The loss of higher categories of soldiers to the USAAF and technical branches posed challenges to the training and readiness of US Army Ground Forces in 1942-43. In the case of seven tank destroyer battalions undergoing training in February 1943...

it was revealed that more than fifty percent of their enlisted personnel rated in the two lowest categories (IV & V) assessed by the AGCT, thanks to volunteer drafts for the USAAF and Officer Candidate School (OCS). At this time only 32.2 % of all inductees were Class IV & V.

More damaging to readiness, divisions were forced to create separate training units to provide remedial education for “substandard soldiers,” which included large numbers of illiterates, merely to get these men to the point where they could begin standard training.

One solution put forth by AGF in a memo from Oct 1942 was the institution of more tests that assessed both the mental competence and physical condition of soldiers at each phase of a unit’s training. Still, the loss of cadres for new forming divisions posed a threat to readiness.

These new standards did not benefit the first divisions shipped out for participation in Operation Torch or the initial UK buildup, but follow-on divisions would boast a higher quality of soldier than AGF was sending to active theaters. #SWW #WWII