Chapter 21: Ammunition Supply
The control of ammunition stocks presented peculiar problems because of strategic considerations and the nature of explosives. Ammunition was distributed more widely and at the same time was kept under tighter control than other supplies. The Ordnance Department supplied small arms ammunition, artillery shells, rockets, bombs, mines, grenades, pyrotechnics, propellant powders, and explosives not only to the Army but also to the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, other executive departments, states, and foreign governments. Most of the ammunition produced after Pearl Harbor was destined for shipment overseas, either to U.S. forces or lend-lease countries. Because of safety requirements, the first consideration was to get it from loading plants to ports as quickly as possible; the foremost problem in stock management was how to cut down the time in transit.1 Because of the War Department policy of keeping tight control of ammunition, none could be shipped from Ordnance depots—other than inter-depot transfers—without approval of the Secretary of War. Because War Department decisions on the quantities and types of ammunition to be shipped were based on the status of stocks in the depots, accurate and timely records were important.2
Means of Identification
For ammunition, item identification did not present the problem that it did in the case of spare parts. Soldiers and storekeepers could easily identify a round of ammunition by the color of its projectile, by the lettering on the packing container, or, where size permitted, on the item itself. Explosive bombs, artillery shells, grenades, and mines were painted olive drab, for camouflage purposes; chemical types were gray.3 Against these neutral backgrounds, bands of color provided further identification as to filler. On olive drab, yellow meant high explosive, purple meant incendiary. On gray, green meant casualty gas, red meant harassing gas, and yellow meant smoke. Small arms cartridges
Soldiers looking up SNL numbers to order needed artillery parts, France, 1944
did not require painting, but bullet tips were colored to denote certain types such as armor piercing (black) or incendiary (blue). The lettering on the packing container or the item always gave two essential pieces of information, the standard nomenclature and the lot number.4
The lot number was essential. It identified a quantity of complete items of one specific type of ammunition loaded and assembled by the same manufacturer under controlled conditions kept as uniform as possible. In firing some weapons, successive rounds had to be from the same lot to achieve maximum accuracy. For this reason all ammunition was stored, issued, inspected, tested, and accounted for by lot number. Assigned at the time of manufacture, it consisted of the manufacturer’s initials and a series of digits differently arranged for each lot.
During the Sicilian campaign the Seventh Army complained to the Ordnance Department that certain calibers of its artillery ammunition were inaccurate. Investigation showed that lots had been indiscriminately mixed when the ammunition was issued to the firing batteries. The best solution was to have on hand the largest possible amount of one lot; the minimum asked by the overseas theaters was ten thousand rounds. Beginning in 1944 Field Service made strenuous efforts to increase the quantities of a single lot sent to one user and to obviate the possibility of mixed lots. By fall, ships arriving in ETO carried sizeable quantities of individual lots. But failure by the services and the combat arms to achieve complete lot integrity up to the firing line hampered ammunition supply throughout the war.5
In addition to lot number and nomenclature there were two other means of identifying ammunition, the Ammunition Identification Code (AIC), primarily for field use in reporting and requisitioning, and the item stock number, used in depot accounting in the United States. The AIC was an ingenious substitute for nomenclature. Ammunition had been identified by codes in an Ordnance field manual published about 1930, but the codes, assigned arbitrarily, were meaningless and were not widely used. Early in 1942 Col. Grosvenor F. Powell, an officer at Aberdeen Proving Ground, suggested the AIC, a code that really described the item. The first two characters indicated the SNL in which the
item was listed, such as T; the third indicated the weapon in which it was used, or the general class, such as Grenades; the fourth, the type and model of the ammunition; and the fifth the method of packing. The AIC proved to be so useful, especially in messages transmitted by wire, that it was placed on SNLs and before the end of the war was employed on requisitions, shipping documents, property accountability records, and all other documents where the lengthy standard nomenclature was not definitely required.6 SNLs were revised to include AIC symbols about 1 July 1942. At the same time, revisions were made to include item stock numbers similar to those used for general supplies. These numbers were made necessary by the decision to employ IBM machines to speed up the reporting of ammunition stocks.7
The Search for Better Methods of Reporting
Ammunition was exempted from the change-over to the IBM system of stores reporting made effective for general supplies in the spring of 1941. But it became clear early in the emergency period that the methods of reporting ammunition stocks needed improvement. The Supply Section of the Ammunition Supply Division was hampered by lack of current information from two sources, plants and depots.
With ammunition it was vitally important to know the status of shipments: the time of loading on cars at plants, the time the cars got in motion, and the time of arrival at depot, camp, or port. Before 1941, there was no effective procedure for obtaining this information. Plants reported the loading by telephone, then awaited instructions from Washington on routing and destination. Preparation of these instructions took time. The Supply Section had to find out what depot could handle the shipment and then obtain routing from the Quartermaster Freight Traffic Branch. At last the instructions went out, and then nothing more was heard in Washington. If the officials of the Supply Section wanted to find out what had become of the shipment—and they received constant requests for this information, particularly from ports—they had to make inquiries, often by telephone.
This clumsy procedure was streamlined in the summer of 1941 on the recommendation of two members of the Supply Section, Lt. Col. Samuel L. Smith and Mr. Arthur Hinchcliffe. Under the new system, prompt reports came in to Washington showing the status of shipment at every point. At the time of loading the plant sent to Washington a notice of availability, an Availship, followed by a report of transfer to Field Service and shipment, a Transrepship. The depot sent in a report of arrival, a Reparrive, and when the ammunition went forth again, to camp or port, a report of shipment, a Repship. Eventually plants and depots consolidated all transactions of this kind for a 24-hour period into a daily teletype.8
Stores reports showing the status of stocks in depots were carbon copies of
stock records prepared on Elliott-Fisher machines. Monthly for active groups, quarterly for less active, and semiannually for the least active, the depots reported SNL ammunition groups P, R, S, and T to their respective group chiefs in the Supply Section. Each group chief maintained his own central stock record, wrote shipping orders, and, in a sense, operated as a distinct supply section.
In the summer of 1942 a survey by Lt. Col. Samuel Smith revealed that the procedures of the groups were not uniform and the workload was not evenly distributed. One commodity group, for example, the S group handling primarily bombs and pyrotechnics, might be overburdened with work at a time when another group was having a lull. In the reorganization that followed this survey, one central group was established to receive and consolidate all ammunition stores reports. The P, R, S and T groups were reduced in strength and relieved of all but technical supervision. The change from a commodity to a functional organization for stock control saved manpower. It was also one means of tightening stores reporting procedures.9 Another way, considered even earlier, was a change-over to IBM machines.
IBM Machines for Ammunition Stores Reports
Soon after the installation of IBM machines for general supplies in 1941 the Ordnance Department decided to try them for ammunition also and shipped machines to several depots. But this early attempt was not very successful. The system had been designed principally to accommodate General Supply matériel. It was true that item code numbers were less of a problem for ammunition than for general supplies, for fewer changes would be encountered and there would be less difficulty in identification. But this advantage was more than offset by the fact that for ammunition the total stock on hand for any one item had to be broken down into various reserve balances such as special reserves for task forces, ammunition credits, and so on; these balances had in turn to be broken down into individual organizations, such as the corps area.10 All this greatly complicated the reporting of stocks. Moreover, since the assistance of the IBM Corporation was directed mainly toward improving spare parts reporting, the Ammunition Supply Branch had no expert help with its greatly expanded ammunition stocks. As a result, the processing of stores reports took so much time that the central stock records were out-of-date and useless by the time they were available.
The first hope of improvement came in the spring of 1942 with the commissioning of an officer who had been with IBM in civil life, Lt. Richard T. Burroughs, Jr., and the loan of Mr. John Schick by IBM. These experts made a survey of machine operations both in the depots and in the central office and established better procedures. The new procedures were tried out at Portage Ordnance Depot and were then explained to representatives of all depots at a series of training courses at Portage from September 1942 to March 1943. The educational program was slowed down by the recall of Mr. Schick to active duty with the Adjutant General’s Office shortly after the first course opened, but Major Burroughs took over the supervision
of the whole program. By the summer of 1943 most of the depots had installed the machine system and satisfactory stores reports were coming in.11 Then in September 1943 ASF directed the Chief of Ordnance to cut down on IBM equipment in depots. A survey had in some degree substantiated charges that the use of punch card machines had been carried to an impracticable and inefficient extreme throughout the War Department, and in 1943 a cut in the production schedules for tabulating equipment led to rationing by the War Production Board and stricter control by ASF.12
Faced with the order to cut down on the machines in the depots, General Campbell decided to apply it to ammunition rather than general supplies.13 He returned the preparation of ammunition stores reports to the manual system, effective 1 December 1943. Forms were redesigned and distributed to the depots, and Major Burroughs had to begin another program of education, conducting a 3-day conference at Blue Grass for all Eastern depots and at Ogden for the Western. The manual system remained in effect in ammunition depots for the rest of the war, and, thanks to Major Burroughs’ procedures, stores reports continued to come in satisfactorily.14
The next objective was to improve the consolidation of reports in Washington. The central stock records had been converted from manual to machine on February 1943, but the Machine Subgroup had been placed too far down in the organization of the Stock Control (formerly Supply) Section’s Inventory Control Unit.15 The accuracy of the reports that came to it depended on an Analysis Subgroup that interpreted the documents before transmitting them; little or no use was made of stores reports. In December 1943 Major Burroughs, who had been placed in charge of the central IBM installation the summer before, brought about a reorganization of the Inventory Control Unit to bring into one group, the Records Group, all activities devoted to the production of current operating figures—the IBM Sub-group, the Analysis Subgroup, and a group auditing stores reports. The new organization soon found that it was hampered by inability to secure enough civilians to do the job, especially civilians who would work the night shift necessary to process the transactions of the day. The most promising solution was to move out of Washington.16
The Move to Philadelphia
The Chief of Ordnance decided to move the Records Group to Philadelphia, where
a field office of the Ammunition Supply Branch had been established late in 1942 to take care of war aid supply, records of resources, and records of surveillance and renovation.17 To this organization, known as the Philadelphia Ammunition Supply Office (PASO), the new group was attached on 24 January 1944. Misgivings about separating current operating records from the daily operations in Washington were allayed by establishing twice-a-day courier service.18
The assignment of a detachment of thirty-three WAG’s to operate the machines made possible a three-shift operation. Even so, progress toward producing accurate and current central records was slow. The WAC’s were inexperienced and needed training. Time was lost during the move to Philadelphia. There was a heavy backlog of work, and not until March did the office receive from Washington the files it needed for reference purposes. Beginning in June there were a number of mechanical failures in the machines and even major breakdowns. Service by the IBM Corporation was poor until December 1944, when the appointment of a service manager for the Philadelphia area brought about improvement.19
An essential step toward more accurate figures on the amount of stock in all depots was the reconciliation of depot and central records, but this proved to be exceedingly difficult. The first efforts failed. In June 1944 a new chief scrapped all previous methods, overhauled organization and procedures, stepped up training, and achieved closer coordination with the depots and closer liaison within the office. The reconciliation project finally got under way but it was February 1945 before it was complete for all depots and all items.20
By that time, depot stock records for ammunition were lessening in importance. Late in 1943 the Ordnance Department had begun to ship ammunition directly from manufacturing plants to ports and training camps; by February 1945 about half of all ammunition shipments were bypassing the depots, and the trend was continuing.21 The Records Group by the spring of 1945 was furnishing reports on the tonnage of ammunition moved by direct shipment, as well as an audit and follow-up on such movements, and keeping records on returns of ammunition from overseas, an increasingly important phase of its work. After V—J Day the Group was returned to Washington.22
At least one officer felt that the records and reports groups should henceforth remain in Washington. But the Records Group in Philadelphia had worked under heavy handicaps that were not all a matter of location. Frequent changes in required reports to ASF and other agencies for the purpose of control and requirements computation revealed the inadequacy of existing records from time to time. Whenever procedures for gathering and recording data were changed the new records resulting from the change were not reconcilable with previous records and reports. This trial-and-error approach was extremely
costly in man-hours and provided records of dubious value. Coordination between Industrial and Field Service records had been faulty. The efforts of 1943 and 1944 had been largely devoted to correcting the mistakes of the past.23
Improvements in the Pattern of Distribution
In 1940 and early 1941, American strategists were thinking in terms of defense. All Ordnance depots stocked every type of ammunition that might be needed in the defense of a particular area. The depots received their stocks under the direction of the Supply Section’s Groups, P, R, S, and T, handling each type of ammunition. Working independently, each group received reports of production on its own type of ammunition from manufacturing plants and found a depot to store it, without regard to instructions issued by other groups. As a result, some depots would become overstocked or would face a sudden, heavy workload with little notice. Depots were equipped for handling a certain amount of ammunition, expressed in carloads to be moved in and out each day. If a depot with a 25-carload-a-day capacity was assigned shipments which required its entire handling capacity, no additional shipment could be made to it without incurring demurrage charges.
After Pearl Harbor it became evident that prewar methods of stocking the depots would not work under wartime conditions. Closer coordination at the top was essential. Consequently, in the summer of 1942 when Groups P, R, S, and T were relieved of all but technical supervision, the Chief of Field Service created one central group to handle distribution. This gave better regulation of the flow into the depots and improved record-keeping.24
The second step toward improving distribution was even more important. It dealt with the flow out of the depots to the ultimate users. Ammunition was not subject to requisitioning in the ordinary sense, because it fell into the category of controlled items, under the Mobilization Regulations of 5 January 1940. The amount to be distributed to troops for training was decided upon monthly by the War Department General Staff, and the Ordnance Department simply directed a certain depot to make it available or credit it to a certain Corps Area or other specified user. Once credited, the ammunition was no longer reported under the heading of stocks available. These credited stocks were essentially the same as a deposit in a bank account; shipment to the user represented a withdrawal from the account. For lend-lease users, ammunition was also distributed on instructions from higher authority. When an allied nation submitted a request to the War Department, Ordnance determined which depot had the right ammunition in stock and earmarked the quantity desired for the lend-lease account. The depot was also instructed to honor the shipping instructions of the foreign government, to obtain a Quartermaster Release (QMR) and eventually to move the ammunition to the designated port of exit.25
The great defect in this system was that the depot where the stock was earmarked
might be at a great distance from the place where the ammunition was eventually needed. Troops moved from training camps near the depot to camps far away. As for lend-lease distribution, Field Service’s War Aid Section had no way of knowing what the port of exit would be. The matériel was reserved at whatever depot had unobligated stock. As a result, a West Coast depot might have to ship the ammunition to an East Coast port, or vice versa. A close check on shipping tickets by the War Aid Section in June 1942 revealed that crosshauls and backhauls were increasing along with increased production and increased assignments. For example, on 8 June one carload of 30-caliber armor-piercing cartridges was shipped from Raritan Arsenal, Metuchen, N.J., to San Francisco; one day later two carloads of the same item were shipped from Ogden, Utah, to Jersey City, N.J.26
Lend-Lease Shipments
Contributing to wasteful crosshauls and backhauls was a directive of April 1942 requiring lend-lease nations to ship all their matériel out of a depot within forty-five days after the date of its availability. Otherwise it would be returned to Ordnance stock. Very often shipment abroad was not possible within that period, as vessels were scarce. In that case the foreign government had the matériel shipped to another location in the United States, possibly across the continent from the probable port. Sometimes when a ship did become available, ammunition at a distant depot could not reach the port in time to meet the sailing deadline and had to be freighted back to storage. In one instance the cost of returning a carload of high explosives from Philadelphia to Letterkenny Ordnance Depot at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, the nearest depot, and reshipping it later to the port was approximately one thousand dollars.27
One suggested solution to the problem of crosshauling was to request in advance from the foreign government agencies the name of the intended port. But the agencies were seldom able to comply with such requests. The shortage of ships made ports and sailing dates uncertain; lack of information from overseas headquarters made uncertain the name of the ultimate consignee. Another solution was to arrange with the Traffic Control Branch of the Transportation Corps to notify Ordnance when it received releases from War Aid nations from depots at a distance from the port to which the ammunition was to be shipped. Upon notification, Field Service’s War Aid Section could find out whether a depot nearer the port had the matériel, and, if so, could cancel the shipping order at the original depot and set up new obligations. This procedure eliminated some crosshauls, but it was cumbersome; it required a tremendous amount of paper work and many long-distance calls to depots and foreign agencies.28
In the end, the best answer to the problem was a system evolved in the War Aid Section in the summer of 1942. This plan, suggested by Lt. Leon M. Leathers, Jr., Chief of the Supply Unit, was simple. It consisted essentially in not earmarking stocks. After the War Aid Section received
authority for release of matériel to a foreign government, it issued a credit to that government against U.S. stocks, without specifying any particular depot. Then, when the government in question received shipping instructions, it notified the Ordnance Department, giving the port of export and the date when the matériel should arrive there. After that, the War Aid Section requested the Supply Section to convert the credit to physical stock at the Ordnance depot nearest the port of exit.
Notwithstanding its simplicity and feasibility the plan was not adopted until the spring of 1943. A survey had to be made showing the wastefulness of the old scheme of distribution, and numerous agencies outside Ordnance had to be consulted, including lend-lease nations, Army Service Forces, Transportation Corps, and the War Shipping Administrator. One obstacle in the way was a War Shipping Administration directive stating that the point of origin had to be known before a shipping number could. be assigned; another was opposition from one member each of the British Purchasing Commission and the British Ministry of War Transport. But the Chief of Ordnance was eventually able to get the directive amended. In general the British were enthusiastic about the plan, as were the officials of the ASF International Division and the International Branch of the Transportation Corps.
In January 1943 a War Department circular placing responsibility for avoiding crosshauls and unnecessary movement on the procuring services gave impetus and authority for implementation, buttressed by directives from ASF early in 1943 to conserve manpower and transportation. In the meantime, Ordnance had established the Philadelphia Ammunition Supply Office to handle the distribution of greatly increasing lend-lease matériel, expected to amount to one hundred thousand tons per month; and the Chief of Transportation assigned a liaison officer to PASO at the request of General Campbell. The credit system for War Aid shipment of standard items was placed in effect in May 1943. The first shipment under it occurred on 15 May. In the first few months of operation there was a reduction of 49.5 percent in mileage over the old method, representing a tremendous saving in time, facilities, labor, communications, and storage. The British reported “great benefit,” and the Transportation Corps noted that the system might well be applied to other technical services. It was so successful that it was extended that fall to nonstandard items, bulk explosives, and chemicals.29
Training Ammunition
Not long after the new system was suggested for War Aid ammunition, attention was given to the problem of efficient routing of shipments to U.S. troops. The impetus came from Capt. Hollis M. Carlisle, an officer whose entire civilian experience had been in merchandise distribution and stock control, first with Montgomery Ward and later with the Carlisle Hardware Company. Assigned to the Shipping Section’s Distribution Unit in December 1942, Captain Carlisle turned a fresh and critical eye on established procedures. He found them based on an outmoded system of strategic distribution developed at a time when ammunition was in extremely short supply. Every week each producing plant submitted a report
to the Ammunition Supply Branch showing the number of carloads to be expected the following week. The Supply Section then determined the distribution according to three factors. First was the most desirable strategic location of stocks—roughly 65 percent in eastern depots, 12 percent in central, and 23 percent in western. The second factor was the current status of each depot’s handling capacity, reported weekly by the Depot and Facilities Section. The third consisted of the maximum and minimum levels of each type of ammunition prescribed by each depot. Within the restrictions imposed by these three factors, the Distribution Unit tried to avoid crosshauling and backhauling by sending the ammunition to the nearest depot or to one on a straight line between the plant and the ultimate user.30
But the restrictions made efficient routing all but impossible. An investigation by Captain Carlisle of all shipments from plants to depots and from depots to using services during January, February, and March of 1943 uncovered some striking examples of crosshauling and backhauling. For example, 2,000-pound bombs produced at Ravenna, Ohio, were shipped to a depot at Anniston, Alabama, and reshipped to the New York Port of Embarkation; 1,000-pound bombs produced at McGregor, Texas, were shipped to Seneca, N.Y., and then to the Charleston Port of Embarkation.31
An analysis of these findings and of maps showing the unnecessarily long distances traveled by ammunition items resulted in a new conception of the depot. It was no longer thought of as a complete supply source for all types of items regardless of their probable ultimate destination but rather as a stopover point in transit to the user. Unlike earlier years, 1943 brought a steady flow of ammunition from the plants every week. To cope with it, Ordnance drew up a revised distribution plan in March. All depots cast of the Mississippi River were to be considered as a common supply source for all East Coast ports; all those west of the river would supply West Coast ports. As for training ammunition, estimated requirements in the immediate area would govern allocations to depots.32
Plans for speeding the flow of training ammunition were discussed during the spring of 1943 by Ordnance officials with representatives of Army Ground Forces, Army Service Forces, Army Air Forces, and the War Department General Staff. By June 1943 they reached an agreement and established a system similar to that applied in May to War Aid ammunition. Matériel was not earmarked at any one depot but each station submitted its requisition to the Chief of Ordnance, and the Ammunition Supply Branch directed shipment from the nearest depot or loading plant. In September the practice was applied to ever-increasing amounts of ammunition going to U.S. troops overseas.33
In the meantime, the Distribution Unit was making a critical examination of its
method of distributing ammunition allocated by the Munitions Board to the Navy. The journey to the user seemed long and wasteful. In May 1943 a striking instance was uncovered in which a plant at Carbondale, Illinois, shipped a consignment of 500-pound bombs to the Ordnance depot at Tooele, Utah, which in turn shipped them to a Navy depot at Hawthorne, Nevada. There was no real reason for the stopover at the Army depot. The explanation that it simplified bookkeeping hardly justified the cost in time, manpower, and money. If the ammunition had been shipped directly from the plant to the Navy depot, $1,506 per car would have been saved in transportation cost and the Navy would also have been able to take advantage of the cheaper storage-in-transit through rate to the West Coast.34 Convinced by figures such as these that the Army depot ought to be eliminated from the routing, the Distribution Unit very soon began shipping Navy ammunition directly from producing plants to Navy depots.35
Direct Shipments
The policy of making all possible shipments directly from the loading plant to the ultimate consignee promised to yield great savings in transportation cost and the expense of rehandling at depots. But it was not to be put into effect until the new program of issuing to the user an over-all obligation against stocks rather than a credit at a specified depot gave the Ammunition Supply Branch better control over shipments. Nor could the maximum number of direct shipments be made until closer coordination was achieved within the Branch. In August 1943 the Shipping and Issue Sections were combined under Maj. Stanley E. Mulliken and control of all shipments was placed under Captain Carlisle.36
During September 1943, 511 carloads of training ammunition were shipped directly from manufacturing plants to posts, camps, and stations; during October the figure rose to 671. Exact savings in dollars and man-hours were difficult to calculate, but a rough estimate indicated that over 100,000 man-hours were saved in September by eliminating the necessity to load and unload cars at depots, not taking into account the labor that would have been required to restencil or mark boxes, place dunnage in cars, and fill out papers. Another important economy was in the use of railroad rolling stock —estimated for September at approximately 3,066 car days and for October at 4,026 car days. Still further savings in crating material and labor were achieved by shipping uncrated ammunition directly from a plant to a post. In one instance the elimination of the crating operation saved approximately $70,000 on a single shipment of forty-five carloads of 105-mm. ammunition. In addition to the conservation of materials, manpower, and equipment, the new system speeded up operations; ammunition was made available in time to provide
maximum training for troops before they moved out to combat theaters.37
Bypassing the depot was even more desirable in the case of ammunition destined for American troops overseas than it was for ammunition sent to training camps or the Navy, because speed in overseas shipments was of greater importance. No great harm was done if a shipment was a little late in arriving at a training camp or Navy depot; if it failed to make a port deadline it had to be shipped back at great expense and, far worse, was lost to the men who needed it most. But the time factor made port shipments more difficult. Shipping directly from plants to ports required not only tight control by the Ammunition Supply Branch but also close coordination among all agencies.
A new procedure set up in September 1943 made tighter control possible. Port-bound stocks were no longer obligated at any one depot but were shipped, on orders from Washington, from, the depot nearest the port. Conferences with the Transportation Corps in the fall of 1943 resulted in better coordination. Agreements were made to cut down the number of days in the acceptance period at the port and to center responsibility more definitely on Transportation’s Traffic Control Division. The Ordnance Department would now deal directly with that Division, rather than go through the subordinate Ocean Traffic Branch. Responsibilities were in general more clearly defined. The Chief of Ordnance was responsible for giving early information to the Traffic Control Division as to availability of items; the Traffic Control Division was responsible for determining the deadline date from the Port of Embarkation and for arranging transportation in such a way that the items arrived on time.38
At the same time, General Campbell began a program of educating the Industrial Service and loading plants in handling Field Service orders on a direct basis. Instructions went by telephone to the man at each plant who was responsible for routing the ammunition as it came off the production line. As the program got under way, plants were ordered to ship speedily, in the exact quantities specified, giving first priority to shipments to Ports of Embarkation, and to furnish the Chief of Ordnance with complete and accurate information. Major Carlisle’s assistant, Capt. Joseph J. Calhoun, kept current records on daily production schedules, running times between plants and ports, holding capacities of plants, and so on. When he received a port clearance from the Transportation Corps on a Notice of Availability, he went through it and obligated all items possible on producing plants. The records on which he based his decisions were obtained by close liaison with the producing, plants as well as the Transportation Corps and Industrial Service. He found at the producing plants an excellent spirit of cooperation. An important by-product of the new system was a boost to the morale of the workers when they saw their ammunition stenciled with an overseas marking and loaded into cars consigned to a port of embarkation. Of all ammunition shipped from plants between January 1944 and February 1945 the percentage shipped directly to users rose from 28.6 to 50.12. Direct port shipments climbed steadily,
until by June 1945, 62.5 percent of all ammunition arriving at ports came directly from plants.39
From 1 August 1943 to 21 July 1945, 107,517 cars of ammunition were shipped directly to the consignee, at an estimated saving in car dunnage and transportation alone of $1,000 a car, or $107,517,000. Nor was this the only saving. Ordnance stock controllers estimated that, if all the ammunition shipped directly at the peak of operations had been placed in storage en route, it would have required at least twelve additional depots of the capacity of Wingate, which cost approximately three million dollars a year to operate, to say nothing of the cost of construction. Of incalculable value logistically was the economy in time, figured at ten days travel time per carload. In the fall of 1944 and spring of 1945, this saving was an important factor in theater planning in combat areas.40
Control of Excess Stocks in the Zone of Interior
As effective as the new system was in preventing long hauls between depots, training camps, and ports, it could not solve the problem of controlling excess stocks at posts, camps, and stations, a problem that assumed ever greater importance as troops began to move overseas. Returning stocks to the depots without adequate supervision from Washington could conceivably result in unnecessary crosshauls and backhauls, the type of waste that stock controllers had been trying to avoid. An especially troublesome aspect of the problem was the improper handling of odd lots of ammunition left behind by departing troops; there was also danger in allowing ammunition to pile up at camps that lacked adequate storage facilities. One way to prevent waste and to economize on storage was to provide better control of issues by the Office, Chief of Ordnance, so that no more ammunition was shipped to the station than could be used. Another was to be sure, by careful coordination with Ground Forces, that the ammunition was truly excess and was not needed by any neighboring installation.
With both objectives in mind, two Ordnance stock controllers, Lt. Col. Samuel L. Smith and Maj. Joseph Rollins, after consultation with representatives of the using arms and ASF, proposed a change in the method of issuing training ammunition. All forces would present their demands to the Post Ordnance Officer with the deadline date at which they had to have ammunition for their training programs. The Post Ordnance Officer would report every month to his area depot the amount of ammunition he had on hand, the issues for the last thirty days, and the amount he wanted shipped. He would furnish the desired time for arrival of the ammunition at the post and the rate at which he would be able to handle and store it. The area depot, reviewing the report, would have authority to ship directly from its stock all less-than-carload amounts and all items for which there was an urgent need. The report would then be forwarded to the Office, Chief of Ordnance, for supply of the larger quantities, which would be scheduled for
shipment directly from loading plants whenever possible.41
Presented to G-4 early in 1944, the plan ran into serious objections from officers of the Army Ground Forces, who felt that it gave too much authority to the Post Ordnance Officer. By giving him control over station stocks of ammunition the plan would in effect give him control of training. The AGF counterproposal was to continue the system by which the Ground Forces commander ordered what he considered necessary, within the limits of the local storage and transportation capacity reported to him by the Ordnance and Transportation Officers.42
One basic difficulty in this system, admitted by AGF, was that the post authorities were allowed to keep ammunition for as long as ninety days before they determined whether or not they had an excess. The period was too long, and when excesses were finally reported to Ground Forces headquarters, the excess stocks might be shifted around to various commands for months. Meantime, troops were moving out of the camps continuously, often unexpectedly. Ammunition piled up, and the post authorities had no control over shipments coming in. By 1945, magazine areas were becoming dangerously overloaded.
An investigation by the Joint Army and Navy Storage Board made it plain that some action would have to be taken. Accordingly, an AGF representative met with representatives of the Ordnance Ammunition Supply Division and agreed upon a plan that was similar to the one Ordnance had proposed before, except that the Service Command rather than the Post Ordnance Officer would control excess stocks. At a later date ASF insisted that the job be given to the area depot rather than to the Service Command. As finally worked out, the plan provided that all requisitions would be channeled through the depot. They would be prepared on the tenth of each month for the requirements beginning the first of the next month. When the second month’s requisition came in, any stocks that had not been used in the first 30-day period would apply against the ammunition required for the second 30-day period. At the end of sixty days, area depot officers were authorized to move excesses back to the depot. To the more important depots would be assigned two officers who would travel from post to post, assisting the Post Ordnance Officer to remove excesses or to plan for additional storage if necessary. They were like the “excess stock teams” used for general supplies.43
Under the constant supervision of Major Rollins the plan was tested at Red River Ordnance Depot, Texarkana, Texas. Two months after it went into effect, a check of station ammunition stocks indicated that they had been reduced by 46 percent. But AGF felt that the new procedures placed too great a restriction on the flexibility of its credits, and a compromise plan, proposed in July, was under consideration as the war ended.44
Long after V-J Day, training ammunition was still being issued on the wartime system of monthly credits based on allocations to the various services. Ordnance supply experts believed that the best plan for an orderly change-over to peacetime operation was a revision of AR 775-10 of 30 December 1943, which authorized the kind and amount of firing required for training. They recommended that for all services ammunition be issued on an allowance basis and that expenditure guides for each service, similar to those used by AGF beginning in 1944, be included in the program.45
Return of Excess Stocks from Theaters
A growing problem after 1943 was the safe and orderly return of excess stocks from overseas theaters. Such shipments had to be cleared with ASF for ground ammunition and AAF for air ammunition. With a few exceptions, War Department policy was to return only serviceable ammunition that was definitely known to be safe for shipping and handling. The quantities were enormous. Early in August 1944 when both ETOUSA and NATOUSA expressed a desire to return excesses there was an estimated total of 1,737,000 tons in both theaters, including an overage of fifty days of supply. Out of this amount there were available for distribution 1,570,000 tons, of which 1,085,000, ground and air, would go to other theaters. This left for return to the United States 485,000 tons, all of it ground ammunition.46
The first step was to select the lots of ammunition that would be retained in the theater, those that would be transferred to other theaters, and those that would be returned to the United States. Over this step the Ordnance Department had no real control, because it was the policy of G-4, General Staff, to permit overseas theaters to return any lots of ammunition they desired. But Ordnance could offer advice and guidance. Field Service prepared lists of all lots that had been shipped to ETOUSA and to NATOUSA, reviewed them carefully in cooperation with Industrial Service, and arranged the individual lots by caliber and type in the order of frequency of issue. These lists were sent to the two theaters to serve as a guide in the retention, transfer, or return of ammunition. Ordnance also offered technical assistance on the problem of safe and efficient handling of excess stocks. It urged G-4 to reconsider its policy of not requiring theaters to destroy unserviceable ammunition locally, and emphasized War Department regulations on the segregation, packing, marking, and safe storage of explosives and incendiary materials in outgoing shipments.47
Planning for the reception of excess stocks in the United States began early in 1944 on a directive from ASF stating
that ports should be used that were not actively engaged in handling outgoing shipments. Ordnance recommended Curtis Bay, near Baltimore; Nansemond, at Hampton Roads; San Jacinto, Texas; Boston; Charleston; New Orleans; Benicia, near San Francisco; Seattle; and Beaver Site at Portland, Oregon. But the Joint Working Committee Concerning Return of U.S. Army and U.S. Navy Ammunition From Overseas, appointed in June 1944, determined that the Navy would provide facilities and sorting service at or near ports on the West Coast and that the Army would handle East Coast terminals. The Army was to enlarge Nansemond and use Charleston for current and continued receipts and Curtis Bay when outgoing shipments stopped or decreased materially.48
From the ports, ammunition would be sent to loading plants for screening. This process would include segregating by caliber, type, and lot, and necessary renovation to make sure that only the highest quality ammunition was kept for long-term storage as War Reserve. The final step was storage in depots. As of August 1944, igloos and magazines in the United States were only two-thirds filled and could accommodate more than a million tons of returned stocks. An expected cutback in the current production of 600,000 tons per month would increase the amount of storage available.49
Beginning in the summer of 1944 the Ordnance Department worked out several ways of controlling the flood of stocks that was expected after the war was over in Europe. The Ammunition Supply Division established a system of identification markings for ammunition shipments. Stock controllers also contrived a system of facilitating shipments from port to plant or depot by using a single shipping order number. They devised this number by assigning a series to each port and combining it with the code number already assigned to each plant and depot. A shipment from New York, series 600, to Milan Ordnance Depot, number 25, would be coded 625.
Coordination between port and depot was furthered by a meeting in Washington in November 1944 of Port Ordnance Officers with representatives of the depots. Port Ordnance Officers were instructed to obtain shipping instructions from the Ammunition Supply Division and after shipment to mail a copy of the shipping order to the Philadelphia Ammunition Suppl), Office for record purposes. At PASO a Returned Ammunition Unit of two persons was established to keep records, and the establishment of a purpose code permitted analysis of returns from individual theaters and the reason for the return.50 In general the ports were cooperative in obtaining shipping instructions from the Ordnance Department, though there were some cases of carelessness in reporting shipments, as well as some instances of improper identification and segregation. One Ordnance stock controller felt that segregation centers adjacent to ports would have saved considerable money in transportation and handling at both ports and depots.51
The effectiveness of the Ordnance Department’s ammunition supply operations depended on two factors: knowing where the stocks were and what their condition was, and being able to deliver them to the right place at the right time. The main objectives were to meet deadlines for de-
livery and to maintain an accurate record of all items received from production. In the opinion of Col. William C. Young, Chief of the Ammunition Supply Division from June 1942 to August 1946, the first objective was well met; the second was only partially met. The reasons for the failure to achieve completely accurate records were many. Some errors crept into accounting when ammunition had to be returned to production plants for reworking; others were caused by changes in procedures for gathering and recording data, faulty coordination between Indus- trial Service and Field Service, and lack of enough personnel for the necessary paper work. Complete adjustment of records was never possible. Yet partial reconciliation was achieved. By reducing the number of crosshauls and backhauls, and by developing effective techniques for making shipments directly from plants to ports, Ordnance ammunition supply experts contributed notably to the war effort.52