Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

114 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
Battery C, 6th Field Artillery, on the Lorraine front
the provisional tables approved in May 1917. The organization of the 1st Field
Artillery Brigade, comprising the 5th, 6th, and 7th Field Artillery, was completed
in August 1917 at Valdahon, France. 60 The 6th and 7th were armed with 75-mm.
guns and the 5th with 155-mm. howitzers.
In general, the field artillery brigades making up the divisional artillery were
organized in accordance with previous planning. By the end of the war, sixty-one
field artillery brigades were organized, of which fifty-eight were at some point designated
as divisional brigades. Each brigade, in addition to its assigned regiments
and trench mortar battery, had an attached ammunition train, as well as attached
range-finding teams and communications, ordnance, and liaison personnel. Many
of the divisions fought without their organic artillery brigades because of the length
of time it took to train the artillery and because the artillery trained in areas separate
from the divisions. Thirteen of the twenty-nine combat divisions in France operated
without their own artillery. 61
The last basic changes in the organization of the infantry division during the war
came out in revised tables on 14 January 1918. Among other modifications, the tables
increased the armament of the artillery with the addition of twelve antiaircraft artillery
guns to each field artillery regiment. The artillery armament of the division as of that
59 John J. Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, 2 vols. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.,
1931), 1:2–3; Order of Battle, 2:5.
60 See annotated draft for Lineage and Honors Certificate, HHB, 1st Inf Div Arty, CMH files.
61 Order of Battle, 2:5 and 3/3:1231–37.