________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
The 237th Engineer Battalion, which had previously been left to the rear area, I assigned to
be the new battalion in direct support of the 3d Infantry Division. The 82d Engineer
Battalion, which had supported both the 2d Armored Cav and the 1st Armored Division, I
assigned just to the Cav because of its very large border and forward area responsibilities.
Then I had the 78th Engineer Battalion take up direct support to the 1st Armored Division.
So, with the exception of the 82d, which had supported the Cav and was still supporting the
Cav, I had a new challenge for each battalion. There was nothing old, nothing routine
remaining. They each had a whole new mission area and combat unit to support. They had to
go out and generate all of the things they needed to do to provide that support, and nobody
could sit back on their heels and do business as usual. They all had to go out and create it
new. I thought that was a rather opportune thing for me to have--to be able to have them all
out doing that kind of invigorating change.
Q:
As this new planning went along, how did engineer capabilities measure up to the
requirements that were being placed on them?
A:
Well, we were quite short in terms of capabilities. Of course, the entire warfight is predicated
on reinforcement from the United States, and so you get into the entire reinforcement
picture--that is, how much do you have, how much is in POMCUS [pre-positioning of
materiel configured to unit sets], fighting capability, and on back to the capability of reserve
forces and the issue of activating the reserves. So, it's pretty difficult to describe things like
shortfalls except in terms of the first day of the fight, second day of the fight, tenth day of the
fight, first day of reinforcement, or however that comes about, because it's an over-time kind
of thing. Even as we drew the war plans up for that time frame, we put contingencies in the
war plans. In the VII Corps plan we called for the return of engineer battalions to be released
by a division on order. That was a recognition that we really had placed all of our Corps
combat elements forward in the divisional areas and had relatively little in the Corps' rear.
I remember well we told General Webb of the 1st Armored Division that he got the 78th
Engineer Battalion initially, but on order, Corps would pull them from him. He said, "No, I
have to have that engineer battalion all the time. Everybody knows you have got to have a
divisional battalion plus one more--you can't pull them away." So, in the strong debates that
followed about that, my pitch to the Corps commander was, "That's true, everything he says
is true, and we want to give it to him, but we do have a Corps' rear area. You may have
difficulty, as Corps commander, ensuring your other folks are supported, and I may have
difficulty in keeping the main supply route open to the divisions without some capability."
We needed a string to be able to pull back capability if need be.
We were right in putting them forward initially. War plans would dictate we might have so
many days' advance notice, which means we may well have so many days of putting in
obstacles. Then our capability should be forward, putting in those obstacles, and then after
the fight begins, once other engineer missions in the rear area--that's not engineer missions
just as engineer missions, but our engineer missions derived out of cut main supply routes
and damages in the Corps' rear--become critical, then you have to divert capability. That's
the time then you would pull it back and balance capabilities against requirements.
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