and how they are made. >> i love american artifacts. >> i had no idea of the history. youmerican history gives the perspective. >> i am a c-span fan. ♪ this years' student cam documentary competition was our largest yet, nearly 6000 middle and high school students took part alone or in teams of up to 3. we received nearly 2900 entries. even from schools as far away as taiwan and the united arab emirates. now it's time to award $100,000 in prize money to the winners. for this year's contest, students were asked to produce documentaries using our road to the white house theme, specifically to document what issue they most wanted the candidates to discuss during the 2016 presidential campaign. through their entries, students

told us that the economy, equality, education, and immigration were all top issues. our judges have finalize their decisions for one grand prize winner, and four first-place winners. there are 150 prizes in all, and one fan favorite selected by you. we are happy to announce our top prize winners. our grand prize winner is a 10th grader from jenks, oklahoma. olivia's winning documentary titled "up to our necks" addresses the federal debt. >> how exactly does america get up to its neck in debt? every year a budget is formed, throwing out large sums of federal money are donated to several areas. the first is discretionary spending, which in 2015 received

$1.7 trillion. the second section is mandatory spending, which received $2.45 trillion in 2015. lastly, there is interest on the federal debt, which received $229 billion. >> as our grand prize winner, she wins $5,000 for her documentary and the c-span bus will travel to her school so we can present her with the check for the grand prize. our first prize for middle sisters from virginia. their documentary titled "what should be done about money in politics"? >> you see flyers in your mailbox and hear advertisers on tv, radio, and the internet. politicians spend millions of dollars on their campaign. every day that congress is in session, there are fundraisers all over the country. in 2012, the president of that -- presidential elections called

ost for $2.6 billion. you can't help but wonder, where does all this money come from? prize winners first of our high school central competition attend troy high school in troy, michigan. the documentary is entitled "the 1%." it addresses the scarcity of fresh water. >> today americans are drowning in overly debated issues such as immigration, medicare, terrorism, leaked e-mails. although these are important topics, the issue that will effect the most americans is the issue of the 1%. >> 1%. >> 1%. >> 1%. >> 1%. >> not that 1%. this 1%, the shining blue jewel of the united states, the great lakes. >> truly one of the unique resources in the world. the largest freshwater resource of the world. there is nothing like it. >> our student cam first prize winners from our high school west category are from phoenix, arizona.

their documentary is titled "rethinking reform: prisons in america." >> the prison systems around the united states have changed radically in the last 20 to 30 years, but let me address arizona. 20 years ago our prison population was about 20,000 people. now our state prison system is over 40,000. the composition of the prison population has also dramatically changed. >> finally, our fan favorite was selected through your online voting. we are happy to announce the winners who will receive an additional $500 our first rise winners for high school east category, 10th graders from montgomery blair high school.

the documentary is entitled "driving forward." it tackles the topic of highway and bridge funding. >> americans love moving around. we love fast cars, big trucks, road trips, horsepower, and 70 mile per hour speed limits. we drive further and have more cars than any other country in the world. for all our love of what we drive, we tend to take what we drive on for granted. america's 2 million miles of roads and 600,000 bridges are aging, congested, and often dangerous. >> thanks to all the students and teachers who competed this year, and congratulations to all of our winners. the top 21 winning entries will air on c-span starting in april. all the winning entries are available for viewing online at studentcam.org. ♪ next on american history tv, eric klinek discusses

the united states army replacement system in the campaign from 1944 to 1945 date argues no one has done a deal tell study of reinforcement policy, and the replacement soldiers were often rushed to the combat line without proper training and equipment to the soldiers, sailors, arrangement coast guard committee chairman's club hosted this event. let me just proceed now to introduce our speaker, dr. eric klinek. he received his ba in history has been from duke university his phd military history from temple university. he was aadvisers and recipient of the u.s. are a center for military history dissertation fellowship, a

fellow of the west way summer seminar in military history. he has taught actively simply is for the state of carson philadelphia, and the united states merchant marine academy. also served as research fellow with the joint pow mia accounting command at pearl harbor, hawaii. he is currently revising his dissertation on the u.s. army replacement system for publication. with great pride and gratitude over to dr. eric klinek. [applause] dr. klinek: before i begin, i

for to thank mr. off coordinating all this over the past several months. and for the new york military me, and for having th grateful to c-span to cover this tonight. a to everyone for spending your friday night hearing me talk. i want to give a brief overview of the structure function of the u.s. army individual replacement system during world war ii. as you will see, i argue that the replacements on the whole was ineffective, inefficient, and wasteful, which is largely a term for what i mismanagement. europelacement system in largely overlooked

onividuality, morale psyche a soldier performance. and will use this as a blanket term for this organization. they did not trained in a manner conducive to integration into combat units. gis at the front would suffer for this oversight. not going back to far into the long history of the united states military forces attempting to replace casualties in combat, i am really going to start today at the beginning of world war ii. even in the years before when it involvement,

became obvious that the united states was going to be involved in the second global conflict, the civilian sector, army, congress, different organizations there were both , the victoryy board, all of these different interest groups decided to start debating and haggling over the size, shape, and constituency of the armed forces. public military would be, and who would five. there were various considerations determining the size of the army. the role of air power, many strategists of the airpower would be decisive, enabling the war department to mobilize a smaller ground force. shipping capacity. before they determined how many

divisions to mobilize, do we have the capacity to ship 500 divisions around the globe? we will capacity, as see my 1942, 1943, really starts to impact the war department thinking, and leads to the cancellation of additional divisions because the army and the merchant marines realized that we do not have ships to send to other divisions, so the war department cancels some of these as you will see. thatinally, they believe the soviet union will bear the brunt of the fighting against germany and europe. they then believe they can get along with a smaller ground force. then how many men can you induct into services, without impacting industrial and agricultural production back home? ministate in the factories and

,n the field, as we will see later in the war effort americans and women will enter the workforce to replace these men's were going over seas. comes from estimate the joint chiefs of staff, saying that the united they can write this with 334 divisions. a division had about 15,000 soldiers in over a couple of years of haggling between 41 and 43, the number keeps going down. we simply do not have the manpower for that. ultimately, the war department settles on 91. seems pretty that substantial, but as we will see, even before d-day it turns out that it is a bare-bones estimate. ultimately the war department mobilizes 91 divisions.

some of these divisions will not of 19 your until march 45. it is not like you have these 91 divisions from the beginning of fighting. they come online throughout the years there is not a big surplus to speak of. but ultimately the army has these 91 due to globalization and consolidation. they believe that 87 of those will see confident in the war. this is known as the 90 division gamble. war department mobilized to small of a ground force. they lacked strategic reserve. with only 90 divisions, it is impossible to any unit rotation program, meaning that when divisions go into combat, they're going to stay there. there is not one to go in and let them rest a bit. when they go online, there is -- that is it until the end of the war. division river -- with room

,ision -- division reserve replacements will feed individual soldiers. the company loses 50 men, they contact the replacement depot, and 50 guys sent to the front. it is not unit rotation, that is all individual. as for the quality of manpower, who is going to fill 90 divisions and 90 division gamble? the army's approach to the use of manpower created this paradigm where the war department believed that it could mass-produce infantrymen. that the replacement system continuously treating its soldiers as interchangeable parts. a tank breaks, without combat, but another one in an infantrymen dies, put another one in. that is basically the thinking. and that will have drastic results. in the early stages of

mobilization, they were overly selective. they wanted the best and the brightest or begin military grade draft boards were reject ing thousands of men for minor defects. rejects some of these are serving on the front lines. the army teaches the requirement that as long as you could masticate the army ration, you could serve as an infantrymen. there was no correlation between number of teeth and marksmanship. [laughter] this comes about 1944 when this change is made. people with industrial jobs and men in the war industry, who had kids before the second pearl harbor, all of these guys say you do not have to serve. by 1945, they will be serving on the front lines.

i'm taking this for beta from a lot of the books i have read. they wanted the finest physical , how they characterize infantrymen. how do you determine what makes a fine physical specimen? there is a physical screening and an intelligence test. it measures a man's ability to learn, so to speak. they can also evaluate educational background. if you could not read what you would fail a test, but about being able to read, they would find some way to categorize you. men who scored highly in the five categories, category one and two men become junior officers, or tended to get selected out of more technical bridges such as engineered contiguous army air force scored higher you got out of the armed forces. , the groundd lower

forces got the largest percentage of category five scoring men. if you volunteered for enlisted earlier in the war, you got out of the ground forces by the service to your branch, enlisting to the air force, or to the neighborhood or just to the navy -- or to the needy were marines. avy or marines. during the early stages of mobilization, one commander cannot find capable enlisted men to act as instructors, because everyone higher than a more on that deflected or removed from the ground forces. [laughter] another program that was a further drain on this high-quality manpower was the army specialist training for grant -- program which begin in

the spring of 1943. essentially, the war department those who scored in the top tier could do further enlistment, stay in college, go to the college program in a while doing minimal training, and then when they graduate, the army said we will have these educated men who started engineering or languages and we will get an influx of junior officers. 10 infantry divisions worth of men in the spring of 1943 are going to college. four years later, the war still going on, they will come out with a degree and get a commission. but the army ground forces p ason opposed the ast they went through this planning. they said we will put 150,000 college aged men in college? the officer complains the 300,000 men, we are then going

bysend men to college february of 1944, the war department realizes mistake them and reduces from 150,000 men to 30,000 men, and then cancels it. these men who scored highly on pulled out, and went to replace the system. as for the funding of the places ist replacement system, established in england on october of 1943. up itsy is building manpower divisions for the

ultimate invasion of normandy later that spring. 16 replacement depot swallow. europe during the war. army'ss would follow the to the continent once hostilities began. they would tend to set up a couple of miles behind the front lines and act as big camps where there were surplus soldiers, and then they would say this regiment would need 500 guys and so forth. they would follow the advancing armies. in july 1943 the war department figured out the lack of shipping capacity and utilize -- realize they cannot mobilizing more infantrymen. they begin training additional inductees to go into replacement training centers. they are not going to the theyion trading with them, are just going to individual cap

for 13 weeks of basic training. later in the war it is 17 weeks of training. during crisis, it is reduced to 15 weeks. these replacement fleet their training -- complete their training, and are different from those who entered the army earlier in the war. basicplacements with basic i training, which train for a year as a unit within the overseas guys in 1943 would not receive unit training. they just go into the mass surplus pool of individual replacement. they rarely, if ever received unit training. they do not receive maneuvers. by 1944, 1945, some of these who in cohesive units

joined divisions earlier in the war, they have been together for several years. imagine being a individual replacement and you are replacing a casualty, not knowing anyone and not having unit training. typically granted 10 or 14 days of leave. those going to europe would report to a port. prior to d-day they would sail , set up ingland those cities or farms that had been taken over and essentially wait until people get replaced. they were placed in stock inch

deep hose. cattle.e handled like then they went to a packaging packaged into groups to be sent over to france. [inaudible] i was going to show everyone a map of france.

initially these replacements in the early part of the campaign would land on omaha or utah beach and then follow the fighting out of normandy. once cherbourg was captured -- and portsnt is moving are being captured, their replacements are then landing further and further inland, they are typically moved i rail or truck. when they get just behind the front lines, they would go to a large tent city several miles behind the front, close enough where you could hear gunfire and smell what were smelled like as you were going to the front. after several days, they transferred to a stock inch

where the army provided them with weapons, ammunition, and additional training. and then from there to forward depot. those forward depots are right behind the front lines and they would wait there until a unit sent a representative back to say, we need 10 guys to the front right now. while in transit and at the various depots, they received that prepared them for life on the line as well as a publication could. they eventually moved to a forward battalion prior to joining at the front. these replacements would be requisitions. basically a series from the u.k., larger to smaller caps, and eventually to frontline units.

there was a lot of anxiety, as you can imagine. men replacements in reality had very little training while they were in the depots. they felt lost. casuals for veterans who had been heard in combat were replaced through the recall -- recycle system and a lot of units complained they were receiving replacements that were scared out of their minds. the veterans who had been in the outts were scaring the crap of -- it's really bad up there. the replacement system instead of figuring out a way to use veterans said, let's just separate them. veterans who were wounded were on one side of the camp, new guys on the other. once these guys would get to a units, they would get the same stuff from the guys anyway. a lot of them did think they were going to die.

unfortunately, a good number did. the replacement system tended to separate men who had sailed and trade together in piecemeal divisions when needed. a few buddies in basic training and traveled overseas with them and then you , and all fourtion of you end up going to different units. time was no thought at the that may be more would be better if we assigned these guys as squads in their units. you are plucked away from everyone you know and then join a frontline units on your own. in september 1944, one soldier in a replacement depot remarked, quote, being a replacement is like being an orphan. you are away from anybody you know and feel lost and lonesome. are apartcement we

from everything. it feels that you are being pushed out of a place blindfolded trait you feel totally useless and unimportant. they treat us like idiots and we don't disappoint them. a replacement who eventually joined the 84th infantry division explained, "we were just numbers, we did not know anybody. i've never felt so alone and miserable and helpless my entire life. we are herded around like cattle and round of time." a replacement officer in the fourth infantry division arrived late june and while listening to roll calls about to be assigned to his combat units, he realized, "i did not recognize anyone. it probably did not matter because we would all be sent to different units once onshore." earlier in the campaign, replacements from depots and from england -- omaha here, mostly coming short.

as the front advances, eventually they would land. depots would establish themselves behind the lines to support the advancing armies. well, we will keep going. we can go through the images at the end. even in the months prior to became obvious that they were department and army had underestimated how many men it would need to fight in the european theater of operations. -- this is a 1944 typical army talk that a

replacement would receive while going to one of the depots. this one is from september 1944. we will talk about these three convergence men converted from other services into infantrymen so you can see. replacement.ape ofs was very brief overview the process, the replacement would endear going from statewide training to combat depot such as a series of .eing herded around some of the new guys coming ashore, being overly eager. patton was not a huge fan of his because he was critical of the

army. if you hear any war stories and you see the shaven, exhausted, trunk veterans, just wanting nothing to do with them. to go back to this manpower shortage, six months prior to d-day, the army chief of staff wrote to eisenhower and that "the manpower situation was critical and there was a shortage of several hundred thousand men. this is six months before d-day. data from which calculations were made was incomplete and of doubtful accuracy. the planning for replacement based onnts for eto

partial data from north africa. conference in washington, d c in 1994, the war department "determined the infantry replacement portion of the european theater of operations u.s. army replace the pool that had been estimated at two low of a figure." about two months prior to d-day, the war department says, we entirely underestimated this. as a result, the army ground forces noted, the number of the number of replacements trained as riflemen, cooks, and clerks, corresponded to the number of men in each of these jobs called for in infantry units. thatllowance for the fact when battle losses began to

occur, the casualty rates among riflemen would be higher than among cooks. in simple terminology, you have a unit of 100 men and 10 of them are cooks, the replacement system trained 10 minutes cooks. they did not realize that the likelihood of 10 cooks being killed in battle is pretty unlikely. the surplus engineers, artilleryman, cooks, sittingtuff -- staff around and they will be converted into infantrymen because the proportions were wrong. they were training them directly . all replacements should be truck drivers and no one seemed to realize casualties will not occur in those proportions. there's a surplus of technicians, engineers,, slide personnel.

these folks will be given three weeks of basic training and sent to the front as infantrymen. he was responsible for assigning replacements and requisitioning them. he noted on july 7, 1994, while near france, that "in combat, men coming into the regiment had been thrown indiscriminately into battle as riflemen, men trained as cooks, radio operators, clerks were shoved en masse into rifle companies at the front, including some who had never had a close look at and m-1 rifle." i went with the proportion of casuals and veterans steering replacements. you have an officer coming up, here's your money back from the souvenirs, you have been scaring the hell out of our replacements with your stories.

the 22ndhbart and regiment noted that the replacements he was getting were generally older. this guy in the middle. the caption here, one of them ain't been here long enough, one of them has been here too long. here you can see this kid. i guess it's ok, the replacement center says, he comes from a long line of infantrymen. this trend would continue. the unexpectedly high casualty rate in normandy really made these miscalculations that much worse. this point that manpower shortages and untrained replacements and men converted from other branches in services start to impact combat effectiveness. on july 1944, the 10th infantry

division complaint of its and thesef men untrained reinforcements or replacements were diminishing combat effectiveness. how long could the companies effectively maintain fighting standard advanced pace of seasoned assault troops when the ranks were quickly becoming diluted with inexperienced men. what was confusing a lot of the veterans was that many of these replacements had no clue how to load or fire their rifles. standard issue rifle at that time was the m-1 grand semiautomatic rifle. most had been trained on bold action. -- bolt-action. you have issues of men under fire not knowing how to load or fire them.

this is largely because there's a shortage of rifles as well and their replacement person says, we will be able to provide m-1's through salvage. when enough guys die in the front line, we will refurbish it and give it to the replacement. general walter raymond dies of a heart attack. this. was astounded by s, that replacements were not properly armed. private gym gaffe of the 35th infantry division encountered a replacement in his squad who had never seen an m-1 grand. he explained, i don't know anything, not even about this rifle they just gave me.

stories like this continue. in november, clayton shepherd, a replacement in the 84th division, claimed that replacement was assigning men to units based on last name. you would not necessarily be assigned with menu new or with whom you trained, but arbitrarily. shepherd said, it's almost as bad to go to replacement centers and get up there fighting. by the time i got up to the front lines, i was about that. all he wanted to do was get over there and shoot. rifle.nded me an m-1 i did not even know what one looked like. gun, gaveme the m-1 me the nomenclature of it, made me shoot it and assemble it, and said, you are a doughboy now. shepherd discovered that he was

then to a mortar men. alone, scared, not fully aware of the situation or the combat role, replacements would make critical errors resulting in their being killed or wounded or leading to the wounding or death of veterans around them. when arthur brown explained, "i was sent in as a replacement on june 12, 1944 to the 12th infantry regiment, fourth division. a lot of replacements died before anyone got to know them. the army neglected to provide its infantry divisions with standard replacement training and integration policies. we will give you the replacements, but what you do with them is up to you. there are no direct replacement systems for how to integrate and train replacements. this meant individual units took

it upon themselves and some took greater care to handle replacements and make them battle ready. some units got guys at night and sent them to the front i would go back to the foxhole next morning and see who was left. other divisions created their own schools behind the line, created a replacement company or a battalion where they would hold replacements out of combat them firele days, let and disassemble their weapons, give them some training, assign them in small groups. the 29th, 36, 1 hundred fourth infantry divisions created comprehensive, effective programs for integrating replacements to send to the front. higher-ups within their replacement system and even in the eto, the war department said, do what the 36th division is doing and spread that information around. they comes from a ground-up approach to integration replacement system.

finally after breaking out of normandy in late july, early august, we have mobile warfare return like an american blitz across france. as a result, casualties in the american army is incurring fewer casualties and it gets the opportunity to catch its breath, so to speak. it is at this point that i will call the casual issue we had. by august, september, units are coming back up to full strength finally. men from the division that stormed the beaches of normandy, some of these guys who were injured or wounded in the first days of combat have now healed and want to return to their units and by august or september.

these units are at full strength, so we will put you guys in replacement instead and then we will assign you to new units. imagine you had been the first division from north africa, sicily, and then d-day. you are told, they have enough replacements now so you will go in the general placement system and be assigned elsewhere. ,e have lots of anecdotes healed and partially healed, casual saying forget this and going awol from the hospital and going back to the front lines with their units before they pushed on or got assigned to another unit as a replacement. 1945 thatmarch eisenhower and shake finally relent, permitting all men to rejoinder units. this is a battle for the duration of the war in europe, casuals from going back

to their units. by august and september, combat observer reports began filtering in two headquarters. combat observers were typically officers rank of colonel who would go around from division ii division, court to corps, army to army, and submit reports on anything. but by september, the replacements that started to receive complaints about unfit and untrained replacements, division commanders complaining that they reduce their unit's fighting effectiveness as well. fin reported. grif on september 2, 1944 that his

replacements were quote, not properly qualified for combat. i think this increases our casualty rate. i cannot trust them lives of men to an officer not trained for his job. reports continuously filter in from october, november. have too few men and the men we have are two green and to untrained -- too green and too untrained. the ninth infantry division would write weekly reports

saying, this is your policy for how to integrate replacements at the company level. it is not coming from the replacement system. the replacement systems objective was, we will get you men in some shape or form with some degree of training and perhaps a weapon. from what you do that -- from aat point on is up to you as division. on 24 october, headquarters 12th the group described quote, increasing concern of commanders over the problem of replacement training. in a recent action, the 28th infantry division received an additional infantry regiment which lost 50% of its strength almost immediately. the major general blamed the losses on the over abundance of new men in the ranks who were unfamiliar with their role and with their officers. the brief respite of august and september and early october of 1944 disappears by november, as

the united states army battles in the forest. at this point and particularly by the bulge in september, here men filteringee and who received some degree of training but were not really fully prepared. this guy is saying, i've been in the infantry two days and i ain't heard a shot. by november and december, we start to see critical manpower shortages. in many cases, new replacement officers needing experienced soldiers. staff sergeant ronald martin was apprehensive when he joined company a, 16th regiment because quote, he had not earned his rank in combat. green firstlt for a or second lieutenant to come in

or even a company commander to come in and take control of a unit. and expect to get the immediate respect from these grizzled veterans. martin's observations of being afraid of the recessions you would receive are well-founded. veterans occasionally resented being led by a replacement. ote,veteran of company b qu looked down on new officers with new uniforms. goldsmith, a sergeant in company e, quote, did not like green non-coms. he thought they should come from the ranks of seasoned men. quote, all lie no, it was my life. when we got new officers, they listen to us or they got knocked on their ass.

this was veterans telling replacement officers, you have the rank, but you don't have the experience. young lieutenants were fine with having a senior nco show them the ropes for a couple of days. the private on the phone says, yes sir, this is the company commander speaking. showing you how severe the manpower crisis had gotten. by late november, is the american infantry divisions are forest,bloodied in the the commander of the 80th infantry division admitted, quote, the replacement problem is one of our most difficult problems. to me, personnel during this war has functioned abominably. we have not heard many voices

from outside the division level. finally by november and december, the higher-ups in the eto, the bradleys, the eisenhower's start to weigh in on this crisis. the lieutenant general omar bradley expressed his concerns of replacement system in late november and early december. ashad served, quote, november passed into december and u.s. casualties mounted,, the pipeline on infantry replacements began to run dry. companies were hard pressed on the line for want of reinforcements. in december, the average division attacked was at 3/4 of its rightful strength, end quote. qualitynot so much the of replacements, but the quantities of replacements. on december 15, the day before the german army launched its groupsfensive, 12th army 31 frontline divisions work

17,000 riflemen under strength. the this insufficient pool, army began scouring the theater for additional sources of manpower. a frustrated bradley lamented, if this were not already strained enough on the bankrupt replacement system, trench foot added almost 12,000 more cases. bradley was a detractor of the replacement system, to say the least. bradley said, hardly had we gained a foothold in france than the theater replacement system became a thorn in our side. we further observed casualties among replacements greatly

exceeded those of veterans on the line. many perished before the morning. some were evacuated even before they learned the names of their sergeants. here we see the issues with integration, replacements. i'm depending on you waldman to be a steady influence on replacements. they have bottles of cognac in their hands. when the system came to its breaking point, and omar bradley find a newwer said, replacement system, you have this cartoon saying, the sergeant and the battalion they have to work out the replacement problem for themselves." you see this hand about two pluck a guy, sending him to the

front lines. what has the replacement system done by this point, by the battle of the bulge, to remedy the situation? not much. i want to just emphasize it was up to the individual divisions and units to figure out for themselves. part of the bulge, the replacement system had taken limited steps to improve training and indoctrination, sent around pamphlets with the soldiers 10 commandments, basic tricks of the trade to health replacement -- help replacements stay alive in combat. could go to the firing range, they could have talks with veterans. again, casuals and replacements were still separated in the because the replacements

were annoyed these veterans were giving these tall tales and basically scaring the wits out of replacements before they even got to the front. this should become so significant that eisenhower weighs in. the war department says, we've got to figure something out. throughout the month of december, the war department and several representatives head back to d.c. to hold a series of conferences. the sides of command in european theater and the war department, everyone agrees the replacement system is broken. it is just a matter of finger pointing where the war department says, we have given you the manpower and you have abused it. the theater says, we are doing as much as we can in the theater. we need more men coming from the states. the war department says, there are no men. no one else is coming. there are more divisions. use whatever resources you have within the eto to fix this

problem. eto commanders realize they would have defined additional sources of manpower within their ranks. issue of "yank" from about that time. a reinforcement who was at a desk at job than being trained as anr 3 weeks infantryman and going to the front lines. the replacement system hastened its conversion of non-infantrymen and riflemen. particularly the 8, 6, sometimes courses, some guys would get 2 weeks of basic training if they had any experience with a rifle. a surplushave been mechanic working on a fighter plane somewhere in france and then you are plucked out and said, you are going to replacement training camp for a

couple of weeks. all these surplus personnel in noncombat roles, are talking upwards of 200,000 for them to be retrained as infantrymen throughout the theater. lieutenant general thomas t. handy, who was the deputy chief of staff of the army, said, "this personnel business is one of the worst headaches we have." department eventually sends him general been leered to take over the manpower section. at this point eisenhower takes over control from the replacement system and creates a separate section within the theater. later let go for albert brown. eisenhower and his staff are really controlling the replacement system from above. convertede's another

tech sergeant. so guy in the corner saying, i smiled and said, you can't spare me, sir. here is a guy who was doing reports behind the line in a foxhole with the grizzled veterans as replacement. month long debate with the staff on december 20 8, 1944, eisenhower issues general order 131. this is the order that is going to pretty much be his statement on the replacement system. i apologize for the poor, old photocopy here. whichever order 131 does informs all unit that quote, the word replacements would be substituted by reinforcements. that is eisenhower's remedy for the replacement issue.

this is based on a report from the war department based in part on a british study that explained quote, replacement indicated expandability, did not foster pride in casuals or a replacement unit overhead, and resulted in personnel being thed forward through replacement system feeling they were orphaned, belonging to no unit, and there were casuals in every sense of the word. you are not replacing someone who died. reinforcement is supposed to improve their morel. -- morale. change of nomenclature did not do much to fix the larger issues at hand. bradley found the idea quote, nonsensical. the remedy for improving morale among replacements lies not in changing the name, but taking every possible step to see they are properly taken care of and they get the feeling that someone is interested in their welfare.

story of thehe replacement is now the story of the reinforcement. this would be a pamphlet that most reinforcements would get. what are the remedies that occur? somee spring of 1945, limited improvements take place. as we mentioned, by december 1944, during the bulge, they are scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel. there's no one else coming. starts department debating its notions of the ideal type soldier. intelligence test requirements are lowered. men with minor physical ailments who were disqualified starts earlier in the war, drafting. in excluded from service 1942 and 1943 are increasingly

finding themselves on the front lines. there are some upper 30-year-old and 40-year-old replacements arriving to the front by then. watershed month when the war department, after significant debate, and i could spend an entire day talking about these dates, but after haggling back and forth the -- thement systems reinforcement command permitted african-americans to volunteer for an infantry retraining program. the initial quota was 2000 men from within the theater, most of them truck drivers or supply personnel. these men would receive basic infantry training and be organized into 40 to 45 african-american platoons.

ground force reinforcement command and european theater of operations u.s. army trained an assigned the african-american reinforcement as platoons. these 48 guys would train together and then they would be assigned together. it's not the individualized system we see with white soldiers. it appears to be an issue of racism. they figured it was safer to train these guys together and send them together. what they found out by doing this is that em who trained togetheren -- men who train together tend to perform better. you have these african-american platoons showing greater combat effectiveness, greater cohesion, and higher morale than individual white replacements who are going into combat. these platoons would serve in white rifle companies with white officers and nco's, commanding

the african troops. african-american volunteers who wanted to volunteer for this program had to take a reduction in rank. an nco had to reduce his rank back to private first class. early days of march after platoons 37 black joined the army groups with more to follow up. the regiment would employ the platoon as a fourth platoon in one of the rifle companies. all this fear of racial uprising on the frontlines dissipates. white soldiers say, we will take anyone. it's a matter of having holes in the line or having african-american platoon. as reports come in that these african-american soldiers are performing remarkably well, the

104th infantry division received platoons on the rhine river. a division reported that quote, their combat record has been outstanding. they have proven themselves to be good soldiers. some are being recommended for a bronze star. the men were secure, aggressive, eager to engage the enemy. they earned the respect of the white infantrymen and their company. commander oferal, the 78th division, was fighting alongside bridgehead when he received his african-american platoon. 99th division utilized its black platoons just as any other platoon. they performed an excellent manner in all times while in combat. these men were courageous fighters. never once did they fail to accomplish their assigned mission. the lieutenant was a white soldier in the 16th division.

after his unit captured, it crossed the rhine river. he remembered, "we crossed the rhine and the blacks fought as well as anybody else and they bled just as red. the best thing about having them in my company was it gave me a fourth rifle platoon to add strength to the company. because they had been together for a while, they function any well as a unit -- pretty well as unit." in 1945 the ground force reinforcement command had not standardized its integration policies, as i mentioned ad nauseam. we start to see some public relations -- skip through this slide -- some public relations efforts to essentially tell the veterans, go easy on the new

guy. this was from earlier in september. basically telling the veterans that the replacement -- this guy just may be off the boat. he's an orphan who has never had a home in the army. take care of them. he's an extra round in your clips. he is an earlier dating on your ticket home. this is what the replacement system starts to do, instead of improving training. take it easy on these guys. the new guy joins the squad. from my experience, i have not read reports from many replacements who encounter these open armed, welcome to the company stories here. i will take it with a grain of salt. more often than not we will send you back in your body bag tomorrow.

the stars wanted to portray a different account. -- stars & stripes wanted to portray a different account. the african-american volunteers are starting to train as platoons. the second infantry division, it is requisitioning replacement from depots. the second infantry division starts creating its own squad and sending its replacements to the front as squads. by march, after three months of doing this, the general in his brief tenure of the army ground what the second division has been doing for several months. he saying, why don't we start organizing white replacements as squads and platoons. even as far back as the united states, they will ship overseas as squad platoons and find individuals piecemeal. these will be cohesive

groupings. you are going to fight more effectively if you are fighting amongst friends. march 10, 1945, the reinforcement command makes its assignment by squad. here on out in the last weeks of the war in europe, each reinforcement company would consist of 200 enlisted men and five officers, with a basic grouping being the group of four. that's kind of the big remedy, and it comes rather late in the war. but i've tried to demonstrate is the replacement system on the whole increase the wars cost both in time and manpower. the war department muddled through the personnel policies.

it never took timely, adequate measures to improve the replacement system. the army belatedly utilized as her-americans placements and in very small numbers. both changes had a positive morale andeplacement divisional performance, but they occurred too late in the war for senior army leadership to evaluate fully their merits. like it works, but too small of a sample size. i argue that the story of the ground force reinforcement command, it is one of poor planning and oversight. as i try to show the individual placement -- all divisions received too few men. the men they received were poorly trained.

became a division to integrate, train, and utilize these replacements. divisions stand out as divisions that really, really cared about the replacement. it's not to say other units did not care about their replacements. certain divisions for whatever reason, whether it's culture, whether his leadership -- certain divisions were better at handling replacements. on the whole, the replacement system, not only the quality but the quantity really tended to reduce the combat's effectiveness. the story of replacement coming to the front lines and dying shortly after entering combat, that does happen in a lot of circumstances. on the whole the infantry

rates thatcasualty taxed cohesion and teamwork reduced combat effectiveness throughout the war. reallylacement system did not do much to alleviate those issues, at least in the european theater of operation. i will leave it at that. thank you for your time. i hope to get some questions. [applause] >> thank you. if you can go back to the slide from whenrocessing they come into the theater of could go ahead with a timeline of that and timestamps of each one of the mark a show in. how long would it take to go through that? mr. klinek: it depends on what stage of the war we are talking about. we are talking december, very quick from the united states, may be a matter of weeks.

i've heard reports of replacements arriving to the front in january, maybe 3 or 4 weeks earlier had sailed out of new york. june or july when the system is just coming online weeks of about 17 basic training in the states and you get two weeks of leave. say roug time on will hly 17 weeks. i would imagine a couple days to a week until you get loaded on your ship and sent transit time, i'm assuming anywhere from a week to two depending on convoys and so forth. at this point going on to the reception depot on the continent, maybe a day or two. this group has a replacement landing in france.

two in the depot where you would get your paperwork checked over and may be issued a weapon and so forth. infantry, you would probably be 12 hours to a day at any one of the stops. infantry moves quickly. if you are artillery, you might be in a stoppage depot for a month. infantry are fast-moving. forward depot, probably there for less than a day. then the battalion will come get you, may be hours, then a replacement company will probably get you for a few hours. maybe the divisional commander will stop by, welcome you. once you get to the combat unit, you might go right into the line or if it is one of these divisions like the 36, they might give you another week or two of training. and incouple months, some cases when the casualties

are low in late summer, it might be several months from the time a guy finished training until he joins a combat unit. there is very little time for training or physical activity. a lot of these guys not only forgot their training, but they were in bad shape. later in the war, a couple weeks total. >> do you think the execution of the private was symptomatic of the replacement problem? also i want to mention the fact -- the problem of replacements did not end at world war ii. i was an infantry replacement in 1969 in march. my company the whole time i was

there was never more than 93 men, which is ridiculous. also there's a problem of what we had in the last cold war, the rotation was just exhausted. i wonder if you can mention all of that, something about that. mr. klinek: i will start from the back and work my way back. military hasates always struggled with what is the ideal replacement system. you can look at the german example in world war ii. the germans leave the unit on the line until it ceases to exist and then they take the few guys left and put them in another unit. the world war ii system is very similar to the world war i system, where pershing is forced to break up a lot of his divisions and use them as individual replacements. in korea we see the same thing. pre-at his move to a poor duty rotation type

-- it's a matter of what works and the type of war we are fighting. we don't normally fight big army wars anymore. a system like this would not really work. my research goes world war i to korea. it's a matter of having this one model and trying to force fit it into three wars. can you remind me of what the first portion was? [inaudible] your question is how this impacts the replacement system? [inaudible]

sure. there are a lot of cases what the army calls combat exhaustion, which we call ptsd. i'm sure it is symptomatic of the system. guys and lot of veterans alike who at that point in the war -- there's a famous saying at that point in the war they are only going home if the war is over, if you are wounded severely enough for you die. for a lot of people, i can't imagine being in a situation like that. a big detractor of the replacement system to be certain, it's more indicative of the fact that there is some issue with men who are untrained. you have issues of guys being released from the hospital to go back as replacements with open wounds or fractures.

a symptom that something is wrong if it gets to that point. possibly address the replacement system at the army air forces in europe? i know very little and i have been doing some preliminary research for going that route next. that always fascinated me. we are talking about the 192 men. it's different from a bomber crew of 10 guys. you have trained with this crew and slept in the same barracks with them for a number of missions. you have three guys coming in and sleeping in the bunks. i have not done much research into that.

that's an area i'm hoping to look into. i think there's a whole social dynamic in a bomber crew that is different from a large ground force. long story short, i don't have the answer as to how that goes, how that works. of doing the problems the research now is so many people who experienced this are no longer here. i have not really heard anything new in what you have said so far. one weakness of what you have said is not extending this debate into a postwar period. this issue of replacements and combat effectiveness caught us to this day, in terms of debates. it is something that happens in the post-vietnam period, in the army, in the question of individual replacements is compared to germans. world war ii veterans get upset about this in the 1980's and reply to these kinds of debates.

to strengthen this argument, it's important to look at it further down the line. how does that affect thinking? secondly, i did not realize there were so many cartoons on this. would be interesting to know what led these division and regimental commanders. we know they did these things in terms of setting up individual schools for these replacements. we don't know enough about what specifically drove that at this point in time. thefinally, the question of african american troops. i know someone at wesley university whose brother was a veteran of these units, was writing a book about this, and unfortunately it's not fleshed out. 200,000 infantry replacements, that is 25.5 infantry division

equivalents of infantry troops that are needed for replacements. the amount of african american troops was only three battalions less. it's an interesting question of how they were trying to deal with it at the time. basing their cost estimates on north africa in itself is quite amazing. who was responsible for that stupidity? the issue with the african-american replacement is is very war department explicit -- at that point there estimates are 10.6% of the entire united states population is african-american, and ofrefore no more than 10.6% the armed forces can be african-american because i don't want to put a disproportionate burden. experiment that looks like it has promise.

department, beetle smith -- you will is what will happen if this is the largest, you will and calls for social change civil rights back home. the war department says, we are not ready to handle that right now. we've got to make sure it stays in proportion. they actually even change the wording of the announcement that goes out. they send out an announcement to african-american units and say, you will be assigned without to race. eisenhower reads that and says, you better rich tract that. this is implying we are going to integrate. all the african-american units at already seen the original by the time it is recalled.

issue. another i have not looked much forward, like what is the endgame for this after korea. as it stands right now it is days.ily world war ii have started working backwards through the debates of the 1930's to world war i. in the a lot of talking war department in the 1930's pershing is a huge critic of the system in world war i. it doesn't work and all these debates in the 30's, this is what we have to avoid in the future war. it's almost the same situation as world war ii. i have some theories as to why that is in you have some senior officers in world war ii who cut their teeth in world war i. left totens of research lot of with this, so a

the talk today was on the divisional level and below. and whatnot been done my study does is he looks at the formulation of this policy and why does this connect between the war department and what is going on on the ground and why is there this in flexibility in the theater? it learns from what happens at normandy and changes. that is where i'm hoping to push in a new direction. warhis is a great global with practically every major military power on earth. are they studying any european or other european systems and learning lessons from them?

the marine corps do it better than the army? >> as far as i can tell, i've read through some of the studies and the army is really focusing on focusing on the world war i experience. those of you who know venice showalter and he said many times that the army is accessed with post-world war ii and why it lost, so there is a turned to see what the german system was short, theng story germans didn't have a replacement so to speak. it just let the divisions eat ground. i haven't looked too much into the marine corps.

mariness i know, the have a similar individual replacement system. if there were similar anecdotes, they point to a trend but i have similar issues with the marine corps. as for the structure and function, i have not looked much and that. >> any idea how it was handled in the pacific and how the dominions handled it? >> haven't looked too much into the british situation. know, the system on a whole is largely similar. they would have had the divisions to rotate in and out of combat.

the nature of combat in the pacific is different in that you are not in constant combat. they are pretty much in the line without exception. nature of fighting with island hopping as you might have a brutal campaign and go back to australia or new zealand and at that point, you can integrate replacements and there's not as much feeding into the combat. by fighting a war over thousands of miles and ocean, you are afforded that ability. europe, you are on the line. >> some idea how the officers and others coped with the dissension, which all by itself -- obviously widespread everywhere. this then

?ncorporated it's like it's never mentioned. do you mean replacement officers? starting from the top, eisenhower is frustrated this is an issue and is frustrated the war department is saying this is on your and, so eisenhower takes strong action and one of his deputy commanders is simultaneously deputy theater says there is a conflict of interest having someone's let command so eisenhower brings in somerville

and ben leer and says lear is my hatchet man. almost like executive order coming down from eisenhower. commanders tend to be more upset with the system itself. eisenhower tends to be upset with the war department and that reflects back down below. division commanders are saying it's not working and company commanders are frustrated and at their wits end. best.of them try their they don't want to see guys killed and a try to best to enact a buddy system where a replacement might be teamed up with a veteran and show him the ropes. read, i wouldve not want to be a replacement commander coming in. a lot of guys who are received the senior nco, it is

your company for now and you show me the ropes. respect ando earn some replacements who perform well with them a couple of days equip themselves well and they are fine. they are goingay to prove themselves and make much ofistakes -- too auto, so to speak. even ambrose talks about it. peter menzel are talks about it that where i try to be different today,he line, my talk the other part of my study is

trying to bridge the gap between the war department and that has not been done as much. there's an issue known in the war department before d-day and use inaccuratee statistics. that is where i want to finish the gap. why are they forced to do that? that's where i'm trying to open up some new grounds. one, was the replacement system sort of a long-range reaction to the way soldiers were recruited during where you have military units of men from the same town and whole communities were virtually wiped out, which i assume was a horrible morale

problem and they think it was better that people came from all over the country? number two, talking about stephen ambrose, i heard a number of years ago he was asked about private slovak and said the important thing to remember is germany had their private slovak, 50,000 times more. just an issue of the replacement system, it's a desire to prevent communities from being wiped out. if you are raising a company or , ifmen in your town or area you have men of a particular age , the bedford boys during world war ii, the army tries to get

away from that before replacement issues come into play. the 1940's, the national guard is inducted into federal service and you have the pennsylvania national guard and they start to fill out the rest of the divisions. they have a staff and a cadre of officers and start to flesh it out. it is at this point that the war department and different draft boards try to give a national flavor, so to speak. longere saying it is no a pennsylvania unit. obliterated, you have a lot of pennsylvanians individualstop the

90lacement, it's just divisions with no ability to ship new divisions and it is rather late in the war. it is the only recourse left. it does have the unintended effect of spreading out the burden. >> [inaudible] different command halter and command structure. raising an army by democratic means versus a totalitarian state. >> there were two factors not directly involved. one you mentioned was generally.

he had 100,000 men in paris and nobody wanted to mess with them. not eisenhower, not marshall, but everyone came in. he didn't take that egg port by amsterdam as quickly as he should have and what i have read, there were infantry divisions to be sent to the front but they could not supply them, so they were not sent to the front as soon as they could have. >> john ch lee said except for jesus christ himself, he was a big personality and a lot of people didn't want to mess with them. theaterwo commands in and people are saying his deputy is going toander

make sure he is feeding his units first, so to speak. that is why eisenhower tries to bypass them, bringing in his hatchet man. assuming we are talking about market garden in the follow-up to that. there are units stateside and i had to pick and choose. does hasten the shipment of several units later that fall and winter that were limitedd, but it is a capacity. justbal war, sometimes you don't have the ships available. that are so many divisions

say we cannot organize more divisions. hopingssible they were to get a water port closer to germany. the best they get and you are asll having guys coming in late as september and october, guys are coming across the normandy beaches but we are already in germany. there's limited shipping capacity and eisenhower starts debating cannibalizing some divisions for an emergency procedure and using this regiment as a replacement. that is what pershing ends up doing and it's just a terrible waste of manpower to have units break apart.

>> one of the other factors that might have involved is the british experience in the first the irish were an excellent italian but 80% of them died, so when the whole neighborhood goes out -- >> the army's concept -- that's the reason 6% of the armed forces could be african-american. cause someg to political issues back home. i have written dozens of pages on the statistical debates and there are all of these considerations going in with the equitable distribution of burden and suffering. read monographs on the

german replacement army. did not whenates world war ii. we were the winners but we did not win it and i have argued before we entered the war. certainly by the summer of 44 and the conclusion i came to is the german system used a regionally based system and when you got wounded, you went back to your own district and then back to your own unit. wasfact we did not do that criminally negligent. i was in the 101st as a a matternt and this is of accountability and criminality at the highest level. we could not do what the germans did because most of our training

seems to have been based in the south. we did not have major facilities -- i am from pennsylvania and there was something like that with the national guard units, that the army high command arbitrarily chose not to adopt it. that's going to be a job for you to explain why. you have the skill and efficiency and motivation. the system we use diminished , skill because you used untrained people and motivation when you had unnecessary casualties. so accountability is what i came up with. you agree entirely and phrased morse a the answer i was trying to make earlier with what is new about this as we know what happened on the front line.

what i'm asking is why and how did it get to this. omarot a huge fan of bradley but i do agree on this andhe system was bankrupt it was almost broken from its conception. line butits on the just by saying units are on the line is just whitewashing. i think a lot of people tend to equate victory with effectiveness. you can win by ineffective means or contribute to victory with ineffective means. 90can get away with divisions because the soviets are going to bear the brunt. >> i enjoyed your presentation. well informed and nicely presented. congratulations. my question is with these young

lieutenants coming in to leave grizzled soldiers who have been fighting for three years, was there a high degree of fracking? >> not that i have seen in the report. probably gloss over that if that were the case. the issue is different here -- vietnam, few are on a tour of duty and you have 30 days to go, you are probably going to have that timeline and the trying to reduce risk. people are going to resent officers of you know you're going out on patrol next week. they are there for better or worse until the end. it is not so much that as there's an extremely high casualty rate among these green

junior officers coming in trying their best but don't know what they are doing. it doesn't mean it didn't not,n, but more than junior officers are willing to doing. know what you are teach me. better than the guy fresh out of the replacement transmitter. that doesn't go over well. >> general leslie mcnair. i think his title as the head of operations -- he was killed and wasperation cobra bombed by our own bombers. studied any if you hehis thinking, but did understand this might occur?

>> yes. biography that just came out last year sitting on my shelf. mcnair is largely responsible for the reorganization of the infantry division going from a square division to a triangular division. weight was supposed to work is self reporting and self replacing. three infantry's upfront, one in reserve and then rotate in your division as need be. what happens by july 44 is all three regiments seem to be up on the line and that tends to reduce the fighting power. the reorganization makes it shrink by about 15,000 men. thes very much aware of manpower crisis and is a detractor of the program that is

taking men out and putting them in college. he is concerned with having an efficient and effective fighting force just as these replacement .ssues begin to occur in july observing and is bombed by our own. he's aware there is a problem as early as 33 and 34. hard to say if he saw it was near a breaking point. you lecture talking about the new be experience people and with the social of movement of african-americans serving, i have heard of the push of them serving. was the resentment on the front

the by the caucasians that african-americans were not on the front lines? if you come across this? >> there are several studies -- ulysses lee wrote a book on african-american soldiers. there have been some others. that.is research on ad don't think it was even consideration for men on the front because it was known that african-americans wouldn't fight. back until the push they start to push themselves. there are two african-american infantry divisions in the war of the 92nd and 93rd that served in

the mediterranean theater in south pacific. on the whole, it wasn't even much of a consideration on the front. these platoons were somewhat insulated by serving within the country kind of avoided that issue. into -- individual african americans are going to replace them. your buddy dies and they make it clear this is not a social experience -- social experiment. say this is a matter of necessity. that significant of a number but you have to take

these reports with a grain of salt. you are not going to say we were terrible in battle. you are going to find the positive. in cases of racial virus -- violence, i've find it hard to believe the white guys went over african-american replacements. they need theyt man power, they bleed just as red as we do, so we will take them. it's like what happens in france during world war i. we won't take it -- race certainly is a factor but the cohesiveness of these units has significant explanatory power. there's really not resentment

that the reports indicate. did, but the report doesn't say that. thank you very much. [applause] >> next saturday, march 19, american history tv will be live from ford's theatre in washington, d.c., where john wilkes booth shot abraham lincoln in april, 1865. ford's the error the abraham lincoln institute's hold -- is hosting a symposium on the president life and legacy. the views oncuss emancipation and reconstruction. that is next saturday live on c-span three's american history

tv. what is so unusual is if i can be sassy for a second, to have a professional and personal partnership over more than 15 years is a really unusual thing. temperament and great vision is something i'd don't have and spend time on. to the very closely grand side of the information. "q&a" -- aon discussion about upcoming plans to move to israel. >> we were bureau chiefs in moscow and i've overseen things together before but we have in israelt any time and i think we are looking forward to learning a lot.

it is so much of a vital part of today's issues but we have never lived there on the ground. >> i will be changing roles and continuing at political -- politico helping to lead our growth. internationally just this past year, we launched in europe and we are looking at creating and launching new things. i came to start politico i think it has been a really exciting, new platform to take us into ambitious, longform reporting in the war of ideas. >> monday on "the communicators was quote -- a vivus in cyber security lawyer and privacy

director for the consumer watchdog discuss how and whether the fcc should develop regulations for the internet. the ftc can no longer regulate that one access provider or telecommunications nowice divider so there is a rulemaking coming up where the fcc will decide what to put in place in lieu of or perhaps replicating the ftc rules under the new authority. existed inthe rules the world of telephones. now that they have extended by isps,sification to cover

they have to come up with rules that are appropriate to the rules of the internet and not just to telephones. >> each week, american history america" help tell the story of american history. gemini eight lasted off with asterisk neil armstrong and david scott on board. it was the sixth command mission of the gemini program and one of its objectives was to rendezvous and dock with the regina spacecraft. this is a 25 minute nasa film telling the story of the docking with another craft in space and equipment failures that caused the gemini capsule to violently tumble in space. the astronauts were a force -- were forced to return to earth 10 hours after blastoff.