Edward L. Rowny
all intents and purposes, General Howze actually commandedthe troops of the 82d
Airborne through me as his director of tests.
Q ..
What kind of tests did Howze carry out?
A
General Howze was given authority from the Secretary of the Army to assemble
all of the Army's helicopters from the United States at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
We tested helicopters in nuclear situations, in "sky cavalry- roles for land warfare,
and in counterinsurgency operations.
This first-named role was a concept I had developed when I was an instructor at
the Infantry School in 1952, The notion was to simulate dropping an atomic
weapon in the enemy's rear. While the enemy was still stunned, our troopers
were to hop out of their helicopters into the area where the burst had occurred.
They were to wear protective suits to protect them from the radiation of the atomic
burst. At Benning I had called this the "swarm of bees" concept.
The second idea was to use helicopters in air cavalry roles. We were to do with
helicopters the kind of things General Stonewall Jackson had done in the Civil War
with horse cavalry and General Patton had done in World War II with tanks. The
Army had gotten too laden down with equipment and we wanted to see if we could
make Army units lighter and thus more mobile.
The third concept we worked on was how one might use helicopters in
counterinsurgency operations. This was becoming popular because we were at that
time in the early stages of the Vietnam War. I had experimented with this type of
operation in Korea. As a result, the largest segment of our tests had to do with
how best to use regular troops in irregular counterinsurgency operations.
Our tests proved beyond a doubt that the use of helicopters in counterinsurgency
was here to stay. But the concept became highly controversial from the beginning.
General Howze recommended that the Army form five air assault divisions, three
air cavalry combat brigades, and five air transport brigades. This was an
unpopular idea in the Pentagon because the people around the chief of staff of the
Army were, for the most part, armor officers. They felt that every helicopter
introduced into the Army would mean one less tank. As a result, they opposed the
concept.
Moreover, the Air Force and the Navy vigorously fought the concept. The Air
Force felt that helicopters were usurping their mission of close air support. The
Navy believed the air mobility concept spelled the death of aircraft carriers, that
helicopters would replace carrier--based aircraft. General Earle "Bus" Wheeler,
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