ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 26, Summer 1967, p. 103
The Arkansas
Maneuvers, 1941
BY B. FRANKLIN COOLING III
The summer of 1941 found Europe ablaze with war and the conflict slowly creeping elsewhere in the world. The United States government, already alerted by the activities of Nazi Germany and Japan, began to intensify its own preparations for the possibility that it too might be drawn into the struggle. Selective Service was nearly a year old by August 1941, but the massive mobilization techniques of the period took time to grind out a modern army. Training and equipping large bodies of men required more effort than many Americans realized at the time. Part of the process was the "testing" of men and material in field maneuvers.
The first indication of impeding maneuvers for such field armies as the Second Army, came through channels in late 1940. The news arrived in an informal note from then Lt. Col. Mark W. Clark, of the Plans and Operations Section (G-3) of General Headquarters (GHQ), United States Army, in Washington to Colonel Fred L. Walker, Chief of Plans and Operations for Second Army. Colonel Clark wrote:
- We are going to put out a training directive to cover a 3-4 month period after MTP [Mobilization Training Program] training (13 weeks) is completed. It will also set up Corps and Army Maneuvers. Only some Corps will have exercises. All armies will have exercises, probably 2nd and 3rd Armies with GHQ at [Camp] Beauregard [Louisiana] in September (1).
- _________________________
- 1. Cited in Maj. Bell I. Wiley and Capt. William P. Govan, History of the Second Army, Study Number 16,
- Army Ground Forces, 1946, a historical manuscript in the files of Office
of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, D.
C.
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