Depending on who was talking, it was either the inevitable evolution of the theory and practice of vertical envelopment, the Airborne State of the Art. Or else it was an entirely new concept of battlefield maneuverability that did not trace its beginnings to parachuting, and which would, more importantly, make parachuting (at least insofar as it was a means to invest a battlefield) as obsolete as catapults.
The 11th Air Assault Division [Test] was now stationed at Fort Benning, where it was testing the evolutionary/revolutionary theory that Army divisions of the future would be airmobile. Meaning that the next war (which most knowledgeable observers believed was already in progress in far off Vietnam, just waiting to burst into flame) would be fought by soldiers who would arrive at the battlefield in helicopters and not in trucks or by parachute. These soldiers, further, would be resupplied by air, either by fixed-or rotary-wing aircraft, while they leapfrogged around the zone of conflict unhindered by rivers and mountains and swamps and other inhospitable, unpleasant terrain.
Ninety-five percent of the aircraft that crowded Lawson Army Airfield now belonged to the 11th Air Assault Division.
The other five percent belonged to visitors to Fort Benning, such as the pilot of Army 404, who had flown up from Fort Rucker, a hundred miles to the south.
"Lawson, Four Oh Four, I just turned off the active. Request permission to taxi to the transient area," 404's pilot called.
"Four Oh Four, there's no room in the transient area. Turn right on the taxiway and park where you see the other Birddogs." Right on the taxiway was away from Base Operations. The windshield of the Birddog was now covered with raindrops.
If he turned right and parked where he had been told to park, he would have perhaps a three-quarter-mile walk through a cold drizzle to Base Ops.
"Shit," the pilot of 404 said, then nudged his throttle and turned right on the taxiway.
After he'd found a space to park and got out, he saw that there were neither tie down ropes conveniently waiting for him, nor even chocks for the wheels. Thus, he had to dig them out of the Birddog's fuselage and drive stakes in the ground before he could hook up the tie downs.
Finally he had the chocks in place. After that he reached in the back of the Birddog, took out a battered pI briefcase, and closed the window. He looked up and down the taxiway, hoping to see a truck or a jeep that would spare him the long walk through the drizzle. But he was not surprised when he saw none.
He swore again and started to walk toward Base Ops. He was so far down the field that the taxiway here was grass, not macadam. His shoes were quickly wet and mud splattered.
A hundred yards from the Birddog, a DeHavilland Beaver came taxiing down the dirt taxiway. The pilot of 404 walked deeper into the ankle-high dead grass to get out of the way of its prop blast.
The copilot of the Beaver, in the right seat, turned to the pilot.
"You see what I saw?" he asked.
"I'll be goddamned," the pilot replied.
The copilot reached for his microphone.
"Lawson, I thought maybe you'd like to know there's a major general marching through the mud and rain down here at the end of zero seven. I can't imagine why, but he looks a little pissed. "
"Aircraft calling Lawson tower, identify yourself and say again your last transmission. "
"I said the General looks pissed," the copilot said, and then put the hand-held microphone back in its holder.
Two vehicles left the vicinity of Base Operations within the next ninety seconds. One was a jeep. It was painted in a yellow and black checkerboard pattern and flying a white and black checkerboard flag from a pole welded to its right-rear bumper. The second was a glistening Chevrolet four-door sedan with an array of antennae and a similar white and black checkerboard flag.
The Chevrolet overtook the jeep before it reached the pilot of Army 404. It stopped, and the driver and an officer wearing the golden rope of an aide-de-camp jumped out of the front seat. The driver went to the front of the car and snatched a vinyl cover off a plate the size of a license plate, exposing two silver stars. The aide, a good-looking young captain wearing glistening parachutist's boots, saluted crisply.
"General, I'm terribly sorry about this." Major General Robert F. Bellmon returned the salute and handed him the briefcase.
"Don't worry about it," he said, as he fished a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his glasses with it.
The jeep pulled up, and a very natty lieutenant colonel in stiffly starched, form-fitting fatigues jumped out. He saluted.
"Sir, Colonel Sawyer. I'm the AOD. General, the tower swears they did not get a Code Eight." When an aircraft communicating with an airfield tower announces' 'Code Eight," it means that a major general is aboard.
"I didn't give one," General Bellmon said, offering his hand to the ADD. "I figured you looked busy enough without my adding to your burden. How do you do, Colonel?"
"Sir, it wouldn't have been a problem."
"I decided it would," Bellmbn said.
"Sir, I'll have your aircraft moved to Base Ops," the ADD said.
"You're not listening, Colonel. I don't want to add to your burden. Just have it fueled, please. I can find it where I left it. "
"Yes, Sir," the ADD said as Bellmon entered the Chevrolet.
"How are you, Sergeant?" Bellmon said to the driver.
"Just fine, thank you, Sir. Sorry you had to walk. We was waiting for you."
"This is the Infantry Center, isn't it?" Bellmon said with a smile. "The walking branch? You ever hear, Sergeant, 'When in Rome. . . '?" The aide got in the front seat and turned to face General Bellmon.
"General Campbell's compliments, Sir. He hopes that his scheduling lunch at Riverside will be all right with you, Sir."
"Fine with me. I always like to see how the other half lives," General Bellmon said.
The quarters of the Commanding General of the U. S. Army Infantry Center & Fort Benning, Georgia, like the quarters of commanding generals throughout the Army, were officially known as Quarters #1. But universally throughout the Army indeed, throughout the armed forces-those of the Benning commander were known as "Riverside." Bellmon's Quarters #1 at Fort Rucker, Alabama, had no corresponding unofficial title, although General Bellmon, en family, had variously described them as this doghouse; this goddamned dump; and once, waxing eloquent, as a splendid example of the contempt in which general officers of the Army are held by those horses asses on Capitol Hill.
Quarters #1 at Fort Rucker had been built, six years before, in ninety days, as part of a multimillion-dollar family-housing project for the married officers and noncommissioned officers of Fort Rucker. Most of the houses were duplexes, sharing a common wall. But single quarters had been provided for senior officers. Quarters #1 was slightly larger-just slightly than any of the other one-family houses. But it was built to the same general pattern. That is to say, it was one-story, frame, with half brick and half shingled walls, eight-foot ceilings, and narrow corridors,. Bellmon had also, fairly, said it looked like a housing development for the underprivileged.
Riverside, on the other hand, could fairly be described as a stately mansion-with high ceilings and wide corridors and other amenities suitable to persons of exalted rank. Built long before World War II, it sits behind a wide lawn, surrounded by massive trees. And it is steeped in history. George Catlett Marshall and Douglas MacArthur and Dwight David Eisenhower and Vinegar Joe Stilwell and George S. Patton and Maxwell Davenport Taylor and James Van Fleet and Matthew B. Ridgway and a thousand other soldiers with stars on their epaulets had all sat at one time or another at the highly polished antique table in the downstairs dining room.
When Major General Robert F . Bellmon entered Riverside, he smiled, shook Major General William C. Campbell's hand, and rendered the just as de rigueur kiss to the cheek of his host's wife. After that he considered again the difference between these quarters and his. And then he thought, I wouldn't swap jobs to move in here.
"The others are al
ready seated, Bob," General Campbell said. "You want a drink?"
"I'm flying, Bill, I'd better not. "
"Yourself?" Eleanor asked. "I mean, you flew up here by yourself?"
"What you really meant was that you didn't know they let old men like me fly by themselves," Bellmon said.
"No, I did not," she protested.
He smiled at her.
Beginning to wonder, Eleanor? Whether we're going to get away with this, and that if we do, whether Bill will be on the sidelines?
He walked beside General Campbell down a wide, carpeted corridor to the downstairs dining room.
Places 'had been set at that same table for four general officers.
[THREE]
Three of the five officers at the meeting described in the General's diary as Private luncheon, in quarters were major generals (two stars). One of these was the host, William C. Campbell, who was Commanding General, U.S. Army Infantry Center & Fort Benning. The remaining two were brigadier generals (one star). One of these was William R. Roberts. Roberts was also the youngest officer at table, and the most recent (1940) graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Major General Campbell was 38, and Major Generals Harrison O. K. Wendall and Robert F. Bellmon were 39. They had all known each other at West Point and they'd frequently been in touch sinse. They were, in varying degrees, friends.
The fifth officer at table, who rose as Bellmon walked into the dining room, was also a member of the Class of '39.
He smiled when General Campbell said, "Bob, I believe you know General Rand?"
"Well, I'll be damned," Bellmon said, then walked quickly to him, put out his hand, and grabbed his shoulder. "That star looks good on your shoulder, George."
"I'm not quite used to the weight," Rand said. "It's only been up there a couple of hours."
"Well, brace yourself," Bellmon said. "It will get heavier. "
"As, I think, I am about to find out," Rand said, gesturing around at the others.
"Well, I'll tell you this," Bellmon said. "It's not what you think it will be."
"Particularly if you're operating from a position of massive ignorance, as I am," Rand said.
"Well, you're in good company," General Wendall said.
"We all have that problem." Major General Harrison O. K. "Hok" Wendall was Commanding General of the 11th Air Assault Division [Test]. The 11th Air Assault was immediately subordinate to, in theory, Continental Army Command [CONARC] at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. CONARC was charged by statute and custom with the development of tactics and equipment.
In practice, however, the 11th Air Assault Division [Test] belonged to the U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. Though there were several reasons for this, the chief reason was that Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara was in the Pentagon, and so was DCSOPS. McNamara was fascinated with the notion of battlefield aerial mobility, and thus with the 11th Air Assault Division [Test]; and he obviously had plans for it.
When McNamara had a question to ask or some suggestion to make about the 11 th Air Assault, he didn't want to have to get on the telephone or summon someone to the Pentagon from someplace like Norfolk. He wanted action then.
He got it from DCSOPS.
It was also true that McNamara knew that DCSOPS not only believed in the 11th Air Assault Division [Test] but also in the concept of air mobility that was behind it. And this was something of a minority opinion within the upper echelons of the Army. Since McNamara wanted his orders obeyed, not circumvented, and his suggestions listened to, not politely tolerated, he got all this from DCSOPS.
The problem wasn't that the Army establishment was opposed to the idea of an Army Aviation Division, but rather that most senior officers were convinced that the whole concept was moving too fast. It hadn't been thought through much less anywhere near adequately tested. They believed, further, that Ham Howze and the other "aviator types" were getting carried away on the wings of their own enthusiasm.
And it was also perfectly clear to them that the priority given to the 11th Air Assault Division-indeed, to the whole damned idea-was diverting assets (money, property, and personnel) that were needed elsewhere. And that situation, they believed, was going to get even worse.
When the five general officers lunched at the highly polished table in "Riverside," their meal consisted of pork chops, mashed potatoes, applesauce, green beans, and apple cobbler; and their conversation was mostly small talk-gossip of wives and children, and classmates and friends.
It was only when a white-jacketed steward cleared the table, set out a large silver coffee service, and left the room that they got down to business.
"We're about to be sandbagged by our friends in blue," General Hok Wendall said.
"Is that a general philosophical observation, Hok, or is there something specific in your mind?" Bellmon asked.
"Both." Wendall chuckled. "Specifically, BLUE BLAZES II." BLUE BLAZES II was a maneuver. Its stated purpose was to move what amounted to a regimental combat team-that is, a regiment of troops, augmented by artillery and other forces-from Fort Benning to Fort Stewart, near Savannah, Georgia. The force would maneuver against an "enemy" force for ninety-six hours and then be withdrawn to Fort Benning. Its more general purpose was to. test whether a force that large could in fact be effectively and efficiently transported by Army aircraft to a battle zone, supplied and reinforced solely by Army aircraft for four days, and then returned to Benning.
"What's the problem?" Bellmon asked.
"Chinooks, lack of," Hok Wendall said.
"Nobody has enough Chinooks," Bellmon said. "The original idea, as you know," Wendall went on, "was to simulate Chinooks. Use whatever transport we have, primarily CH-34s, but some Caribous and Otters too, to move the materiel from here to there. And then, when the test is evaluated, to use tonnage and time data to compute how many Chinooks could have done the same thing."
"The first time I maneuvered with tanks," Bellmon said, "they were 1936 Ford ton-and-a-half trucks. They had 'tank' written on the doors and windshields." If General Wendall was interested in this bit of historical lore, he gave no sign.
"And then George had an idea," Wendall went on, nodding toward General Rand.
"Oh? "
"The Air Force," Rand said, "is going to say-and you know it, Bob, no matter how squeaky clean honest we are about it-that our simulation figures are slanted in our favor. "
"Sure, they will. That's a given. Just be damned sure of your figures," Bellmon said.
"Particularly in the area of maintenance man-hours per flight hour, fuel consumption, and availability," Rand went on.
"What George came up with, Bob," Hok Wendall said, "is a way out. Something that would collapse their bag of hot air before it was filled."
"George is very clever," Bellmon said, meaning it. "I suspect that's why you asked for him. I'm all ears, George."
"We form two provisional Chinook companies," Rand said. "Actually use thirty-six Chinooks. The Air Force wouldn't be able to refute the data we actually developed." Bellmon nodded his agreement. "Where are you going to get the Chinooks?" he asked, and as the words came out of his mouth, he understood Rand's idea and what they wanted from him.
"There are twenty-three Chinooks at Rucker," Hok Wendall said.
"No," Bellmon said. "Not possible. "
"I'd only need them for ninety-six hours, Bob," Rand said.
"Five are assigned to the Board," Bellmon said, referring to The U.S. Army Aviation Board, the organization charged with testing aircraft and associated materiel. "So you couldn't have them, period. The eighteen in the school fleet are about half what I need. Eight are in use for enlisted training. And ten are all I have to train pilots."
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