and studying the directives of Supreme Headquarters” and “knew Munich better
than we did our own home towns.” (CASE STUDIES ON FIELD OPERATIONS
OF MILITARY GOVERNMENT UNITS, Training Packet No. 7, The Provost
Marshal General’s School, 1 April 1950.) It continued to track changing
conditions in Munich and was prepared to execute its mission regardless of
which maneuver headquarters was assigned the mission to liberate Bavaria. By
doing so, F-213 gave LTG Patton, whose 3 rd Army was eventually given this
mission, the ability to quickly establish military government within hours of the
surrender of the city on 30 April 1945.
Immediately upon entering the city, members of F-213 “went out to see how
nearly the situation in Munich corresponded with the estimate made in the
operational plan. They visited the gas plant, the water works, the sewage plant,
the electric power plant, and made estimates of the labor and materials needed
to restore them to operation. They interviewed Cardinal Faulhaber and a
representative of the Lutheran Bishop of Bavaria. They questioned educators
and welfare workers.” Within 48 hours of their arrival, “(f)ood, fuel and clothing
stocks were surveyed and placed under guard. Banks were closed and the
directors told to report back later. Radio and newspaper facilities were seized,
while a series of broadcasts from sound trucks was instituted to disseminate
reports of world events to the news-starved people.” (The Provost Marshal
General’s School.)
Forty-five years after the end of World War II, U.S. forces found themselves
preparing for another operation to remove invading forces from a sovereign
nation – Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait. While now a permanent part of Army
structure, 96% of the civil affairs force was assigned to the U.S. Army Reserve
and was not initially considered in U.S. Central Command plans for “restoring
Kuwait’s legitimate government in place of a puppet regime,” as directed by
President George H. W. Bush in National Security Directive 45 on 20 August
1990. U.S. government departments and agencies following the events in
Kuwait became concerned about the potential post-conflict issues they would
eventually face there and it soon became clear that “the scope of post-combat
missions relating to the care of displaced civilians, restoration of order, and a
return to normalcy—not only in Kuwait, but possibly in Saudi Arabia and Iraq—
was likely to overwhelm the small, active duty Civil Affairs force assigned to the
region.” (CASE STUDY NO. 4, COMPLEX OPERATIONS CASE STUDIES
SERIES, The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict Planning and Interagency
Coordination, Dennis Barlow, 2010.)
In October 1990, in response to a request to President George H. W. Bush from
the Kuwaiti Government-in-Exile, the U.S. government agreed to provide
restoration planning, advice, and post-conflict assistance to the Kuwait
Emergency and Recovery Program. On 1 December 1990, fifty-seven specially
selected Soldiers of the 352 nd Civil Affairs Command and the 354 th Civil Affairs
Brigade – U.S. Army Reserve units that were mission-focused on the Central
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