army,  

Notes 

Bibliography 

Index 
viii Preface
 P R E FA C E

The U.S. Army National Guard played a sizable role in American mobili-
zation for the Korean War, providing , guardsmen in eight divi-
sions, three regimental combat teams, and numerous separate battalions,
companies, and detachments for service throughout the world.1 Yet the
army guard’s participation in the war passed, for the most part, into his-
torical obscurity soon after the  armistice. Works on the war and on
the National Guard offer little detailed discussion of the army guard’s role
in the conflict. What discussion there is usually focuses on one of four
areas: army guard units deployed to Korea; military effectiveness; man-
power problems during the war; or effects of the war on reserve compo-
nent policy.2
This historical shadow under which the National Guard’s role during
the Korean War resides is, in part, the result of the general shadow that
fell over the entire Korean War. Many Americans, conditioned by World
War II to destruction of the opposing regime, saw the Korean War as an
aberration. Since it would not be repeated, the consensus was that it did
not need to be examined in any great detail. Moreover, in the wake of the
trauma of the Vietnam War, the Korean conflict became trapped between
two giants that soaked up most of the attention devoted to America’s twen-
tieth century wars.3 Further complicating the army guard’s role in the
war is the fact that only about one-third of its units were mobilized, and
less than half of those units saw service in Korea—although many guards-
men were sent to Korea as individual replacements.4
Nevertheless, guard units that deployed to Korea have been the focus
of most of what slim attention has been paid to the guard in discussions
of the war. This is not surprising. Official histories of American wars fo-

Preface ix
 cus on learning from the past to improve future performance. Units in
combat are a rich source of examples, both good and bad, and their per-
formance is the ultimate test of unit and institutional effectiveness.5 The
army and the Department of Defense (DOD) after  produced or com-
missioned several studies for internal use examining the mobilization of
guard and reserve units. The focus of these works, too, is the question of
military effectiveness: What can be learned from past mobilizations to
improve future reserve component mobilizations?6
Unofficial histories of the war generally follow the same pattern as the
army’s official history: a brief discussion of the  decision to mobilize
the guard and a brief discussion of the decision to deploy two guard divi-
sions to Korea. The major exception to this pattern is William Berebitsky’s
A Very Long Weekend. Using mainly interviews with veterans, supplemented
with unit after-action reports, Berebitsky looks at mobilization, post-
mobilization training, and operations in Korea. The book touches on the
major problems mobilized guard units faced, such as equipment, person-
nel, and training shortfalls; racial integration; guard–Regular Army rela-
tions; adjusting to combat; and the phase-out of guard personnel from
units that remained in federal service. Still, because it focuses only on units
that deployed to Korea, the book does not cover the entire army guard
experience during the war.7
John K. Mahon’s and Jim Dan Hill’s National Guard histories devote
little attention to the army guard during the Korean War. Mahon devotes
just three pages to the topic. He provides a brief outline of the guard’s role
during the war, but offers no details of unit experiences. Hill has twelve
pages on the subject, but almost all this space is taken up by an extended
critique of American strategy and personnel policies during the war. Hill,
a guard major general, argued that the correct American strategy in Ko-
rea should have been the total mobilization of the guard, followed by a
campaign to destroy Kim Il Sung’s regime using all or most of its units,
and the creation of a unified Korea, allied to the United States, with its
northern border on the Yalu River.8 Most histories of state National Guard
forces only sketch their units’ federal service during the war.9 Others pro-
vide a more detailed narrative, and a few, such as Jerry Cooper and Glenn
Smith on North Dakota, and Richard C. Roberts on Utah, offer a compre-
hensive examination of the units mobilized in those states.10
This book will survey the various experiences of army guard units
mobilized during the Korean War, sampling units by type, by home state,

x Preface
and by postmobilization assignment. In doing so, it will look at several
questions. First, how effective was the army guard in meeting the demands
placed upon it by the Korean War? Units faced considerable obstacles be-
fore and after mobilization. Before the war, Congress and the president
failed to adequately finance the guard’s post- force structure. By ,
units were on reduced personnel authorizations and entered federal ser-
vice with major equipment shortages. Units between  and 
suffered extensive personnel turbulence, and leadership was of uneven
quality. Both these conditions significantly affected a unit’s ability to train,
as did the format of weekly two-hour drills. The army in  did not ex-
pect to use guard units at the start of a war, recognizing that they would
need time to prepare for deployment. During postmobilization training,
units encountered considerable friction, mostly because the army had
planned only to fight World War III.
Despite these difficulties, army guard units generally performed well
when they possessed the traditional ingredients of military success: good
leadership, good training, good equipment, and a belief in the cause—or
at least an acceptance of service. Nondivisional units deployed to Korea
in late  and early  equaled or surpassed the performance of like-
type Regular Army units. The two infantry divisions deployed to Korea in
late  also did as well as their regular counterparts, although the war
of limited movement that had developed by the time they arrived did not
fully test their skills.11 Units that deployed to Europe or remained in the
United States were never tested in combat, so they cannot be judged by
this most exacting of methods. Additionally, extensive personnel turbu-
lence buffeted the units. Generally, however, units sent to Germany per-
formed well in the role given them by the army: building up the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) military strength as part of the
army’s “long-pull” approach to the Cold War. Units that remained in the
Zone of the Interior (ZI), the army’s name for the continental United States,
are another matter. Personnel turbulence ripped apart units assigned to
the general reserve and to continental air defense. Units had their guard
character greatly weakened or even destroyed by the end of their first year
of federal service. Many units left in the ZI spent their second year on ac-
tive duty as little more than way stations in the manpower pipeline fun-
neling troops to and from overseas units as the army scrambled to supply
personnel for the hot war in Korea and the cold war in Europe. It is fortu-
nate that these units were never tested in combat.

Preface xi
 This study also provides another window on early Cold War American
society, and another way to examine the effects of the Korean War on the
United States. The National Guard’s dual state-federal status, its strong
local ties, and its powerful lobbying organization gave it an extensive pres-
ence in American society during this period. As units were mobilized, the
costs of the Truman administration’s decisions during this period were
felt in a large number of American homes and communities.
For the most part, communities in  and  saw mobilization of
their guard units as an undesirable but necessary measure in the struggle
against communism. In areas where much emotion had been invested in
a guard unit, there was a sense of pride that the unit had been selected.
Protests of the mobilization centered on two issues: perceived unfairness
and fears the Regular Army would mistreat guard units. The first mainly
concerned the recall to active duty of World War II veterans serving in
the guard. While guardsmen’s bitterness over this issue never approached
the intensity found among involuntarily recalled inactive reservists, it did
increase after the war stalemated and college draft deferments were intro-
duced—especially among guardsmen deployed overseas.
The second issue was a hardy perennial. There were a number of con-
cerns: the purging of senior guard officers; ignoring the integrity of larger
units; and stripping guardsmen from their units to provide individual re-
placements for other units. All three, but especially the last one, once again
flared up during this war.
Guardsmen, their communities, and their lobbyists were not shy about
seeking political assistance in redressing their grievances. Families and
friends often contacted state political figures on issues concerning mobi-
lized guardsmen. Some guardsmen in federal service maintained back-
channel communications with their state adjutants general and political
figures, who in turn kept watch over their mobilized units. In Washing-
ton, the National Guard Association maintained its vigil against what it
saw as attempts by the Regular Army to use the war as a tool in weaken-
ing the guard as a key institution of American society.
What is clear from this study, however, is that the army guard’s experi-
ences during this war are a part of what both Jerry Cooper and Martha
Derthick have pointed out: the increasing weakness during the twentieth
century of the guard vis-à-vis the Regular Army. During the Korean War,
guardsmen and their advocates could only successfully work the margins
of influence in a reactive manner, hoping to block actions by the Regular

xii Preface
Army. On the major issues, such as total mobilization of the army guard
and preventing the stripping of units not sent to Korea, guardsmen and
their advocates always lost. As Maj. Gen. James C. Styron pointed out in
 when orders arrived sending his th Infantry Division to Japan, a
guard unit inducted into federal service was “under army orders, and will
go wherever it is assigned.”12

Many people helped make this project possible. Staff at all the archives I
visited responded patiently and efficiently to my requests for sometimes
very dusty file boxes. I want to note especially the assistance of Richard
Sommers and David Keough at the U.S. Army Military History Institute;
their knowledge of army history is breathtaking and their desire to aid
researchers is inspiring. The staff at Ohio State’s Interlibrary Loan Office
quickly obtained newspaper microfilms and obscure publications from
across the nation. The National Guard Association allowed me to spend a
day browsing in its well-stocked library. A Dissertation Year Fellowship
from the Harry S. Truman Library Institute was crucial to the completion
of this project.
Major General Bruce Jacobs (AUS, Retired), Prof. Edward Coffman, Prof.
Jerry Cooper, and Prof. William Childs all graciously gave of their time to
review various drafts and offered many useful comments. William
Berebitsky generously sent me a draft copy of his book on army guard
units in Korea. Professor Allan Millett, my adviser at the Ohio State Uni-
versity, provided a critique that did much to improve both the history and
writing in this work.
The members of the d Battalion, d Field Artillery, of Akron, Ohio,
never suspected that in the four years we served together that they were
providing a historian numerous insights into the reserve components. The
lessons continued with the soldiers of the th Transportation Company
of Cadiz, Ohio—particularly on those marathon motor marches to North
Dakota. While serving in both units, I benefited greatly from the advice
and encouragement of Maj. Keith Sousa. I also want to thank Maj. David
Brooks, Royal Logistics Corps, Territorial Army, for his friendship and in-
sights during his stay with my unit under some very trying conditions.
Krista Donnelly’s love and encouragement helped me see this project
through to its end and gave me a deeper understanding for the sorrows of
separation and the joys of reunion felt by citizen-soldiers called away from
home “under army orders.”

Preface xiii
 Under
Army
Orders

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50 

   
 CHAPTER 1

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50

T
he National Guard played an important part in the success of the
Army of the United States (AUS) during World War II. From the
mobilization that began in the fall of  to victory in , the guard
provided eighteen infantry divisions, hundreds of separate units and almost
three hundred thousand officers and men. In , prewar guardsmen looked
back at this performance with great pride, believing it justified the sacrifices
and slights they had endured during the s and s. Major General
Robert S. Beightler, commander of Ohio’s th “Buckeye” Infantry Division,
informed the chief of the National Guard Bureau (NGB) in April, , that
the “Guard has made an incalculably valuable contribution to the building
of our great armed forces of today. The preservation and strengthening of
the National Guard in years to come must be assured.”1
However, many guardsmen looked forward to the postwar world with
trepidation. The AUS’s success had not stilled traditional National Guard–
Regular Army tensions. Many guardsmen complained of what they per-
ceived as the condescension and contempt of most regulars. Beightler
advised the president of the National Guard Association (NGA) in 
that Regular Army officers during the war had “succeeded in alienating
and embittering the civilian component officers and particularly the Na-
tional Guard.” On the other hand, many regulars believed that the war
had demonstrated what they saw as critical flaws in the guard and the
need for a single federal reserve force. Shortly before his death in , Lt.

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50 

 Gen. Lesley J. McNair, chief of the Army Ground Forces, submitted a plan
to the army chief of staff to abolish the National Guard after the war.2
Complicating this volatile emotional situation was the fact that on V-J
Day there were no units in the National Guard. Every guard unit had been
ordered to active duty in – or disbanded. All that were left in the
states were the adjutants general’s office staffs and some “home guard”
units made up of overage and unfit men raised by states for internal secu-
rity duties. While in federal service, many guard units had been reorga-
nized to meet new tactical demands and filled with nonguardsmen to re-
place casualties and bring them up to strength. After V-J Day, the army
inactivated all guard units and discharged all surviving guardsmen. The
only equipment returned to the states was their units’ colors. The guard
would require a massive rebuilding effort in the postwar period.

Campaigning With Walsh

Even as guard units campaigned around the globe, back in Washington,

D.C., other guardsmen waged what they saw as their own crucial and hard-
fought campaign for the guard’s postwar future. Their objective was to pre-
vent the National Guard’s enemies from using the war as a means either to
abolish the guard or to bring it under the Regular Army’s total control. For
these guardsmen, the enemy was the traditional one: Regular Army officers
like General McNair and their allies in the U.S. Army Reserve. The friendly
forces were the National Guard Association and its supporters in Congress.
Guardsmen found much to worry about when considering the post-
war future of their institution. There was, for example, the precedent of
World War I. After that war, the War Department had attempted to do
away with the guard and replace it with the Uptonian dream of a single
federal reserve force based on universal military training.3 Many guards-
men believed the relief of guard senior officers and the reorganization of
guard units in – had been part of a conspiracy by regulars to
weaken the guard and to deny guardsmen the power and prestige of se-
nior positions. The continuing hostility and condescension from regulars
that many guardsmen encountered in federal service was another major
source of irritation. Finally, the guard’s advocate on the army General
Staff, the National Guard Bureau, suffered a dramatic decline in its influ-
ence when the chief of staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, reorganized the
General Staff in early .

   

 The National Guard Association, a private organization representing
guard officers, quickly stepped in on the guard’s behalf. In January, ,
George E. Lynch, mayor of Minneapolis and vice president of the NGA,
wrote to Marshall and asked that a committee of guard, regular, and re-
serve officers be appointed to study the question of how to organize the
postwar army. However, the NGA made little progress in shaping the post-
war army until , when several developments came together.
First, Maj. Gen. Ellard A. Walsh, Minnesota’s adjutant general, became
president of the NGA in . Born in , Walsh joined the Minnesota
National Guard in . Commissioned during World War I, Walsh served
thirteen months overseas. After returning home, he was appointed assis-
tant adjutant general of Minnesota in , and in  he became adju-
tant general. Walsh took command of the th Division in  and was
called into federal service the following year, but health problems forced
him to give up command before Pearl Harbor. He returned to Minnesota
and again became the adjutant general.
Walsh watched the use of the guard in the war effort and became in-
creasingly concerned about its treatment by the Regular Army. He invigo-
rated the NGA with his energy and determination to protect the guard
from what were, in his opinion, the General Staff’s efforts to destroy it.
Walsh set out to rally the NGA to what he saw as a struggle to save the
guard.4
A skilled political and bureaucratic operator, Walsh exploited the NGA’s
considerable support in Congress. This support rested on certain charac-
teristics of the guard. Many communities had strong emotional ties to
their guard units, which had become, particularly in small towns, major
local institutions. This made issues affecting the guard matters of con-
cern to politicians. The involvement of guard officers in state politics rein-
forced this concern at the state level. This provided the foundation upon
which rested the NGA’s influence with Congress. That a number of mem-
bers of both houses had been guard officers also helped the NGA when it
came to Capitol Hill. This influence allowed Walsh to inform the War De-
partment in  that Congress would not look favorably upon any effort
to shape the postwar army without first consulting the NGB and the NGA.
Finally, the guard received important, if unexpected, support from Brig.
Gen. John McAuley Palmer. Marshall had called his close friend Palmer
out of retirement to advise the army staff on the direction the postwar
army should take. Palmer had long been an advocate of a small standing

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50 

 force, backed up with a very large reserve of citizen soldiers produced by a
system of universal military training. His ideas greatly influenced the
army’s post–World War I reorganization plan, although Congress never
provided the funds to implement it. In , Palmer wrote and Marshall
signed War Department Circular . This document argued that a small
regular force, backed up with a large reserve produced by universal mili-
tary training, should form the basis for planning the postwar army. How-
ever, in a reversal of Palmer’s earlier views, the circular stated that the
reserve force should consist of organized units ready for use rather than
individuals who would be called up to augment Regular Army units.
War Department Circular  did not mention specifically the National
Guard. It did, however, give the NGA a much firmer footing upon which
to base its claims for continuing the guard’s role as the army’s first-line
reserve combat component. The bureaucratic struggle ended in early 
with a victory for the NGA. A joint Regular Army–National Guard com-
mittee established the year before reported that the guard should be an
“integral” part of the postwar military. Furthermore, it reported that the
guard’s postwar strength should be based on the army’s M (Mobilization)-
Day requirements. Finally, the committee concluded that the National
Guard Bureau should be returned to its prewar position as a special staff
agency.
In mid-, Marshall merged the joint guard-regular committee with
a similar committee working on the postwar reserve. To reassure Walsh
and the NGA, Marshall appointed as committee chairman Maj. Gen.
Milton A. Reckord, a Maryland guardsman then serving as provost mar-
shal of the European theater of operations. Born in rural Maryland in
, Reckord enlisted in the guard in . A guard major by ,
Reckord returned home in  as a decorated colonel after commanding
his regiment in combat. That same year he became Maryland’s adjutant
general. Because of his proximity to Washington and connections made
during World War I, Reckord became the NGA’s primary lobbyist. He soon
was the man to see in Washington about guard matters, and he wrote
most of the interwar legislation dealing with the guard. In , Reckord
entered federal service as commander of the th Division, which he had
led since . However, General McNair evaluated Reckord as a “good
administrator, but should go.” And go Reckord did, relieved of command
in January, , and assigned to a series of administrative posts before
Marshall selected him to head the postwar reserve committee.5

   

 It thus was no surprise that in October, , Reckord’s committee re-
affirmed the earlier findings of the guard-regular committee. It based its
findings on two assumptions: that large numbers of World War II veter-
ans would join the guard, and that all postwar guard recruits would be
graduates of a universal military training (UMT) system. The General
Staff agreed to these findings because it concluded the NGA’s support in
Congress was too strong for it to overcome. Also, General Staff officers
believed that any guard based on these findings would be dependent on
UMT, thus ensuring the guard’s support in trying to get congressional
approval of UMT.6

How Big a National Guard?

As army chief of staff, George C. Marshall advocated a small (,)

postwar Regular Army training large numbers of UMT draftees who would
then fill guard units and the reserve. Marshall based this plan on the as-
sumption that the nation would have up to a year’s warning to fully mo-
bilize. When Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded Marshall as chief of
staff in November, , plans for the postwar army changed. Eisenhower
believed the next war would be another total war lasting up to five years,
and that the nation would have little time to mobilize before hostilities
began.
These assumptions meant that the army would face two difficult tasks:
be prepared to field a significant force quickly, and be prepared for a lengthy
conflict requiring a mobilization on the same scale as World War II. These
tasks would require a much larger army than the one Marshall envisioned.
Eisenhower wanted an army that could put into the field  / divisions,
with supporting units, within thirty days of M-Day—a mission that would
depend heavily on guard and reserve units being able to deploy quickly.
Furthermore, while fielding this force, the army had to retain the capabil-
ity of significant further expansion as the war continued.
To meet these objectives, the postwar army plan approved in Septem-
ber, , called for a Regular Army of . million men in ten divisions
and seventy air groups, and assumed that UMT would begin in  and
overseas occupation duties would end by . The plan envisioned a
National Guard of , men providing the army’s first-line combat
reserve force. This force, more than twice as large as the one mobilized in
–, would be composed of twenty-five infantry divisions, two ar-

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50 

 mored divisions, twenty-one regimental combat teams, hundreds of
nondivisional combat and support units, and twenty-seven air groups.
This ambitious plan, with its increased size and responsibility, reaffirmed
for guardsmen their belief in the guard’s importance to national defense.7
Over the next few years the guard reinforced its success in shaping the
postwar reorganization plan with other bureaucratic and political victo-
ries. Again, its success rested in large part on its influence with Congress
as expressed through the NGA. In , Congress funded a major three-
year public relations effort by the guard at a cost of $ million a year. Also
in that year, the NGA made sure the National Security Act, which created
a separate air force, contained language insuring that the air force would
have to administer the new Air National Guard through the National
Guard Bureau.
The following year saw continued triumphs. Congress established re-
tirement benefits for guard officers. When Congress approved resumption
of conscription, though not in the form of UMT, the guard benefited; the
NGA made sure that inserted into the Selective Service Act was a provi-
sion providing an exemption from the draft for seventeen to eighteen-and-
a-half year olds who enlisted in the guard. Also in , a special DOD
committee on reserve policy, the Gray Board, recommended that the guard
and reserve be merged into a single force. Walsh, Reckord, and the NGA
mobilized for what they called “the Battle of Washington,” a battle they
considered so crucial that they ostracized one of the guard’s greatest offic-
ers, Lt. Gen. Raymond S. McLain. One of two prewar guard general offic-
ers given a postwar commission in the Regular Army, McLain had served
on the Gray Board and approved its recommendations concerning the
guard. However, the threat of the NGA’s influence with Congress prevented
the DOD from implementing the board’s recommendations.8

Chief of the “New Minutemen”

The postwar blueprint for the guard was impressive and ambitious, and
would require an impressive and ambitious level of funding and skill to
implement. Generals Walsh and Reckord, as officials of the NGA, could
lobby for and promote the guard’s interests. However, their public, official
power was limited to their roles as adjutants general of Minnesota and
Maryland. Responsibility for building the postwar guard fell upon the
National Guard Bureau. A special staff agency of the General Staff, the

   

NGB acted as the army’s supervisor of the various state guard organiza-
tions and as the guard’s advocate on the General Staff. While the NGB’s
staff was a mix of guardsmen on extended active duty tours and regulars,
the chief ’s position was reserved for a senior guardsman. Major General
Butler B. Miltonberger held that post in , but he was forced to retire
the following year because of poor health.
Connecticut’s Maj. Gen. Kenneth F. Cramer, commander of the d
Infantry Division—which had units in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and
Vermont—replaced Miltonberger in September, . Cramer’s National
Guard experience differed significantly from that of generals like Walsh
and Reckord. Born in , Cramer received his bachelor’s and master’s
degrees from Princeton. He enlisted in the army in , earned a com-
mission, and served with a draftee division in France. After leaving active
duty in , he founded a coal company in Hartford, joined the Orga-
nized Reserve Corps (ORC), and served twice in the state House of Repre-
sentatives and twice in the state Senate. Cramer left the ORC in  and
joined the Connecticut National Guard, where by  he commanded
an infantry regiment. Cramer had a much more professionally satisfying
time in World War II than did Reckord or Walsh. Promoted to brigadier
general in , he spent most of the war in the Pacific as assistant com-
mander of the th Infantry Division, a Regular Army division, and
emerged with a reputation as a tough disciplinarian and a “frontline” gen-
eral. Cramer left federal service and returned to Connecticut in , where
he was promoted to major general and given command of the d Infan-
try Division.
Cramer’s scrappy character, reflected in his wartime reputation and
three Silver Stars, did not make him a subtle or patient chief of the NGB.
His final efficiency report praised his “high integrity and moral courage”
and his “high professional competence,” but noted that his “inflexible
adherence to his own views” detracted from “that maturity of judgment”
expected of an officer of his rank and experience. These qualities were
most noticeable in Cramer’s determination to safeguard what he saw as
the proper sphere of the NGB’s interests. In  he embarrassed Walsh
and the NGA by engaging in a public feud with the air force over control
of the Air National Guard. On other occasions, Cramer and the NGA dis-
agreed on issues because of his and Walsh’s different backgrounds. Cramer,
who did not spend his formative years as an officer in the guard, focused
on preparing the guard for M-Day, including the d Infantry Division,

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50 

 which he continued to command while serving as chief of the NGB. If
that meant sacrificing some power or control to the Regular Army to
achieve that goal, Cramer would not reflexively oppose doing so. This was
not so for Walsh, who saw himself and the NGA as standing firm against
the efforts of Uptonian regulars to destroy the guard. As with the rest of
the army staff, the NGA’s political clout usually made it the winner in any
disputes with the NGB and its chief.9
As army chief of staff, General Eisenhower had supported Cramer’s
appointment. Cramer brought a drive and determination to the post that
Eisenhower believed vital to the success of the army’s ambitious plans for
the postwar guard. Although Cramer was often difficult to get along with,
he enthusiastically supported the postwar guard’s role. Soon after taking
over, he published a series of articles outlining the guard’s expanded role
in national defense, all stressing the idea of the guard as “Our Modern
Minutemen.”10 Cramer linked the colonial militiaman with his s de-
scendant when he wrote, “the United States is indeed fortunate that suc-
ceeding generations have followed the traditional concept of national de-
fense.” He claimed that with the “volunteer spirit, local leadership, and
the guardsman’s sure knowledge that he fights for his own home and fam-
ily,” it was “obvious that America has the essentials of an indomitable
defense.”11

“Bring Back Our Old Company K”

The first task in building the postwar National Guard was assigning units
to the states. This was a cooperative process involving the NGB and the
states that was largely completed by . The NGB staff analyzed the
force structure established for the guard in Army Mobilization Plan I (AMP
I) and how many and what types of units each state could support. It then
would offer units to the states, which could either accept or reject them,
based on what the states needed and thought they could support. This
process continued until all the units called for by AMP I had been as-
signed.12
Assigning units to the states often involved the NGB in negotiations
with state adjutants general. The strong ties that linked company-sized
units with their communities, and sometimes an entire division with a
state, meant state officials often found themselves under pressure to re-
turn units to their prewar location. Complicating this process were other

   

factors. The much larger postwar guard required many more units than
did the  guard. Population distribution had shifted during the war,
often changing an area’s ability to support a unit. Changes in army doc-
trine and tactical organization also affected the process. The changes elimi-
nated the need for some units, such as horse cavalry and coast artillery,
and increased the need for others, such as tanks and antiaircraft artillery.
Other prewar units, which in  had been part of larger units, now
found themselves operating as independent units.
The NGB and the states dealt with these considerations in a number of
ways. Infantry divisions traditionally associated with one large and politi-
cally influential state, such as Texas’ th, Ohio’s th, and Pennsylvania’s
th, retained their prewar connections. Other divisions that before the
war had connections to several states were given new homes.13 Some sepa-
rate companies, battalions, and regiments were simply converted to an-
other type of unit needed under AMP I.14 Also a problem was the need to
activate units that had not existed in the prewar guard. Often, the solu-
tion was to redesignate units. Parts of several large new units, such as
divisions and regimental combat teams, thus were drawn from prewar
organizations.15 However, smaller new postwar units, particularly sup-
port units, often had no formal links to the prewar guard.
Once a state accepted units from the NGB, the adjutant general had to
assign subunits to communities within the state. This often resulted in
another round of negotiations, this time between the adjutant general
and communities. Many communities felt a strong attachment to “their”
longtime company, battery, or troop affiliations and resented any changes.
This process often required much time and discussion until both the com-
munities’ demands and the demands of the state’s assigned troop list were
satisfied or at least reconciled.16
A major problem for both the National Guard Bureau and some states
in developing the new troop lists was the question of what to do with Afri-
can American guardsmen. African American guardsmen and the com-
munities from which they were drawn also felt deep attachments to “their”
unit. Three segregated guard regiments had been mobilized during World
War II, but in keeping with the Regular Army’s conventional wisdom about
African Americans’ abilities, no black unit larger than a battalion was es-
tablished in the postwar guard, although battalions of each regiment were
used to form new units. In addition, the postwar atmosphere of height-
ened civil rights activism placed the NGB and the states under increasing

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50 

 pressure to desegregate the guard. This pressure only intensified with Pres.
Harry S. Truman’s  executive order calling for an end to segregation
in the armed forces. The NGB’s policy in this period was that of the Regu-
lar Army, which moved with glacial speed to comply with Truman’s order.
Given the NGB’s attitude, and without pressure to integrate coming from
higher echelons, the issue defaulted to the state level. Some black units
served within larger guard formations, such as the th Antiaircraft
Artillery Battalion of Ohio’s th Infantry Division.17 A few northern states
began the process of desegregating their forces, but by  there were
few integrated units. Most African American guardsmen, about  per-
cent of the force in , served in segregated battalions and companies,
limited to fourteen states and the District of Columbia.18

“Not Ordinary Men”

Once a state adjutant general and the NGB had agreed on the assignment
of units, their next task was recruiting men to fill them. Particularly im-
portant was the selection of commanding officers, since they would bear
the main burden of building the unit. The Regular Army before and dur-
ing the war had often complained about the uneven quality of the guard’s
officer corps. Guard officers, proven in battle, also warned of this problem
in . General Beightler, the most successful guard division commander
of the war, wrote, “I have seen too many officers given advancement in
rank simply because they were friends or favorites of the regimental com-
mander or the Adjutant General of the state.”19
Sometimes the senior guard officers still with a unit began the selec-
tion of officers between the end of the war and the unit’s demobilization.
However, given the high levels of guard personnel turbulence most units
experienced, this process usually did not begin until the unit colors re-
turned to the state. Then the adjutant general and other senior officers in
the state would ask officers to take command of units. Political consider-
ations also contributed to this process, particularly in regard to command
of the largest units (divisions, brigades, and regiments) in a state. In some
cases, officers would lobby for positions, particularly if they had served
with a unit before or during the war. Often, the new commanders, par-
ticularly of larger units, would personally recruit officers for key command
and staff positions. Routine assignment procedures were followed when
filling other officer billets, especially company grade ones.20

   

 Company commanders were especially important, as they led the re-
cruiting effort. Selecting a man whose community respected him and who
had regular contact with young men was crucial to bringing in recruits.
Guard senior officers especially liked having teachers and coaches as jun-
ior officers. Robert Stockton enlisted in the th Infantry Division’s band
in  at age seventeen. His high school band director was the warrant
officer in command of the band. Marine Corps lieutenant LaVern Weber
returned home to become a high school teacher and Marine reservist. An
Oklahoma guard general officer visited Weber twice in , trying to get
him to take command of a company that had failed its second annual
inspection. Despite Weber’s protests of “I’m a Marine,” he finally capitu-
lated and took command of the company.21
By , the guard contained a mix of three different generations of
officers. The first came of age shortly before or during World War I. This
generation dominated the general officer ranks and filled many of the colo-
nel slots. A number of senior officers had served with guard units during
the Mexican border campaign and World War I. Almost all had contin-
ued to serve with the guard during the interwar years. They had witnessed
what they saw as the shabby treatment of their seniors by regulars in –
 and the efforts to destroy the guard after that war. Their dislike of the
regulars was further inflamed by what they saw as continued discrimina-
tion during World War II. Given other characteristics these men shared—
small town or rural background, politically conservative, and significant
involvement in state politics—they tended to be predisposed to distrust
the federal government in any case. They also tended to be middle class
professionals or businessmen, for only with these civilian careers could
they afford to concentrate on their “exclusive hobby.” These officers usu-
ally had a significant emotional investment in the guard. The only major
split within this group tended to be between those officers who had spent
most of their careers with troop units (as did General Cramer) and those
who had spent much of their careers with the state’s adjutant general
office (as did Generals Walsh and Reckord). The latter group tended to be
the most vociferous in their defense of the guard against any perceived
encroachment by regulars.22
The second generation came of age during World War II. This group of
officers consisted of some colonels, the majority of the other field grades,
and most of the company grades. During World War II, these officers had
received much more on-the-job training and active duty experience than

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50 

 did the World War I generation. Guard senior officers vigorously recruited
them, believing this experience would be crucial to the greatly expanded
postwar guard’s success. Unlike their seniors, members of this group had
more diverse experiences and had three subdivisions: prewar members of
the guard (either as officers or enlisted men), officers commissioned dur-
ing the war, and wartime enlisted men who received postwar guard com-
missions.
Those who had served in the prewar guard, while not a majority of this
generation, provided a strong bridge of continuity for guard traditions.
Many of the higher-ranking members of this group had begun their guard
careers in the late s or early s, and the resulting socializing pro-
cess gave them much the same outlook about the guard as the World War
I generation. These officers filled many of the key command and staff posi-
tions at regimental, group, and battalion levels.
Officers commissioned during World War II usually were graduated
from one of the many wartime officer candidate schools. However, these
officers often found themselves accepting guard commissions in an arm
or service different from the one they had served in during the war. The
most dramatic examples of this were former air and naval officers who
became ground combat officers. This posed problems since few of these
officers were able to attend active duty branch schools. They received most
of the training in their new specialties on drill nights, at summer training
camps, and by taking correspondence courses.
Many of these officers did not immediately join the guard after demobi-
lization. Some remained in the inactive reserve, into which many war-
time officers had been demobilized, or the active reserve for two or three
years before joining the guard. These officers joined the guard for a num-
ber of reasons: an interest in things military sparked by the war, Cold War
tensions, pay and benefits, and social status—a most powerful motivation
in small towns. Because of their lack of prior guard experience, the World
War I generation often suspected these officers’ commitment to the guard
as a historic and crucial American institution.
Enlisted veterans who received commissions in the postwar guard were
the last group of the World War II generation. These men usually enlisted
in the postwar guard and, after completing a course of study and appear-
ing before an examination board, were granted commissions. They shared
many of the same characteristics as officers commissioned during World
War II, including often finding themselves in a branch different from the

   

one in which they had previously served. In addition, they often had to
learn how to be effective leaders and trainers—roles their wartime experi-
ence usually had not included.
Likewise lacking experience as troop leaders and trainers was the third
generation of guard officers: men who had been too young for World War
II service. These men, the smallest of the three groups, usually became
guard officers either by enlisting in the guard and following the same pro-
cedure as enlisted veterans, or by graduating from college with a Reserve
Officer Training Corps (ROTC) commission. This group, with the excep-
tion of chaplains and doctors, filled lieutenants’ billets, and few of them
had attended their branch officer basic course before mobilization.23
Most units were unable to fill all of their company grade officer billets.
To fill some of these vacancies, units alerted for mobilization during the
Korean War gave commissions to a number of enlisted guardsmen—
mostly World War II veterans. Other vacancies were filled by guard offic-
ers recalled from inactive status, or by reserve officers who resigned their
federal commission for a commission in a guard unit, usually to escape
involuntary recall and shipment to Korea as an individual replacement.24
Once the state adjutant general found officers for his units, the next
step was filling the enlisted ranks. Enlisted personnel remained a source
of concern for the guard throughout the – period because of re-
cruiting and retention problems. As with officers, enlisted men fell into
one of three generations: prewar guardsmen, World War II veterans, and
those too young for service in the war. Overall, by  youth dominated
the guard’s enlisted ranks: . percent were age –, and . percent
were age –.25
Not many prewar enlisted guardsmen returned to the guard’s enlisted
ranks after the war. Many had been killed or disabled. Some had failed to
perform during the war and were not welcomed back. Others either had
grown tired of military life or had found a new calling and enlisted in the
Regular Army. A number of them received commissions during the war.
Those enlisted men who did return to the guard were welcomed for their
experience and commitment. Although they remained a small part of the
force, they often recruited family members to join their units.
Guard leaders sought World War II veterans to serve as noncommis-
sioned officers (NCOs), the backbone of the enlisted force. These men pos-
sessed the needed maturity and experience and also could quickly form
the cadres required to train the large number of young nonveterans the

Rearming the Minutemen, 1945–50 

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