Page:Airmobility 1961-1971.pdf/68

would be progressively expanded to full strength beginning in Fiscal Year 1964.

Within the Army staff there was considerable anxiety that the Army would be pushed into joint testing of these new organizations before they were sufficiently organized and trained. General Barksdale Hamlett, then Vice Chief of Staff, stated on 11 February 1963 that his chief concern at the moment was whether the Army would "be permitted to pursue an orderly program without being forced into premature joint testing." He believed that "within our airmobile concept the principal targets for the opposition appeared to be the Mohawk, the Caribou, and the armed helicopter together with our plans for the utilization of these aircraft." Later events were to prove that General Hamlett's concern was well founded.

Those who were assigned to the new test units throughout the year and a half of the formation and testing of the 11th Air Assault Division and the 10th Air Transport Brigade almost universally regarded this period as one of the high points of their lives. It was one of the few times in the Army up until that point in time that a group of officers and men have been pulled together with the job of developing and proving a concept with very little in the way of approved doctrine, systems, equipment, methods of operations, and any of the vast documentation and regulations which normally prescribe the formation of new military organizations. For example, at the time of the formation of the 11th Air Assault Division, it was actually against Army regulations for helicopters to fly in formation except under the most unusual circumstances. The infantryman had to adjust to new methods of entering into combat and new tactics and techniques of closing with the enemy. The artillery man had to provide his proven support with new airmobile artillery and aerial rocket artillery. The aviation elements had to broaden their training to include much work in the nap-of-the-earth, formation flying, night formations, jury rigging of weapons on Hueys and Mohawks, and forward area refueling. It was a time of innovation at all levels.

Brigadier General Harry W.O. Kinnard had been selected to lead the 11th Air Assault Division during this critical period. He in turn handpicked his key personnel and gave them the widest latitude in accomplishing their particular portion of the mission. Commanders at all levels were free to pursue vigorously any advancement of the airmobile concept as they say it. At division headquarters, General Kinnard established "an idea center" to insure that any suggestion however bold or radical would receive careful and detailed consideration. Civilian industry was briefed on the