Operation Gyroscope
Operation Gyroscope was a
Background
Retention problems
Following the end of the Korean War, the United States Army found itself facing massive retention problems, failing to retain experienced enlisted soldiers in service due to the army being comparatively unattractive compared to civilian careers. Manpower requirements could be filled by the draftees of the Selective Service System, but they had only a two-year service obligation and little incentive to remain in the army, and even those who enlisted voluntarily did not re-enlist in quantities high enough to meet the demands of the army. The issues of retention especially affected specialized branches that required advanced training such as radar technicians, aircraft mechanics, and signal troops.[1]
Retention problems further increased instability and inefficiency within the army, as every year large quantities of replacements needed to be trained and sent to their permanent duty stations in order to compensate for the equally vast numbers of those returning for discharge. As a result of the manpower shortage, in 1954, a career soldier might have only six months stateside between foreign tours, and there were units with 70% personnel turnover. The situation was exemplified by the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, where in 1954 and 1955 the division was short by at least 1,000 personnel and had 4,000 soldiers nominally on the rolls but in fact either transferring into or out of the unit, in addition to having only 108 out of 882 authorized officers. Such turbulence made it difficult to train and as a result its commander described the situation as essentially "garrison duty."[1] High personnel turnover was inherent in the individual replacement system used by the army, leading to a complete change in unit personnel over three years.[2] The individual replacement system thus required the Army to maintain excess manpower to compensate for soldiers in transit between stations and low retention rates.[3]
In an attempt to solve the retention problem, senior army officers sought a solution in the replacement of the individual replacement system with one based on unit rotation. Before World War II, soldiers would spend their entire careers in the same unit, thus creating a "surrogate family" that generated strong
Development and proposed benefits
Ridgway, a strong believer in the importance of esprit de corps and the prewar traditional regimental culture, opposed the individual replacement system. Through a unit rotation system, he argued, career soldiers could make long-term plans and have relative stability and would have greater incentives for self-improvement if promotion did not entail leaving their comrades; most importantly in his opinion, the system would keep morale high.
Planners intended that under Gyroscope, an individual soldier would be with the same unit for most of his career and spend an equal amount of time stationed in CONUS and overseas, and would be able to move stations together with his family to avoid long separations that damaged troop morale. Such stability was anticipated to lead to increased unit cohesion and thus higher retention rates, decreasing the costs of training caused by the frequent personnel turnover and improving efficiency.
Implementation
Year | CONUS division (station) | OCONUS division (station) |
---|---|---|
1955 | 10th Infantry (Ft. Riley) | 1st Infantry (Germany) |
1956 | 11th Airborne (Ft. Campbell) | 5th Infantry (Germany) |
1956 | 3rd Armored (Ft. Knox) | 4th Infantry (Germany) |
1956 | 2nd Infantry (Ft. Lewis) | 71st Infantry (Alaska) |
1956 | 8th Infantry (Ft. Carson) | 9th Infantry (Germany) |
1958 | 4th Armored (Ft. Hood) | 2nd Armored (Germany) |
1958 | 3rd Infantry (Ft. Benning) | 10th Infantry (Germany) |
In Little Gyroscope, the 216th Field Artillery Battalion and 156 wives and children were transported to Germany aboard the
Initial reports boded well for the future of the program, with one division commander reporting that career soldiers were volunteering on their own initiative for the previously unpopular duty of recruit training and also "writing detailed instructions to help the incoming unit." Another officer found that the system cultivated a "sense of belonging" within soldiers as they now remained with the same unit throughout service. The units part of the Gyroscope program were not only re-equipped but also were intended to have higher personnel quality.
In order to meet army requirements, the program was modified so that when the 11th Airborne Division rotated into Germany from Fort Campbell, its replacement 5th Infantry Division went to Fort Ord instead so that Fort Campbell could be used for the experimental Reorganization of The Airborne Division (Pentomic airborne) division. The program was used outside of Europe, with the 2nd Infantry Division sent to Alaska in 1956 to replace the 71st Infantry Division, which was reflagged as the 4th Infantry Division.[3] Although not initially envisaged under Gyroscope, the rotation of nondivisional combat support units such as field artillery, signals, engineering and transportation battalions and even companies was implemented in 1956. USAREUR assessed in its 1957 report on Gyroscope that the rotation of battalions and companies was much less difficult since the strain on logistics increased proportionately with unit size.[11]
Demise
Despite the initial popularity of Gyroscope among soldiers, it could not survive the effects of the New Look army personnel reductions and lack of long-term support from the Department of the Army. Although forces in Europe lost only 28,000, the army was reduced by 210,000 between 1955 and 1958 and then CONUS forces were furthered stretched by the creation of the Strategic Army Corps by General Maxwell D. Taylor, who replaced Ridgway as army chief of staff in mid-1955. This committed the army to maintaining an additional four-combat ready CONUS divisions for overseas rapid response commitments. By 1958, there were not enough stateside counterparts available for rotations with the divisions in Germany. The problem was compounded by Taylor's simultaneous Pentomic reorganization, which resulted in smaller divisions with different logistical requirements being sent overseas. The Pentomic reorganization broke up regiments in order to optimize the army for nuclear war, contradicting Gyroscope goals of building unit cohesion and tradition. With contrasting imperatives and budget constraints, the Army leadership was forced to choose between a system that served its bureaucratic and organizational needs and one that theoretically benefited the individual soldier. Further contributing to the end of the program were optimistic assessments that supported the belief that morale and retention had improved enough that the army could be draft only the best out of each draft class. Such assessments relied on selective interpretation of data, exemplified by Taylor's claim in a 1956 speech that retention had jumped from 17 to nearly 60 percent, even though in this figure he counted those who enlisted to pursue reserve rather than active duty careers.[6]
In addition to the effects of organizational changes, Gyroscope ultimately failed to deliver on its promised benefits. The three-year deployment system conflicted with the two-year Selective Service obligation, forcing the army into a mixed rotation system in which draftees did not train with the unit that they served with. The program failed to change behavioral issues in the army, with no effect on court-martial incidences[spelling?] during the program and continuing incidents that aroused negative publicity among the German press. The army broke its promises to career soldiers, with family housing at Fort Riley found to be cramped and deteriorating by the 1st Infantry Division. Meanwhile, 10th Infantry Division's married soldiers found out on short notice that a lack of dependent housing in Germany meant that they would have to either transfer or leave their families behind stateside. Army requirements quickly forced a rethinking of promises to keep Gyroscope units at permanent stations, with the 10th Infantry Division told that they would not be coming back to Fort Riley after returning from Germany in three years. Instead of preserving unit integrity, staff officers both stateside and in Germany reassigned the troops of rotating divisions to other units; an officer of the 4th Infantry Division recalled that by the time it reached its stateside station of Fort Lewis the division had been "completely wrecked and left with nothing" by this practice.[6]
Senior officers ultimately perceived Gyroscope as wasteful and expensive. Barksdale Hamlett, who commanded the 10th Infantry Division in Germany, concluded that regardless of the program benefits to overseas divisions, it "ruined [CONUS units]: we just didn't have anything left over here." Melvin Zais, who served both stateside and in Germany during Gyroscope, described the situation as "a mess" in which the enlisted requisitioning system "went to hell, and the replacement system was inefficient and couldn't respond," while the officer replacement system was similarly affected. William Westmoreland, then Secretary of the General Staff, opposed unit rotation as disruptive to orderly career soldier progression.[6]
The last divisional exchange was in 1958 when the 3rd Infantry Division replaced the 10th Infantry Division in Germany, and after a short-lived effort to rotate battalions and battle groups the program was terminated on 1 September 1959 on the recommendation of United States Army Europe commander General Clyde D. Eddleman, who argued that other replacement systems were superior and involved less disruption; the army returned to the previous individual replacement system.[3]
References
Citations
Bibliography
- Carter, Donald A. (2015). Forging the Shield: The U.S. Army in Europe, 1951–1962 (PDF). Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. ISBN 978-0-16-092754-6.
- Lane, David A. (6 September 1957). Operation Gyroscope in the United States Army, Europe. Historical Division, Headquarters, United States Army Europe.
- Lewis, Adrian R. (2018). The American culture of war: the history of U.S. military force from World War II to Operation Enduring Freedom (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-84506-4.
- Linn, Brian McAllister (2016). Elvis's Army: Cold War GIs and the Atomic Battlefield. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674737686.
- Segal, David R. (1989). Recruiting for Uncle Sam: Citizenship and Military Manpower Policy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0700605495.
- Wilson, John B. (1998). Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades (PDF). Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. OCLC 30625000.
External links
- The short film Big Picture: Operation Gyroscope is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.