JANUARY 10, 1963
General Earle Wheeler, army chief of staff, summoned to his office Brigadier General Harry Kinnard, assistant division commander of the 101st Airborne.
“Harry,” Wheeler said, “I want you to determine how far and how fast the army can go and should go in embracing the airmobile concept.”
To accomplish this, Kinnard was to create an airmobile division at Fort Benning, Georgia—the 11th Air Assault Division (Test)—and use it to explore the issues and problems posed by the Howze Board recommendations.
A West Point graduate, Kinnard had parachuted into both Normandy and Holland during World War II as a battalion commander with the 101st Airborne. He earned the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest medal for valor, and was promoted to full colonel at age twenty nine. He developed a strong interest in the helicopter and its potential the first time he saw one.
He began building his airmobility test unit from a base of three thousand soldiers, one-fifth the strength of a combat-ready division, and 125 helicopters. Some of the men had never even seen a helicopter. Training texts did not exist and there was no SOP, standard operating procedure. The division had to work out methods of communications, modes of formation flying, and countless other basics—how to lash down cargo, how to disperse troops onto a landing zone, how to rappel from a helicopter by rope, how to achieve surprise, how to deal with antiaircraft fire, how to refuel in the field.
The standard drill he and his subordinates worked out aimed for maximum shock effect. It began with artillery and air strikes softening up the LZ—landing zone—prior to the insertion of troops. As troopships headed into the LZ, artillery stopped firing and rocket-firing gunships took over in air support of the landing. Other helicopters picked up and shifted artillery as needed to more advantageous positions. Still other choppers resupplied troops, evacuated wounded, brought in replacements, and extracted the force when it finished its work. The airmobile commander directed all these activities from a control helicopter flying three thousand feet above the fray.
A new generation of rotor-winged aircraft began to arrive even as the test division worked out tactics. The twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook supplied an unprecedented degree of heft. It could haul forty-four battle-ready soldiers or carry a 105mm howitzer, plus ammunition, slung underneath its belly. The UH-1 Iroquois helicopter, soon to be known simply as “Huey,” provided the bulk of the unit’s capability. A smaller, more nimble, more versatile bird, it carried eight combat-equipped soldiers along with a crew of four airmen, hauled equipment and supplies, and could be rigged into a gunship to support ground forces.
Kinnard conducted a long series of field tests throughout 1963 and 1964. They climaxed in one of the largest post–World War II “war games” maneuvers ever staged in the United States. The thirty-day trial, held during October and November 1964 in the Carolinas, pitted the 11th Air Assault against the 82d Airborne, reinforced. It began with some initial sparring, followed by both offensive and defensive phases. On deep penetration raids, helicopters roared in just above the treetops, hit the opposition guerrilla-style, then withdrew just as quickly, only to strike again and again. On the defense against heavily armed ground troops, airmobile forces melted back while counterpunching with gunships.
Referees were impressed. Regardless of the tactical situation, the airmobile division proved it could seek out an enemy over a large area and then rapidly bring together the necessary firepower and troops to defeat him. While the division’s ground mobility was not particularly good and its vulnerability to armor was something of a problem, Kinnard’s “Sky Soldiers,” as they called themselves, could simultaneously fight in several directions, could react quickly, and could carry out operations at an amazingly high tempo.
Army recommended that the test division be moved to the active list. On June 28, 1965, the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) was deactivated; men and equipment were transferred to the 1st Division, now to be known as the 1st Air Cavalry Division.
Mere weeks before this transaction, General William Westmoreland, commander in Vietnam, reported that the enemy’s spring offensive had been devastating. South Vietnam, he said, could not on its own “stand up successfully to this kind of pressure.” President Lyndon Johnson responded by deploying 200,000 combat troops to Southeast Asia. General Kinnard received orders to prepare his 16,000-soldier force for deployment. The 1st Air Cav, whose four hundred helicopters exceeded the total number of aircraft possessed by South Vietnam at the time, would be the first full-strength army division to go to Vietnam.