Preface
This is the second of a 3-volume series on the role of the Ordnance Department (now Ordnance Corps) in World War II. As the first volume, subtitled Planning Munitions for War,1 gave emphasis to research and development, this volume deals with procurement and supply, and the third will describe Ordnance operations overseas. It is particularly important for the reader of this volume to bear in mind that the first volume includes, in addition to research and development, separate chapters on the early history of the Ordnance Department, its organizational and personnel problems during World War II, and its efforts to conserve scarce materials such as copper, steel, and aluminum. The organizational charts in the earlier volume may be of special assistance to the reader not familiar with Ordnance organization. Taken together, the three volumes deal with every major aspect of Ordnance history in World War II, and give some attention to the prewar years when the art of munitions making was sadly neglected. The authors have studiously avoided duplication of material in other volumes of the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, particularly The Army and Economic Mobilization by R. Elberton Smith.
In his preface to Charles Ffoulkes’ little classic, The Gun-Founders of England, Lord Cottesloe observed, on the eve of World War II, “In all that has been written about war, but little mention has been made of the making of weapons; it is their use which is dramatic and tragic and commands public attention.” The mystery of such important matters as the invention of gunpowder in the 13th century and its employment in crude firearms in the 14th century has never been properly unraveled; nor has the method by which medieval chain mail was manufactured in quantity ever been satisfactorily explained. Neglect of the armorer’s art by historians has been traditional in this country as well as in England, owing in part, no doubt, to the reluctance of scholars to explore the sooty mysteries of forge and furnace.
After World War I, this reluctance was reinforced by a strong desire to emphasize the pursuits of peace rather than the ways of war and to write new textbooks giving less space to battles and political campaigns and more to social, economic, and cultural history. Most professional historians of the 1920s and 1930s systematically avoided the study of both warfare and munitions manufacture, while a number of journalistic writers turned out lurid accounts
of the evil traffic in arms, labeling its practitioners “Merchants of Death.” During World War II the life-and-death importance of arms production swept away part of the earlier aversion to the subject, and some of the newly aroused interest in munitions carried over into the postwar years. But it is still true that, in proportion to its significance, remarkably little substantial material has been published on the manufacture of munitions. This volume is a modest effort to redress the balance.
With storage, issue, and maintenance—subjects not mentioned in Lord Cottesloe’s comment but nevertheless implied in it—the situation has been much the same. If anything, these topics have appeared less appealing and have been less written about. Warehouses, pipelines, inventories, parts catalogs—there is nothing glamorous or ‘exciting about these subjects unless an investigator uncovers fraud or waste. Yet even the most casual student of military affairs recognizes that these humdrum activities are an essential link in the long chain of supply. They may not win wars, but their neglect or mismanagement may bring on military disaster.
A word of explanation is needed for the preponderant emphasis on the early years, 1939–43, in the chapters devoted to procurement (1 to 15), and on the later years in the Field Service chapters. This emphasis is considered justified for the procurement chapters because the early years saw the emergence of many new problems and led to pioneering efforts to work out solutions. “If you do any research on procurement,” Brig. Gen. John K. Christmas once advised Industrial College students, “don’t look at procurement as it was in 1944. Anybody could do it in 1944. ... But go back and look at 1940–41, and so on, if you want to really do some research on procurement.”2 This injunction has been followed and has been found to fit the facts of life on the procurement front. With Field Service the opposite has been true. Though due Attention has been given to the early formative years when the Army, swollen by selective service, was training with broomstick rifles and stovepipe cannon, the ‘big job for field service came in the latter half of the war when factories were pouring out equipment in vast quantities and troops were being deployed around the world. Problems in the management of stocks and maintenance of equipment became critical during the 1943–45 period just as pressure on the procurement front eased off.
Another distinction between the two parts of the volume should be noted. As the Industrial Service was organized mainly along product lines—small arms, artillery, combat vehicles, and ammunition—the procurement chapters follow, with obvious exceptions, the same pattern. The Field Service organization, mainly along functional lines, is reflected in the supply chapters on such topics, as storage, stock control, and maintenance. Coordination of the two has proved as difficult in the writing as it was in actual operation during the war.
Of the procurement chapters all except Chapter 8 were written by Dr. Harry C. Thomson; the Field Service chapters (16 to 22) and the
Introduction are the work of Lida Mayo. Both authors were ably supported by Mrs. Irene House, whose many services as research assistant were invaluable and who wrote most of Chapter 8 on small arms. The entire manuscript was typed and retyped with great skill and patience by Mrs. Feril Cummings.
In the Office of the Chief of Military History, Dr. Stetson Conn, Chief Historian, and Mr. Joseph R. Friedman, Editor in Chief of the World War II series, gave the utmost assistance in all aspects of the volume’s preparation. Editing of the manuscript was performed by Carl Brinton Schultz, senior editor, most ably assisted by Mrs. Helen Whittington, copy editor. Miss Margaret E. Tackley chose the photographs.