The Army remade, art of ops, Bataan

The key catch phrase in today’s military is “transformation,” which is the subject of Edward M. Coffman’s The Regulars: The American Army 1898-1941 (Harvard University Press, $35, 500 pages, illus.). This is an exceptionally gracefully written, scrupulously researched, professionally objective, endlessly interesting administrative and social history of a crucial 40 years for the U.S. Army.

During this period, the Army metamorphosed from a tiny constabulary force adequate for chasing bandits along the border with Mexico and policing the Indian tribes of the West, to the force that tipped the balance in favor of the Allies in World War I and was again ready to succeed in World War II. Mr. Coffman’s book is must reading for the professional military and those who employ it.

Mr. Coffman tells this important story through the lives of many people we know — George S. Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, Omar Bradley, James Lawton Collins Jr., etc. — and an almost equal number of lesser lights, including the men who formed the backbone of the military, the usually anonymous non-commissioned officers.

Significantly, Mr. Coffman does not leave out black soldiers and appropriately weaves the story of Benjamin O. Davis Sr. and Charles Young, as well as accounts of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry, into his narrative.

Through the greater part of these four decades the four historic black regiments were an elite force in the Army, with negligible desertion when compared to white regular units. The rate of alcoholism (a true plague in these years) in white outfits was six times as high as in black regiments.

The U.S. Army did not acquit itself well in the Spanish-American War of 1898 and was in desperate need of reform. It found its reformer/transformer in Secretary of War Elihu Root. The secretary cleared out the deadwood, created the Army general staff, and most importantly improved the professional schooling system for officers, establishing the Army War College. Probably no man in this era is more significant in preparing the Army for fighting in France than Root, and Mr. Coffman details his actions.

After defeating Spain, the United States acquired an overseas empire and had to fight to maintain it. The most challenging combat between the Civil War and World War I was in the Philippines, and the author examines the mettle of the troops and the quality of the officers.

The enemy was no pushover, especially in the southern Philippines (still exceptionally restive today), where a hardened soldier described the Islamic guerrilla as a “combination of Moor, Malay, tiger, wildcat, skunk and nitro glycerine.”

The author recounts the history of the massive mobilization of the Army during World War I. The Army grew with amazing celerity from fewer than 200,000 when war was declared to more than 4 million by Armistice Day, with more than 1 million fresh, trained and equipped combat troops ready to help blunt the German 1918 offensive and force the enemy back to Germany.

“The Regulars” describes the impressive leadership of Gen. John Pershing and the stellar staff work of George Marshall, and explains how the transformed American Army made a difference.

Mr. Coffman then proceeds to tell of the “Army in Limbo” during the ‘20s and ‘30s, when the American people thought little of the military; if they did consider the Army, they were often disdainful of it. Politicians starved the armed services for money, and would not fund them to reach the size Congress had authorized.

What saved the Army during this dark period? Its professional schools. There are many quotes from grizzled veterans throughout the book regarding the value of their professional education. For example, future Chief of Staff “Lightning” Joe Collins wrote, “it was our schools that saved the Army.” Collins became division commander then a numbered Army commander during World War II and was the chief of staff during the entire Korean War.

He had graduated from the Command and General Staff College in the 1930s and also the Army Industrial College and the Army War College, and was an instructor at the War College. The Army Industrial College focused on material mobilization for war, and Collins considered it a “lucky break” that he was permitted to take its 10-month program because it “broadened my managerial horizon” and taught him a great deal about industrial mobilization.

Omar Bradley put it this way: “Those of us who wanted to get ahead studied at home a lot.”

Mr. Coffman is appropriately critical of mistakes, bureaucraticism, and bigotry, citing most of the senior officers for anti-black racism and anti-Semitism.

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