But key members of Congress vowed not to extend the original draft legislation, which had called for only one year of active duty. A political battle erupted between those supporting the extension and the continued training of the new army of draftees and those who wanted to bring them home and effectively isolate the United States from global conflict. The battle reached its zenith only weeks before Pearl Harbor, when the House of Representatives came within a single vote of dismantling the draft and sending hundreds of thousands of men home, which would have all but destroyed the United States Army. The isolationists were led by the charismatic, pro-Nazi American hero Charles Lindbergh, who pitted himself against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The two came to despise one another after the Nazi invasion of Poland, when Lindbergh pleaded for the United States to look the other way as Hitler conquered Europe. Besides key members of Congress, other advocates of isolation included automaker Henry Ford, a young Walt Disney, and Teddy Roosevelt Jr., son of the 26th president.
As the political battle raged, the Army’s chief of staff, General George Catlett Marshall, with Franklin Roosevelt’s support and authority, created a new army, purging from it more than a thousand officers he deemed unfit. Men whose names would become famous in the war in Europe would emerge as stars during the training of the draftees in the 1941 maneuvers.
Atop the list was the brilliant but arrogant George S. Patton, a veteran of the First World War, who called the draftees “civilians in khaki pants.” Much has been written about Patton during the two world wars, but little has been written about his role as a prime catalyst in preparing the nation for combat and victory. Patton, born to a wealthy California couple, grew from a colonel stationed at Fort Myer in Virginia, where he was deeply involved in society horse shows, into an audacious and brilliant tank commander. Dwight David Eisenhower would also emerge from these exercises. After the war, Eisenhower credited the war games in Louisiana as the “grand maneuver” that proved of incalculable value in winning the war.
Marshall’s challenges were many. A lot of the draftees were malnourished and otherwise suffering under the difficult circumstances common in the Great Depression. Many were not happy about their new status, especially when posted to remote bases, where they were bored and homesick. Some threatened to desert if the original one-year period of service was extended.
But attitudes changed with the three realistic war games staged in 1941, in which more than 820,000 new soldiers participated. Conducted in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas, the exercises transformed the way Americans would wage war and paved the way for the highly disciplined, fast-moving units, including armored cavalry units led by bold and resourceful officers that led to victory in North Africa and Europe. The maneuvers themselves tell a dramatic story filled with colorful characters and monumental (sometimes comic) missteps, taken as the Army learned by its mistakes. But the maneuvers—largely unchronicled—are also essential to understanding the United States’ involvement in World War II and the ultimate outcome of the war. The Louisiana games, held in the late summer and early fall of 1941, were among the most watched and carefully reported events of 1941—but they were largely forgotten when real war ensued with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 and Germany’s declaration of war on the United States on December 11.
This is the story of how hundreds of thousands of young men were drafted and transformed into an organized, effective fighting force able to invade North Africa ten months after Pearl Harbor, many critical months ahead of the time Hitler’s planners had predicted for a significant American intervention. After heavy losses in North Africa, the U.S. Army learned quickly and ultimately prevailed there, jumped into Sicily, and moved up through Italy into Europe, which eventually led to victory in Europe. The counter-narrative to this book will be the battle fought against the power of Jim Crow and the establishment of racial integration of the Armed Forces. The battle for integration would be fought at the highest level, pitting a reluctant Franklin D. Roosevelt against A. Philip Randolph, who with other civil rights leaders threatened a massive march on Washington.
* In 1940, the accepted spelling of the municipality in Upstate New York was Plattsburg. It was later changed to Plattsburgh, which is how it is commonly referred to today. Earlier, the Pennsylvania city known as Pittsburg had been given the official spelling of Pittsburgh.
At 2:50 a.m. on Friday, September 1, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was awakened by a telephone call from the U.S. ambassador to France, William Bullitt, who reported that Nazi Germany had just invaded Poland and was bombing her cities.
“Well, Bill,” the president said. “It has come at last. God help us all.”1
At 4:30 a.m., Roosevelt issued a futile plea to Germany and other European nations to refrain from bombing civilian populations or unfortified cities from the air. He requested “an immediate reply,” which he knew would not be forthcoming.
Later that morning, FDR formally appointed General George C. Marshall chief of staff of the United States Army, a job that officially made Marshall the president’s top military adviser. Marshall replaced General Malin Craig, who had reached the mandatory retirement age of 64 the previous day. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, Marshall had been a highly regarded staff officer for General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in Europe during World War I. Marshall had later become assistant commandant at the Army Infantry School and had served as deputy chief of staff in Washington since 1938.
Roosevelt had actually selected Marshall on July 1, when Marshall was appointed acting chief of staff and had begun assuming the full responsibilities of the job. At the time, some noted that Roosevelt had jumped over 20 major generals (two-star generals) and 14 brigadier generals (one-star generals) to get to Brigadier General Marshall, though a majority of those men were within four years of retirement age.
The appointment came as something of a surprise to many in the military, who thought FDR’s new chief of staff would be General Hugh Drum, the next man in line for the position and the logical choice; but Drum, who wanted the job, had self-promoted himself out of it. He had been pushing for the job for a decade and had lobbied heavily to get it—for example, exhorting Colonel George S. Patton to visit then retired general Pershing to persuade him to recommend Drum to the president. Roosevelt had been lobbied so fiercely by Drum supporters that it was rumored he could be heard wandering about the White House muttering, “Drum, Drum, I wish he’d stop beating his drum.”2
Three other men wanted the job badly enough to lobby for it, and through their friends and political allies had bombarded the White House with arguments in their favor. Marshall, who clearly was interested in the job, was appalled by the other candidates’ lobbying and chose to remain silent. Marshall’s biographer, Leonard Mosley, later observed: “All the other hopefuls were making such a noise about themselves, and so many big drums were being beaten on their behalf, that it was his silence that would make him most audible to the President.”3
Roosevelt had summoned Marshall to his study in the White House the previous April to announce the decision to consider him for the job. Marshall let the president know quite directly that he always “wanted to be able to speak his mind.”
“Is that all right?” Marshall asked.
“Yes,” the commander in chief replied, smiling slightly.
“You said ‘yes’ pleasantly, but it may be unpleasant,” Marshall responded.4,5
This was what Roosevelt wanted to hear: he wanted someone who could stand up to him on military matters, as Marshall had done twice previously as deputy chief of staff, when he had respectfully but forcefully dissented. With perilous days ahead, the last thing FDR wanted was a yes-man as his chief military adviser. Marshall also had the