55 Years Ago: Ga. Guard Unit Takes to the Air to Demonstrate Alert Mobility and Joint Capability

By Maj. William Carraway
Historian, Ga. Army National Guard

DOBBINS AIR FORCE BASE, December 20, 1964 – Members of Rome’s Company A, 2nd Medium Tank Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment prepare to board a Ga. Air National Guard C-97 Stratofreighter of the 116th Air Transport Wing as part of a rapid assembly and mobilization drill. The Guardsmen reported to the Rome Armory at 6:00 and were transported to Dobbins by 9:30. For some of the men, it was their first time in an airplane. After flying a circuit throw North Alabama and Tennessee, the C-97 returned to Dobbins and the Rome Soldiers returned to their armory. Georgia Guard Archives

When the Georgia Army National Guard Soldiers of the Rome-based Company A, 2^nd Medium Tank Battalion, 108^th Armor Regiment reported for duty Sunday Dec. 20, 1964, they received a surprise mission order. The Soldiers were briefed of a simulated emergency situation that required rapid deployment by air to assist Georgia citizens. The Soldiers hurriedly drew their weapons, assembled in formation and were loaded onto trucks for transport to Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta, Ga.

By 9:30 a.m., the Soldiers were transporting south in columns of trucks. Huddled together in the back of the 2 ½ ton trucks, the Soldiers endured the chill December air as the trucks rumbled south over surface roads bound for the Marietta headquarters of the Georgia Air National Guard. Arriving at Dobbins, the men received a boxed lunch from the unit’s mess section and were directed to the flight line to board a waiting C-97 Stratofreighter of the 116^th Transport Wing. For many of the Soldiers strapping themselves into the seats in the cargo hold of the transport plane, this would be their first flight. As the men peered from tiny windows dotting the aircraft’s fuselage, the four engines roared to life and propelled the lumbering aircraft to the runway. Taking to the air, the plane flew north to simulate transportation to an impacted town. The men passed the time playing cards and viewing the North Georgia terrain from an entirely new perspective.

DOBBINS AIR FORCE BASE, December 20, 1964 – Members of Rome’s Company A, 2nd Medium Tank Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment catch a ride on a Georgia Air National Guard C-97 Stratofreighter of the 116th Air Transport Wing as part of a rapid assembly and mobilization drill. Georgia Guard Archives

The Stratofreighter flew the Rome Guardsmen on a loop over North Georgia to Gadsden, Ala. And Chattanooga, Tenn. to demonstrate the rapid reach capability in the event of a local emergency. Before returning, the Air National Guardsmen circled the aircraft over Rome to afford the Guardsmen a birds-eye view of their hometown. The Aircraft then bore them back to Dobbins where the men boarded their trucks for the return drive home.

Captain John. Yarborough, commander of Company A, considered the mobility

DOBBINS AIR FORCE BASE, December 20, 1964 –
Members of Rome’s Company A, 2nd Medium Tank Battalion,
108th Armor Regiment pass the time during a flight aboard a Ga.
Air National Guard C-97 Stratofreighter of the 116th Air
Transport Wing as part of a rapid assembly and mobilization drill.
Georgia Guard Archives.

exercise a complete success lauding the cooperation between the Georgia Air National Guard personnel and the Georgia Army National Guard Unit. Yarborough also praised the Soldiers for their response.
“The alert was 100 percent,” said Yarborough. “The assembly order went out at 6:00, and by 8:00, 85 percent of the unit’s officers and men were present.”

The unit left the armory at full-strength at 9:30 a.m., less than four hours after the initial notice. This is all the more remarkable when one considers that the alert did not have modern communications capabilities afforded by internet or cell phones. The alert required total commitment of the unit and the Rome community to communicate the assembly order and assemble the entire unit in short order. The exercise demonstrated not only the partnership between the Georgia Air and Army National Guard but the synergy between the Soldier and community.

Fifty-five years later, Rome Georgia is home to the Georgia National Guard’s 1160^th Transportation Company. In 2019, the 1160^th completed a mobility test of its own when its nearly 200 Soldiers completed back-to-back rotations at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La.