Bibliographical Note
The bulk of the source materials for this book are contained in records of the Corps of Engineers. Federal Records of World War II, Volume II, Military Agencies, prepared by the General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, The National Archives (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1951) is a good introductory guide to Engineer records as well as to those of other agencies of the War Department which yielded information essential to the preparation of this history. Since records are subject to reduction and relocation in accordance with policies of the Department of the Army,1 Federal Records of World War II must be regarded primarily as a starting place.
Policies on preservation of records are subject to change. This note, which proposes to furnish an accurate guide to future research may therefore become outdated.2 But by and large the collection of Engineer records now in existence should remain as described below because it has been subjected to the authorized screening process.
The physical location of records is a matter separate from their preservation. Army records remain for a time in their office of origin and are then retired for several years to one of the records depositories maintained by The Adjutant General’s Office. Permanent deposit then follows in The National Archives. This note locates the records as of December 1956.
Of the Engineer records used in the preparation of this book, two of the fifteen series of central files maintained by the Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE) provided material on all subjects covered. One of these two, the Subject Series,3 is arranged according to the War Department’s decimal file system.4 The other, the Military Series, is set up in a combination alphabetical-decimal system. Except in Chapters XIV, XV, and XVI, where most of the source materials were found elsewhere, lack of identification before the file designation means that the file is in OCE central files. Thus 320.2 will be found in OCE Subject Series; 320.2, Engineers Corps of, in the OCE Military Series. All OCE central files falling in the World War II period are deposited in the Technical Services Records Section, the Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General’s Office, Alexandria, Va.
Files accumulated by administrative units of OCE (convenience files) contain much informal correspondence which served to supplement the central files. Convenience files are identified in the footnotes by the name of the office that accumulated them. Those that have been preserved intact –
namely those of the International Division, the Research and Development Division (Mechanical Equipment Branch and Structures Development Branch), the diaries of sections and branches of the Supply Division, certain Requirements Branch files (The General Staff, G-4; USW; The Budget Officer; and Engineer Supply Notes), and the Operations and Training Section (except Personal Letters to Gorlinski) are in the Departmental Records Branch. Material from the files of the Plans and Training (P&T) Division not duplicated elsewhere has been integrated with OCE central files. Most of the files originated by various administrative units of the supply organization (Procurement Division, Requirements Division, Storage Branch, and Fiscal Liaison Section) have been destroyed as have those of the War Plans Division (Mobilization Branch) and the Intelligence Division (Topographical Branch).5 Since many of the research notes for this volume are in the form of Photostat or typed copies of documents, much of the essential information from these destroyed files has been preserved in the Engineer Historical Division.
The records of pertinent Engineer field installations (identified in the footnotes by name of installation) furnished a significant block of source materials. Files accumulated by training centers and project files of the Engineer Research and Development Laboratories (ERDL) are in the U. S. Army Kansas City Records Center, Kansas City, Missouri. ERDL has a complete collection of Engineer Board reports. Kansas City Records Center holds some of the Headquarters files of the Engineer Amphibian Command; the remainder are in U.S. Army AG Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri. Engineer Research Office files are in the Departmental Records Branch. Army Map Service files are with that agency.
Both OCE Library and the Engineer Historical Division have a good collection of General and Special Orders, Circular Letters, and Field and Technical Manuals. War Department Circulars, Memoranda, and other publications are in the Department of the Army Library and The National Archives. The Engineer Historical Division has a fairly complete collection of such material as well as of Engineer T/BA’s and T/O&E’s.
Although in general Engineer records contained the essential information on the various topics covered, the main sources for some subjects were elsewhere. Many points also had to be clarified by research in the files of other Army agencies. Information on the training of Engineer Ground Forces units and Engineer Air Forces units was gathered almost entirely from the records of these two organizations. As pointed out on page 337 n., many Army Ground Forces Headquarters files have been destroyed. What remains, including the McNair papers, is in Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General’s Office, Alexandria, Va. The Army Air Forces central files dated after November 1942 are with the Departmental Records Branch. Earlier files are in The National Archives. Air Force Historical Division files are at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala. Material on Air Forces training centers can be found in the Air Forces Section of the Kansas City Records Center. Central files of The Adjutant General’s Office, of various divisions of the General Staff, and American-British Conversations (ABC) files are in Departmental Records Branch. Army Service Forces files,
including statistical reports (Army Supply Program and Monthly Progress Reports) are in The National Archives. Statistical reports issued by the Office of the Under Secretary of War (Expediture Program and OMG-Eng-Med Weekly Status Report) are in Departmental Records Branch. Records of the Office of The Quartermaster General and the Office of the Chief of Transportation are in the Departmental Records Branch.
In the Engineer Historical Division are copies of correspondence and notes of interviews with officers and civilians who participated in events described in this volume. Engineer Historical Division files also contain reports, historical studies, and research notes.
The footnotes of the original draft were unreasonably long. They have been reduced by citing a file rather than the individual documents within that file wherever a file contained a concentration of material essential to the preparation of some portion of the text. Copies of the original draft, with citations in full, are in Engineer Historical Division files.
A number of special studies and general works, both published and unpublished, served to place the Engineer activities described in this volume within the larger framework of the War Department and the nation. Some in the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II were used so extensively as to merit special mention: Kent Roberts Greenfield, Robert R. Palmer, and Bell I. Wiley, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops (Washington, 1947); Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940–1943 (Washington, 1955); R. Elberton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization (MS); Robert R. Palmer, Bell I. Wiley, and William R. Keast, The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops (Washington, 1948); Mark S. Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, 1950); and Theodore E. Whiting, Statistics (MS).