Author: Robert Roswell Palmer

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2016-10-12

Total Pages: 726

ISBN-13: 9781333928827

Excerpt from The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops The armed forces of the United States at their peak strength during World War II numbered approximately The Army's share of this total was roughly of which about were enlisted men. Another volume of this series has described the problems attending the allocation to ground combat units of an adequate proportion of the mobilized manpower.1 Of equal concern to the Army Ground Forces was the quality of these men with respect to their basic aptitudes for service in the ground arms. Even if these basic aptitudes had been firmly established by the system of classifying the Army's quota of the national manpower, not all of those found to possess them could have been assigned to the Army Ground Forces. The com peting demands of the Air Forces for men with combat aptitudes and of both the Air and Service Forces for men with technical qualifications had to be met also. The supply necessary to meet all demands having quickly been found inadequate, priorities were established. In 1942 it was deemed necessary to give the Army Air Forces first call on the Army's quota of men in the highest brackets of general military aptitude. By the end of 1943 the operation of this priority and of other factors had reduced to a dangerously low level the number of men allotted to the Ground Forces who seemed likely to perform effectively in combat. In 1944 priority as between Air and Ground Forces was reversed, and the system of classification was revised to select more effectively for ground combat service the types of men who had an aptitude for such service. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.