General Adna R. Chaffee Jr.

Charles Ward | May 30, 2006  | 0 comments  | Print  | E-mail

Gentlemen,

I was wondering if any future issues might have an article on Gen. Chaffee Jr., and his role in the development of America’s Armored Forces?

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Thanks very much. We don’t have any plans at the moment to do an article on Gen. Chaffee, but he was certainly an important figure in the development of the US Army’s armored force that fought WWII. Tragically, he died of cancer before he saw the performance of the armored force in WWII. However, some of his disciples, including BG Bruce C. Clarke, the hero of St. Vith during the Battle of the Bulge, used the organization and principles developed by Gen. Chaffee to great success in Europe in WWII.

When I interviewed Gen. Clarke, he spoke very highly of Gen. Chaffee and attributed much of the success of the US armored force to Chaffee’s hard work in putting it together and testing it in the Louisiana Maneuvers (1941). At one point near the culmination of the maneuvers, Clarke was with Gen. Chaffee when news came in that one of their armored forces had succeeded in getting behind the ‘enemy’ force. Clarke said Chaffee shouted, "Clarke! We’ve won!", meaning had they not only won the tactical problem of the maneuvers, but that by doing so they had ’saved’ the armored force from being taken over by the infantry in the reorganizations leading up to the war.

Jerry Morelock
Managing Editor/Senior Historian
Armchair General Magazine

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