Army & Navy: Cavalry Maneuvers

Not since the Civil War had U. S. cavalry engaged in maneuvers on the scale of those conducted last week on 120 square miles of terrain in and about Marfa, Tex. Some 280 officers, 4,000 men, 3,200 horses and 1,500 mules were deployed over gulches, hillocks and sagebrush plains—the Second Cavalry Brigade (Fort Bliss) playing “Brown” army to the “White” army of the First Cavalry Brigade (Fort Clark) and First Cavalry Regiment (Marfa, Tex.). Tanks, cannon, airplanes, Red Cross ambulances and every appurtenance of real war, right down to hot weather, secrecy and red tape, accompanied the show.

Following the maneuvers, horses, mules and men assembled in Marfa for athletics, a review and a horse show. Troopers were paid off and sent back to their stations while officers continued to argue about which “army” had “won.” Among other stratagems weighed for merit was that of dyeing white horses brown to camouflage them from aerial observation. Other modern cavalry camouflage: dull metal mountings on harness; dun netting to dull the flash of shiny saddle seats.

With airplanes, tanks, armored cars and motor cycles competing, the cavalry, once the most spectacular service of national defense, is so little heard of that few citizens know who is U. S. cavalry chief. Major General Herbert B. Crosby is his name. A 56-year-old Kansan, he served in Cuba, the west, the Philippines and, as a Colonel of Infantry, in France. He mounted the highest of U. S. horses in 1926.