- Chapter II:
The Reorganization of the War
Department
Several different forces produced the extensive reorganization of the War
Department
which was officially announced by Secretary of War Stimson on 2 March 1942.
During the latter half of 1941, demands for changes in the existing
organization
had come from various sources and were strangely interwoven. The result in
1942 was an attempt to meet existing dissatisfaction and at the same time
to construct a workable Army high-command structure to direct the conduct
of the war.
The historians of the Army Ground
Forces have observed that the Army Air Forces "took the lead and
supplied the drive" for reorganization.1
The motivation was simple enough. One of the paramount aims of many air
leaders between the two wars had been the establishment of an independent
air force.2
Although substantial progress toward this objective was made with the
creation of the AAF in June 1941, the air leadership in the Army was still
not content with its status. By late 1941, many persons within the Army Air
Forces had become convinced "that the most successful solution would
involve a radical reorganization of the military establishment, with the
AAF enjoying virtual autonomy within the War Department"3
Though the Air Forces supplied the
drive for reorganization, the initial impetus came from Lt. Gen. Lesley J.
McNair, the chief of staff of GHQ, who from the beginning had experienced
difficulty with the uncertainty of his assigned mission and the relation
of his command to the air arm and to the War Department General Staff.
Originally General Headquarters was viewed as the body that, when
mobilized, would draft war plans and conduct actual operations. Largely
based upon World War I experience, the early assumption had been that in the
event of another war the United State would again send an expeditionary
force to Europe. Just as General Pershing had determined the conduct of
military operations without guidance from the General Staff in Washington,
so, it was assumed, General Headquarters would move overseas to plan and
direct operations of the new expeditionary force. Yet when GHQ, was
established in July 1940, it did not include the War Plans Division, which
continued to be the main center of strategic planning in the War
Department. Unlike
[23]
the situation in World War I, it
seemed that military activity in a new conflict would take place on many
fronts. It was therefore not practical to send War Department planners to
any single theater because of the necessity of having a central headquarters
for worldwide overall planning.
Although General Marshall was both
chief of the WDGS and commanding general of GHQ, the staffs of the two
organizations had a separate identity and tended to move in somewhat
different and even competitive paths. Moreover, when General Headquarters
was originally set up, it was assigned a training mission rather than an
operational one.4
Even in this function of training, GHQ's responsibilities came into
conflict with those of the chiefs of combat arms. The chiefs of arms
propounded doctrine and trained individual officers and men. GHQ
supervised the training of tactical units and developed the doctrine for
their employment. There remained ample room for conflict between the chiefs
of arms and General Headquarters over the development of training
doctrine.
The functions of GHQ, aside from
training, remained will defined. On 3 July 1941 a directive to General McNair
gave him wide potential authority over the planning and control of military
operations in various fields. On the surface, this seemed to strengthen
GHQ, but the authority was more nominal than actual.5
Hedged
by many limitations, General McNair lacked sufficient control over supply
to carry out his enlarged responsibility; Furthermore other agencies had
partial control in other respects over overseas garrisons placed under his
supervision. It was not long before General McNair determined to have this
anomalous situation remedied. On 25 July 1941 he sent a memorandum to the
Chief of Staff of the War Department requesting, simply enough, that
overseas bases be grouped into defense commands and that General
Headquarters be made responsible for directing all activities of these
bases.6
This memorandum precipitated a fundamental examination of the existing War
Department and Army command organization.
In the discussions that followed,
the problem of procurement and supply had to be faced. The planners seemed
to feel that this problem was incidental to and dependent on the resolution
of the larger general problems of command. But General McNair appreciated
the fact that a tactical mission without control of supply support created
complications. He had encountered that problem in several Atlantic bases.
He therefore tended to favor the creation of a Services of Supply, modeled
after Pershing's organization in France in 1918, but applied to the zone of
interior. The question of supply and procurement thus crept in through the
back door, but nonetheless it remained an important consideration in the
effort to find an adequate solution to the problem of organization.7
In mid-August 1941 Lt. Col. William
K. Harrison, Jr., a W PD officer long interested in War Department
organization,
[24]
presented the first clear-cut
description of the principles of the plan which was later adopted. It
included a sketch of the functions of a separate service force.8
The War Plans Division, knowing that General Marshall still hoped to retain
the framework of the existing organization, temporarily shelved Harrison's
plans, but the seed thus planted shortly took root.9
At this point, the Air Forces
became the dominant factor in the drive toward reorganization. The idea of
a service command fitted is particularly well with its aims. When, toward
the end of October, writing for General Arnold, Brig. Gen. Carl Spaatz
recommended the abolition of GHQ and the formation under the Chief of Staff
of a small General Staff and autonomous air and ground forces, also he
recommended a service force.10
Like the Harrison proposal, this recommendation was at the moment
unacceptable. The War Plans Division continued to wrestle with the problem.11
General Arnold broke the log jam in
mid-November 1941. Emphasizing the importance of air power in modern war, he
wrote directly to General Marshall and asked for a complete reorganization
that would allow the air force to play its proper role. The Air Forces
supported a plan providing for three separate commands air, ground, and
service it a Chief of Staff and a small General Staff in top control. The
War Plans division received the Arnold memorandum for comment and concurred
with it in principle.12
General Marshall was "favorably impressed" and directed that the
WPD develop the proposal in sufficient detail to determine its
practicability.13
Thus the Army Air Forces became the
champion of a thorough War Department reorganization which would include the
creation of a Services of Supply.
Remaining within the existing military framework meant it would need to
work with the War Department supply bureaus. Since General McNair had
already suggested that his own General Headquarters could not function
effectively unless it were given greater control of supply matters, and
since the Air Forces was unwilling to see supply activities turned over to
GHQ, it could logically support a plan to establish a separate supply
command for ground and air forces under War Department direction.
Another strong reason for
reorganization, and one tied in with Air Force's pressure for change, was
the fact that the administrative burden of the Chief of Staff was becoming
increasingly heavy. This was a difficulty that had plagued generals and
statesmen throughout history, and one that had become mom and mare
burdensome
with the growing complexity of modern armies. Brig. Gen. Robert L. Bollard
during World War I had expressed the fear that the general staff system
would break down because no one man could handle the details heaped on the
Chief of Staff and still direct a war.14
[25]
On the eve of World War II, in
spite of specific orders to bring to his attention only those matters that
could be handled by no one else, General Marshall was swamped by the demands
on his time on decide relatively unimportant questions. No less than
sixty-one officers and agencies, some with overlapping authority, had
direct access to him. About fifty staff studies were given to him each day,
leaving him time for little else.15
With the creation of three large commands to which administration in the
zone of interior would be delegated, Marshall and the General Staff could
concentrate on planning and policy making. Among other things, it was
hoped that this easing of the administrative burden would contribute toward
a solution of the problem of organizational relationships between air and
ground forces. Although in sympathy with the desire of Air officers for a
major role in the planning and direction of air operations, General
Marshall was determined to keep the Army Air Forces at least nominally in
the existing military structure in order to promote collaboration between
ground and air operations. He felt that this could be achieved more easily
if he personally gave greater attention to the Air Forces. He was firmly
convinced that he could do this and attend to general strategic planning and
direction of operations only if the War Department were so organized that
the work of raising, training, supplying, and servicing the Army in the
United States was concentrated is the hands of the fewest possible persons
reporting directly to him.
Toward the end of November 1941,
General Marshall was thus persuaded m proceed with a study of War Department
reorganization. A committee of three was created to undertake this
investigation. To serve as chairman of the committee,
Marshall brought back Brig. Gen. Joseph T McNarney from England where he
had been serving as an observer. The other two members were Colonel Harrison
of WPD and Lt. Col. Lawrence S. Kuter of the Office of the Secretary of the
General Staff. The work on reorganization was suspended shortly after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor when General McNarney was dispatched to
Hawaii with the Roberts Board to investigate that military disaster. For
the moment, reorganization had to wait, even though the advent of war had
given a new urgency to the problem.
The various reorganization plans
circulating before December 1941 failed to take into account the vital
role of the Under Secretary of War. As noted earlier, his office had grown
into a sizable staff supervising War Department activities in the field of
procurement and general economic mobilization. A reorganization which
affected supply operations would probably necessitate a reorganization of
Under Secretary Patterson's office.16
Prior to his appointment in 1940 as
Assistant Secretary of War, Mr. Patterson had had little experience in
procurement or other industrial affairs, nor had he even read Section Sa of
the National Defense Act of 1920 which outlined the responsi-
[26]
bilities of his new position. But,
working is close harmony with Secretary of War Stimson, Patterson soon
showed in high degree all the qualities that make a successful
administrator. Though inexperienced as a business executive, he was an
indefatigable worker, cooperative, modest, and willing to take advice. He
often conferred with Bernard Baruch, for many years highly regarded as an
expert on government problems.17
Mr. Patterson took office
coincidentally with the launching of a huge mobilization program in the
summer of 1940. A major difficulty for him was the relatively indifferent
caliber and low rank of the military personnel attached to his organization.
Rebuffed in the attempt to gain control over procurement activities after
World War I, the General Staff had seemingly acquiesced in civilian
domination over the business side of the War Department. One result was that
the Assistant Secretary's organization was removed from the main stream of
military interest and activity. The officers assigned to it sometimes felt
that they had reached a blind alley in their careers. Often their military
rank was too low to permit effective performance of duties.18
But the difficulty was not only one of caliber and rank. The civilian and
military personnel were too few in number to take care of the growing
responsibilities
of their rapidly expanding office. In the first year of Mr. Patterson's
incumbency, personnel multiplied about fivefold and new organizational
arrangements were improvised in an effort to cope with the situation.
Mr. Patterson set about to remedy
matters after his appointment as Under Secretary. In the summer of 1941
he employed a private firm, Booz, Frey, Allen, and Hamilton, management
consultants, to make a study of
the organization of his office. This firm, which had just completed a
survey in the Navy Department, began its work on 5 August and finished the
task two weeks after Pearl Harbor.19
Before submitting their report, the
management consultants made a number of interim recommendations such as
one for the creation of a separate administrative branch. Some of these,
the Under Secretary adopted. The final report, given to Mr. Patterson on 20
December 1941, described the organizational structure of the office and
listed six major problems. In the first place, it pointed out that neither
the personnel in the office nor those in the supply arms and services
subject to the Under Secretary's supervision understood clearly the purpose
of the office. In the second place, it noted that duplication and
overlapping of functions reduced the effectiveness of supervision. Third,
the Booz report expressed the opinion that the military personnel often
lacked sufficient rank, training, and general ability to perform their
assigned duties. Fourth, the report harshly criticised current methods of
statistical reporting. Fifth, it also pointed to the difficult problems in
the relationship of the office to other units of the War Department and to
the civilian defense agencies of the Government. Finally, the report
declared that the administrative services of the office needed improvement .20
[27]
The management experts were
especially concerned about the relationship between the Under Secretary's
office and the General Staff Supply Division (G-4). Where did the
responsibility of the Supply Division end and that of the OUSW begin? On
this question, the Booz report proposed the dividing line suggested twenty
years earlier by the Harbord Board. The Supply Division should transmit
supply requirements to the Office of the Under Secretary, whose
responsibilities
would begin at this point. The Under Secretary would then approve the
procurement estimates made by the supply arms and services, and determine
the industrial facilities, raw material requirements, and manpower needed
to provide supplies within the requested time period. The Booz report
suggested various techniques for insuring fulfillment of this
responsibility.
But, significantly, it did not consider whether this separation of
supervisory
responsibility between the Supply Division of the General Staff and the OUSW
was workable. It said nothing about actual methods of obtaining closer
working relationships with the Supply Division in the determination of
supply requirements or in expediting procurement.
The most important change
recommended
in the Booz report was the proposal that the Under Secretary appoint a
single executive, an Army officer, with the title of Procurement General, to
direct the work of the office and to supervise the supply arms and
services. This executive should be given the rank of lieutenant general in
the Army in order that he might have a military status superior to that of
the chiefs of the supply arms and services, all of whom then held the rank
of major general. This "improved military leadership" proposal was directly
counter to the recommendations put forward in 1970 by Benedict Crowell. Mr.
Crowell, it will be recalled, had wanted an industrialist to direct the
procurement work of the War Department. With the position of Under Secretary
now filled by a man who was not an industrialist, the Bone consultants
evidently felt the office needed strengthened contacts with the military
procurement agencies. Indeed, in the procurement field it was conceivable
that such a post might acquire status and authority comparable to that of
the Chief of Staff in the whole Military Establishment.
The system of internal organization
proposed by the Booz report for the Office of the Under Secretary was
adopted with one glaring omission. The Under Secretary did not take steps to
create the position of Procurement General. But the mere fact that such a
post was recommended throws a revealing light upon what seemed, to outside
observers, the basic weakness of the War Department's supply organization.
The Booz report, in recommending a
clarification of the relationship of the Under Secretary to the Assistant
Chief of Staff (G-4) was soon upheld by the march of events. On 25 November
1941 a new and forceful personality, Brig. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell,
became G-4, WDGS. Two weeks later the United States was at war. Now, more
than ever before, the supply of military forces was of critical
importance.
The training program had lagged in large part because there was not
enough combat equipment. Shortages had slowed the strengthening of overseas
garrisons, especially in the Pacific. Necessarily, some supplies had gone
overseas under lend-
[28]
lease. If training were to be
speeded up, our allies aided, and military operations undertaken with hope
of success, then supplies had to be provided from current industrial
production at an ever increasing rate, sad at the earliest possible
moment. This meant that G-4 had to put all possible pressure upon the supply
arms and services to speed up their procurement programs. Yet G-4 was not
authorized to issue any orders on production matters, for production was
the bailiwick of the Under Secretary of War. Here was an impossible
situation, especially in the light of General Somervell's determination to
fulfill his supply responsibilities as competently as possible. Being a
man of action, he soon went to General Marshall with his views of the
existing organizational set up.21
General Somervell, as he sized up
his mission, realized that he could fulfill his duties and overcome
organizational defects only by the closest possible cooperation with the
OUSW. He stated this conviction directly to both Secretary Stimson and Under
Secretary Patterson, and reiterated it on several subsequent occasions.22
On 6 January 1942 he telephoned Mr. Goldthwaite Dorr, an attorney in New
York City, and asked him to come to Washington to study the problem of
supply organization in the War Department.23
According to both General Somervell and Mr. Dorr, the request was made with
the approval of Secretary Stimson and Under Secretary Patterson.24
Mr. Dory arrived in Washington on 7
January 1942. General Somervell requested him to examine the problem of
supply organization, particularly the relation of the Supply Division of the
General Staff to the Office of the Under Secretary of War and the
supervisory relationships of
both to the supply arms and services. Although Mr. Dorr was asked to serve
as a consultant to the Secretary of War, he did not obtain an official
appointment, received no compensation, and paid his own expenses.25
Mr. Dorr became chairman of an
informal
group which at first consisted of Mr. Robert R. West, director of the Bureau
of Industrial Research at the University of Virginia, and Dr. Luther
Gulick, who had served on the President's Committee on Administrative
Management in 1936 and was then a consultant to the National Resources
Planning Board. Subsequently, the group included Brig. Gen. Arthur H.
Carter, previously a senior partner in the accounting firm of Haskens
[29]
and Sells and then director of the Administrative Branch in the Office of the Under Secretary,
and James H. Graham, dean of the Engineering School of the University of Kentucky, who had been associated with General Somervell during World War I. An officer of General Somervell's staff, Lt. Col. Clinton F. Robinson, was the principal assistant to the informal group.
It is an amazing circumstance that those interested in the reorganization, including Mr. Dorr and General Somervell, were seemingly unaware of the more
comprehensive plans then being discussed in the General Staff, while those planning the larger reorganization apparently did not appreciate the full effect of their plans on supply. Two streams could hardly flow very long in the same valley without merging; but during January 1942 they followed independent
channels.26
The problem which the Dorr group was tackling was by no means novel; nor was the solution at which it arrived altogether original. The then director of defense aid in the War Department, Col. Henry S. Aurand had earlier remarked in an
informal memorandum, "the crying need for reorganization of the War Department to put all supply in the hands of one man has been apparent since the time I joined the General Staff in May 1940." Colonel
Aurand had consistently advocated unification of the supply system.27 The
organization finally accepted may have differed in structure and detail from the proposal of Colonel Aurand, but it was founded on the same basic principle.
Another advocate of this proposal, Col. Ralph H. Tate, in the office of Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, also drew up an organizational scheme
centralizing the control of supply activities. Other individuals in G-4 and
in the War Production Board (WPB) had ideas on the subject. Mr. Dorr was
familiar with most of these proposals.28
Indeed, Colonel Aurand was frequently consulted by Mr. Dorr and freely
assisted in the informal group.
The work of the Dorr group was, as
its designation indicated, moat informal. It kept no records. Its members
worked individually on various assignments, and met in a
"hush-hush" atmosphere after regular working hours. The
discussions were kept secret. In the course of its work the group explored a
wide variety of subjects, the most important of which, as already noted,
was the relation between G-4 and the Under Secretary of War.29
Mr. Dorr decided that there were
three principal objectives: to develop a War Department supply program
stating military supply needs by time periods; to make more effective the
powers of the Under Secretary of War in supervising military procurement;
and to persuade the WPB
[30]
to give its attention primarily to
increasing the production of raw materials and to allocating available
supplies, leaving military procurement in the hands of the military
agencies.30
Only the second of these objectives specifically concerned
War Department organization. Mr. Dom favored an arrangement similar to that
in force during World War I whereby General Goethals had reported to the Assistant
Secretary on the business end of his job and to the Chief of Staff
on the military. In other words, Mr. Dom, as he himself acknowledged,
wanted to violate the dictum, "No man can serve two masters." He
reasoned that he was dealing with a unique difficulty. Those responsible for
military procurement had to know supply requirements as soon as possible in
order to shape production plans and schedules. Those responsible for
strategic plans wanted to delay committing themselves to specific
requirements lest strategy became a "prisoner of rigid logistical
arrangements. The officers in G-4 who translated strategic objectives into
specific requirements of men and material were, in effect, in the middle,
caught between these opposing pressures. At the same time they alone were
in a position to reconcile them. But under the existing arrangement, the
determination of requirements was done not only in G-4 Gut also by a unit in
the Office of the Under Secretary of War. Mr. Dom concluded that it was
essential to bring together under one individual the determination of
requirements and the control of procurement operations which fulfilled
them.31 Undoubtedly these
conclusions of Mr. Do" were also those
which General Somervell had reached in his view of the work of G-4.
Mr. Dom learned from Assistant
Secretary McCloy that this possibility of a unified supply and procurement organization had been canvassed, but that no man had been found for the post
who was mutually acceptable to the Chief of Staff and the Under Secretary of
War. Apparently, several names were mentioned but none was acceptable to
both parties. Mr. Doff therefore turned his attention to developing a plan
for closer relationships between the officers in the Supply Division
concerned
with requirements and the persona supervising procurement operations in the
OUSW. The crucial question of a unified tap organization was left unanswered
for the time being.32
Meanwhile, the Under Secretary was
trying to achieve better control over the production operations of the
supply arms and services. To assist him, Mr. William S. Knudsen, formerly
director general of the Office of Production Management (OPM), was
commissioned a lieutenant general and assigned to the Under Secretary's
office as Director of Production. General Knudsen turned at once to
production troubleshooting. During the war he visited many plants and helped solve
many production problems. Vital as this work was to prove and Under
Secretary Patterson once said that it was the equivalent of "10
percent in war production" General Knudsen still provided no solution
to the problem of top level supply organization in the War Department.33
Early in February 1942 General
Somervell learned for the first time that a general reorganization of
the War Department was in the offing. During much of December and January
following Pearl
[31]
Harbor, General McNarney, who had
been charged with planning it by Marshall, had been absent from
Washington. When he returned on 23 January, the final touches were put on
the War Department reorganization and on 31 January his recommendations
were submitted to the Chief of Staff and given tentative approval.34
General Marshall called his staff
together on 5 February and explained briefly the reorganization plan he
was considering. He gave the staff forty-eight hours to review the proposal
and to make suggestions.35 General Somervell, acting on the realization
that a far reaching change in the structure of the War Department was
being undertaken, consulted Mr. Dorr and his group at once. Both agreed
that the proposal for a service command did not go far enough. In their
opinion, General McNarney and his planners apparently did not understand
the necessity of close interrelationships between the Supply Division and
the Under Secretary of War, or the role of the Under Secretary in the
procurement activities of the War Department. The fact that the Office of
the Under Secretary in June 1941 had been moved into the so-called New War
Department Building, a block away from the Munitions Building where the
General Staff was located, may have contributed to this lack of
understanding. The planners also did not seem to realize the extent to which
supply operations at thin time were dependent upon current production.36
Despite these shortcomings, Mr.
Doff saw in the reorganization plan an opportunity for recreating the kind
of arrangement with which he had been familiar during World War I. He
recognized that the General Staff apparently was now willing to put its supply
responsibilities into a single command. This was one hurdle passed. Two more
remained: to combine the large staff in the OUSW with the new supply
command, and to find a chief for this command who would be acceptable to
both the Chief of Staff and the Under Secretary.
Meanwhile, General McNarney told
Somervell to draw up a supply organization which would meet the War
Department's
needs. Since the Chief of Staff was determined to announce a reorganization
during the month of February, Somervell had to act quickly. This meant that
only a few far-reaching changes could be intro doted; there was no time to
plan a thoroughgoing alteration of the existing system.37
Assisted
by two staff officers Col. W. D. Styer and Lt. Col. C. F. Robinson, General
Somervell prepared a plan for a unified organization to be known as the
Services of Supply and commanded by an Army officer. This was very different
from an enlarged G-4 type organization such as the Purchase, Storage, and
Traffic Division of World War I.
General Somervell accepted the
existence of the supply arms and services as then constituted with their
combined procurement and distribution responsibilities divided on a broad
commodity basis. The only change was the creation of a transportation
organization in the headquarters of the new command which would remove
transportation from the Office of The Quartermaster General.
The question was raised as to
whether there should be a Director of procurement
[32]
under the commanding general of the
SOS. A plan had been considered for a Director of Procurement and a Direct
of Distribution or Storage with important supervisory responsibilities. But
the decision to retain the supply arms and services made such a scheme
unworkable. A compromise was reached with the creation of a Director of
Procurement and Distribution who was in a sense a deputy to the commanding
general for these functions. At the same time, the new supply command was
to become the budget sad financial office of the War Department. There was
precedent for this step in General Goethals' authority in 1918, but another
mason of current importance was the fact that since most of the
appropriations
to the War Department were for procurement, this arrangement would simplify
the appropriation and accounting system for war purposes.38
There were many other points to
consider.
Was the Services of Supply also to be a personnel agency? Just before the
armistice of 1918, Secretary of War Baker had favored the creation of a
new personnel organization in the War Department, but the war ended before
the decision could be effected. There was now a disposition to revive the
plan and separate personnel administration from the supply operations of the
new command. This immediately raised another question. What should be done
with the administrative bureaus of the War Department such as the judge
Advocate General's office, the Chief of Chaplains, the National Guard
Bureau, and the Post Exchange Service? Mr. Dom believed that it would be
undesirable to load up the SOS with a wide assortment of organizations
functioning under its command. At one time he considered the possibility of
placing these various services under Assistant Secretary of War
McCloy. Mr. Dom discussed the matter with him, but Mr. McCloy was reluctant
to take over these diverse responsibilities. Then, the Chief of Staff made
it clear that he did not wish to have a fourth command in the United States;
since the SOS was expected to handle the common supply problems of the
Department, it seemed the appropriate agency also to handle common
administrative problems.39 In the end, it was decided to create a position of Chief of
Administrative Services and group the various administrative bureaus under
him.
In the second week of February,
after several adjustments, General Somervell submitted an acceptable plan for
a unified supply and service command to General McNarney. The work on this,
like the work of McNarney's committee, had been done in secret so as not to
give anticipated opposition a chance to organize before the plan was
complete. General Marshall had directed that even Under Secretary Patterson
be kept in ignorance of developments.40 It was Mr. Don's belief that,
though the reorganization plan "ignored the functions of the Under
Secretary of War under the National Defense Act of 1920," particularly
in the, bald form in which it was presented by General McNarney to
Somervell, this was not because of an "intentional design" to
change the fundamental structure of the War Department. Rather it was
because of "the inadvertence of a group of officers who did not know
much about the supply side of the Army." 41
[33]
Thus General Somervell, with the
help of Mr. Dorr, modified the McNarney plan as it affected procurement
operations and the Office of the Under Secretary. In working out last minute
details, they restated the powers of the Under Secretary in order to
conform, at least in part, to the original intention of the National Defense
Act of 1920.
Toward the end of February,
Assistant Secretary McCloy who was handling reorganization details for
Secretary Stimson asked General McNarney, General Somervell, Brig. Gen.
Bennett E. Meyers, who was in charge of procurement for the Army Air Forces,
and Mr. Dorr, to take up the proposal with Under Secretary Patterson. The
latter was practically faced with a choice between accepting a jai!
accompli, or delaying the much needed reorganization. He might still
influence details, but the broad outline of the plan was probably already
fixed. Mr. Patterson studied the plan. One of the first feature on which he
commented was the removal of procurement of Air Forces supplies from the
jurisdiction of the SOS. Under the plan, the Under Secretary would stiff
supervise air force procurement but not through the Services of Supply. The
arrangement was defended by General Meyers on the ground that, because of
the legislative interest in a completely autonomous air force, it was
essential at this time to keep air procurement separate from the common
supply organization of the War Department.42
The Under Secretary was still not
satisfied with this arrangement. His staff had been supervising air
materiel operations along with those of the other arms and services. Now,
practically all of his staff was to be placed under the commanding general
of the SOS, yet he personally was still expected to supervise the
procurement
operations of the Air Forces. In
the end, the only solution was a dotted line on the organization chart of
the proposed Services of Supply which indicated that on procurement and
related functions, the materiel command of the AAF would 6e subject to the
supervision of the SOS Director of Procurement and Distribution in the
name of the Under Secretary.43
The Under Secretary reserved
decision on the plan as a whole is order to discuss the details with his own
staff. The inclusion of Mr. Dorr in these subsequent discussions did
much to clarify the purpose of the reorganization. Indeed, it had been Mr.
Don's influence which had resulted in the inclusion of words ordering the
commanding general of the Services of Supply to act "under the
direction of the Under Secretary of War" on "procurement and
related matters." The Under Secretary raised the question whether the
interposition of a SOS between himself and the supply arms and services
would create obstacles to the performance of his basic responsibilities. Mr.
Dorr argued that the position of the commanding general of the SOS on
procurement matters would be comparable to that of as executive
vice-president or a general manager in a large corporation. The staff
organization of the SOS would be available to the Under Secretary for his
use, and Mr. Dorr saw no reason why he should not be able to deal with the
chiefs of the supply arms and services whenever he felt the need to do so.
Furthermore, Mr. Dorr expressed the opinion that the Under Secretary would
retain his own personal assistants, whom he had previously recruited and who
were now associated with him, in his own office. He could devote himself to
policy decisions and tough problems while
[34]
the commanding general of the SOS
would relieve him of a multitude of burdensome details.44
Some of Mr. Patterson's assistants
did not agree with Mr. Don's arguments. They believed that since the loyalty
of the commanding general of the SOS under the proposed plan would be to the
Chief of Staff first, the Under Secretary would play a much reduced role.
The director of the Bureau of the Budget, who was much concerned, asked that
the President protect the Under Secretary by defining his powers.
Otherwise he believed, "the proposed arrangement could easily result
in purchase and procurement work being insulated from the top civilian
side of the Department."45
Mr. Patterson himself seemed
disposed to follow the general outline of reorganization. He rejected the
advice of one of his most trusted assistants who prepared a directive to
be included in the plan which would require that important changes in the
supply organization be reviewed for final approval by the Under Secretary of
War. Mr. Patterson opposed such a measure because he believed that in time
he could work out problems with the supply head on an informal basis.46
The Under Secretary, on the other
hand, did require certain changes in the plan for amalgamating his staff
with that of G-4. Initially, the plan had contemplated combining the
supervision of requirements and production in a single unit. At the Under
Secretary's insistence, the separate identity of the two offices concerned
with these activities was preserved, though both were placed under a Deputy
Chief of Staff for Requirements and Resources 47
Mr. Dorr had several times pointed
out that the central problem was to find a head for the new command who
would be suitable to both Chief of Staff
Marshall and Under Secretary Patterson. Toward the end of February, Mr.
Patterson learned that General Somervell was being considered by the Chief
of Staff for the job. He had already had some contact with General Somervell.
He had admired the vigor with which Somervell as chief of the Construction
Division in the Office of The Quartermaster General had pushed the building
of Army camps, and had recommended him for an award of an oak leaf cluster
to his Distinguished Service Medal.48 On the other hand, he had
experienced
at first hand General Somervell's brusqueness which could and did
antagonize people. Late in 1941, in order to speed production, Mr. Patterson
had approved the construction of an arsenal near the coast at Houston,
Texas. Somervell curtly wrote him that the only other similar plant was
also near the coast, and he hoped that it "will not be put out of
production by enemy action. It is likewise hoped that, with thousands of
square miles and almost unlimited facilities no more production
facilities will be located outside the strategic area." 49
General
Somervell was quick to apologize for the tone of his letter; the very next
day, he
[35]
wrote a
"please-do-not-bother-to-answer-this" note saying he held Mr.
Patterson in the highest personal and professional esteem and that he was
greatly distressed to learn that his memorandum had given offense.50 The
letter and issue were trivial, but they were characteristic of the Somervell
drive. Mr. Patterson admired General Somervell's dynamic personality but was
somewhat worried about future relations with him. He mentioned it not only
to Mr. Darn but to many others including the new chairman of the War
Production Board, Donald M. Nelson. Mr. Nelson, who shortly thereafter
became involved in a hot dispute with General Somervell, at this time
recommended him as a good man to occupy this important military position
dealing with supply. Mr. Doff also spoke highly of General Somervell but
tactfully added that in a question of personality, Mr. Patterson should use
his own judgment. Patterson then acquiesced in both the reorganization and
the appointment of General Somervell.51
The completed reorganization plan
was ordered into effect by the President on 28 February 1942,52 and on 2
March 1942 Secretary Stimson announced the reorganization is a press
release. In a brief memorandum to those members of his staff transferred to
the new command, asking that they share their loyalty to him with the new
commanding general, Under Secretary Patterson declared that the unification
of supply "under the vigorous leadership of General Somervell, will
enable
us to perform our huge task with greater dispatch sad better coordination."53
On 9 March 1942 General Somervell assumed his new responsibilities as
commanding general of the Services of Supply, or, as it will be called
hereafter, the Army Service Forces.54
The President's executive order
directing the reorganization of March 1942 attracted relatively little
public attention. It was practically swept off the front pages of the
newspapers by the dramatic Japanese push into Java and by British commando
raids on the German held French coast. Nevertheless this brief and prosaic
order, in the words of one commentator, directed "the most drastic and
fundamental change which the War Department had experienced since the
establishment of the General Staff by Elihu Root in 1903.55
The President's order authorized
the Secretary of War to prescribe the functions and duties of the new
commands. As Commander in Chief, the President specifically reserved the
authority to deal directly with the Chief of Staff on matters concerning
military strategy and tactics.
[36]
The executive order became
effective on 9 March 1942, and was to remain in force during the war and for
six months thereafter. Detailed War Department instructions with respect
to the reorganization were issued in War Department Circular 59, dated 2
March 1942. Simultaneously, the War Department in a press release explained
to the public that the creation of three separate commands under the Chief
of Staff ground, air, and service was needed in order to get away from the
existing cumbersome staff structure. The redistribution of duties was
expected to streamline the Department and gear it to worldwide operations.
Through reorganization, it was hoped to obtain better control over
important matters, to delegate details, and to achieve greater cooperation
between air and ground forces.56
Under the new concept, the War
Department
General Staff would be composed of a small number of officers who would
assist the Chief of Staff "in strategic planning and direction, and in
coordinating the activities of the three great commands in order to
provide theater commanders with the broad directives and with the means for conducting the actual war operations."
57
The new Commanding General, Army
Air Forces, succeeded to most of the dubs previously allocated to the chief
of the Army Air Forces, together with some new ones. The air command was to
have its own general and administrative staffs. It would train and equip air
units for both "independent air striking and or combined combat
operations with the ground forces." 58
The Air Forces would also be
responsible or the research, design, development, and procurement of all
items peculiar to air operations.
The new Commanding General, Army
Ground Forces, took over
responsibility for organizing and training ground combat troops. The
functions of the semiautonomous chiefs of the combat arms of infantry,
cavalry, field artillery, and coast artillery were, for the most part,
absorbed by the Commanding General, Army Ground Forces, and the arms thereby
lost their independent status. In consequence, they could now be better
trained as a balanced combat team.
To the Commanding General, Army
Service Forces, fell the task of relieving the fighting arms, air and
ground, of the "distraction and effort required by supply,
procurement, and general housekeeping duties, except for experimental
development
and procurement peculiar to the Air Forces." 59
He was also expected
to relieve the Chief of Staff of details of administration, including
budgets, induction of personnel, the maintenance of records, and similar
matters.
War Department Circular 59
described the organizational structure of the ASF and set forth the duties
assigned to the new command. These duties covered a wide field. The Chief of
Staff was determined that there would be no more than three commands in
the United States reporting to him. Therefore, all responsibilities
which did not fit into the Ground or Air Forces were dumped into the Service
Forces. The AST thus became a catch all command, as already indicated. Some
of the duties logically belonged in it; others were put there because they
could not logically be placed anywhere else.
The hard core of the Army Service
Forces was the procurement and supply
[37]
function. The bulk of the Office of
the Under Secretary of War, because it was concerned with procurement and
industrial mobilization, along with most of the personnel of G-4 of the
General Staff, became part of the new organization. The chiefs of the six
supply arms and services, who formerly reported directly to the Chief of
Staff, now reported to the Commanding General, ASP. These arms and
services were the Quartermaster Corps, the Ordnance Department, the Corps of
Engineers, the Medical Department, the Signal Corps, and the Chemical
Warfare Service. In addition, the procurement and supply duties of the Coast
Artillery Corps were transferred to the Ordnance Department.
The new setup of 9 March 1942
recognized
an organizational need which had been evident in the top command of the
Army, both overseas and in the United States, since World War I. This need
was to handle all procurement and all supply operations as one integrated
activity. No supply arm or service could do the job by itself. An army in
combat had to have all its supplies, from weapons and ammunition to
gasoline, food, and clothing, on a schedule which brought all of these items
together is the right place at the right time. The ASF was the War
Department's answer to this vital need in World War II.
The "mission" of the ASF
"to provide services and supplies to meet military requirements"
imposed upon it duties in addition to its functions of procurement and
supply, as already stated. These duties were not precisely defined, several
overlapped, and some were susceptible of elastic interpretation. Among
them were included the direction of research storage, and distribution of
supplies; purchasing and contractual procedures; construction for the Army; consolidation of
supply programs and requirements procured for the Army, Navy, and defense
aid; fiscal administration; direction of certain Army wide functions such
as pre-military training, manpower mobilization, and labor relations;
operation of reception centers, replacement training centers, and training
schools for the supply arms and services; technical training of individuals,
basic training of service troops, and technical training of service units;
the furnishing of ASF personnel to the Army Air and Ground Forces,
theaters of operations, and overseas forces; and a large number of other
duties.60
Many organizations were made part
of the ASF to assist in its "mission" to "provide services
and supplies to meet military requirements." Among these were the
various administrative bureaus of the War Department. These included the
offices of the judge Advocate General, The Adjutant General, the Provost
Marshal General, the Chief of Special Services, the Chief of Chaplains,
and the Chief of Finance. Various regional organizations and installations
also performed duties which might be classified as supply and administrative
duties. Corps area commanders, general depots, regulating and
reconsignment stations for overseas shipments, and ports of embarkation
were all placed under the Army Service Forces.61 The commanding general
of the new ASF was given the functions, responsibilities, and authority of
command which by law, regulation, or custom had been formerly vested in the
heads of the units assigned to him.62 He could also consolidate these
[38]
units and make "such amalgamation, reallocation of
duties, and reorganization as is necessary or advisable." 63
Circular 59 expressly noted
the dual responsibility of the commanding general of the Army Service
Forces; on business matters he reported to the Under Secretary of War and
on military matters to the Chief of Staff.64 No attempt was made to
delimit the two spheres of activity. When General McNarney testified before
the Senate Committee on Military Affairs on 6 March 1942, he admitted
that this was an arrangement "which you might say violates good
organization." He added that while the commanding general of the ASF
would have two bosses, they were "for two different purposes, but the
purposes are somewhat interrelated." McNarney declared that the two
functions of procurement and supply had to be merged. Under this
arrangement, they were joined at the highest practical level and this was the
"beat practical solution" to the problem.65
Circular 59 also stated, at
the insistence of Under Secretary Patterson, that the responsibilities
placed on the Secretary of War in Section 5a of the National Defense
Act "shall continue to be performed by the Under Secretary of
War." 66 But with moat of his staff transferred to the Army Service
Forces there was some question as to how the Under Secretary would do
this work. Theoretically, he would function on a policy level, the ASF on an
operating level. The reorganization did provide the Under Secretary with a
solid basis of formal and statutory authority to determine policy. It
remained to be seen whether with a small personal staff and with General
Somervell in a position of dual responsibility, he could make this authority
effective.
The War Department reorganization
brought with it serious problems of status and jurisdiction. From the
beginning there was much antagonism toward the ASF. A Senator on the
Military Affairs Committee commented, "I don't see what use there is
in this setup of a commanding general in charge of services and supply."
67
Many men of high military rank also disagreed with the plan. From the
moment it went into effect, there were various efforts to upset it. After
the war, the structure set up in March 1942 was swept away and
replaced by one not unlike the prewar arrangement.
The housekeeping function in an
organization can be interpreted both broadly and strictly. Those who
perform such duties, especially if they are strong and vigorous
personalities, sometimes tend m absorb the powers of those whom they are
supposed to serve. The Mayors of the Palace in France during the early
Middle Ages, though originally only housekeeping officials, gradually
extended their service functions until they replaced their royal masters.
The organization of 1942 had endowed General Somervell with a good
deal of administrative power and many feared he would build an
"empire."
On the other hand, if the Army
Service Forces was to have any practical value, it had to relieve the Chief
of Staff and the
[39]
General Staff of operating and
administrative functions so that the staff could devote itself to planning
and strategy. The fan that the ASF took over many functions which previously
had been performed on a higher rung of the ladder of the military hierarchy
did not mean that the functions themselves were less important. The creation
of the ASF did not relegate supply matters to a corner where no one need
worry further about them. It simply made one man the key figure in handling
these problems and that man had to act with authority. By the nature of his
responsibilities, the commanding general of the Army Service Forces could
scarcely hope to please everyone. If he interpreted his function strictly
and acted with deference to those who had been reduced in the organizational
hierarchy, he could not rise to the urgency of the situation; if he acted
with vigor and efficiency, he was an "empire builder."
To make a difficult situation even
more difficult, the ASF was not a well-integrated organization, and its
commanding general, though vested with wide jurisdiction, was not fully
the master in his own house. In contrast, the Army Air Forces and the Army
Ground Forces were far better unified.
The AAF, since its creation in June
1941, had been composed of two major parts, the Air Force Combat Command and
the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps. These two component parts were now
abolished and their responsibilities vested in the commanding general of the
Army Air Forces. The position of a Deputy Chief of Staff for Air is the War
Department was also abolished. All this meant simply that General Arnold, by
virtue of one title, would perform all of the duties which he had
previously performed with two or three titles. He was
now able to create such subordinate commands and staffs as he thought
desirable. Moreover, for several years the component parts of the AAF had
developed a common loyalty to the concept of the air mission in combat
operations. There was thus a unity of purpose and of tradition within the
AAF.
In the case of the Army Ground
Forces, the executive order of 28 February 1942 transferred the functions
and authority of the chiefs of Infantry, Cavalry, Field Artillery, and
Coast Artillery to the commanding general of the AGF, Lt. Gen. L. J.
McNair. The new command headquarters of the AGF was the already existing
General Headquarters which had first been formed in 1940. Thus, out of the
reorganization, General McNair received a mission which was somewhat more
limited in scope than that originally envisaged for GHQ, but he retained an
existing staff intact. In addition, by absorbing the duties of the four
chiefs of combat arms, much of the friction which he had experienced in the
past was eliminated.
The commanding general of the Army
Service Forces inherited no such unified organization. He simply received
command authority over various agencies, each of which retained its
separate identity and many of which retained a degree of autonomy. True,
with the creation of the ASF, the chiefs of supply and administrative
services had been moved down a peg in the hierarchy, for the major
organizational
change introduced by the establishment of the ASF was to interpose a new
level of command into the War Department between the chiefs of supply and
administrative services and the Chief of Staff. Whereas each of these chiefs
previously had reported directly to the Chief of Staff, they now reported
to the command-
[40]
ing general of the Army Service
Forces. Nevertheless, the various heads of bureaus still retained a good
deal of authority and responsibility. They were not an easy group to
transform into a tight-knit, unified organization.
Another difficulty lay in the wide
range of separate functions performed by the ASE It was more than a
procurement and supply agency of the War Department. Actually, all the many
miscellaneous activities which had grown up within the War Department over
along period of time were simply assigned en bloc to the Army Service
Forces. In consequence, the ASF was expected, among other things, to relieve
the Chief of Staff and the War Department General Staff of housekeeping
burdens. The ASF thus became a command of "things in general."
This variety of duties was to create one of the major internal
organizational problems for the ASF in the years ahead.
A feature that many people failed
to understand was that the Army Service Forces was a very different command
from either the AAF or the AGE The latter two were expected primarily to
train combat units for military operations against the enemy. The mission of
the ASF was to provide services for the other two forces and for overseas
commands.
The role of the ASF as a common
agency for War Department research and development, and for procurement and
supply, was far less important with respect to the Air Forces than with
respect to the Ground Forces. This arose from the fact that the AAF did its
own research and development work. Although the Army Ground Forces shared
responsibility with the ASF for development activities and testing military
equipment, and although it decided the quantities of equipment desirable for various types of ground
combat units, the really extensive research on ground equipment was done by
the technical services within the Army Service Forces.
The ASF also
determined requirements and made arrangements for production, delivery,
storage, and issue of ground equipment. Its procurement and supply
activities for the AGF therefore surpassed those for the AAF. The Air Forces
procured its own aircraft and related items. It had to turn to the ASF for
such supplies as food, clothing, and other items which it used in common
with the AGE In the procurement and supply of such items, the ASF was
recognized as a common agency for the War Department. But the largest part
of the supply work of the ASF was performed for ground troops, both in the
United States and overseas.
The Army Service Forces was unique
in other respects than in being a common supply agency for the two commands
in the United States and for the various theaters of operations overseas.
For one thing, it was initially designated to be the budget agency of the
War Department. It became responsible for the induction, initial
classification,
and the assignment of personnel for the Army as a whole. It also provided
common medical, communication, and transportation services for the Army.
Thus the ASF was by no means a "coordinate" command with the Air
Forces and the Ground Forces. Rather, it was a command set up to assist
these two commands and to handle overseas service and supply needs. The
essence of its special character could be found in its description as the
"common supply and service agency" of the War Department.
An important problem for the future
was to arise from those provisions of Circular 59 which assigned to the
Army Air
[41]
Forces the "command and
control" of its own air bases in the continental United States. This
command included all personnel of units and installations located at the
air base "including station complement personnel and activities."
In practice, the assignment of command authority at air bases to the Army
Air Forces meant that the AAF itself retained responsibility for the
performance of medical services, utility services, recreational
activities, chaplain services, and many other administrative or
housekeeping duties at these bases. On the other hand, no such duties were
vested in the commanding general of the Ground Forces. The ACT occupied its
training stations on a kind of "user" or "lessee" basis.
The actual operation of the ground posts which housed troops in
training, fell to the ASR
No one, of course, expected the
reorganization of 9 March 1942 to be perfect. Indeed Circular 59 itself
stated that "experience of the first three months" would probably
indicate the desirability of "minor modifications" in the proposed
organization. Yet, at the same time, it was equally clear that no
fundamental changes in the 9 March pattern of organization were expected for
the duration of World War II. The War Department had decided upon the
general scheme of organization for the conduct of its part of the war
effort. The Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff expected the arrangement
to prove both workable and helpful[42]
Page Created June 13th 2001
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