COMBAT-READY FORCE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28936, 2 July 1959, Page 3

COMBAT-READY FORCE

Division Airborne In Two Hours

IFmm a Reuter Correspondent) FORT BRAGG (North Carolina)

The United States Strategic Army Corps which operates from here, is now able to begin to move an airborne division to any trouble spot in any part of the world within two hours.

This “flying fire brigade,” as it has been called,, claims that a full division can be set down anywhere in six days and three divisions within 25 days. The Strategic Army Corps, a four-division combat-ready force’, has been specially built up by the United States Army to deal with potential or actual “limited wars.” More than 45,000 troops, most of them in a state of combat readiness. are constantly undergoing the United States Army’s most rigorous training in a camp 30 miles long and 14 miles wide. Thes? are the American parachutists and airborne infantrymen who would form the spearhead of their country’s land effort in any future conflict. Major-General Robert Sink, commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, believes lhat if the corps had existed at the time, it “could have ended the Korean War quickly ”

Parachutists take a four-week training course at Fort Bragg aimed at making them supremely tough. The first week of the course is devoted solely to tests of their mental and physical condition. Then follows a fortnight’s instruction in basic jumping techniques before they make five airborne descents in the last week The combat-ready strength of the Strategic Army Corps is always available for rapid movement, to reinforce United States forces already abroad, or to deal promptly with trouble in an unguarded or lightly held spot Its specific missions is to “stay loose’’ until committed to action somewhere in the world and its motto is drawn from its initials, STRAC: “Skilled, Tough. Ready. Around the Clock.”

Although untried id conflict. Strategic Army Corps officers claim that the “Nixon Operation” of last year proved the strategic mobility of the force. On May 13. 1958, an emergency developed out of the serious disorders by mobs in Caracas. Venezuela, during the visit by the United States VicePresident, Mr Richard Nixon The United States Government considered that a Communist revojt against the Venezuelan authorities was developing so President Eisenhower called on the Army to move into positions to help the Venezuelan Government if necessary The corps acted at once and within two hours 45 minutes, two companies, comprising almost 500 officers and men, were on their way to Puerto Rico to stand by in readiness

Like the Strategic Air Command. the United States Army’s Strategic Army Corps is aimed principally at deterring aggression Members of it, whether officers or men, know that there is no substitute for constant readiness and superb rpund-the-clock efficiency