Prior to World War II, the U.S. Army numbered 187,000 soldiers. Its growth to more than 8 million was a significant accomplishment. Little known to most, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration’s youth program, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), provided the pretrained manpower to fill the U.S. Army’s ranks upon mobilization with men who readily assumed the role of Non—Commissioned Officers (NCOs). It also gave Organized Reserve Corps officers the opportunity to occupy leadership positions, an experience that would have been unavailable otherwise. By the same token, it allowed the Regular Army to assess the leadership potential of both Regular and Reserve Officers in leading future citizen soldiers. Last, it provided the Army with an opportunity to exercise its mobilization plans.
Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army 1775-1945 ( Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1955), 554-55.
2.
Samuel I. Rosenman, Compiler, "The Third Press Conference, March 15, 1933," in The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol. 2, The Years of Crisis (New York: Russell and Russell, 1938), 67-68; and Kenneth Holland and Frank Ernest Hill, Report of the American Youth Commission on the C.C.C. (n.d.), quoted in U.S. Congressional Legislative Reference Service, 77th Congress, 2nd Session, 1942, Senate Document no. 216, Civilian Conservation Corps (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1942), 115 (hereafter, Senate Document 216).
3.
Rosenman, "The Third Press Conference"; U.S. Congress, Public Law no. 5, 73rd Congress, March 31, 1933; and U.S. Executive Branch, Executive Order no. 6101, April 5, 1933,"http://www.presidency.ucsb.ed/ws/index.php?pid=14607.
4.
Duncan K. Major, Colonel, Acting Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 to Chief of Staff, January 24, 1933, (Washington, DC: National Archives, Record Group 165.2 War Department General and Special Staffs, Office of the Chief of Staff [hereafter, WDGS/OCS]). (Since the initial research on this topic, the National Archives has instituted a new catalogue filing system, and all references cited replace those for Records Group 94.)
5.
Mark Skinner Watson, The United States Army in World War II: The War Department; the Chief of Staff; Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1950), 15-30.
6.
The Adjutant General to Corps Area Commanders, March 25, 1933. National Archives, Record Group 407.7. Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, Records Relating to the Military Support of the Civilian Conservation Corps 1933-1943, Washington, DC (hereafter, AGO).
7.
Robert Y.Stuart to Louis Howe, April 8, 1933, Official File 268, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY (hereafter, FDRL).
8.
Duncan K. Major to Louis Howe, April 8, Official Files 268 FDRL.
9.
Kreidberg and Henry, Military Mobilization, 398. The Adjutant General to Corps Area Commanders, April 13, 1933, AGO.
10.
George C. Marshall to Germain Seligman, March 29, 1933, in Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour, eds., The Papers of George C. Marshall, vol. 1, The Soldierly Spirit, December 1880-June 1939 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 392 (hereafter, GCM Papers); the Adjutant General to Corps Area Commanders, April 25, 1933, AGO; and Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 to Chief of Staff, May 18, 1933, WDGS/OCS.
11.
Duncan K. Major to Robert Fechner, June 30, 1933, Official Files 268, FDRL.
12.
Comments made by George C. Marshall, June 1937, to the Vancouver Barracks C.C.C. District Review, July 1, 1937, in GCM Papers, 542-44.
13.
George C. Marshall to Clyde R Abraham, June 3, 1933, GCM Papers, 396-97. Marshall stated thirty-five hundred in this letter but forty-five hundred in a letter to General John J. Pershing after his assuming command at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. George C. Marshall to John J. Pershing, July 11, 1933, GCM Papers, 398.
14.
George C. Marshall to Edward L. King, May 26, 1933, GCM Papers, 394-95.
15.
U.S. War Department, Report of the Chief of Staff U.S. Army, 1933, extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1933 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1933), 4 (hereafter, Report of the Chief of Staff); and Douglas MacArthur to the Adjutant General, June 30, 1933, AGO.
16.
Kreidberg and Henry, Military Mobilization, 462.
17.
Inspector General to Chief of Staff, Confidential Report, September 8, 1933, AGO; and Edward M. Coffman, The Regulars: The American Army1898-1941 ( Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2004 ), 244.
18.
George C. Marshall to George V. H. Moseley, April 5, 1934, GCM Papers, 423-24.
19.
Ray Hoyt, We Can Take It, A Short History of the C.C.C. (New York : American Book Company, 1935), 30-31.
20.
Mark Clark, "REMARKS on CCC by GENERAL MARK CLARK The Citadel-Charleston, S.C.-October 31, 1980," in the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni (NACCA) Chapter 5 News-Bulletin, Seattle, WA, December 2000.
21.
Colonel (Ret) Burwell H. Shipe, USA, interviewed by Charles Heller at the Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA, March 1993. COL Shipe was an unemployed Electrical Engineer and also an Organized Reserve Corps Officer. Upon volunteering, he was ordered to and became a CCC Camp Commander. In 1938 he found civilian employment and was released from active duty. However, in 1940 with the possibility of war looming, he again volunteered for active duty and remained in the Army until his retirement.
22.
Mark Clark, "Remarks."
23.
Senate Document no. 216, pp. 47, 95, 139.
24.
James J. McEntee, Now They Are Men: The Story of the CCC (Washington, DC: National Home Library Foundation, 1940), 30; "James F. Justin Civilian Conservation Corps Museum," Web site, http://members.aol.com/famjustin/ccchis.html .
25.
McEntee, CCC, 37-38.
26.
Civilian Conservation Corps, Your CCC: A Handbook for Enrollees (Washington, DC: Happy Days Publishing Company, Inc, n.d., reprint 2002).
27.
Senate Document 216, pp. 47, 95, 139.
28.
Senate Document 216, pp. 37-38.
29.
Perry H. Merrill, Roosevelt’s Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps (Montpelier, VT: Perry H. Merrill, 1981), 96; and Leslie Alexander Lacy, The Soil Soldiers (Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Company, 1976), 140.
30.
Senate Document 216, p. 70; George C. Marshall to Leo A. Farrell, March 26, 1938, GCM Papers, 585-86.
31.
Lacy, The Soil Soldiers, 115.
32.
McEntee, CCC, 60-61.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Mark Clark, "Remarks."
35.
Ibid.
36.
Robert Robeson to Charles Heller, April 2, 2006, e-mail, "CCC and the Army."
37.
Kathy Mays Smith, Gold Medal CCC Company 1538 ( Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Company, 2001), 230-41.
38.
Editor’s Note, GCM Papers, 513; and Malin Craig to George C, Marshall, December 1, 1936, GCM Papers, 516-17.
39.
George C. Marshall to Charles P. Summerall, June 1, 1933, GCM Papers, 396; George C. Marshall to John J. Pershing, July 11, 1933, GCM Papers, 398; and J. Garry Clifford and Samuel R. Spencer Jr., The First Peacetime Draft (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986), 191.
40.
Duncan K. Major to Robert Fechner, June 30, 1933, Official Files 268, FDRL.
41.
Report of the Chief of Staff, 8.
42.
Ibid.; and Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall, Education of a General (New York: Viking, 1963), 279.
43.
Lacy, The Soil Soldiers, 70.
44.
George P. Reynolds, Susan Walker, and Rabun County High School Students, eds., Foxfire 10: Railroadlore, Boarding Houses, Depression-Era Appalachia, Chair Making, Whirligigs, Snake Canes, and Gourd Art (New York: Anchor Books, 1993), 249; COL Shipe interview; and George G. Marshall to George V. H. Moseley, April 5, 1934, GCM Papers, 423-24.
45.
Lacy, The Soil Soldiers, 205.
46.
"Military Drill Is Ordered for Civilian Conservation Corps Men,"The Washington Post, August 17, 1941 , p. 1.
