AGF Study, NO. 6: The Procurement and Branch Distribution of Officers

7

ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES, MARCH 1943

As noted above, Army Ground Forces, in assuming control over officer candidate schools in March 1942, did not assume control over the number of candidates to be trained. The War Department continued during 1942 to calculate officer requirements in the ground arms and to establish policies governing officer procurement, including quotas for officer candidate schools. Army Ground Forces was responsible only for filling school quotas allotted to it and for training the candidates.

In March 1943, the procurement crisis of 1942 having passed, the War Department decided to delegate control over officer candidate enrollment to the three major commands. Since the officer candidate schools constituted by this time almost the only

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large source of new officers -- reserve appointments having ceased -- this action in effect gave the three commands control over the whole officer procurement program. Effective with quotas for May 1943, the Commanding General, Army Ground Forces was "to determine and maintain the proper number of candidates in schools under his jurisdiction."52 Following by one month a similar delegation of authority over the planning of enlisted replacement production, this directive put Army Ground Forces into the personnel business on a large scale, considerably broadening the functions originally assigned to it.53

The War Department continued to set the long-range goals for the officer procurement program and, because the Ground Forces lacked the necessary facilities, to supply estimates of anticipated replacement requirements. Operating within these broad guides, Army Ground Forces set monthly OCS quotas until March 1944, when control over the procurement system passed again to the War Department (see below, p. 12).

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