Manuevers: Louisiana



In the autumn of 1943, the time came for testing, i.e., maneuvers in Louisiana. It was the first time a light division had participated in a maneuver and detailed problems remained to be solved. Amongst the larger were the hungry razorback hogs, which were ever-present. On November 28, the so-called flag exercises, in which flags operated by the umpires represented the enemy, opened the first phase of the Fifth Louisiana Maneuver period. Four months after reactivation the 89th Light Division was functioning and completed three more flag exercises before the first maneuver phase ended December 9. One week later, 89th opened the real maneuver: the two-sided phase. The 89th and the 9th Armored Divisions with attached troops formed the Red force opposing the 86th and 97th Divisions with attached troops as the Blue forces. Many critical lessons were learned, e.g., a wide front was not practical for a light division, either on offence or defense. A little more than one year later they were also to enter combat in Germany at almost the same time.

On December 19, 89ers entered the third phase of maneuvers, which lasted until the 22nd. The weather grew steadily worse. The men were dirty and tired; their faces smudged black from pitch-pine campfires authorized during the breaks. Troops found it increasingly difficult to pull carts through the deepening Louisiana gumbo and keep up with standard infantry divisions. With the worst weather seen there in sometime, Christmas was not a happy one. The subsequent fourth problem proved that the Division could march over 20 miles per day on fine roads but on the fifth maneuver, the same difficulty as before was encountered, i.e., that of a light division on foot keeping up with standard infantry divisions. The sixth and last exercise, the attack of a river line, included two distinct operations: the crossing of the Sabine River into and back out of Texas. Of this operation the Third Army critique declared that the Division's river crossing was the swiftest and most effective of any comparable operation in the history of the maneuver area.

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