Chapter 16: Field Service: Legacy of World War I
Maj. Gen. Clarence C. Williams created Field Service as a major division of the Office of the Chief of Ordnance in January 1919.1 Field Service was clearly a product of World War I, a war that had revealed the inadequacies of traditional supply systems. The primary responsibility assigned to Field Service was management of the Ordnance Department’s huge postwar supply of weapons, ammunition, and related matériel, valued in the spring of 1921 at approximately $1,311,000,000. Within the framework of the Office of the Chief of Ordnance the new division’s storage and maintenance functions complemented the development and procurement functions of the Manufacturing Service, later to be renamed Industrial Service.
Field Service had charge of all Ordnance depots; it bore responsibility for the maintenance and issue of equipment to troops, and for all salvage operations; and it was primarily responsible for training Ordnance troops. Except for a brief interlude in 1925–28, when the Manufacturing Service took over the task, Field Service had the important duty of making surveillance inspection of ammunition in storage. It was also assigned the duty of preparing standard nomenclature lists (SNL’s), technical regulations, firing tables, and the tables of organization and basic allowances that determined the distribution of Ordnance supplies. To aid in carrying out this aspect of its duties, Field Service organized a publications department at Raritan Arsenal. During most of the period before 1940 Field Service consisted of four branches—Executive, General Supply, Ammunition, and Maintenance. There was some reshuffling of responsibilities among these branches during World War II, and creation of new branches, but the broad outlines of Field Service organization remained fairly stable.2
The supply procedures of the new division grew out of the experiences of Ordnance officers in France. To make the most of these experiences while they were fresh in men’s minds, the chief Ordnance officer of the AEF, Brig. Gen. John H. Rice, in April 1919 appointed a board to prepare a manual to guide future Ordnance operations in the field. When the members of the board assembled at Tours they had before them the reports that General Rice had required of all officers commanding Ordnance installations in
France, plus a special report prepared by several officers who had visited British supply depots to make a thorough study of the British system.3 The board members also had as a basis for their recommendations their own firsthand knowledge of the chaos of the early months of war; they recalled the lack of planning and the almost insuperable difficulty of using an outmoded system to supply a modern army. Colonel Crain was an ammunition specialist who had made a study of the French system of ammunition supply; Lt. Col. Lucian D. Booth had served as Ordnance Officer of the First Army; Maj. Keith F. Adamson and Capt. R. K. Lane knew maintenance problems intimately; and Capt. C. Huth and Capt. J. D. Ashton were specialists in stock control.4
The result of their deliberations was the Provisional Manual for Ordnance Field Service ..., published by the War Department in 1920. It covered all phases of Ordnance work in a theater of operations: organization and operation of the office of the chief Ordnance officer; duties of the Ordnance officer at army, corps, division, and camp and port levels; methods of storing and issuing supplies; types of depots and depot layouts; ammunition supply in the combat zone; maintenance facilities; and the organization and training of ammunition companies and maintenance units.5 The proposed ammunition supply system resembled that of the French Army; the stock control system for weapons and other general supplies was patterned on that of the British;6 and the depot system was formed on the plan evolved by the U.S. Services of Supply by which supplies were forwarded to the front through base, intermediate, and advance depots.7 Because it was desirable to have operations in the Zone of the Interior closely resemble those of a theater of operations, the 1919 manual formed, with some modifications, the basis for the entire Ordnance distribution system at the time Field Service was formed.8
The Pattern for Depots and Maintenance Facilities
The depot pattern grew out of an Army-wide realization that new methods of forwarding supplies to front-line troops would have to be evolved to meet such unprecedented conditions of warfare as those encountered in World War I. General Staff planners in France considered several choices: “Should all supplies arriving from overseas be stored at the port, being forwarded as needed, running the chances of interruption to the rail communication by air attack, storm, or the changing position of our troops at the front but minimizing the handling of the freight? Should it all be shipped to the vicinity of the troops with possibility of its destruction by air raids, or of capture or abandonment through the shifting of the battle lines? Or should it be divided into Base, Intermediate and Advance storage, in the proportions say of, ten days’ supply in Advance storage, twenty-five days’ in Intermediate and ten in Base storage?”
Large-caliber ammunition in storage at an ammunition reserve depot, 1940
The latter plan was the one adopted, with the advance depot feeding the Army depots or railheads in the combat zone.9
After the war the Army depot system in the United States similarly consisted of three main types of depots, called reserve, intermediate, and area. Reserve depots received vast stocks in bulk from factories and held most of them for use in time of war or other emergency. Intermediate depots, spread out across the country, acted as wholesale warehouses for certain areas, storing in bulk enough supplies to meet requirements for three months. Area depots were retailers, carrying enough stocks to meet their responsibilities to posts, camps, and stations for three months. The small depots at the station level kept on hand enough supplies for one month’s consumption.
Along these lines the War Department maintained general depots, containing supplies of all types—weapons, food, medical supplies, and so on, and the Ordnance Department and several other supply services maintained branch depots of the reserve and intermediate types. The Secretary of War in 1920 designated eighteen Ordnance reserve depots, most of them for ammunition, and four intermediate depots. The latter were not merely storage depots but old-line repair arsenals dating from the Civil War or before.10
As the system worked out in the postwar years, reserves of artillery, small arms, fire control instruments, tractors, and other general supplies were stored at proving grounds or at the arsenals where they were made. Fire control instruments were kept at Frankford, small arms at Springfield, gun carriages at Watertown, and big guns at Watervliet; the greatest concentration of tank, artillery, and small arms reserves was maintained at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.11 By 1929 about half of the 1920 ammunition reserve depots had been abolished; from 1929 until the World War II expansion began ammunition reserves were stored at the following depots: Curtis Bay in Maryland, Delaware and Raritan in New Jersey, Pig Point (renamed Nansemond) in Virginia, Savanna in Illinois, Wingate in New Mexico, and Ogden in Utah. The intermediate depots—Augusta in Georgia, Benicia in California, Rock Island in Illinois, and
San Antonio in Texas—also served as area depots.12
Maintenance problems scarcely existed before World War I. Each infantry company took into the field a small box of spare parts and a few simple tools with which the company mechanic repaired the rifles and pistols; each battery of field artillery had a store wagon, a battery wagon, and a forge limber including a blacksmith’s outfit for shoeing horses. In World War I the use of motor vehicles to a degree never before known and the development of new and more complex weapons made necessary an elaborate system of maintenance. There had to be substantial base shops in the rear of the armies for major repairs on heavy ordnance matériel and large-scale repair of small arms. Advance base shops, of a rather permanent nature, had to be pushed as far forward as the safety of their stores and suitable railway facilities permitted. Mobile shops, mounted on trucks or trailers, were needed to accompany the armies. The system set up in the United States after the war corresponded to this theater-of-operations plan. Four manufacturing arsenals, Rock Island, Watertown, Watervliet, and Springfield, performed the heavy work done by base shops during the war; four depots, Benicia, San Antonio, Augusta, and Raritan, acted as advance maintenance shops for the Corps Areas they served.13
The Ordnance Provision System
The methods of distributing weapons at the beginning of World War I were as antiquated as the phrasing in the definition of ordnance and ordnance stores contained in Army Regulations of 1913: “Cannon and artillery vehicles, and equipments; apparatus and machines for the service and maneuver of artillery; small arms, ammunition and accoutrements; horse equipments and harness for Field Artillery, and horse equipment for Cavalry and other mounted men; tools, machinery and materials for the Ordnance service; and all property of whatever nature supplied to the Military Establishment by the Ordnance Department.”14
To aid the troops in ordering supplies and the storekeepers in issuing them, the Ordnance Department listed all matériel in detail in a “storage catalogue” of seven volumes. Volume I, for example, listed ammunition of all kinds; Volume II, caissons and limbers; and Volume III, cannon, carriages and mounts, including fire control items. For definite identification and for convenience in ordering by cable or telegraph, each item and its various parts carried a number of several digits, the first of which was always 7, the General Staff designation for Ordnance. Thus, since 4 meant the equipment volume and 1 meant animal, a requisition for 741-1 would call for one complete “Aparejo” or packsaddle, and 741-1-2, 741-1-3 and so on, would call for specific parts of the Aparejo.’15 The classification differed little from that in use at the time of the Civil War.16
In addition to the number of each article the catalogue gave the accepted name, or “standard nomenclature,” together with a brief description that would theoretically enable an inexperienced man to identify it. But the vast numbers of inexperienced men that came into the Army in World War I, and the growing complexity and volume of Ordnance matériel, soon made it evident that new methods of identification and classification would have to be devised.
American officers who studied the British system of supply in France discovered an interesting experiment in decentralization and specialization. The British had found that it was impossible under the pressure of a large-scale war for the officer or new recruit called from civilian life to gain a thorough knowledge of all ordnance matériel; but he could learn thoroughly one particular kind of article. This was the principle behind the segregation of like stores into groups that resembled small depots within a depot. The group system had been introduced at Nantes in the fall of 1914 by Col. Thomas Heron, a retired officer of ripe experience who had tried it out in prewar years at Aldershot. It worked well in France. As a British historian explained, “No one would set a fitter to do saddler’s work or vice versa; and though storekeeping involves a less specialized skill, still there is a great difference between being able to identify the particular fittings used with each type of gun and being able to piece together the various bits of leather that go to make up different sets of harness and saddlery, and knowing in each case the exact nomenclature.”17
Knowledge of nomenclature and ability to identify were of the first importance in the accurate reporting of stocks in wartime, as Americans were to rediscover in World War II; but these were not the only advantages of the British system. The use of the records was directed toward “provision”—the replenishment of stocks—rather than merely property accountability. Each group, no matter in what depot it was located, reported promptly and simultaneously, and thus the central office knew at all times the condition of any one type of stores and could make procurement when necessary.18
The Manual of 1919 directed that depots be organized on the group system, with each group acting as an independent depot, receiving and issuing property and keeping such records as were necessary; but it did not definitely designate what classes went into what groups. The Ordnance Provision System Regulations after the war not only used the British system, but also included some modifications based on American military experience and procedures used by two American mail order houses, Montgomery Ward and Company and Sears Roebuck and Company.19 The
term “provisioning” was defined as estimating requirements, distributing matériel, and maintaining necessary stocks at the arsenals, depots, and other Ordnance establishments issuing stores to troops. The object of the regulations was to provide the records necessary to control stocks, to place orders for new procurement, and to make special distribution in time of war. The system was entirely separate from the system of property accounting that was common to all supply departments of the Army and served a different purpose. It closely linked distribution and procurement, using one set of records for both.20
The Ordnance Provision System adopted after World War I placed all Ordnance supplies in groups, each group containing major items of a similar character with their own spare parts and accessories.21 Parts common to two or more major items were placed in one general group, to avoid dividing the supply among several groups with the probable result of an accumulation in one group and a shortage in another. In its strict sense a major item was an element of matériel of sufficient importance to require individual classification or documentation. It might be an article normally issued or procured separately, even if not used separately, as, for example, a fuse for a large bomb or a carriage for an artillery piece. Generally, the major item was the weapon itself, the complete, independent, operating unit such as the rifle ready to shoot. A major combination was a single composite unit consisting of two or more major items, such as a tank and its gun, or a gun mounted on its carriage. In ammunition supply a distinction was made between the complete round, meaning the artillery shell or bomb or mine loaded, fused, and ready to function, and the component, which was the cartridge case, fuse, or other part that would be assembled to make the complete round.22
Groups of major items were designated by letters’ of the alphabet. Items of general supply, with their parts and accessories, were in Groups A through G; common and maintenance supplies were in Groups H, J, K, L, M, and N. Group A consisted of automatic weapons and mortars; Group B, hand and shoulder arms; Groups C through E, various kinds of artillery; Group F, sighting and fire control equipment; Group G, tank and automotive matériel; Group H, hardware: Group J, common tools; Group K, cleaning, preserving, and welding materials; Group L, targets and target materials; Group M, electrical apparatus units and parts; Group N, equipment issued to ordnance establishments, ordnance units, and certain
tactical units. Groups P through T were ammunition. When general supply items became obsolete they were transferred from their several live groups and segregated in Group OGS. Obsolete ammunition was retained in its original group because it had to be carefully watched and controlled. There was one final category, Group Z, for captured foreign matériel.23
Within the lettered groups, supplies were further subdivided into smaller classes of stores. These had a subgroup number that served as an identification code. Thus the .30-caliber rifle in Group B had a subgroup number, 21 , making its classification B-21. A further means of identification was the “piece mark,” or drawing number. The great bulk of artillery and small arms items, and some combat vehicle matériel, bore the numbers that appeared on their engineering drawings. These were usually nonsignificant numbers prefixed by “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “E.” The letters indicated drawing sizes, “A” the smallest, “E” the largest; the numbers assigned for each size began with 1 and continued serially. But if an article was of a common kind called “standard,” like automotive parts, hardware, or tools, it would be marked with a number prefixed by four letters, the last of which was always “X.” These were known as “taxi” numbers after the first number of this type, TAAX1 . Standards that were common to other government agencies might carry a Federal Standard Stock Catalog number assigned by the Treasury Department: for example, 42-C-4625 was the number for a certain kind of gasoline can.24
The machinery for producing the records was simple. For all stores, reports known as Schedules of Stores Reports were sent periodically from field establishments—arsenals and depots alike—to Washington. They showed the stock on hand; the issues covering a definite period; the obligations, or unfilled requisitions—known as “dues-out”; the anticipated receipts from all sources—known as “dues-in”; and demands for replenishment. Distinction was made between “dues-out” to troops and “dues-out” to depots; the former meant real obligations of the Ordnance Department to the using arms; the latter, merely intradepartmental obligations. Similarly, a distinction was made between “dues-in” from original procurement and “dues-in” from depots, because the latter did not increase the total stock.25
The dates of reporting were spread throughout the year in order not to work a hardship on the depots. The schedule ranged from monthly to annually, but there was no hard and fast rule. Normally the greatest spread was semiannually. In the case of great activity in the volume or importance of any item, the schedule could be shortened to daily, using telephone or telegraph if necessary. But it was of the utmost importance that any given item be regularly reported by all depots on the same date. The consolidated report gave the Group Chiefs in Washington a close central control of stock. If one depot showed a shortage, he or she —most of the Group Chiefs were women—could tell whether another depot had a surplus, and if so, make a transfer. If there was a general shortage, the Chief of Field Service could recommend procurement. Because
he had to make important decisions on the basis of the Schedules of Stores Reports, the Chief of Field Service took precautions to see that the figures were accurate. He directed the depot supply officers to work closely with the men actually in charge of supplies to check nomenclature carefully, and to call for physical inventory of any item whenever he had reason to suspect that storehouse records were inaccurate.26
Standard Nomenclature Lists
The official name of every item was established by the Ordnance Committee, composed of representatives of the Technical, Industrial, and Field Service Divisions, and of the using arms. The interested subcommittee recommending development work on a new item or adoption of a newly developed item obtained the nomenclature from a Basic Nomenclature and Classification File kept in the Office of the Chief Engineer, Artillery Branch, Industrial Division. The nomenclature consisted of the most important noun followed by qualifying nouns or adjectives in the order of importance, as, “gun, machine, cal. .30, Browning.” After approval and assignment of the model numbers (prefixed by “M” for standard types and “T” for development types), which then became a part of the nomenclature, the items were listed in the Book of Standards, Ordnance Department.27
For requisitioning, stock-keeping, the guidance of maintenance units, and also for the use of procurement and distribution officials in Washington, Field Service after World War I began to publish a series of pamphlets called Standard Nomenclature Lists (SNL’s). Collectively. they formed the Ordnance supply catalog, and were a basic tool of the Ordnance Provision System. For each numbered subgroup of the lettered groups, such as the .30-caliber rifle, 13-21, there was a pamphlet listing alphabetically the major item and all parts and equipment, with identifying numbers. There was a column for the stock-keeping number, another for the number that appeared on the engineering drawing, another for the “figure number” that was a clue to the diagrams or photographs in another section, and a column for the note symbol, a reference to notes in the back of the SNL. Two very general pamphlets served as guides, the Introduction to the Ordnance Catalog (IOC), explaining the use of the SNL’s; and an index called Ordnance Publications for Supply Index (OPSI), containing a numerical and alphabetical listing of all the pamphlets and a description of the matériel in each lettered group.28
In some respects the SNL’s were comparable to commercial parts lists; in another sense they were supplements to Tables of Organization and Equipment, Tables of Basic Allowances, and Tables of Allowances. For example, if a T/OE stated that an organization was authorized a Tool Set Unit Equipment, Second Echelon Set No. 1, the pertinent SNL, which was G-27, Tools, Maintenance, for Repair of Modern Vehicles, described the
components of the set in detail.29 Close coordination with the using arms, with designers, and with procurement officials was necessary to provide the information in the pamphlets. For that reason the group charged with the preparation of SNL’s was conveniently located after 1921 at Raritan Arsenal, New Jersey.30
The Lamp of Experience
In the House of Representatives shortly after World War I, Representative John Q. Tilson said, “The next five years will be the very best years in the century to make plans. The lamp of experience, a heartrending experience in many respects, will be a light to guide us.31 In France after the Armistice Ordnance officers had drawn upon their own experience and that of the Allies in the preparation of the Provisional Manual for a theater of operations, in the adoption of the Ordnance Provision Sys tem, and in plans for the organization of Field Service. In the period immediately following World War I the tremendous effort required to store the vast stocks of ordnance matériel that had to be cleared out of war industry plants, ports, and training camps justified the wisdom of creating a separate division of the Ordnance Department to handle operations in the field.32 Field Service managed to provide shelter for this huge accumulation of stores, and this experience influenced the thinking of the men who would have to expand the depot system in World War II.