Under Army Orders: The Army National Guard during the Korean War

286 Pages·2001·1.72 MB·English

by  William Donnelly

Under
Army
Orders
TEXAS7A&M4UNIVERSITY
✩ ✩
MILITARYHISTORY SERIES

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
PREFACE
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