Early in the morning of Tuesday, May 15, 1940, residents of central La. were awakened by the roar of military tanks speeding down their quiet country roads toward Leesville. For almost a week, the region had swarmed with soldiers. All of central Louisiana seemed to be engulfed in war, caught up in the largest military maneuvers ever held in the United States. After years of public apathy, the nation's military had been seriously neglected. The poorly equipped United States Army had few armored vehicles, so the sight of fifty-four tanks rolling through the countryside caught everyone's attention. Few had ever seen a single tank before, much less the thundering fleet advancing on Leesville.

Tanks had been used in World War I, but since then the technology had been largely abandoned. Military leaders still favored the cavalry. In 1940, on the eve of World War II, some still argued that the large-scale use of tanks was an ineffective strategy. Events that unfolded during the Louisiana Maneuvers soundly refuted this view. Firing blank shells, the tank forces easily overpowered the opposition, who only managed to fire one machine gun and one antitank weapon.

Before the United States entered into World War II, three major maneuvers had been conducted in Louisiana. These exercises helped recast the entire U.S. Army‹its strategies, equipment, and      leadership. Many of our nation's most recognizable and decorated military leaders developed their strategic theories at these maneuvers. General Courtney Hodges, General Robert Hasbrouck, Brigadier General William Hoge and Major General John Devine would go on to long distinguished careers forged in battle using skills developed in Louisiana.

A new generation of officers moved to the forefront, including Generals George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower and Brigadier Generals Adna P. Chaffee and Jonathan Wainwright. Within weeks of the conclusion of the maneuvers, Chaffee received a promotion and orders to form the nation's first armored divisions replete with tanks and geared for rapid movement. He authorized the acquisition of land near Leesville for the 3rd Armored Division, which later was to distinguish itself in the battle to retake

Normandy and in other crucial European engagements. The new post that Chaffee helped establish ultimately became Fort Polk.

To the casual observer of the Louisiana Maneuvers, the street fighting was an exciting diversion. The long-term implications, however, were deadly serious. Within a year and a half of the first maneuvers, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, thrusting the nation into a global conflict that ultimately killed sixty million people. The training provided during the Louisiana Maneuvers and later at Fort Polk, as stated by many of the leaders of the armed forces, proved pivotal information in turning the tide toward victory.

At this dangerous juncture in history, the United States' military was ranked seventeenth in the world, behind even the tiny   country of Romania. The May 1940 Louisiana Maneuvers created a unique opportunity for the U.S. military to witness first hand the strengths and limitations of both air power and armored warfare. While participating in the war games, military leaders experimented with the question of how an armored unit would perform when combined with an infantry under a single command. After fewer than forty-eight hours of formation, the new unit had advanced some seventy-five

miles in one day. During this advance, the improvised force won various simulated battles, including the May 15 surprise dawn attack on Leesville. Combining tanks and motorized infantry under one command proved to be a strategic breakthrough.

During the maneuvers, another notable figure stepped onto the Louisiana stage. A colonel at the time, George S. Patton was destined to have a significant impact on Louisiana, on the military, and on training methods at Fort Polk. Patton was invited to an historic meeting regarding armored warfare on the final day of the maneuvers. The gathering, held   in the basement of an Alexandria high school, was kept secret from of the army's most powerful    officers. The topic of tanks was   so highly charged that attendees could have possibly risked their career advancements by participating. Nonetheless, these men had just witnessed how effective tanks could be. The experience convinced them that the army had to change quickly if it was to be effective against potential enemies. At the meeting, the group, later called the Basement Conspirators' decided the Army should immediately create an independent agency to strengthen armored forces. One of the Basement Conspirators', General Frank Andrews, Assistant Chief of Staff, relayed the participants' recommendations to the Pentagon and his boss, General George C. Marshal. Within two weeks Marshal took action. On July 10, 1940, Chaffee assumed command of a new corps, consisting of two armored divisions and a reserve tank battalion. Within a year, a third armored division was added and was soon moving to the new headquarters at Camp Polk.

The Louisiana exercises served as a vast laboratory for testing strategies and innovations. For   the first time, C-rations were   consumed by large numbers of troops. Army Chief of Staff Marshall declared central Louisiana the "finest training area" he had ever seen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was another U. S. Military figure whose career took a dramatic turn upward directly related to his participation and performance in the Louisiana Maneuvers. There was also General Lesley McNair who oversaw the entire 1941 Armored Maneuvers. Besides supervising these maneuvers, McNair was responsible for training the Army and National Guard troops. More than anyone else, he was ultimately credited with preparing millions of young soldiers to fight in World War II. He would also become the highest-ranking officer to be killed in action.

A significant development during the September 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers was the success of the four-wheel drive vehicles. The next year, the Ford Motor Company and Willys-Overland both mass-produced vehicles similar to these that came to be called jeeps. The jeep vehicles could travel almost anywhere and they quickly became the Army's workhorses

The exercises in Louisiana    provided thousands of men with their first experience of armed conflict and ultimately helped many of them survive overseas. One such member of the armed forces to benefit from this kind of training was Staff Sargeant Louie Alexander, father of Dutchtown High School Principal David Alexander.

Drafted in 1942 at the age of twenty-two, Louie Alexander, a resident of Ruston, moved through Fort Polk and Camp Beauregard in central Louisiana. He continued his training at Fort Youstas in Virginia. After six more weeks of physical and obstacle course training he was sent to Camp Edwards in Cape Cod, MA where he underwent rigorous artillery training. Mr. Alexander said, I trained on the 90 mm anti-tank gun and the 90mm anti-aircraft gun, which could shoot 30,000 feet in the air.

Soon afterward, the Japanese Army captured Kiska Island off  the west coast of the United States. Louie was deployed to the coast of Canada in response to this occupation. He stayed there for six months until the Japanese were driven off the island. At that same time, Hitler had pushed the German Army forward toward what would become the Battle of the Bulge. Sargeant Alexander soon learned he was headed to Belgium. He was sent directly to Southampton as his point of crossing the English Channel. The channel was mined, he said. Some of our equipment had been delayed coming from America, so we were delayed on our crossing. I was with the 76th Infantry and we had to trade times with the 86th. On their third day, two ships were blown apart by mines and every man on those two ships was lost. We felt very lucky but it was with great sadness that we understood how close we had come to death and we had not even entered into the fighting yet.

The mines were cleared, and the 76th had its turn to cross the English Channel into France. They joined two divisions of General Patton’s army which had marched up northward to Europe from Italy. Earlier they had fought and won in Northern Africa in some of the war’s fiercest battles against the “Desert Fox”, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Mr. Alexander and his fellow soldiers experienced two months of fighting Germans to clear them from France near the English Channel. They then turned their attention inland to France which had been captured by Hitler. They engaged the Axis power in the Roi Valley. Hitler underestimated their forces in large part because of the new battle philosophies developed by the brave men in their Louisiana Maneuvers. Mr. Alexander told us, "The English were very instrumental in leading our forces with advanced artillery," another tactic studied and revamped after Louisiana. "We were a young group, many just out of high school, but we ripened fast. We had to, but it was tough. We were fighting in the thick forests of Belgium and Germany at one point. The temperature was minus twenty-seven and we had not yet been issued overcoats." They experienced heavy fighting in    the bitter cold, and their heroic efforts proved worthwhile when they later liberated Bukenvald Concentration Camp.

The Army's 711th Railway Operating Battalion arrived in Louisiana in August of 1941 to begin laying tracks connecting Camp Polk to Camp Claiborne near Alexandria, some fifty miles away.  They trudged through miles of fetid swamps to raise twenty-five ridges, aided by a clanging steam powered pile driver. The workers designed and built the bridges with little experience, but after finishing the rail line the 711th traveled to Iran where their Louisiana experience helped them maintain the Trans-Iranian Railroad, which carried vital military materials to Russia throughout World War II.

In December 1944, with blistering efficiency, Germany attacked along a seventy-five mile front along their border with Belgium and Luxembourg. This late in the war American strategists assumed that if Germany somehow managed to mount an offensive, it would not be there. The region was sparsely populated with the dense Ardennes Forest. Undulating terrain with few good roads, covered with a thick blanket of ice and snow made the area seem untenable for German-style tank warfare. The Allies had siphoned away forces from the area so they were ill equipped to handle the onslaught of nearly a half million troops and tanks. The Germans created a breach in the Allied lines and their objective to battle through to Brussels and Antwerp seemed within reach. Time was of the essence for the Germans. At the site of a small village named St. Vith in Belgium, the American troops in the area were the 9th Armored Division. Trained during the Louisiana Maneuvers, the 9th were outnumbered by more than six to one. Despite these overwhelming odds they used their intensive training and strategic expertise to delay the German assault for over forty-eight hours. Allied forces were able to scramble and gathered personnel to send to the region where soon one of the most famous and deciding confrontations of the war would take place, The Battle of the Bulge. The soldiers' skill, courage, and sacrifice provided Eisenhower time to move more fresh troops into the Bulge, a tactic that would eventually stem the German tide. The American units trained at Fort Polk accomplished one of the most spectacular defensive stands in United States military history.  Staff Sargeant Louie Alexander, during his time of great bravery and service, was paid fifty-four dollars a month. He was almost as far across the spectrum of military hierarchy as he could possibly be from the decorated General Patton. Yet these two heroes have an overriding common experience that makes them more alike than different. These two soldiers and hundreds of thousands of others can point to the lessons they learned from their time spent in Louisiana as the single most important reason for victory. It is without question that Louisiana and its people truly helped save the world.

Source:

“A Soldier’s Place in History”
Sharyn Kane and Richard Keeton

Dutchtown High School Archives

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