Corps area


A Corps area was a geographically-based organizational structure of the United States Army used to accomplish administrative, training and tactical tasks from 1920 to 1942. Each corps area included divisions of the Regular Army, Organized Reserve and National Guard of the United States. Developed as a result of serious mobilization problems during World War I, this organization provided a framework to rapidly expand the Army in time of war or national emergency such as the Great Depression.
The nine corps areas, created by the War Plans Division under authority of United States War Department General Order No. 50 on 20 August 1920, had identical responsibilities for providing peacetime administrative and logistical support to the army's mobile units as was provided by the six territorial "Departments" they replaced. In addition, the corps areas took on the responsibilities for post and installation support units created during World War I. Corps areas had the added responsibility for planning and implementing mobilization plans for all Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserve mobile units in their respective geographic areas; the development and administration of hundreds of new Organized Reserve and Reserve Officers Training Corps units; and managing the personnel records for thousands of Reserve officers, enlisted personnel, ROTC cadets, and Citizens Military Training Camp candidates.
The composition of the corps areas divided the United States geographically by state lines and population density into nine multi-state area commands roughly equal in population. Each corps area was responsible for organizing two tactical corps consisting of three infantry divisions each. Each corps area also had responsibility for organizing various other field army, General Headquarters Reserve, Zone of the Interior, and Communications Zone units. The First, Second, Third, Fourth, Eighth, and Ninth Corps Areas also organized units to man various fixed coastal defenses. The corps areas were further grouped into three army areas of two field armies each.

Early army administrative units

For the century preceding 1920 the U.S. Army was geographically divided into series of Military Divisions, "Departments" and smaller "Districts" and Subdistricts. Departments and divisions were numbered or named for their geographic location. Before the War of 1812 these administrative units were geographically named starting with the Department of the East and Department of the West. About 1815, the areas were numbered until after the Civil War. After the Civil War, the system used until after World War I was again geographically identified; i.e. Department of the East or Department of the Missouri and subordinate units were called divisions or districts. The last reorganization of departments was done in 1917 after the beginning of World War I.

National Defense Act of 1920 and establishment of corps area-level organizations

Authorized by the National Defense Act of 1920, which amended the National Defense Act of 1916, nine multi-state sized "corps areas" were established on 20 August 1920 by the U.S. Army Chief of Staff through War Department General Order Number 50. The corps areas were formed for administration, training, and tactical control of the army, replacing the six geographical military departments into which the continental United States had been divided since 1917 and with little variation since the Civil War. Three overseas commands: the Hawaiian Department, Panama Canal Department, and the Philippine Department continued to be identified as departments.
The 1920 act was a realization that the mobilization of a citizen army could no longer meet the defense needs of the United States and for the first time placed an emphasis on peacetime preparedness. Yet with its passage, Congress never fully funded the program. But Congress did recognize the value of a professional officer education program by enhancing existing general service schools such as the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The act authorized the establishing new schools to meet modern military educational needs, such as the Army Industrial College in 1924. Thirty-one additional special service schools were established or improved to provide training to the various branches of the Army.
The act established the division as a basic Army unit, replacing the pre-World War I notion of the regiment in war planning. Tactically and administratively, each corps area commander was the senior army officer for his geographical area, typically functioning as a commanding general of an existing Regular Army corps or division in their area. During times of civil unrest, labor strikes, or natural disasters, corps area commanders provided Army resources needed to address the emergency.
Each corps area was allocated two "type" corps and six infantry divisions. The corps were numbered in accord with their corps area designation, i.e. I and XI Corps in the First Corps Area. The lower numbered corps consisted of one Regular Army and two National Guard divisions among the various states of the corps area. The higher numbered corps each consisted of three divisions, also assigned by state boundaries, of the newly established Organized Reserve. By 1925, in the face of steady Coolidge Administration and congressional budget cutting, the United States Army only had three active regular divisions nationwide; the remainder of its divisions, both regular and reserve components, only existed on paper.
The amended National Defense Act also grouped three corps areas into an "army level" mobilization organization whose boundaries were also identical for the two "type" armies located within them. For example, First, Second, and Third Corps Areas, and the First and Fourth Armies, comprised the First "Army Area". The 1921 mobilization planning that created the six field army headquarters did not envision a need for active field army-level commands in peacetime and thus the headquarters were constituted in the Organized Reserve rather than the Regular Army.
Until fully activated with its own headquarters staff, an army area was typically jointly staffed, headquartered, and commanded by the most senior corps commander in that area. Between 1927 and 1933 all six field army headquarters were deactivated as the Army wrestled with structure, mobilization, and manpower issues.

Corps area and army area organizations, 1921-1932

An army area included three corps areas, and in the early years was concurrently staffed and headquartered with one of the corps areas. For example, First Army Area headquarters staff was also the Second Corps Area headquarters staff based at Fort Jay at Governors Island in New York, New York.

First Army Area

First Army Area included First Army and Fourth Army.
Second Army Area included Second Army and Fifth Army.
Third Army Area included Third Army, including, seemingly, the Reserve 23rd Cavalry Division, and Sixth Army.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was organized roughly along army corps area boundaries since most of the logistical administration and support for this 1930s Great Depression-era emergency work program was provided by the U.S. Army. The corps areas provided Regular Army officers to oversee these tasks. In time, they were replaced by officers of the Organized Reserve, freeing Regular Army officers to return to their assigned duties and providing practical experience to the Reserve officers.

The end of the "corps area" concept

General Douglas MacArthur, the Army's Chief of Staff, believed that the 1921 mobilization plan was based on unsound assumptions and that the Army required active field army headquarters before the start of any mobilization to manage the integration and training of subordinate units as they mobilized. He also concluded that the existing three army area/six army arrangement was too ponderous to field a force that might be needed in a hurry and that existing mobilization plans were not flexible enough to tailor to various war plans then in existence.
After a War Department study, MacArthur on 9 August 1932 constituted three new army headquarters in the Regular Army and outlined the organization of what became known as the "four army" plan, which effectively abolished the three army area/six army system.
On 3 October 1940, the War Department transferred tactical command functions to General Headquarters, U.S. Army, separating the field armies from the corps areas. Corps areas were then limited to their Zone of the Interior functions as service commands and the field armies assumed control of all tactical units.
In 1942, after the start of World War II and by executive order, the army level organizations took to training or the field as home defense and combat commands under the control of Army Ground Forces. In March 1942, home defense and training activities were assigned to the newly formed Eastern, Central, Southern, and Western Defense Commands, which overlaid the existing Corps Areas. The geographical corps areas were redesigned as numbered service commands under the Services of Supply on 22 July 1942. They served the Army's supply system, and performed administration, and "housekeeping" functions within the United States such as the issuance of Army serial numbers and the operation of induction centers and army posts located in the United States and its territories. By this time, the corps area boundaries and departments experienced some minor readjustments:
On 11 June 1946, Army Service Forces and the nine service commands areas it administered were abolished as the result of a long planned, post-war reorganization and downsizing. The service commands were replaced by six field army level organizations. These six Army Areas, though similar in name, operated on a functional rather than geographic basis but roughly followed along the old corps areas boundaries.
The postwar Seventh United States Army in Germany and Eighth United States Army in Korea were outside the continental United States as they remain today, but under different names.
This organizational scheme served until the Army reorganization of 1973, with the creation of Forces Command and Training and Doctrine Command.