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113 7 The October Purge Edward Martin led his division through the Carolina Maneuvers during the fall of 1941 knowing that his days as division commander were numbered. General Marshall had notified him on September 4 that at the age of sixty-two Martin was too old for the rigors of field operations and that he would have to relinquishhiscommand.ThePennsylvaniaadjutantgeneraltookhismedicine graciously, if reluctantly, reentering political life as a gubernatorial candidate the following year. Martin was not the only National Guard general released that autumn. Sixteen other National Guard commanding generals, along with dozens more NG officers of lesser rank, suffered the same ignominious fate. The origins of this October purge went back months, if not years, into NGArmy relations. This purge revealed much about National Guard–Regular Army politics and shed light on the respective values and cultures of the two institutions. Since the beginning of World War II, Army and National Guard officers had eyed each other with suspicion. Army officers nurtured growing doubts about the competence of their National Guard counterparts, attitudes that went back a century and a half. Officers of the Regular Army rejected the possibility that part-time officers with little if any formal training could lead large formations of soldiers in battle successfully, but Militia and National Guard officers had argued for generations that their patriotism and personal courage compensated for the absence of professional expertise.1 In the process of fielding a mass army, the U.S. Army imposed its standards of professionalism on the National Guard officers in the fall of 1941 by rooting out those it determined were unfit for command, leaving a wake of bitterness and resentment. Events during the Great War had poisoned National Guard–Army relations . The Army removed or reassigned 1,480 NG officers, 501 for failing physicals. It subsequently replaced many longtime Guard officers with regu- 114 | Guard Wars lars, leading to Guard accusations that the Army had stolen command assignments on the Western Front that were rightfully theirs.2 So when the War Department began to mobilize the Guard in the fall of 1940, these suspicions reemerged. Some guardsmen feared that the Army’s new requirement for two physical examinations might be a ploy to purge the NG of its senior officers so as to replace them with regulars. As a result, the National Guard Association demanded waivers for those who had passed previous physical exams, but not the new ones. It also demanded that NG officers comprise at least 50 percent of the examination boards. In reality, the War Department relaxed its policy to retain officers whose physical shortcomings did not “interfere with the satisfactory performance of field duties appropriate to the grade and assignment.”3 It could even readmit to active duty those who failed their physicals, providing there was a vacancy in their grade.4 Subsequent gossip about a feared purge of NG officers led to an outburst by Marshall: “If everything pertaining to the Army has to be put on a town meeting basis, we might as well quit before we start.” The chief of staff urged the vice president of the National Guard Association to keep his petty National Guard politics to himself.5 SomePNGleaders,however,sawthemobilizationasanopportunity.Colonel Charles A. Curtis of the 213th Coast Artillery Regiment (Anti-aircraft) actuallyurgedPennsylvaniaarmoriestoreplacemenwhowereunfitphysically or professionally. He admitted that they had been retaining some “old timers because of sentimental reasons,” but the war was going to be too brutal to subject any but the fittest to its rigors. He also noted that commanders needed the best men they could find. An early purge, he added, would allow time to replace those discharged with men of the unit’s choosing and would at least allow for a few weeks of training.6 Since federalization had begun, General Marshall had seen accumulating evidence that many National Guard officers were not up to their tasks, which led him to look for a way to remove the incompetent ones. At the same time, the War Department had been pondering how to move its most qualified officers into commanding general slots. The public knew of and approved of Marshall’s goal of placing younger, more capable officers into leadership positions.7 Beginning in May 1941, General McNair and the inspector general (IG), Major General Virgil I. Peterson, discussed “immediate wholesale relief of National Guard officers,” but they preferred to wait until replacement officers had been adequately trained.8 Hoping to remove 20 percent of the NG officer corps...

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