Word: understrength
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SAKHALIN ISLAND (wholly Russian since 1945, when Red troops under the Yalta agreement took over the Japanese southern half): twelve divisions (six infantry, two armored, four possibly understrength airborne); headquarters of the Soviet Tenth Air Force, which probably has 800 planes on the island alone. The Russians recently completed a railroad running the full length of the island, are working day & night on concrete fortifications, hidden gun emplacements, airstrips, and armored-force maneuvering areas...
...months later, regarded as a top National Guard officer, he got full-time duty as chief of the National Guard Bureau in Washington. Taking the job, he made one thing plain: if his division was called up, he wanted to go along as its commander. The 43rd was understrength for two months; then the Pentagon suddenly overwhelmed the division with 10,000 raw draftees, many of whom had the draftee's stock resentment at being sent to a Guard division. The 43rd had some fine officers and noncoms, tough, able soldiers who could teach men how to fight...
Getting the understrength Canadian army into something approaching combat readiness will be a tough job, but Simonds was rated Canada's top field commander in World War II. Tory Leader George Drew called it "the best appointment this government has made in months." Said the Montreal Gazette's Arthur Blakeley: "General Simonds is no soldier-politician. He doesn't understand the art of pussyfooting ... The fur (and dust) can be expected...
Against this formidable Russian force, the West can muster little indeed. Western Germany has no troops; France might put three divisions in the field; Great Britain's strength in occupied Germany is now probably not more than two divisions. The U.S. has one understrength division and four or five housekeeping and constabulary regiments scattered from one end of its zone to the other. U.S. air strength is shockingly inadequate, consists of little more than two fighter groups and one bomber group. U.S. observers say that the ratio of Soviet to U.S. air strength is about...
Scattered Army. Britain now has 827,000 men & women in uniform, counting the regular army, navy and air force, plus draftees and territorials. But the army is scattered far & wide: two understrength divisions in Germany, a brigade in Austria and one in Trieste, three divisions spread over the Middle and Far East, a Gurkha division in Malaya, about 60,000 other "colonial" troops in Africa, Malta...