Oregon Maneuver | |||||
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Part of World War II training | |||||
Blue Force officer during Oregon Maneuver |
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Belligerents | |||||
Red Force 96th Infantry Division IV Corps support |
Blue Force 91st Infantry Division 104th Infantry Division IV Corps support |
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Commanders and leaders | |||||
James L. Bradley | Gilbert R. Cook |
The Oregon Maneuver was a large scale military training exercise held in Central Oregon in 1943. The exercise was designed to test United States Army units prior to deployment in support of Allied combat operations in World War II. The maneuver included approximately 100,000 men. The major units involved in the exercise were all part of the army’s IV Corps, commanded by Major General Alexander Patch. The exercise headquarters was located at Camp Abbot, south of Bend, Oregon. The maneuver included five specific training problems that engaged troops from a defensive Red Force and an offensive Blue Force. Following the maneuver the three participating divisions, the 91st Infantry Division, the 96th Infantry Division, and the 104th Infantry Division were sent into combat in the European or the Pacific theatre.
The Oregon Maneuver was the largest military field exercise ever conducted in the Pacific Northwest. It involved over 100,000 army troops, many of them from Camp Adair, Camp White, and combat engineers training center at Camp Abbot. Camp Abbot was used as the exercise headquarters because of its military infrastructure and location near Bend in central Oregon.
The maneuver extended across parts of seven eastern Oregon counties, a total of over 10,000 square miles (26,000 km2). Almost all of Deschutes County was included in the maneuver area along with large parts of Crook, Harney, Klamath, and Lake counties. Small portions of Jefferson and Grant counties were also included in the maneuver area. The area included parts of four national forests, the Deschutes National Forest in the west, the Fremont National Forest in the southwest, the Ochoco National Forest in the north and the Malheur National Forest in the northeast plus vast tracts of land administered by the Bureau of Land Management throughout the maneuver area. The maneuver area was an irregular triangle shape, with Sisters in the northwest corner, Burns in the northeast corner, and Valley Falls in the south.