|
BIOGRAPHICAL/
HISTORICAL NOTE: The Florida
Motorized Civil Unit was the brainchild of Guy H. Allen, Tampa branch
manager of American Oil Company, and was created to counter possible invasion
landings by German submarines in the Gulf of Mexico before the United
States entry into World War II in 1941. Allen worried that Florida's long
coastline left it vulnerable to saboteur units and spies, so he began
writing letters to the U.S. War Department and to Claude Pepper, U.S.
Senator from Florida,in which he urged the formation of a motorcycle cavalry
in regular Army units. The government did not take up his proposal, so
Allen started the Florida Motorcycle Corps in August, 1940, under the
sponsorship of local chambers of commerce.
Momentum dwindled in the
unit as members were volunteering their own time and expenses; as a consequence,
the corps suspended its operations temporarily. With the creation of the
State Defense Council in 1941, the corps finally achieved some official
status and had as its prime objective to escort military truck convoys.
Allen worked at the state level in the State Defense Council's Division
of Transportation and Communication and Subdivision of Motor Escort and
Transportation. The operation expanded to include taxicabs and trucks
by the time the United States entered the war and a mass mobilization
was scheduled for January 11, 1942. Wartime pressures on the "home guard"eventually
took their toll as men had to dropout in order to enroll in regular military
service and as shortages of rubber tires and gasoline mounted. Also as
the war turned to Allied offensives in Europe and in the South Pacific,
civil defense lost its urgency.
SUMMARY SCOPE NOTE: The series
contains correspondence,organization files, memoranda, news clippings,
and county files of the Florida Motorized Civil Unit and later of the
Subdivision of Motor Escort and Transportation from 1940 to 1943. Also
included are the papers of Guy Allen relating to the creation of this
unit and to his plans to build motorized cavalry units behind enemy lines.
|
