It Took a Ski Community to Raise a Mountain Division: "Growing Pains" of the United States Mountain Troops, 1938-1941

• Main Author: Masters, Chris
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2019
• Subjects: American history
• ISBN: 1392117771; 9781392117774

During World War II, the United States military invested in many ideas to give its citizen soldiers an advantage on the battlefield. One of these resulted in the formation of the 10th Mountain Division, an elite unit trained to operate in all seasons of the alpine environment. However, at the beginning of World War II, the United States military had no practical experience in mountain warfare. The tangible threat of German mountain troops skiing into a frozen Washington D.C., as well as the future need to engage the Axis in the mountains of Europe and Japan sparked the genesis of America's mountain troops. Adding fourteen-thousand world class alpine soldiers to the army proved a daunting task for a military-industrial complex lacking the experience and technology to form such a specialized unit. As a result, an alliance formed between the army and a fledgling outdoor community to formalize military standards for recruiting, training, and operating the nation's first mountain soldiers. Hence, the 10th Mountain became the first and only military unit to utilize a civilian organization for recruitment, the National Ski Patrol. Authors have written the narrative of the 10th Mountain many times, however, this topic has not received scholarly analysis focused on the individuals and organizations responsible for establishing the foundation for America's first mountain troops. At the heart of this thesis is the 10th Mountain's embryo days but to understand the complexities of America's mountain troop genesis, the development of pre-modern ski-mountaineering knowledge as well as its role in creating the 10th Mountain Division is explored.