- Chapter VIII:
The Army Air Forces and the ASF
The War Department reorganization of
9 March 1942 also produced numerous organizational difficulties between
the Army Service Forces and the Army Air Forces. The air arm of the Army
had finally achieved an autonomous position within the Department. But it
still felt the need to gain "adequate" recognition of air power,
and this effort brought about many conflicts over the respective
responsibilities of the ASF and the AAF.
The reorganization gave the AAF a
special position in the War Department. Not only was it left free to
develop its own basic doctrine on combat employment of the air arm, but
also its commanding general became the strategic and tactical adviser in
the War Department on all Air Forces operations. Second, the AAF was made
responsible for the procurement of all equipment "peculiar to the
Army Air Forces." In the third place, it was given command of
"Army Air Forces stations and bases not assigned to defense commands
or theater commanders," though as a final exhortation, the AAF was
told to minimize its administrative activities by utilizing the services
of the ASK The exhortation was at best a pious wish.1
The difficulties between the ASF
and the AAF arose mainly in the fields of procurement and of post
management. This second
difficulty stemmed from the fact that the AAF exercised command over all
Air Forces installations located within the United States, while the Army
Ground Forces used posts managed by the ASR The problem here was whether
the AAF was to follow practices different from those developed by the ASF,
or whether it was to utilize the supervisory services of the ASF to insure
the proper management of post operations.
There were other irritations
besides these two major ones. The Army Air Forces objected to the
budgetary authority of the ASF and repeatedly proposed that the War
Department should have a budget division at the General Staff level .2
Then too the AAF desired to use its own communications system rather than
the War Department system built up by the Signal Corps. Eventually the
administrative as contrasted with the tactical communications system of
the AAF was integrated with that for the War Department generally.
Occasionally there were differences over accounting matters, although for
the most part the Air Forces kept the type of records required by the
Fiscal Director, ASF. These were only the pin pricks in ASF-AAF relations,
how-
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ever; the real difficulties, as
already stated, arose over procurement and post management operations.
The procurement relations of the
Army Service Forces and the Army Air Forces were of two kinds. One
relationship arose at the policy level; the other in the actual
procurement of various types of materiel. Prior to 9 March 1942 the Air
Corps, in a sense, had simply been another supply arm of the War
Department, subject, like the others, to the procurement supervision of
the Under Secretary of War. After 9 March 1942 the supervisory
organization of the Under Secretary was transferred to the staff of the
Commanding General, ASF.3
Most of the people who had previously been with the Office of the Under
Secretary of War and the G-4 Division of the War Department General Staff
were now with the headquarters staff of the Army Service Forces. The ASF
was recognized as the principal procurement agency of the War Department.
To what extent then was the AAF to follow procurement policies and
procedures developed within the ASF? Actually, on a dollar volume basis,
the seven technical services of the ASF spent about two thirds of the
procurement funds of the War Department and the Army Air Forces about one
third. The headquarters staff of the ASF was a supervisory agency setting
the procurement policies for the technical services. Somervell thought it
desirable that the AAF follow the same standard policies.
The parties concerned resorted to
various devices so that the supervisory duties could be performed without
lacerating corps consciousness too severely. For example, General
Somervell's director of the Purchases
Division acted as an ASF officer when dealing with the technical services,
but became Director of Purchases for the Under Secretary of War when
supervising the Army Air Forces.4
The purchasing policies and the contract provisions developed in the
Purchases Division thus applied equally to the AAF and to the technical
services of the ASK To facilitate co-operation, the Army Air Forces placed
a liaison officer in the Purchases Division to keep in touch with
purchasing policies and to clear them with the AAF.
The same type of relationship
developed in the field of contract renegotiation. The director of the
Renegotiation Division in ASF headquarters was also chairman of the War
Department Price Adjustment Board. This officer assigned contract
renegotiations to the AAF in the name of the Under Secretary. The AAF
filled out the same reports as those filled out by the technical services.
The Renegotiation Division kept a War Department-wide record of contract
renegotiation. In this field too, then, the same standards, the same
procedures, and the same policies, governed the technical services and the
Army Air Forces.
Similarly, the Readjustment
Division in ASF headquarters developed policies and procedures for
contract termination. This division kept a record of the progress made in
settlement of terminations and handled policies on the determination of
excess property. The AAF followed the Readjustment Division's instructions
in the same way that the technical services did.
Just as in the case of the
Purchases Division, whenever the Renegotiation Division or the
Readjustment Division were dealing with the AAF, the respective heads of
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these divisions acted as
"special representative" of the Under Secretary of War, thus
preserving the fiction that the Under Secretary supervised the procurement
operations of the AAF. But there was no duplication of staffs between the
Office of the Under Secretary and the Commanding General, ASE On
procurement policy matters the Air Technical Service Command (before 1944
the Air Service and the Air Materiel Commands) was simply an additional
technical service. The AAF did not question the need for standard War
Department policies on contract clauses, pricing policy, contract
renegotiations, and contract termination. As long as the provisions were
promulgated in the name of the Under Secretary of War and not in the name
of the Commanding General, ASF, the AAF seemed to be satisfied.
The AAF was also favorably
disposed toward the work of the Procurement Assignment Board in the
Purchases Division. This board fixed procurement responsibility among the
technical services for newly standardized items of equipment and
reassigned responsibility when overlapping in procurement operations
became evident. The board sometimes assigned items for procurement by the
Army Air Forces, and in one or two instances took procurement from the AAF
for assignment to a technical service.
The ASF provided similar
leadership in handling labor and manpower problems. With the growing
shortage of labor, and with the expansion of both War Production Board and
War Manpower Commission (WMC) organizations to handle such shortages, the
War Department saw the need of developing field machinery of its own. On 5
November 1943 the Under Secretary pointed out to the ASF and AAF
commanding generals that labor relations and labor supply were an
essential part of procurement. Accordingly, the AAF was to handle all
intraplant labor problems in facilities under its jurisdiction, while the
technical services would discharge a similar responsibility in plants
under their authority. But the "general directing and
supervising" of all War Department labor activities was to be
exercised on behalf of the Under Secretary by the Industrial Personnel
Division in ASF headquarters. Thus another staff division of the ASF
became likewise a staff unit of the Under Secretary when dealing with the
labor relations and manpower problems of the Army Air Forces.5
But except for labor matters, no
such arrangement was worked out in arty other "production"
field. The AAF developed its own methods of estimating raw material
requirements and presented these separately to the WPB. It had its own
procedures for controlling allotments of raw materials, and for
maintaining, production records. The ASF Production Division was never
used by the Under Secretary of War in following the progress of the AAF
production program. Production statistics of the AAF were very different
from those of the ASF. Even on matters such as packing and packaging and
the conservation of materials, the Army Air Forces followed one program
and the Army Service Forces another.
In addition, when the ASF was
first set up, Somervell had hoped that the newly developed Army Supply
Program would include requirements of the AAF. This hope was short-lived.
The AAF followed its own practices in determining its procurement needs.
Only after long argument was the ASF able to include in its supply
[126]
program the requirements of the
Army Air Forces which were purchased by the technical services of the ASF.
These included bombs procured by the Ordnance Department and the Chemical
Warfare Service and other specified types of equipment. Items of air
mat6riel "peculiar" to the Air Forces were consolidated in a
separate section of the Army Supply Program. Accordingly, in determining
supply requirements and directing production, the AAF and the ASF went
their own separate ways. No serious disputes resulted from this
arrangement, although occasionally there were conflicting points of view.
In specifying that the AAF would
procure supplies "peculiar" to its activities, War Department
Circular 59 presumably referred primarily to aircraft engines, aircraft
frames, and certain equipment which went into aircraft. Other supplies, it
was supposed, would be provided by the ASF, as in the case of the food,
the hand weapons, the trucks, and the other equipment used by the AAF,
even when some of these items were not entirely the same as those used by
the Army Ground Forces and the service troops themselves. Actually, there
was constant difficulty in drawing a line between items
"peculiar" to the AAF and those which were not.
Throughout the war, the Ordnance
Department of the ASF provided armament for aircraft. The air-cooled
.50-caliber machine gun, the 20-mm. gun, and the 75-mm. cannon were
weapons that were used by the Air Forces. The Ordnance Department likewise
produced ammunition for aircraft armament, and in co-operation with the
AAF developed the high explosive bombs which were dropped by the medium
and heavy bombardment groups. From time to time the AAF proposed that it
should take over all procurement of ordnance
equipment going into aircraft. The proposals were rejected, and until the
end of the war, the Ordnance Department continued to be the procurement
agency for AAF armament.
Extraordinary progress in the
development and procurement of incendiary bombs was made by the Chemical
Warfare Service working with the Army Air Forces. Apparently the AAF was
satisfied with the arrangement. The only controversies were over the size
of AAF requirements for incendiary bombs. The Chemical Warfare Service
accepted AAF estimates of requirements, although it believed that the
requirements at times were unduly high.
The Quartermaster General was the
procurement agency of the Army for foodstuffs and for clothing. The early
experience in long-range bomber attacks indicated that some method of
special feeding was needed to help combat fatigue on return journeys. At
the same time, the food had to be edible at high altitudes. The AAF sought
the assistance of the Office of The Quartermaster General and the problem
was successfully solved through their joint efforts. On the other hand,
air-sea rescue boats and much other equipment carried in airplanes were
similar to items purchased by both the Corps of Engineers and the
Transportation Corps. But the AAF maintained that the items were
"peculiar" to the AAF and insisted upon its own procurement.
Similarly, the Army Air Forces
insisted upon procuring all photographic equipment used in aerial
photography, even though other photographic equipment was for the most
part purchased by the Signal Corps. In addition, AAF was assigned
responsibility for procuring all photographic film, including that dis-
[127]
tributed by the Signal Corps for
use by ground cameramen .6
The greatest expansion of Army
Air Forces procurement during the war occurred in 1944-45 when
responsibility for the development, purchase, and storage of all
communications and radar equipment used in aircraft was transferred from
the Signal Corps to the AAF. Early in 1944 the AAF had recommended to the
Chief of Staff that Signal Corps procurement of aircraft communications
equipment be transferred to it. The Signal Corps had established a
procurement office for this activity at Wright Field, headquarters of the
Air Technical Service Command. Eventually all procurement of
communications equipment for the AAF was centralized in this office. The
AAF maintained that since the office was located at Wright Field and was
working with the Army Air Forces, its operations should be transferred to
AAF control. The Signal Corps replied that while the office had been
placed at Wright Field simply as a matter of convenience to the AAF, the
research and development program of the entire Signal Corps was utilized
in developing air communications equipment. Moreover, the Wright Field
office depended upon other Signal Corps offices for expediting production
and other contract services.
On 26 July 1944 General Marshall
wrote a memorandum addressed jointly to Generals Arnold and Somervell
expressing the opinion that the time had come when airborne radar and
radio equipment, guided missiles, ground radar, and radio navigational
aids should be considered items of equipment peculiar to the Air Forces.
But he indicated his belief that the procurement of all these items should
not be transferred at this time from the Signal Corps
to the Army Air Forces. He suggested only that the AAF should now assume
full responsibility for research and development, including procurement of
experimental items. By implication, but not in so many words, the Chief of
Staff invited comment upon this issue.7
General Somervell "strongly
recommended" to the Chief of Staff that he consider certain factors
before issuing the proposed directive. Such a directive would separate
radio and radar research and development for aircraft from similar
research and development of equipment for ground use. This step would also
hamper the growing collaboration of the Signal Corps with the Navy.
Moreover, the existing arrangement, with Signal Corps laboratories and
procurement located at Wright Field, permitted the closest co-operation
and association with the AAF while still retaining the advantage of
centralized research and procurement. This was particularly important
because about 75 percent of the component parts of Air Forces radio and
radar equipment was the same kind as that in the equipment used by the
AGF. Furthermore the Signal Corps was about to promote complete
standardization of component parts and common types of equipment. Finally,
the proposed separation of activities would probably result in competition
for limited and essential facilities and equipment. In
[128]
conclusion, General Somervell
remarked that the AAF, had not given any particulars about Signal Corps
failure to provide satisfactory service. He suggested that General Arnold
and he should examine the situation so that both could develop plans which
would remedy any unsatisfactory performance and at the same time avoid the
"real and extensive difficulties which the proposed action would
entail."8
Arnold, in giving his reaction to
General Marshall's proposed directive, remarked that the help the Air
Forces had received from the ASF had been commendable. Nevertheless, the
new policy would enable the Air Forces to synchronize development of vital
radio and radar equipment with aircraft development.9
After weighing the arguments on
both sides, the Chief of Staff decided to transfer development and
development procurement of air communications equipment to the AAF10
A joint committee of the Signal Corps and the AAF was established to work
out details of the transfer,11
which was effected on 1 April 1945.12
A total of 600 officers, 390 enlisted men, and 8,245 civilian employees of
the Signal Corps were shifted to the Army Air Forces. The total dollar
value of the procurement program thus transferred averaged a billion
dollars a year during World War II.13
More acrimonious than the
foregoing dispute over procurement and supply was the controversy between
the two commands resulting from divided responsibilities in the management
of Army posts in the United States.14
As will be explained later, the nine service commands of the ASF provided
the regional channels through which the ASF managed military posts
where Army Ground Forces and ASF personnel were trained. Post management
was a sizable task. Central management of all posts by the ASF would have
permitted a single system of supervision as well as uniform methods of
supply. But the AAF insisted upon the complete and separate management of
its own posts, or air bases.
Originally the AAF argued that
bases where its troops were trained were different from posts for ground
troops, the more important difference centering mainly in the airfields
themselves and the hangars. All characteristics common to post and base
management were held to be subordinate to this differentiating feature.
The Air Forces belittled the importance of hospital administration, post
exchange business, the disbursement of funds, the management of motion
picture theaters, the operation of supply warehouses, the provision of
utilities, the storage of clothing and other items, and of other
activities performed at both types of installations. The features peculiar
to an air base, the AAF insisted, made it essentially different from an
Army post and therefore justified exclusive management of the base by the
Air Forces itself.
Army regulations in August 1942
placed
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all AAF bases in a category
labeled Class III, "installations under command of Army Air
Forces." 15
At these installations the service commanders of the ASF were directed to
supervise fourteen activities which ranged from general courts martial
jurisdiction to the operation of laundries. The list was enlarged a little
on 24 December 1942, but there were still glaring omissions, notably
medical service and supply operations involving common Army items.
The ASF took the initiative in
preparing the original Army regulation. The AAF agreed to the list of
activities in the performance of which the commanding officer at a Class
III installation would come under the supervision of the service command.
Within this specified list, air bases and Army posts within the United
States operated under a single set of instructions, with uniform standards
of service, and subject to the same supervision. With respect to all other
activities, however, the base commanding officer was responsible to his
designated superior in the organizational hierarchy of the Army Air
Forces.
This arrangement for dual
supervision of Air Forces bases soon created trouble. Even though the
regulations made it clear that the AAF would designate the air base
commander and that this commander would report to the Air Forces on Air
Forces matters and to the service commander on Service Forces matters, the
AAF never liked the arrangement. The issues that arose were in themselves
trivial. They became important because they involved the basic question of
whether the ASF would provide services to the AAF in the same way as it
did for the AGF, or whether the Army air arm would become completely
self-contained and duplicate the organization of the ASE
One conflict developed over the
method of supply distribution to air bases. The zone of interior supply
distribution system established by the ASF was a relatively simple and
direct one. Technical service depots or branches of ASF general depots
were designated as distribution depots to fill requisitions from posts in
their area: Post supply officers were given a list of the appropriate
depots from which they might requisition various types of supplies needed
by troops in training at the post. Requisitions flowed from the post to
the depot and supplies from the depot to the post. The technical service
depots were prepared to render a like service to all air bases.
In May 1943 the War Department
issued a technical manual on stock control at posts, camps, and stations.16
This manual was prepared by the ASF, and the Army Air Forces concurred.
But after it became necessary in 1944 to rewrite the manual to incorporate
the lessons gained from a year's experience, the AAF proposed a series of
changes which would have established supply procedures for air bases
entirely different from those for other Army posts. When the ASF objected,
the Air Forces proposed publication of its own technical manual governing
supply procedures of the Air Forces. ASF headquarters objected to these
proposals on the ground that the manual was intended to govern the
distribution of ASF supplies wherever needed in the United States, and
that a uniform procedure was indispensable in order to keep stocks at a
minimum level and so reduce purchases.
Protracted direct negotiation
followed between the two commands. On those
[130]
matters where agreement was not
possible, the issues were presented to the War Department General Staff
for decision. In the end, the manual was revised and applied to both the
ASF and the AAF, but the commanding generals of the various Air Forces
commands in the United States were made responsible for carrying out its
provisions.17
Thus the ASF had its own supervisory organization for insuring that stock
levels were fixed at posts in accordance with the provisions of the
manual, while the AAF, through a number of different commands, had the
same supervisory responsibility at all air bases. 18
The method of handling repairs
and utility matters was another sore point with the AAF. From the time
that Army regulations governing Air Forces bases were first put into
effect in August 1942, the AAF began to recommend other arrangements for
dealing with these responsibilities. The Army Service Forces wanted its
service commands to handle funds, personnel allotments, and technical
instructions for the operation of water, electrical, and sewage systems,
and for the maintenance of buildings. Service commands then dealt directly
with air bases on these activities. In July 1943 the commanding general of
the Eighth Service Command reported that AAF headquarters was allotting
personnel for repairs and utilities activities. These allotments not only
differed in size from those made by the ASF, but were also subjected to
different personnel policies. For example, ASF instructions prohibited the
use of enlisted men for repairs and utilities duties at posts, while the
AAF made it mandatory that a certain number be used for this activity.19
There was also disagreement about the position of the post engineer in
post organization at air bases. The post engineer at ground posts
reported directly to the post commander, while the Air Forces had
introduced an intervening echelon which service commanders felt
complicated their relationship with base engineers.
There was little that the ASF
could do about these situations. Internal organization of air bases was
entirely the responsibility of the AAF. At most, commanding generals of
service commands could only press their repairs and utilities
responsibilities as best they could at each air base.
On 14 April 1944 the commanding
general of the Army Air Forces sent a memorandum to the Chief of Staff
(attention: G-4), recommending that all the repairs and utilities
responsibilities at air bases be delegated to the AAF. The ASF attitude
toward this recommendation was expressed by General Styer who said, on 21
April 1944, that he was "strongly opposed" to such a proposal
unless the Army Air Forces became independent of the rest of the Army. By
law, the Chief of Engineers was responsible for repair and utility
activities, and in the ASF this responsibility was performed through
service command engineers. This arrangement provided a simple, direct
method for performing the work on a geographic basis. throughout the zone
of interior. To adopt General Arnold's proposal would mean two separate
supervisory organizations for repair and utilities functions. General
Styer remarked that there were no difficulties in the present organization
which could not be solved by a co-operative relationship between the ASF
and the AAF
[131]
similar to that which the ASF had
worked out with the Army Ground Forces. He recommended that "the
principle be adopted and put into effect that the Army Service Forces will
supply and service all Air Forces installations in the same manner that
the Army Service Forces now supplies and services all installations
utilized by the Army Ground Forces." 20
The recommendation from the
commanding general of the AAF was disapproved by the Deputy Chief of Staff
of the War Department. But the counter recommendation of the ASF was also
disapproved. The issue, therefore, remained very much alive.
Another controversy concerned
hospital administration. To care for AAF personnel at air bases, the AAF
had station hospitals which were supervised through various commands
terminating in the headquarters of the AAF, where the Air Surgeon was the
top medical officer. The Surgeon General of the Army, who was a part of
the ASF, had almost no authority over AAF hospital facilities. On 30 April
1943 General Somervell requested the Chief of Staff to reaffirm that the
Surgeon General was the chief medical officer of the entire Army.21
The Deputy Chief of Staff replied that existing regulations adequately
prescribed the functions of The Surgeon General, who had "over-all
responsibility of providing adequate medical service for the entire
Army." At the same time, he advised, there must be "sufficient
decentralization" to insure that "policies" in practice met
the needs of overseas theaters and the three major commands within the
United States.
The Deputy Chief of Staff set
forth three "principles" for the guidance of The Surgeon General
and the Air Surgeon. First, the procurement of all medical personnel
was a responsibility of The Surgeon
General. Second, station hospitals at Air Forces bases were under the
command of the AAF. Third, aviation medicine and medical treatment of
combat crews were responsibilities of the AAF, under the direction of the
Air Surgeon. General hospitals to meet this need would be assigned to the
AAF by the Chief of Staff. 22
This statement of
responsibilities was by no means satisfactory to The Surgeon General. On
30 June 1943 General Somervell wrote to the Chief of Staff, forwarding a
memorandum which he had received from The Surgeon General. At the outset,
Somervell expressed his belief that it was not the intention of the Chief
of Staff to have two medical departments in the Army, one for the Air
Forces and one for ground troops. It was true that airmen were subject to
certain maladies and injuries which would require specialized treatment.
The same was true of tank crews. Yet this did not justify a separate
medical service for the armored forces. The Surgeon General desired to
develop in his office a group of specialists in diseases and ailments
peculiar to aviation and also to have these specialists in general
hospitals. General Somervell particularly objected to the assertion that
the Air Corps medical service operated more efficiently and more
economically and therefore the Air Corps ought not be deprived of superior
medical care. Such an assertion, Somervell said, rested on "no
foundation in fact." The "intransigent at-
[132]
titude of the Air Surgeon must be
overcome," he added, and proposed that the Air Surgeon should be made
a Deputy Surgeon General for Aviation Medicine and placed in The Surgeon
General's office. General Somervell objected that the instructions of the
Deputy Chief of Staff were not conducive to the development of a unified
medical service for the Army as a whole. 23
But Somervell's recommendation was not accepted, and for the time being
the situation remained as first outlined by the Deputy Chief of Staff:
As a result of the growing
shortage of doctors in 1944, a study was made of ASF and AAF hospital
facilities in the zone of interior and recommendations made for conserving
medical facilities and personnel. The Deputy Chief of Staff approved these
recommendations and directed the commanding generals of the ASF and the
AAF to work out a mutually satisfactory hospital system, whereby
facilities would be utilized by military personnel on a basis other than
that of command jurisdiction. In a conference on 30 March 1944,
substantial agreement was reached by the two commands. As a result, an
arrangement was put into effect in April which provided that military
personnel would be treated at the nearest adequately staffed and equipped
Army dispensary or Army hospital regardless of command jurisdiction. A
station hospital was ordinarily expected to serve an area within a radius
of approximately twenty-five miles. In addition, the circular provided for
a new type of hospital, the regional station hospital. Regional station
hospitals for all practical purposes replaced the general hospitals as the
medical facility providing definitive surgical and hospital care within
the United States. The War Department was to determine the location of
regional station hospitals upon the recommendation of the Commanding
General, ASF and the Commanding General, AAF. The Surgeon General was to
be professionally responsible for medical service throughout the zone of
interior. One of his responsibilities was to inspect the quality of
medical treatment in the Army. 24
The Surgeon General and the Air Surgeon agreed upon the designation of
regional station hospitals to provide area coverage throughout the United
States. These were to be adjusted from time to time when necessary. 25
Thus the problem of hospital
jurisdiction was solved for the remainder of the war. Service command
medical consultants inspected AAF hospital facilities and reported on them
through AAF channels to The Surgeon General of the Army. Service commands
and the field commands of the AAF arranged the geographical structure
whereby regional station hospitals were designated and duplication of
medical facilities and personnel was avoided. The AAF retained control
over its post hospitals and its regional station hospitals. But some
degree of co-operative relationship had been achieved. The solution was
not entirely satisfactory to either party but it was at least a working
arrangement which prevented a flagrant duplication of medical facilities
and personnel.
[133]
In the spring of 1944 the Army
Air Forces charged the ASF with "interference" in the management
of air bases. Service commands were violating command channels, it
complained, by allotting funds to Class III installations for repairs and
utilities and a number of other activities. The AAF argued that these
funds should be allotted directly to the Commanding General, AAF, who in
turn would allot them to various air bases and other installations.
Furthermore, the AAF refused to acknowledge that the chain of command on
these particular responsibilities could be from the Commanding General,
ASF, to the commanding general of a service command, to the commanding
officer of an air base.
On 10 May 1944 the Secretary of
War intervened and suggested a survey of the problems causing dispute.26
About a month later, the Deputy Chief of Staff, General McNarney,
submitted a formal proposal for a study, and shortly thereafter the
Secretary appointed Under Secretary Robert P. Patterson; Assistant
Secretary for Air Robert A. Lovett; Mr. George L. Harrison, Special
Consultant to the Secretary of War; Maj. Gen. Lorenzo D. Gasser; and Brig.
Gen. O. L. Nelson as an ad hoc committee to survey the War
Department fiscal and budgetary organization and to submit recommendations
for improvement. This committee in turn, appointed a working group which
eventually was made up of four persons, one each from the Office of The
Inspector General, the Budget Division of the War Department Special
Staff, the Army Air Forces, and the Army Service Forces.27
The ad hoc committee had
before it various suggestions, including one by the AAF
that the Chief of Finance be separated from the ASF Fiscal Director and be
set up parallel to The Adjutant General and the Judge Advocate General.28
Somervell replied that such confusion about fiscal organization as existed
could be attributed primarily to the transfer of War Department budget
activity from the Army Service Forces to the War Department Special Staff.
The original concept of the ASF set forth in the reorganization of March
1942 was "sound." Three alternatives were now available. Each
major command might have its separate fiscal organization; responsibility
for fiscal policy and procedure might be returned to the Army Service
Forces; or the existing arrangement which gave central budgetary duties to
the War Department Special Staff and central accounting to the ASF might
remain unchanged. General Somervell recommended either the second or third
alternative .29
The real issue before the ad
hoc committee was the fiscal position of the AAF. Under existing
arrangements, the bulk of War Department appropriations was given to the
technical services and the
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Chief of Finance, Army Service
Forces. Part of these funds was being allotted to AAF fields and bases
through the field organization of the ASF. This was the aspect of fiscal
organization which the ad hoc committee proposed to change at this
time.
On 7 September 1944 the Deputy
Chief of Staff of the War Department informed General Somervell that the
Secretary of War had approved the recommendation of the ad hoc committee:
That Arm Service Forces funds for
the operation of lass III installations be allotted . in a lump sum by
operation and project direct to the Commanding General, Army Air Forces,
for his distribution to Class III installations, with full responsibility
placed on him for furnishing appropriate reports on the use and status of
such funds .30
This recommendation was to go
into effect on 1 October 1944.
This recommendation represented a
victory for the Army Air Forces. Shortly before it took effect, General
Styer asked that the matter be reconsidered. He said that the working
group of the ad hoc committee was revising Army regulations in a
way which, in effect, would remove many ASF supervisory responsibilities
at Air Forces posts. This was a major organizational change in the
structure of the War Department rather than a mere shift in the system of
allotting funds. General Styer questioned whether the steering group in
making this recommendation was aware of the organizational implications.
In reply, the Deputy Chief of Staff stated that by direct appeal to the
Under Secretary of War the ASF had already obtained a reconsideration.
Both the Under Secretary of War and the steering group of the ad hoc committee
had declined to alter their previous recommendations. Accordingly, the
request for new action was not "favorably considered." 31
Army regulations were shortly,
afterward modified in accordance with the recommendation.32
The statement of mission of service commands was revised so that their
responsibilities were enumerated as in force "except at Class III
installations." The responsibilities of ASF service commands at Air
Forces installations were specifically limited. The supervisory duties
removed from ASF jurisdiction were fixed signal communications, ordnance
maintenance, special service (recreational) activities, repairs and
utilities, operation of laundries, and salvage activities.
The changes in jurisdiction
produced considerable confusion throughout the Army Service Forces. The
Chief Signal Officer pointed out that about 30 percent of fixed signal
installations in the continental United States were located at
approximately six hundred Class III installations previously receiving
allotments from service commands. With the change in allotment of funds,
he declared; the whole existing system for co-ordination and integration
of fixed signal communications would be "seriously impaired."
The director of the Special
Services Division asked whether the commanding general of the Army Air
Forces would now take over responsibility for selecting entertainers for
soldier shows and for films to be sent overseas. Would the Army Motion
Picture Service be barred from relations with the Air Forces and would
service commanders be permitted to inspect athletic and recreation
programs at
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Class III installations? The
Quartermaster General noted that there would now be a duplication of
technical staffs inspecting laundry operations and that the AAF would have
to acquire its own technical supervisory personnel. He also pointed out
that of thirty-three laundries then located at Class III installations,
fifteen were performing laundry service for nearby ASF installations.
Another sixty located at ASF installations in turn provided laundry
service to Class III installations. Were these arrangements to be
abolished in favor of a self-sufficient laundry service for Class III
installations? Similarly the Chief of Engineers pointed out that Public
Law 326 of the 77th Congress would have to be amended in order to remove
from the Chief of Engineers his responsibility for direction of
repairs and utilities work at Class III installations. Furthermore, he
added, the Army Air Forces would find it difficult to acquire proper
supervisory personnel, since only 12 percent of the personnel engaged in
the supervision of repairs and utilities operations could be released by
the Engineers with the transfer of Class III responsibility. 33
These questions were brought to
the attention of the Deputy Chief of Staff. He directed the AAF and the
ASF to agree upon clarifying instructions which would remove the confusion
and prevent any expansion of existing facilities for post operations.
Intensive negotiation resulted in a new agreement, embodied in a War
Department directive in September 1944.34
This circular enumerated the activities at Class III installations which
were no longer under the supervision of generals heading ASF service
commands. The list concluded with a clause, which while uncertain in
meaning, suggested that where ever
funds for activity at an Air Forces base no longer came through an ASF
service command, service command supervision was to cease.
The circular drew a new
jurisdictional boundary line between the ASF and the AAF. While it
increased the authority of the Air Forces, it made it clear that the
principal change involved was one in the flow of funds. Technical
supervision by the ASF was reaffirmed and a duplication of facilities was
prohibited. Close working relations between the ASF and the AAF therefore
remained necessary. If the Army Air Forces had hoped for a complete escape
from ASF supervision under the new arrangement, its expectations were not
realized.
These and other controversies
between the AAF and the ASF during World War II grew out of opposing views
of the mission of the two commands as well as from clashes of personality
and an aggressive esprit de Corps.35
In each dispute all these elements were inextricably mingled.
General Arnold and his associates
had some justification for their attitude. The airmen of the Army still
suffered from the psychological consequences of twenty years of what they
considered "suppression" at the hands of unimaginative
"ground" officers. General Somervell in World War II just
happened to be in the spot where he could reap some of the harvest of
distrust sowed for him by the top officials of the War Department from
1919 to 1939. Army air officers would not be
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satisfied until their corps had
become an autonomous air force, and they were suspicious of all
arrangements which tended to make them merely a part of a larger entity,
the Army of the United States.
There were considerations of
prestige at stake, too, something not easy to measure but always
important. On the one hand, the AAF disliked the suggestion that its
status as a "command" did not confer complete control over every
phase of its work. Since the commanding officer of an air base was an Air
Forces officer, it seemed inconsistent that he should receive some of his
instructions from a headquarters outside the Army Air Forces. On the other
hand, the ASF, while seeking a uniform standard of service throughout the
Army and a single supervisory arrangement for identical activities on the
grounds of efficient, economical administration, was also concerned about
its own prestige and preservation.
Personalities and attitudes of
mind came into play, as well. General Arnold was determined to be both
"staff and line" on Air Forces matters within the War
Department. On the other hand he seemed unwilling for General Somervell to
be "staff and line" on supply and service matters. Arnold's
closest wartime associate told General Somervell in 1945 that the AAF
might have turned aircraft procurement over to the Army Service Forces in
1942, but decided "he has enough to do" and that "he just
shouldn't have this too." Whether the statement was made jokingly or
seriously, it indicated an attitude that played a part in determining
organizational decisions. The War Department in the middle of a war was
still an organization of men.
In any event, the controversy
helped precipitate the reconsideration of the role of the ASF in the War
Department, to be dealt with in a later chapter.
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Page Created June 13th 2001
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