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Post-World War II Reorganization of the Iowa National Guard
History of The Iowa National Guard
CW2 David L. Snook
After World War II, the Iowa National Guard had to be entirely
rebuilt. As former Guardsmen gradually returned to the state following their release from
active duty in late 1945, planning for a postwar National Guard was well underway. A long
and contentious debate occurred within the General Staff Committee on National Guard
Policy, the chief agency responsible for reorganization, concerning the makeup and the
mission of the postwar National Guard. Some senior Regular Army officers actually wanted
to eliminate the Guard’s federal mission entirely. Due to public pressure, generated
in large part by Minnesota Adjutant General Ellard A. Walsh, President of the National
Guard Association during World War II, the War Department ultimately decided to retain the
National Guard’s dual mission – "to serve as an integral part of the first
line reserve component of the postwar military establishment" and "to protect
life and property and preserve the peace, order and public safety, under competent orders
of state authorities." (Annual Report of the Chief of the National Guard Bureau,
1946, p. 61)
Commencing July 1, 1946, the Army National Guard, within a period of
approximately 36 months, organized and federally recognized 5,150 units, with a strength
slightly in excess of 350,000. The Air National Guard, in that same period of time,
organized and federally recognized 527 units, contained in 27 combat wings, with a
strength of nearly 50,000. Recruiting by both organizations was greatly assisted by the
reintroduction of a peacetime draft in 1948. Nevertheless, the reorganization of both the
Army and Air National Guards was accomplished with amazing speed and efficiency.
The recruiting effort in Iowa generally reflected what was happening
nationally. At the beginning of 1948, the Iowa Army National Guard numbered approximately
3,500. A final recruiting blitz raised that total to 6,330 at the end of the fiscal year.
Add to that total the 731 members of the Iowa Air National Guard, and you have a grand
total of 7,061 for the Iowa National Guard as a whole.
A majority of the Iowa Army National Guard units were part of the 34th
Division, as had been the case before World War II. Other organizations included the 113th
Cavalry Squadron, the 194th Field Artillery, the 634th Tank
Destroyer Battalion, the 100th Combat Engineers, and the 3655th and
3657th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Companies.
The air arm of the Iowa National Guard included the 132nd
Fighter Group Headquarters, the 124th and 174th Fighter Squadrons,
the 232nd Air Service Group, and the 133rd Aircraft Control and
Warning Squadron. The fighter squadrons received their first "jets," Lockheed
F-80 Shooting Stars, at the end of 1949.
The most immediate postwar problem for the Iowa National Guard was
the acquisition of facilities. The State of Iowa owned no armories. The only state-held
property was Camp Dodge, which was both a summer campsite and a year-round supply base for
the Guard. Armory space had to be leased, usually from local government agencies, but
sometimes from private owners. "Leases were signed with American Legion and Veterans
of Foreign Wars posts, cities and towns, insurance companies, and even boards of education
and colleges." (The Iowa Guardsman, Jan.-Feb., 1948, p. 13) This turned out to
be a temporary solution. Throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, the state embarked on a
long-term armory construction program, 75% of the cost being underwritten by the federal
government. During this time, approximately 40 new armories were built all across the
state.
At the time of reorganization, the area of least concern was
equipment. Due to massive overproduction by defense industries at the end of World War II,
most Iowa National Guard units had a full TOE (table of organization and equipment). For
one of the few times in its history, the Iowa National Guard had nearly 100% of its
required equipment. By the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, however, much of this
equipment was already becoming outdated.
One area of great concern to National Guard leaders was training.
Until 1957, National Guard recruits did not attend basic training. Recruits were taught
basic soldier skills by unit noncommissioned officers. The quality of instruction,
however, was excellent, most of the NCOs being combat veterans.
Annual training during the 1950s was generally conducted at one of
three locations – Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, or Camp Ripley,
Minnesota. Training often suffered from lack of modern equipment. Most of the tanks,
artillery pieces, individual weapons, and equipment were World War II vintage. Guardsmen
continued to train with surplus World War II equipment until excess armaments from the
Vietnam War became available.
From the end of World War II until the late 1950s, athletic events
remained an important part of the annual training experience. The success of camp was
often judged by the performance of the unit boxing, wrestling, baseball, and track teams.
By the late 1950s, as training became more demanding, organized sports activities were
gradually phased out.
Another problem for the rapidly expanding postwar National Guard was
the need to develop junior officers. Led by Indiana, the various states began to organize
their own state-run officer candidate programs. Patterned on the Regular Army’s
ninety-day curriculum at Fort Benning, Georgia, most of these state programs combined two
annual training periods with a year of multiple drills. The Iowa Military Academy,
organized in 1957, was given the responsibility of supervising the state’s officer
candidate program. The 250-hour program of instruction was designed to be completed in
three phases over a thirteen month period. The first class graduated on July 19, 1958.
By the end of 1949, the Iowa National Guard had been completely
reorganized. Guard units contained a large percentage of well-trained combat veterans,
equipped with excess equipment from World War II. The Air Force had begun to incorporate
the Air Guard into its organization, allocating more federal funds, expanding its mission,
and providing it with more and better training opportunities. The Army National Guard,
however, soon suffered a variety of problems – lack of modern equipment, reduced
federal financing, inadequate training opportunities, and limited cooperation from the
regular Army and the Department of Defense. The outbreak of the Korean War, in the summer
of 1950, soon made these deficiencies glaringly apparent. (Hartman, Douglas, Nebraska’s
Militia, the Donning Company, 1994, p. 191)
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