Chapter 5: Local Procurement in the Pacific
In no other theater of operations did local procurement become quite as extensive as in the Southwest Pacific and South Pacific Areas. Even in Great Britain, local purchases did not compare in quantity with those in Australia and New Zealand. During 1943 and 1944, for example, these two countries together furnished the major part of the meat consumed by the U.S. armed services below the equator. Australia alone provided about fifteen times and New Zealand about nine times the amount procured in Great Britain. Acquisition of such locally produced meat represented a substantial saving in shipping space. Purchases made in Great Britain, on the contrary, had scant effect on the shipping shortage, for 80 percent of the meat obtained there in 1943 and 1944, the years of peak procurement, came from Argentina, 7,100 miles away.1
During the first year of procurement from Australian sources subsistence, on the one hand, and clothing, equipment, and general supplies, on the other, were handled somewhat differently. When the first U.S. troops arrived in the dominion, the QMC hoped that it could provide them with American rations. But there were neither sufficient Quartermaster officers nor service units to handle procurement, storage, and distribution operations and no immediate prospect of securing adequate reinforcements from the United States. There were no American depots or railheads for storing and distributing subsistence, no prior arrangement with the Commonwealth for American purchases of local products, and, because of the policy of relying as far as possible upon Australian resources, little importation of food from the United States except for the comparatively small amounts brought in by newly arrived units. Even these shipments could be employed only sparingly, for they were needed to build up the indispensable ninety-day reserve for emergency and tactical use. For the time being the QMC thus necessarily relied upon the Australian Army for the procurement, storage, and distribution of most of the food required by American troops. But with regard to clothing, equipment, and general supplies, the specifications for which were too highly specialized to permit procurement by any organization not familiar with their use in the U.S. Army, QMC assumed responsibility from the outset.
Although Australian agriculture and industry furnished the bulk of locally
acquired supplies during 1942, “distress” or “refugee” cargoes also provided a not unimportant share. These cargoes, originally consigned to the Philippines, the Netherlands Indies, Malaya, and other Asiatic areas, had, because of the Japanese occupation of these regions, been diverted to Australia and seized by the Commonwealth Government. Some 195,000 tons of products of various sorts were obtained in this way. The United States was given first priority on American shipments and second priority on Dutch and British shipments. No complete figures are available on the tonnage or value of supplies received by the QMC, but there is no doubt that it secured substantial quantities of food and general supplies which proved valuable in the alleviation of shortages and the build-up of reserve stocks, particularly of general supplies.2
Rationing by the Australian Army
While true that distress cargoes provided an important amount of foodstuffs, most of the rations were furnished by the Australian Army. In carrying out this responsibility that army suffered from many handicaps. It lacked firsthand knowledge of American food standards and naturally thought in terms of its own rationing system. Moreover, since most of its units were overseas, it was not organized for the provisioning of more than small bodies of men, and, though much better situated than the QMC, it still lacked enough service troops and means of distribution to carry out its new task easily.
The regular Australian ration sporadically used by American troops in the opening days of the war elicited considerable criticism from them, and it became apparent that one of the perplexities to be considered in making formal arrangements for Australian subsistence of the U.S. forces would be whether to employ this ration. Containing only twenty-four basic items, it lacked the variety and the balance furnished by the thirty-nine items of the United States ration. Moreover, as it was on a money rather than a commodity basis, it varied in both quantity and quality with fluctuations in market prices. Some common American favorites, such as coffee, rice, spaghetti, fruit juices, and fresh and canned fruits and vegetables, were served only rarely while frequent servings of mutton as the main meat component proved monotonous. As long as U.S. military units remained near the ports of entry, they could occasionally supplement Australian fare with the food they had brought with them. But once they were dispersed to sections of the country remote from coastal storage points, this relief became impracticable.3
Early in February the U.S. Army entered into negotiations looking to formal Australian assumption of responsibility for the subsistence of American units. Both parties agreed that American food requirements would be submitted to the Quartermaster General of the Australian Army. That officer would deliver rations for current consumption direct to units having their own
messes, help build up, maintain, and store a ninety-day food reserve for the combined forces, and present to the proper Commonwealth authorities American suggestions for increasing local food production. The question of the composition of the ration was not so easily solved. USAFIA was prepared to accept a money basis but it sought an improved ration that would cost 6d. more than the Australian ration and that would permit the selection of the menu for U.S. organizations to be made from a wider range of foods than was provided for Australian soldiers. The Commonwealth immediately pointed out that this proposal envisioned a more generous fare than it furnished its own troops. Such a fare, it contended, would impair the morale of Australian soldiers, especially if they were stationed in the same camp with American units.
Both sides finally approved a U.S. ration that contained four more components than did the Australian—eggs, macaroni or spaghetti, rice, and coffee—and substituted beef, pork, and ham for most of the mutton. It was also agreed that American organizations might supplement this ration by the procurement of provisions either not furnished in the regular menu or furnished only in limited quantities. These purchases would be restricted to a daily expenditure of 6d. a ration. To prevent competitive bidding by U.S. Army quartermasters in commercial markets, it was stipulated that all supplementary provisions must be bought in Australian Army canteens, which would be stocked with the desired supplies. Among these supplies were fresh and canned fruits and vegetables, fruit juices, crackers, breakfast foods, cocoa, baking soda, cornstarch, and corn meal. To diminish the potential danger to Australian morale, it was agreed that U.S. troops attached to Common- wealth units would be fed the same ration the latter received and that Australian troops attached to American units would be served the U.S. ration. This compromise went into effect in most parts of the country in April 1942.4
The Australian-American ration was never truly popular among U.S. troops. Food issues occasionally fell below prescribed quantities, and substitute items were not always available. Frequently, there were shortages of milk, canned vegetables, and condiments. Too many pumpkins, onions, squashes, and turnips were offered, and too few greens, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, apples, pears, oranges, and grapefruits.5 To meet American objections the unsupplemented ration was twice modified to furnish more beef, lamb, and pork in place of the less popular foods and those already furnished in more than sufficient quantity. The first revision, made in May, increased issues of fresh beef and bacon and cut those of dried peas, potatoes, and onions. In August the allotments of pork and lamb were enlarged at the expense of fish issues. Actually, these changes could be carried out only to a limited extent, for Australian Army stocks were seldom large enough to permit the stipulated substitutions.6
The American-Australian ration would have been better liked if it had been
possible to carry out in its entirety the arrangement respecting supplementary purchases. But there was protracted delay in the establishment of the canteens from which these purchases were to be made, and even after the canteens were opened they did not always carry sufficient stocks to meet American requirements. The partial failure of the attempt to obtain extra ration components was attributable to supply shortages and to the fact that Australians never regarded these items as an essential part of the daily ration and thus as something that had to be furnished. They treated the stocking of canteens rather as Americans did the stocking of post exchanges, that is, as something to be done if procurement and distribution resources were not needed to handle more important supplies.7 Perhaps it was too much to expect that any army would try energetically to feed the soldiers of another army better than its own, even if that army was a close ally. Moreover, even had the Australians redoubled their efforts they could hardly have met U.S. requirements in full, for important categories of subsistence, such as fresh and canned vegetables, were not yet produced in sufficient volume.8 To acquire supplementary foods, quartermasters in some localities entered the open market, but their un-coordinated purchases raised prices, hampered procurement by the Commonwealth, and did little to better the American ration.9
From time to time Colonel Cordiner, Chief Quartermaster in the Southwest Pacific Area, pointed out the need for expanded production of scarce foodstuffs and for better inspection of meat and dairy products. His suggestions could not be put quickly into effect, however; months must elapse before production could be increased and improved inspection methods applied.10 The slow rate at which U.S. Army subsistence reserves were being accumulated also disturbed Colonel Cordiner. Some Quartermaster officers alleged that this condition resulted from the fact that the Commonwealth Army, fearing that it might be accused of hoarding food, deferred the placement of requisitions involving substantial expenditures of money until supplies were actually needed. Because of this timid approach, these officers claimed, the small food-processing industry could not operate at full capacity, and vegetables, fruits, and meats were going to waste when they might be canned for future consumption. The QMC, it was contended, should take a more aggressive role in matters that affected the procurement of food, particularly in the analysis of production potentialities and the determination of the quantity of tin, agricultural machinery, and other lend-lease materials needed from the United States to expand canning and vegetable production.11
Increasingly, the OCQM felt that American interests would be served best by the prompt establishment of depots for the storage and distribution of U.S. rations and by the submission of its food requirements direct to the purchasing agencies of the Commonwealth Government rather than to the
Quartermaster General of the Australian Army. This method of procurement would relieve the Chief Quartermaster of the necessity of acting through his Australian counterpart, himself an interested party, in presenting American claims for higher priorities, larger allocations, and increased production.12
The provision of food through Australian Army channels had never been more than a stopgap imposed by temporary conditions. OCQM was convinced that the sooner the U.S. Army set up its own rationing system the better, if for no other reason than the fact that, as American forces advanced northward toward Japan, they would no longer be in close proximity to Australian forces and would be entirely dependent upon their own resources. By early 1943 the time for the establishment of such a system was opportune since a considerable number of Quartermaster officers qualified to handle the varied operations connected with rationing had at last reached Australia. On 15 February, therefore, General MacArthur notified Prime Minister John Curtin that the U.S. Army would start the procurement, storage, and distribution of subsistence for its troops as soon as possible. By April the new system was in effect in most parts of the country.13
Procurement of Subsistence in Australia
Early Problems
The most noteworthy feature of the American rationing system was that, while storage and distribution of subsistence were functions carried out by U.S. Army quartermasters, most of the food, especially perishables, continued to be purchased locally through Commonwealth procuring agencies. Another striking feature was that all locally procured food was acquired under the reverse lend-lease agreement, and so cost the United States nothing. Though other supplies and many services obtained locally for the American forces were also paid for by the Australian Government, the procurement of food was the largest operation under reverse lend-lease and the most striking evidence that lend-lease brought financial benefits as well as financial loss to the United States.
Because of the active participation of the Commonwealth, procurement procedures in the Southwest Pacific differed somewhat from those in the United States. The General Purchasing Agent, acting as the official representative of all American procuring services in dealings with the Commonwealth, determined over-all policy and coordinated American supply requirements with Commonwealth and State purchasing bodies. The Quartermaster Corps actually conducted the “follow-up” of its contract demands. Only if its efforts were unavailing in hastening deliveries did it appeal to the General Purchasing Agent for official intervention with Australian procuring agencies. While as a general rule it carried out routine inspection of fruits and vegetables offered to the American forces, it might and often did call upon the Veterinary Corps to perform this service. That corps had complete responsibility for the inspection of meats, dairy products, and all other products of animal origin.
Of the procurement tasks performed by the QMC none was more important than
the encouragement of a large agricultural production. As early as February and March 1942 Quartermaster officers had surveyed the producing potentialities of Australian farms and concluded that except for green coffee, cocoa, tobacco, and a few minor items, sufficient food could be obtained from Australian- farms to meet the needs of 500,000 troops.14 But it soon became apparent that, though Australia could produce virtually all types of foodstuffs, it could not immediately furnish all of them in the quantities desired by the QMC and still satisfy civilian requirements and those of the United Kingdom and other Allied countries. Present crops would first have to be expanded and new types introduced. As the required labor could not readily be diverted from war industry, the most promising solution was the greatly increased mechanization of agriculture. In addition, corrective steps had to be taken to end the shortage of fertilizers, fungicides, weedicides, insecticides, and seeds, most of which were imported, and to disseminate information regarding the cultivation of sweet corn and other crops little grown in Australia. Above all, failure to produce the varieties of vegetables best suited to canning had to be remedied. If these deficiencies were to be corrected, a drastic transformation of agriculture was inescapable.
Industrially, the principal obstacles to an increase in the food supply were the inadequate number of vegetable canning and dehydration plants and the lack of equipment needed to establish such plants. Yet canned and dehydrated vegetables were indispensable to troops in forward and combat areas since the shortage of refrigeration on ships, at New Guinea bases, and in the hands of units made the provision of fresh vegetables an almost impossible task. Even where canning plants were well established, as in the fruit, corned beef, jam, and jelly industries, they produced for small local rather than national markets. Moreover, they often employed faulty processing methods. Dehydration was confined to the drying of a few fruits, such as raisins, peaches, and apricots. To meet Quartermaster requirements, it had to be extended to vegetables containing high percentages of water. Though dehydration sometimes made it hard to cook foods in a palatable form, it reduced weight and volume and so conserved ship and storage space. The extent of this saving is indicated by the fact that vegetables had a shrinkage ratio of between 20 to 1 and 5 to 1 and fruits, of between 10 to 1 and 3 to 1. In addition to saving space, dehydrated products had the notable virtue of needing little if any refrigeration or canning.15
To help solve the problems of food production, the QMC in mid-1942 began the assembly of a staff of food technologists, headed by Maj. Maynard A. Joslyn, who was called from a teaching career at the University of California to shoulder this responsibility. At the outset the Commonwealth Government perhaps did not fully appreciate the value of the young science of food technology.16 Late in the year, however, the appearance among American troops at Iron Range in Queensland of one or two cases of botulism traced to unsanitary canneries
strikingly demonstrated the potential usefulness of the specialists.17
When the Subsistence Depot began operations in February 1943, these specialists were put in charge of the branches set up to handle production problems. The most important branches were those in the Food Production Division, whose functions included collaboration with Australian official bodies, technical advice to farmers, canners, and dehydrators, and inspection of locally purchased food.18 These branches survived the subsequent administrative changes affecting the procurement of subsistence and cooperated effectively with the Commonwealth and the states in innovations that transformed Australian agriculture and food processing.
Vegetable Production
The Agricultural Branch, headed by Capt. (later Maj.) Milton D. Miller, an expert on soil cultivation and farm machinery and for some years a teacher at the University of California, had as its main task the better utilization of existing resources. At the very beginning it helped provide farmers with vegetable seeds, the major prerequisite for larger crops. As many normal sources of seed imports were cut off, Australia looked to the United States for the filling of its requirements, but Commonwealth authorities knew little of the American market and had scant experience in the growing of “mother seeds,” upon which the development of an abundant local supply depended. In these matters the Agricultural Branch gave invaluable assistance. It helped the Commonwealth Vegetable Seeds Committee order the proper varieties from the best American suppliers; it produced a type of hybridized sweet-corn seed fitted to Australian conditions; and, when necessary, it intervened with American lend-lease authorities to establish the Commonwealth’s needs. Its help was perhaps most useful in the inauguration of large-scale cultivation of “mother seeds.” During 1942 and early 1943 the United States filled about half the Commonwealth’s requirements, but by mid-1944 local production sufficed to meet most requirements.19
For proper protection of seeds after they had been planted, weedicides were essential, but Australian farmers, having little knowledge of these preparations, customarily weeded their fields by hand. Carrot and onion crops were among those most damaged by obnoxious plant growths. Their cultivation had indeed been materially reduced because sufficient labor could not be found to do the weeding manually. This situation was not improved until the Agricultural Branch, in cooperation with the Australian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, developed special weed-killing sprays that substantially increased the yield of both carrots and onions. The United States also provided fungicides to prevent the rotting of seeds during the germination period, but farmers, unfamiliar with such
preparations, utilized them but slightly until a special effort was made in mid-1943 to call attention to their value.20
Another major achievement of the food production program was a protracted and finally successful drive for the expansion of vegetable acreage, an effort carried out in the main by the Agricultural Engineering Section of the Subsistence Depot. The favorable outcome of this drive was attributable almost wholly to mechanization, a process that, because of the greater stress at first placed by the Commonwealth on the procurement of canning and dehydrating equipment, did not start on a large scale until 1943. Early in that year it became obvious that, if more mechanical aids were not speedily obtained, the higher agricultural production planned for the 1943–44 season could not possibly be attained. Unfortunately, the United States could supply only a fraction of Australian needs, for it was confronted by enormous demands not only from its own farmers but also from other Allied countries.21
Faced with a breakdown in the vegetable production program, the Agricultural Engineering Section began a concerted drive for greater mechanization. Its chief, Maj. Belford L. Seabrook of the 20,000-acre Seabrook Farm in southwestern New Jersey, one of the most intensely mechanized vegetable-growing units in the United States, requested the immediate adoption by the Commonwealth of a program looking to increased manufacture of farm machines in Australia itself. Before 1939 the large agricultural machinery plants of that country had turned out a sizable quantity of equipment, but in 1940 and 1941 most of them had been converted to armament production. Major Seabrook visited the plants and concluded that, if they were promptly reconverted to the manufacture of farm implements and provided with models of the latest American equipment, they could furnish the bulk of Australian requirements. The chief stumbling block to higher local production, he believed, was the failure of the Commonwealth to recognize that food as well as guns, tanks, planes, and ships constituted a munition of war—according to Seabrook, “the primary munition of war.” Because of this failure, top priorities for the acquisition of plants, manpower, and materials went to the supplies and equipment recognized as munitions, and food production received only odds and ends. Major Seabrook further claimed that “endless delays, extreme caution and miserly approach” marked the handling of the “mechanization, development and expansion of the vegetable industry.”22
The Commonwealth Government delayed action on Seabrook’s recommendations for some weeks, but meanwhile it took a census of the country’s farm machines and ascertained the total manufacturing capacity of the factories which had formerly made agricultural equipment. Finally, in July it ordered the reconversion of these plants and declared food a munition of war.23 Once these decisions were made, the Australians determined to start the production of more than thirty different types of equipment. The Agricultural Engineering Section gave technical advice on retooling and other
manufacturing problems that arose in duplicating machines sent as models from the United States.
Probably the most valuable machine was the Farmall H Tractor which, with its attachments, made possible the mechanization of practically every phase of vegetable cultivation from plowing to harvesting. With a single Farmall H Tractor, Seabrook estimated, only two men were required for every 75 or 100 acres. But extensive retooling was needed for its production, and plant managers hesitated to embark on so costly an enterprise. Eventually, Seabrook’s persistent optimism induced them to undertake the difficult task. Whereas American firms in peacetime ordinarily took two to four years to begin production of an entirely new piece of equipment, the Australians, with some technical assistance from the Agricultural Engineering Section, started production within six months.24 Local plants also turned out the Farmall A Tractor, which had fewer attachments. The Farmall H Tractor was employed most effectively on tracts of 500 or more acres, while the Farm-all A was employed mainly on smaller tracts.25
In addition to tractors, Australian plants turned out harrows, mowers, cultivators, plows, pea and bean harvesters, weeders, dusters, sprayers, and highly specialized equipment for fruit and vine crops. But time was needed to adapt plants to the production of these machines. At best Australia could not fill all its needs, and the United States finally had to furnish a number of tractors, corn planters, and potato graders. Sufficient machines indeed did not become available until shortly before the termination of hostilities.26 During 1943 and part of 1944 the lengthy delay in commencing the manufacture of farm equipment combined with the scarcity of farm labor to make greater vegetable production a formidable task. To some extent the shortage of tractors was relieved by pooling those available and allocating them to the production of the most essential crops. But this could not be done without causing a comparative decline in the harvest of such commodities as sugar, production of which had previously been well mechanized. For that reason this expedient was used sparingly.27
Important though modern equipment was, it alone could not bring about mechanized vegetable production. Its most efficient utilization required tracts of at least 75 acres, and preferably 500 acres, yet the average vegetable farm contained only about 5 acres. Before the novel machines could be employed most advantageously, tracts of suitable size had to be secured. To some extent this objective was accomplished by bringing large farms under the production program and combining groups of small farms into projects that carried out machine operations without respect to individual holdings.28
In order to teach farmers how to derive the maximum benefit from the new equipment, the Subsistence Depot conducted an extensive educational program that directly or indirectly reached most of the rural population. Although mechanization was stressed, such problems as irrigation,
harvesting, and the use of fertilizers and insecticides were not neglected. Since the departments of agriculture in the Australian states had the closest contacts with farmers, the program aimed chiefly at the indoctrination of the key men in these agencies, but it also reached individual farmers through lectures, radio broadcasts, motion pictures, leaflets, and, above all, through field demonstrations carried out by American technicians in the main vegetable-growing districts. The high degree of success attained by the educational program is attested by the doubling of the cultivated area. From 1934 to 1939 an average of 254,000 acres was sown yearly in vegetables. By the 1943–44 season more than 520,000 acres were under cultivation. The number of acres devoted to green peas, for example, rose from 13,353 to 66,440, or almost 400 percent, and similar gains were made in the production of string beans, tomatoes, carrots, and beets.29
Remarkable though these increases were, they did not provide adequate quantities of some of the most acceptable vegetables. This shortcoming was attributable to increased civilian demands, to the delays in the inauguration of the mechanization program, and to the natural reluctance of farmers to substitute unfamiliar for familiar crops. Perhaps there was also at first failure on the part of Americans and Australians alike fully to realize that a rise in total vegetable production did not in itself suffice to meet U.S. requirements; such a rise, to be most beneficial, had to include adequate quantities of acceptable varieties. By October 1943 it had become obvious that vegetables lacking in popularity were being obtained in too large quantities; acceptable vegetables, in too small quantities. In spite of considerable gains in acreage sown in peas, string beans, and tomatoes, shortages of these popular vegetables were particularly conspicuous; much of the increased production apparently had been absorbed by housewives and other claimants. Yet the vastly increased availability of vegetables as a whole was a highly significant accomplishment brought about in the face of exasperating perplexities. American soldiers might not always have peas and potatoes, corn and lima beans, but they did not go hungry; normally, they were more than well f ed.30
Canning
The canning program, obviously, was controlled to a considerable extent by the supply of vegetables, but at the outset the primary problem was an industrial one, how to get an adequate number of well-run canneries into operation. At first Commonwealth authorities were often obliged to utilize plants that not only were remote from vegetable-growing districts but also were managed by former fruit canners who had scant knowledge of vegetable canning and frequently applied to it the less exacting techniques of their old occupation.31 These techniques were particularly faulty in failing to provide enough heat in the canning process. Since vegetables are nonacid foods and so less able than fruits to resist bacterial
growths, more heat had to be applied to them in order to kill all harmful matter. The canning methods in use were further defective in that they did not insure the retention of vitamins and minerals indispensable to good health. Preservation of these essential substances depended upon an adequate supply of fresh vegetables of proper maturity, prompt canning after harvesting, and exclusion of oxygen during the heating process to prevent destruction of vitamins, but these requirements could seldom be fully complied with. Recently picked vegetables were rarely available in the desired quantities since growing areas were not close enough to processing plants, and vegetables were of necessity hauled over long distances with a rapid decline in nutritive value. Finally, processors’ lack of familiarity with the seaming, soldering, and closing of cans resulted in the production of easily damaged containers.32 Proper inspection might have corrected these weaknesses, but inspectors, like canners, were for the most part former fruit men ill-informed about vegetable processing. Specifications based on the best canning practices might have been set up to serve as sound guides, but such specifications were not at first available.33
Early in 1943 these difficulties led the Commonwealth to request the assignment of experienced Quartermaster and Veterinary officers to the enforcement of better operating practices. The Subsistence Depot thereupon established the Laboratory and Inspection Branch in the Food Production Division with Maj. (later Lt. Col.) Carl R. Fellers, a prominent food technologist, as director. He set up a highly efficient organization that carried out its functions in canneries as well as laboratories, rejecting not only all food found unfit for consumption but also improperly seamed cans. The effectiveness of the unit was demonstrated by the absence of any serious cases of food poisoning after its creation.34
In the meantime ambitious expansion plans were formulated, but it soon developed that they could not be fully carried out as shortages of manpower and machinery delayed the completion of new plants and the re-equipment of old ones. Canneries, in fact, never became numerous enough to keep pace with fast rising military requirements although by the close of the war sixty were in operation, several times the peacetime figure.35 The frequent inability to utilize existing plants to full capacity was as detrimental to production as was the lack of enough plants. Operations were repeatedly disrupted by shortages of cans, of machinery for closing containers, and of wood shipping cases. So acute was the world-wide scarcity of tinplate that Australia never had more than a few weeks’ supply of cans, not enough to allow the uninterrupted flow of containers in a seasonal industry like vegetable canning.36
Cannery operations in Australia were performed under the supervision of Quartermaster inspectors.
Nevertheless ever larger quantities of canned vegetables became available. Of the increased production the American services alone took 56,000,000 pounds, five and a half times the total amount turned out in the last prewar year. Even this substantial quantity did not quite match American requirements, but the most serious shortcoming was not that the amount furnished to the U.S. Army often fell below the amount ordered. It was rather that the varieties of vegetables were not provided in the desired proportions, a failure attributable not to the canning industry but, as noted above, to the fact that suitable varieties were not grown in the required quantities.37
To fill the gaps in its canned stocks, USASOS late in 1943 submitted several sizable requisitions on the zone of interior, but it still placed major reliance on reverse lend-lease procurement. In the following March it materially increased the quantities ordered from the United States and shortly afterwards completely revised its procurement schedule in line with ascertained American preferences. Of the procurement projected for 1944 from Australia and the United States together, 16 percent was allotted to tomatoes and lesser percentages, in descending scale, to peas, corn, string beans, asparagus, carrots, spinach, beets, sweet potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower, sauerkraut, parsnips, and pumpkins.38 Actual procurement in Australia in that year reflected the inability of that country to make canned vegetables available in the contemplated proportions. Forty percent of the products obtained by the American services—double the planned amount—consisted of beets, cabbages, and carrots, none of which were truly acceptable as a steady diet. On the other hand, favored vegetables, such as tomatoes and corn, were procured only in much smaller percentages than the program called for.39 As months necessarily elapsed before supplies arrived from the United States the vegetable components of the menu remained unbalanced throughout 1944.
The operations of the fruit-canning industry were also affected by shortages, but this well-established business nevertheless made a commendable record. In conformance with American desires it reduced the production of apricots, peaches, and pears, which had previously been turned out in fairly substantial quantities, in order to increase that of jams, jellies, applesauce, apple butter, and, particularly, fruit juices, which the QMC wished to obtain in large quantities. The disappointing fact that the industry never produced fruit juices in the desired volume was not attributable to any indifference on the part of the canners but rather to the unavailability of the necessary fruits.40
Meat Canning
Like fruit canning, meat canning was an old Australian industry, which concentrated on the production of corned beef, corned mutton, and minced beef loaf—all prepared according to British specifications. Packers were willing to prepare meats in the American manner, but their experimental efforts to do so failed because they lacked the proper equipment and were unacquainted with American processing methods. On its establishment the Subsistence
Depot therefore set up a Meat Section in its Food Production Division to help the packers. This section was headed by Maj. George V. Hallman, who for twenty years had worked in the packing industry in both North and South America. After surveying existing plants he concluded that with better equipment Australia could produce the canned meats known to Americans—chili con came, corned beef hash, ham and eggs, luncheon meat, Vienna sausage, meat and beans, and vegetable stew and hash. The Commonwealth approved the production of these items and in 1944, at American request, added pork sausage, pork and beans, and roast beef with gravy to the list.41
In trying to meet U.S. Army requirements packers were handicapped by seasonal variations in the meat supply, which made it hard to maintain a smooth flow of canned products. Australia normally had an exportable surplus of beef, but there were times when for some weeks not enough beef could be obtained to fill Commonwealth commitments to Great Britain and the Australian Army and also provide for American troops. Hogs, moreover, were raised in such small numbers that only a scanty supply of pork ever reached the market.42 In spite of these handicaps the meat-canning program achieved a remarkable production record. When it started in 1942, only two firms were under contract. In the following year most of the major packers participated, and production for the American forces soared from a mere 1,300,000 pounds to 43,800,000 pounds. Huge though this gain was, it still fell far short of the 77,400,000 pounds required. In 1944 the packers, with both more experience and more equipment, better than doubled their contribution, furnishing 90,000,000 pounds.43
Despite this decided spurt, the program, like that for canned vegetables, was unable to provide the variety desired by the QMC. Corned beef and corned beef hash, old Australian favorites, continued to be supplied in the largest quantities, in 1944 constituting over 36 percent of the canned meats turned over to the U.S. Army. This disappointing result stemmed in the main from the reluctance of packers to plunge into the large-scale production of unfamiliar items for which no substantial postwar demand was discernible. As in the case of canned vegetables, USASOS eventually obtained some relief through procurement in the United States.44
Vegetable Dehydration Industry
Apart from circumstances retarding the development of new industries in general, the lack of any foreseeable postwar need was the major factor that held up the development of a vegetable dehydration industry and kept production during the first two years of the conflict at low levels.45
In 1942 there were in use only a few hastily converted and unsuitably located fruit-drying plants, which turned out less than 2,000,000 pounds of dehydrated vegetables, and those of inferior quality. With the establishment in early 1943 of the Dehydration Branch at the Subsistence Depot, technical advice about the selection of vegetables and the improvement of processing methods became available for the first time. New plants were built largely in accordance with plans submitted by the Dehydration Branch, and in 1944 production was six times that of two years before. Dehydrated potatoes formed about 70 percent of the total output. Cabbages and carrots were the other vegetables dehydrated in the largest quantities.46
The American services received only a comparatively small percentage of all this production. Of the 1943 output of 5,000,000 pounds they secured a mere 620,185 pounds. The remainder went principally to the Australian Army, which had submitted its requisitions first. Believing its contribution to vegetable dehydration entitled it to an increased share, the Subsistence Depot requested that the system of giving the earliest requisitions preference be replaced by one giving the U.S. forces a definite percentage of each plant’s production. The Commonwealth accepted this suggestion and at the beginning of 1945 allocated to the U.S. Army 25 percent of the dehydrated potato production for the coming year, 36 percent of the cabbage production, 26 percent of the onion production, and 50 percent of the beet production. Except for potatoes, allotment of which equaled American requirements, even these relatively generous allocations represented only about 43 percent of what the QMC had requested.47
Owing to the difficulty of supplying perishables in the Southwest Pacific, Australian canners and dehydrators were called upon to furnish meat, fruit, and vegetable components of the special rations prepared for advance, particularly combat, troops cut off from normal sources of supply. They even provided these components for standard field rations, especially those issued north of Australia where only small quantities of perishables could be handled. Rations of the C type, composed in the main of canned and dehydrated elements, were the only ones assembled entirely from Australian products.48
Fresh Meat
The quantity of fresh subsistence supplied to the U.S. services was even larger than that of canned subsistence, and among perishable foods none bulked larger than meat. Normally, about half the Australian production of fresh meat consisted of beef and about half of mutton and lamb. For many years large exports of these meats had figured conspicuously in the antipodean economy, but in 1940 the shortage of bottoms led to sharp curtailment of shipments
to the United Kingdom, making it impossible to dispose of surpluses. Prices slumped, and producers cut their stocks. American entrance into the war completely altered this situation, compelling the Commonwealth to stimulate meat production in order to fill heavy American demands. Because of the scarcity of pork, ham, and bacon and their popularity with American soldiers, the production of these meats was especially fostered. The Commonwealth furnished feeds to hog raisers at low prices and bought their animals at levels guaranteeing substantial profits.49
In spite of the fact that total meat production rose from 900,000 tons in 1941 to 1,030,000 tons in 1944 and shipments to the United Kingdom remained at relatively low levels, filling American requirements was not an easy assignment. One reason was that civilian consumption grew rapidly after 1940, yet, except for pork and a few other food products, remained unregulated until January 1944, when rationing was at last started on the basis of 2¼ pounds a week for each person over nine years of age and half as much for persons under nine. The shortage of freezer space also complicated the supply problem. In peacetime, heavy exports had kept refrigerated space clear of old meat and enabled a few plants to fill all demands for cold storage. But with the arrival of strong American forces large stocks had to be held for weeks at a time in order to assure adequate military supplies during the months when animals were being fattened for slaughter. To satisfy this need the Commonwealth imposed rigid limitations on civilian storage and built additional warehouses in Queensland, the main beef-producing state. The U.S. Army itself constructed freezer warehouses at Aitkenvale, near Townsville.50
The desirability of conserving freezer space on board cargo ships and in the hands of units necessitated the procurement not merely of canned meat but also of boneless beef, a product developed by the U.S. Army for the express purpose of reducing cold-storage needs. Introduction of this commodity, unknown in Australia, became a primary responsibility of the Meat Section of the Subsistence Depot. Boneless beef eliminated not only bones but also fats and cuts of slight nutritive value. Whereas carcass beef in storage or shipment was hung on hooks with considerable room between each carcass, boneless beef was packed in 50-pound boxes, permitting compact utilization of space and reducing freezer-space requirements by about 60 percent and weight by about 25 percent.51
As in the United States, the principal stumbling block to the procurement of boneless beef was the reluctance of meat packers to incur the cost of the new equipment required to bring out a product for which there was no commercial demand. Boneless beef was at first so hard to procure that the Commonwealth had to prohibit its distribution to troops in Australia in order to make enough available for deliveries to advance bases. The supply problem was partly solved by Commonwealth guarantees of remunerative prices, but sufficient boning
Storage of meat forced the adoption of such expedients as the burlap cooler in which water dripping over burlap kept the temperature down ...
... and the salting of fresh meat cuts.
facilities never became available. This deficiency was worsened by the vast increase in demand during the last two years of hostilities, when the Australian Army, favorably impressed by the product, ordered sizable amounts.52
There was also difficulty in procuring pork carcasses cut, according to American custom, into hams, loins, shoulders, spareribs, and bacon ready for cooking by field organizations, and beef carcasses cut into steaks, roasts, and stews. Meat had never been prepared in this fashion in Australia. Wholesalers had always provided pork, for example, to retailers in the form of Wiltshire sides, that is, entire sides except for the heads, and they hesitated to make cuts in the American style because of the increased cost and the scarcity of qualified carvers. Yet mess butchers could not use Wiltshire sides economically, for they had few proper cutting implements and only limited training in carving carcasses. Because of their inexperience they discarded bones that still held a good deal of edible meat.53
In the Melbourne base section, as elsewhere, there was very much wastage of meat. To correct this defect, the Quartermaster and the Veterinarian set up a so-called “boning room,” which was really a “cutting room,” for little deboning was done there. Its operations, carried out mostly by Australian civilians recently trained as cutters, relieved mess cooks and attendants in the Melbourne area of tasks for which they were ill fitted and made possible the procurement of about 10 percent more meat from a carcass than had formerly been obtained.54
The Subsistence Depot hoped that similar cutting rooms could be established in all the Australian base sections, but the packers opposed such action. They claimed that the Melbourne experiment competed directly with their products, aggravating the shortage of skilled cutters and making it hard for them to turn out cuts in the American style. Their objections, together with the danger of contamination because of the lack of refrigeration in the Melbourne boning room, led to its abandonment early in 1944. At that time the packers agreed to make cuts of the types wanted by the U.S. Army, but the Australian Treasury disapproved as too high the prices set by the packers and so delayed the venture for several months.55
The American forces did not always obtain the cuts they preferred, it is true, but Australia did furnish a large amount of beef. During 1942 and 1943 it provided 16,700,000 pounds of the carcass variety and 7,440,000 pounds of the boneless variety. Whereas the supply of the latter product consistently fell below American needs, that of carcass beef approximated requirements until late 1943 when Australian production, though increased, did not suffice to fill demands treble those of 1942. Civilian rationing, put into effect in January 1944, helped tide over the shortage in military
stocks. As the number of American troops in forward areas steadily grew throughout 1944, the acquisition of more freezer shipping space, rather than an inadequate supply of beef, became the primary problem. In June lack of such space forced the storage in Australia of about 30,000,000 pounds of carcass beef.56
Next to beef, pork products constituted the largest group of meats supplied to the U.S. services, amounting in the peak procurement year of 1944 to about half the beef procurement. During those twelve months 11,980,000 pounds of bacon, 11,790,000 pounds of ham and 9,460,000 pounds of pork were supplied. Sizable though these amounts were, they were still considerably less than the American forces wanted.57
Australia, as a major producer of lamb and mutton, could easily have supplied these products, but American preference for other meats kept procurement at a low level, less than a million pounds having been secured during the first two years of reverse lend-lease operations. Not until well into 1943, when hope of obtaining pork products in desired quantities had almost vanished, was much lamb and mutton taken. Yet even in the following years Americans got only slightly more than 10,000,000 pounds, or less than 9 percent of all local meat purchases.58
Generally speaking, the poultry industry could provide few chickens and turkeys, for they were Australian luxuries ordinarily available only in the better hotels and restaurants. Those sold commercially were un-bled, incompletely plucked specimens most soldiers found distasteful. Many rejected the turkeys served at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners in 1942. Later, the quality of poultry offered U.S. services gradually improved, and in 1944 purchases climbed from only 240,000 pounds in the previous two years to about 2,000,000 pounds.59
Flour, Sugar, and Rice
Flour was procured in greater volume than any other foodstuff. In 1944 alone the QMC obtained about 219,000,000 pounds. As one of the world’s largest exporters of the commodity in prewar days Australia had no trouble in meeting even such huge demands. Yet U.S. Army bakers contended that the flour, because of its low gluten content, made smaller and less acceptable loaves than did the American variety. When the latter was available, they mixed it with equal quantities of local flour to obtain better bread. But this expedient was possible only to a limited degree, for until late 1944 about 90 percent of all flour used in the Southwest Pacific came from Australian mills.60
Sugar, too, was almost entirely Australian in origin. There were ample local supplies, and with the aid of civilian rationing at the restricted but still liberal scale of one pound per person a week, service requirements were met in full. Even the shortage of seasonal laborers for harvesting the crop in the principal growing areas in northern Queensland and of freight cars for transporting the raw sugar to the refineries in the south interfered but little with production for the military forces.61
Rice, grown in prewar days only in the publicly owned Murrumbidgee irrigation area of New South Wales, was not a major crop as were wheat and sugar. But shortages born of the war dictated that its cultivation be extended. India, Ceylon, and New Zealand could not raise all the rice they consumed and, when the Japanese occupied rice-exporting Burma and southeastern Asia, found themselves cut off from their customary sources of supply. As an emergency measure the Commonwealth Government, assisted by that of New South Wales, greatly expanded rice cultivation, increasing the number of acres from 25,000 in 1942–43 to 38,600 in 1943–44. The harvest of the latter season yielded 78,000 tons, 50 percent more than the record prewar crop of 1938–39. Despite the fact that Australian citizens were permitted to buy only limited quantities of the cereal, service demands and sizable exports to Ceylon and New Zealand absorbed most of the crop. American supply officers, looking forward to the liberation of the Philippines, expected that in the first year of reoccupation the Filipinos would require 200,000 tons of rice, an amount so large that, in view of the world-wide scarcity, it could probably be secured only by extreme effort. They suggested that the Australian Government stockpile the cereal for future use, but heavy current demands made such action impossible.62
Dairy Products
The Australian dairy industry produced milk primarily to make butter and cheese rather than to sell for liquid consumption. It was not a fully developed industry, and its operations were handicapped by the dissatisfaction of the labor force with the prevailing low wages and poor working conditions. During the first war years the industry steadily lost employees to the burgeoning suppliers of munitions. Because of these losses and the shortage of fertilizers for pasture lands, operations declined substantially. Even generous subsidies from the Commonwealth did not materially increase production.63
Despite rigid civilian rationing, fresh milk became very scarce, and only a small part of what was available met U.S. Army specifications. Cows were seldom tuberculin-tested, and 5 to 10 percent of dairy herds were estimated to be diseased. Milk was rarely pasteurized and bacterial counts were high. Since it, like other perishables, was at first procured mostly through the base sections, the quartermasters and veterinarians of these sections requested contracts calling for pasteurization and tuberculosis-free herds, but dairy farmers would not accept these provisions unless they received compensation for diseased animals and substantially higher prices to cover the expense of pasteurization. Local and state milk officials in the main supported the dairymen.64
The prolonged inability to iron out differences over tuberculin tests was the major obstacle to better sanitary conditions, but the suggested extension of pasteurization presented a scarcely less formidable barrier. Many farmers regarded pasteurization as merely a costly luxury to be used only in supplying American troops and discarded as soon as the war ended. Finding progress in
ridding herds of tubercular animals slow, the QMC agreed to accept milk from approved pasteurization plants even if it came from uninspected cattle. Even then it was hard to secure an adequate supply. Not until September 1942 did Townsville become the first base section to obtain satisfactory deliveries, and not until some months later did similar deliveries become available in the Melbourne and Brisbane areas.65
Early in 1944 fresh efforts to institute tuberculin tests succeeded in every state except New South Wales. Both the lack of success in that populous state and the belated acceptance by the other states of the American request can probably be ascribed to the scarcity of fluid milk, the strong demand for which, as to be expected, afforded dairymen little incentive to furnish a special product for the U.S. armed services. Even if those services had accepted no milk, civilians would still have taken all that was offered. Only by putting up the funds for making the required tests and for indemnifying the owners of destroyed cows, could the Army have won its objective in New South Wales. This step it refused to take, and in November 1944 the Veterinary Corps began to reject all milk proffered in the Sydney area except about 75 gallons daily taken from excellent sources for hospital use.66 Because of the unsatisfactory sanitary standards the U.S. forces in 1944, when the total production of fresh milk reached 200,000,000 gallons, took only 2,866,000 gallons. Approximately one and a half times this amount—4,270,000 gallons of dried milk, representing most of the Australian production was obtained.67
Market Center Procurement of Perishables
Like milk and most other perishables, fresh fruits and vegetables were at first procured, not through the Subsistence Depot as were nonperishables, but by the Australian base sections and by units stationed in Australia. Generally speaking, base sections purchased the fresh produce required in advance areas, and units bought that required for their own use. This system, modeled upon Regular Army practices in times of peace, functioned unsatisfactorily when applied to fresh fruits and vegetables. Procurement of these perishables by every base section and every Army unit in Australia, by the Allied services, and by the U.S. Navy introduced severe competition for limited local supplies and often caused inequitable distribution among the armed forces. The system was also defective in that it provided no means of holding fresh fruits and vegetables in cold storage for more than a few days and established no regular schedules for the departure of refrigerated ships to advance areas. These weaknesses made it impossible for base sections to buy in anticipation of future requirements and when produce was most plentiful on the market. Supplies were of necessity bought hastily just before refrigerated ships arrived, and this, in turn, obliged the base sections to accept whatever fruits and vegetables then happened to be available commercially. Since these commodities were usually everywhere the same and were often obtainable only in
Vegetable market center in Sydney, Australia.
comparatively restricted quantities, small and monotonous issues of fresh vegetables were the frequent lot of troops in forward areas.68
A partial solution of the problem was found in the market center system, which started in the zone of interior in 1941. This system was set up in the Southwest Pacific in April 1944 and became the only market center system established in an overseas area. It introduced centralized procurement not only of fresh fruits and vegetables but also of the other perishables—meat, poultry, fish, butter, eggs, and other dairy products. Under this system the Procurement Division, USASOS, acting through market centers at Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Townsville, carried out procurement on the basis of requisitions submitted by the Distribution Division, USASOS, for supplies in forward areas and by the base sections for issues in Australia. Competition for produce among U.S. Army elements was thus terminated. On 1 July competition with the U.S. Navy came to an end, when the responsibility for obtaining perishables for the sister service also passed to the new buying system. Since the market centers acquired warehouses for long-term storage of perishables and established reasonably regular schedules of reefer sailings, hurried purchases were less often necessary. Advance procurement in bulk and in wider variety became the customary practice, making
possible the creation of sizable reserve stockages.69
At times lack of refrigeration afloat and ashore made it impracticable to take all the fresh fruits and vegetables offered commercially. In the first quarter of 1945, General Hester estimated, these deficiencies prevented the procurement of 35,000,000 pounds of potatoes, 12,000,000 pounds of other vegetables, and 12,000,000 pounds of fruits.70 Nevertheless during the nine months the market centers operated in 1944, they obtained all together 32,000,000 pounds of fresh fruits and 107,000,000 pounds of fresh vegetables. Apples and oranges were purchased in greater volume than were other fruits, followed in descending scale by pears, bananas, pineapples, and lemons. Potatoes alone accounted for more than 70 percent of the total procurement of fresh vegetables.71
Evaluation of Local Subsistence Procurement
The procurement of subsistence, both perishable and nonperishable, was of prime importance in the reverse lend-lease program. Of the estimated 3,617,000 measurement tons of supplies acquired for the U.S. Army from the beginning of 1942 to 30 June 1945, food accounted for 1,704,389 tons, or more than 47 percent. Indeed more shipping space was saved in procurement of subsistence than in procurement of any other group of supplies, Quartermaster or non-Quartermaster. Monetarily, too, it was of the highest significance, for the value of the food bought was estimated at $217,432,301, or 28.5 percent of the total purchases of $759,369,137 for the U.S. Army.72
Australia provided the Southwest Pacific Area with the bulk of its subsistence, furnishing 90 percent or more of some items. Its provision of fresh foods was particularly significant, for almost no perishables were received from the United States. Had not Australia filled this gap in military supplies, American soldiers would have been forced to live out of cans much more than they did. The most serious deficiency was the absence of a wider range of canned and fresh provisions. In a few instances, moreover, the food provided fell below desirable standards as considerable adjustment had to be made between the specifications worked out for purchases in the United States and the actualities of Australian productive conditions. Had more ocean tonnage been available, quartermasters probably would have preferred to import some items from the zone of interior in order to obtain ration components familiar to American soldiers. But this fact did not mean that the reverse lend-lease program failed. On the contrary, it constituted the major Quartermaster asset in the Southwest Pacific. Without it the QMC could not have carried out its mission of feeding the U.S. Army. However exasperating the recurrent shortages of individual items were, these were minor matters in comparison with the all-important fact that Australia furnished more than ample means of feeding troops well. The
procurement of subsistence through the reverse lend-lease program was indeed perhaps the most arresting example of successful Australian-American cooperation. While true that the United States was the major beneficiary of this joint action, Australia also derived several lasting advantages. Within a few years it obtained new food-processing industries, a more highly mechanized agricultural system, and more modern farming methods. In the normal course of events a dozen years or more would probably have been necessary to bring these developments to the stage they had reached by V-J Day.
Procurement of Clothing and General Supplies in Australia
The procurement of clothing and general supplies, like that of subsistence, entailed a concerted Australian-American effort. As in the case of rations it necessitated a major transformation of some existing industries. In the 1920s and 1930s Australia had developed a number of new industries, but their production seldom met even domestic requirements in full. Many essential Quartermaster items were made only in small quantities, if at all. Australia manufactured, for example, less than 10 percent of its cotton goods requirements; hence the QMC had to import cotton clothing, the chief tropical garb of American troops, from the United States. The outbreak of war in September 1939 had caused the enlargement of manufacturing activities, and at the time of Pearl Harbor Australia was supplying most of its purely military requirements. “It appeared as though no more production could be obtained from an already over-extended economy.”73 Nevertheless, during the next few years many industries were expanded to fill American needs.
At the outset Quartermaster procurement of clothing and general supplies was undertaken in an atmosphere of confusion. One officer succinctly described this period in the following words:
In February, March and April troops were pouring in, inventories were definitely incomplete, planning was in its infancy and requirements were somewhat confusing. Most troops were shipped expecting a tropical destination. Troops were also being evacuated from Java, nurses were arriving from the United States, Bataan and elsewhere without any uniforms. The situation was serious and winter was coming on.74
Further complications were injected by the continued lack of technicians capable of handling the matter of most immediate significance, the procurement of clothing for troops who had come clad in cotton and found that they needed wool. In these early days the QMC lacked even specifications for many important items; the few on hand for clothing and footwear were useless as they were based on patterns and lasts which did not arrive from the United States for several months.75
Meanwhile the Australian Army temporarily provided American troops with soap, toilet paper, chlorinated lime, kerosene, and a few other daily necessities, but the Corps rejected proposals looking to Australian procurement and distribution of most general supplies on the grounds that this solution would make it difficult to maintain American standards. From distress cargoes the Corps obtained typewriters, stationery, chinaware, glassware, cloth, canvas, shovels, electric fans, and hand
tools, but this means of relief soon dried up. General supplies, obviously, had to come from the industrial plants of Sydney and Melbourne and from the United States.76
Late in March the OCQM Purchasing and Contracting Officer presented his first contract demand, one for nurses’ clothing, to the Australian Government. Among other items needed at that time were 480,000 pairs of shoes, 740,000 pairs of woolen socks, 760,000 woolen garments, and 200,000 mess kits. Only the opportune arrival in April of a set of Munson lasts made possible the submission of a contract demand for shoes. Since few other lasts or patterns were available, the Purchasing and Contracting Officer relied upon Australian Army technicians to develop specifications for clothing similar in design and color to that provided for troops in the United States. Data required to make the thirty-five sizes of shirts and the various sizes of trousers, jackets, and overcoats had to be reconstructed from memory, for precise figures were not available and stock items were not manufactured with enough uniformity to furnish exact information.77
As the year progressed, this basic information finally arrived from the United States. In many instances, however, American specifications were modified to fit the distinctive characteristics of local industry and the available materials; in a few instances manufacturing methods were altered. The rapid progress made in the procurement of Class II and IV supplies is indicated by the fact that the end of 1942 saw purchase of over 2,000 items, from pins to tractors.78
Yet there were still annoying problems, of which shoe production was perhaps the most pressing. The shoe industry had ample manufacturing capacity, but its footwear came in full sizes only and in but two widths, whereas American shoes were manufactured in half sizes and multiple widths. In order to turn out American types the whole industry had to be re-equipped and reorganized. This feat was eventually accomplished with technical help from the General Supplies Branch of the OCQM Supply Division and with extensive importation of American machinery.79 Another problem was the relatively low price level at first set for shoes by the Australian Contracts Board. Manufacturers considered the prices too low to compensate adequately for the heavier cost of producing American footwear; some even claimed that they were asked to operate at a loss. Not until prices satisfactory to the industry were finally established was full production attained.80
In addition to standard service shoes Australian plants provided hobnailed shoes and a special type distinguished by a rubber clump sole with a tread similar to that of an automobile tire. Production of Army footwear continued until late 1944, when large shipments of newly developed combat shoes arrived from the United States and made possible the release of the plants to the U.S. Navy. At that time about 60,000 pairs of shoes a month were being turned out for Army use. In the previous two and a half years approximately 1,500,000 pairs of
shoes had been produced, enough to fill a substantial part of military needs.81
The procurement of socks supplied another example of successful local procurement. Despite the fact that the Australian spinning capacity was limited, the mills produced a total of nearly 8,000,000 pairs of standard lightweight Army socks. At its peak in 1944 production ran at the rate of 350,000 pairs a month. This satisfactory figure was not attained without considerable reorganization of the hosiery industry, which had no previous experience in turning out a light wool sock that differed markedly from the Australian Army heavy-ribbed type designed to fill an oversized shoe. At first each manufacturer had different shaping, sizing, and pressing boards. This lack of standardization caused socks nominally of the same size to vary somewhat as to fit and obliged the General Supplies Branch to prescribe standard sizing boards. Persistent shortages also affected hosiery operations unfavorably, the scarcity of good dyes forcing mills to produce socks in natural colors of the yarn while the scarcity of chemicals to prevent shrinkage often kept hose from giving satisfactory service.82
When the procurement of woolen garments began, there was—paradoxically, in the world’s chief wool-exporting country—a bottleneck in the supply of wool. This extraordinary situation originated in the fact that the United Kingdom throughout the war took the entire wool clip except for the amount needed to produce cloth in Australia itself. Since estimates of Australian requirements were deliberately kept as low as possible, wool cloth had become so scarce by early 1943 that manufacturers, after supplying the Australian services, had hardly enough material to make one suit a year for each male civilian. Severe restrictions on public buying, however, enabled the U.S. Army to obtain 420,000 pairs of trousers for enlisted men. This was not a large total, but it reflected not so much an unavailability of cloth for more trousers as the Southwest Pacific Area restriction which confined the wearing of woolen uniforms to the winter season in Australia. Before production began, a special cloth was developed to differentiate U.S. from other Allied soldiers, and tailors were taught to cut trousers in the American manner—not an easy task, for mass production of clothes was virtually unknown in Australia, where men usually wore custom-made suits. The task was, in fact, so hard that the fit of locally tailored trousers seldom complied with Army standards. In mid-1943, therefore, contract demands were canceled and never renewed.83
Slightly more than 1,100,000 wool knitted shirts, a type new to Australia, were produced for U.S. Army use. Considered excellent for the tropics because they enabled air to penetrate the garment, they were made along the lines of an ordinary cotton khaki shirt. But neither shirt nor outer knitwear firms could at first make the wool shirt to the satisfaction of American troops. Shirt manufacturers could not handle a knitted fabric properly as their operatives had no training in feeding a knitted fabric through an ordinary sewing machine, and knitwear firms, unused to making shirts, could not produce a well-fitting article. The problem was finally solved by the development of a new sort of knitted garment,
which could be worn either inside the trousers as a shirt or outside as a sweater and which could be made with comparatively little trouble.84
Blanket production involved only minor difficulties, and more than 1,000,000 were procured at a cost of only about $2.50 each, a price much below that in the United States. Longer and narrower than American-made blankets, they nonetheless were well liked.85
Both the shortages of materials needed to comply with U.S. specifications and the special requirements of American forces in the Southwest Pacific led to the introduction of several new items. One of these was a semi-British battle jacket developed as a substitute for the American field jacket. Some 270,000 of the new type were produced. A mess kit, using malleable steel hot-dipped with tin in place of aluminum, a very scarce metal in Australia, was also made.86
Besides the general supply items discussed above, many Others were acquired in sizable quantities. Soap, production of which rose 400 percent during the war, was provided to the extent of 15,000,000 pounds. More than 33,000,000 feet of rope were also furnished. The production of so large a quantity demanded the complete reorganization of the cordage industry, which was suddenly called upon to increase its output several fold. Other products supplied in considerable quantities were: 7,000,000 pairs of leather gloves; 6,000,000 tins of canned heat; 3,200,000 pounds of candles; 2,000,000 knives, forks, and spoons; 1,100,000 brooms and brushes; 6,500,000 feet of steel strapping; and several hundred million printed forms. In addition to furnishing the U.S. armed services with these general supplies, the Commonwealth provided laundry and dry cleaning services to American troops stationed in Australia.87 This procurement was not accomplished without frequent delays, stemming from the undeveloped state of Australian industries, nor without accentuating the already serious shortage of manpower. It involved, too, the shipment from the West Coast of materials, component parts, and machines and so diminished the saving of cargo space that was the justification of local procurement.
Despite these drawbacks general supplies were obtained from Australia in fairly large volume until the close of 1944. At that time the availability of these items in greater quantities from the United States, the continued shortage of interisland shipping, and, most of all, the lengthening distance between the northward-moving U.S. forces and Australia, caused Headquarters, USASOS, to forbid the procurement of items that required additional demands on Australian manpower, importation of unfinished materials, parts, or processing machinery, or construction of new plants.88 The new limitations had little effect on the procurement of food, daily becoming scarcer in the United States. But at the end of 1944 contract demands for general supplies were canceled if manufacturing delays had repeatedly occurred. In the following June remaining orders for general supplies were nullified except those for burial boxes, a few constantly used housekeeping materials, and the printing, laundry, dry cleaning, and
clothing repair needs of American troops in Australia itself.89
The statistics of reverse lend-lease procurement in Australia demonstrate the importance of Quartermaster general supplies in this program. By 30 June 1945 nearly 392,000 measurement tons of these items had been obtained. While this was only 23 percent of the subsistence tonnage, it exceeded the tonnage of all supplies acquired by either the Ordnance Department or the Transportation Corps and was more than seven times the combined tonnage of Signal, Chemical Warfare, Medical, and Special Services items. Quartermaster general supplies, moreover, were worth $154,774,635, or about 20 percent of the value placed on all locally procured Army supplies.90
Had the QMC been obliged to obtain all its general supplies from the zone of interior, it could scarcely have clothed and supplied the American forces in the Southwest Pacific as well as it did. The frequently low priorities assigned to the movement of these items—at times even to footwear and clothing—would in all probability have held area stocks at levels somewhat below those actually established through local procurement supplemented by importations from the United States. A few items obtained in Australia, it is true, were inferior in quality to those brought in from the United States. Others were objectionable simply because they departed slightly from familiar U.S. models. Most articles were at least equal to the corresponding American products. But whatever their quality, they provided U.S. forces with essential wares. Without them, it should be emphasized again, American troops would not have been as well supplied as they actually were.
Procurement in New Zealand
Procurement of agricultural and industrial products in New Zealand was carried out under conditions not unlike those in Australia, but with one conspicuous difference: New Zealand had fewer surpluses after civilian requirements were met, particularly in its clothing, equipment, and general supplies industries, than did its neighbor. Even more than in Australia, reverse lend-lease procurement was primarily concerned with subsistence although some essential foods, such as sugar, flour, and fruits, were not produced on as large a scale as in the Southwest Pacific.91
From the beginning of 1943 the Joint Purchasing Board, as the body charged with the procurement of all supplies bought in New Zealand for U.S. forces, obtained Quartermaster items in considerable quantities.92 The conditions surrounding procurement activities were not quite as favorable as in Australia. New Zealanders never felt as much menaced by the Japanese as Australians did in mid-1942, and purely domestic considerations therefore played a more prominent part in determining their attitude toward reverse lend-lease operations. Conscious that the further wartime economic dislocations went the harder would be the return to the pattern upon which peacetime prosperity had rested, they were reluctant to cut the traditionally large exports to Great Britain, for that commerce guaranteed an outlet for New Zealand cheese, butter, meats, hides, and wool. The determination to keep this market unimpaired was so strong that no major decision affecting these exports was taken without
British advice. The New Zealand Government also feared that a substantial increase of local food production might glut the postwar market and cause a disastrous slump in prices of exportable commodities.93
All these considerations were partly responsible for the almost constant insistence that no locally procured supplies were to be used outside the South Pacific Area and for failure to carry out the food program quite as aggressively as the Australians did. The program fell especially behind in canned and dehydrated vegetables and fruits.94 Canned meats, on the other hand, were procured in fairly large volume, around 37,000,000 pounds having been acquired in 1943. Efforts to introduce American types achieved less success than in the Southwest Pacific. The comparatively small production of canned and dehydrated vegetables made a more abundant supply of fresh vegetables doubly necessary, and long-term contracts were entered into early in the war for the purchase of all surplus fresh vegetables. After a season or two farmers discovered that they received proportionately more for their efforts if they grew cabbages. The acreage sown in cabbages multiplied and their flow to South Pacific troops increased to so great an extent that eventually substantial quantities were dumped at sea because troops would no longer eat cabbages and these vegetables could not be stored satisfactorily in unrefrigerated warehouses. Though vegetable acreage eventually increased by about 42 percent above that of 1941, U.S. forces obtained no more than 60 percent of their potato requirements and lesser amounts of other vegetables. To the very end, therefore, the supply of these perishables remained inadequate in the South Pacific.95 Among other perishables butter, cheese, and fresh meats were procured even in 1942, when few other foodstuffs were yet available. In the following year 95,000,000 pounds of fresh meats, constituting 30 percent of all local purchases, and 47,000,000 pounds of dairy products were obtained. These purchases, heavy though they were, still did not suffice to fill demands.96
Of all the food received by American troops in the South Pacific in 1944 about 36 percent came from New Zealand.97 As the distance between that country and the operational centers lengthened toward the close of the latter year, less and less cargo space was saved by local procurement, and the Joint Purchasing Board ceased to ship all the flour, sugar, and canned goods it bought. By the beginning of 1945 these products filled its warehouses, and the board made heavy cuts in its purchases of all nonperishables. But it continued to obtain fresh foods.98 Visiting Auckland in February, Quartermaster General Gregory found that about 60,000 tons of nonperishables as well as some fresh meat were then stored there. He urged that these stocks be forwarded to New Guinea and the Philippines or else sent to the United States. Either method of shipment, he pointed out,
would relieve the shortage of fresh meat and canned vegetables that had developed in the United States because of heavy shipments to American troops overseas and to civilians in liberated territories.99
When Headquarters, ASF, transmitted these observations to the Assistant Chief of Transportation, that officer approved them because of the saving of shipping that would be accomplished.100 But in practice it proved difficult to carry out the recommendations in their entirety since equitable allocation of vessels between the active western Pacific and the inactive South Pacific was impossible, and the New Zealand Government was reluctant to sanction large shipments to points outside the South Pacific Area. In spite of a few substantial movements to active operational centers in mid-1945, much food remained in Auckland storage when hostilities ended.101
In spite of the fact that the full utilization of New Zealand resources was impossible after the closing months of 1944, supply movements from that country in 1943 and most of 1944 prevented the shortage of bottoms from becoming worse. During the whole war the Joint Purchasing Board obtained food amounting to approximately 600,000 measurement tons, or slightly more than a third of that obtained by USASOS. In monetary terms subsistence accounted for about 55 percent of the total American procurement.102 Practically all the fresh meats and vegetables consumed in the South Pacific came from New Zealand, even though that country furnished less than half of all the subsistence consumed in that command.103
Local Procurement Outside Australia and New Zealand
Nowhere else in the Pacific could Quartermaster supplies be procured in as wide a range as in Australia and New Zealand. The few items obtained locally outside these countries consisted almost entirely of foodstuffs. Only on Oahu was such procurement of any real significance; here sufficient fresh and canned pineapples, pineapple juice, granulated sugar, cane syrup, and other sugar products were obtained to fill mid-Pacific needs for these goods. When the local supply of meats and vegetables in Hawaii exceeded civilian requirements, as it did at certain seasons, those items were also acquired but never in quantities ample enough to form more than a small part of area requirements. More important was the procurement of coffee, which sufficed to supply the forces in the Hawaiian group.104
The abundant sugar resources of Hawaii led the QMC to encourage the local production of candy bars for sale in post exchanges. Such an enterprise was a new venture for the islands, but with help from American specialists it was successfully launched, and the Territory became the sole source of these confections in the mid-Pacific. It held this position until just before
V- J Day, when easier shipping conditions made possible the movement of candy from the West Coast. Since troops preferred the mainland product, local procurement was materially reduced until stabilized at 864,000 nickel bars a month.105
In the South Pacific Area, New Caledonia was the chief source of subsistence outside New Zealand. With only 60,000 inhabitants, most of whom were engaged in nickel mining, it normally had little surplus food. Coffee was abundant, however, and quartermasters set up a coffee-roasting plant that at times furnished as much as 75 percent of the daily issue. Since farmers had no modern means of cultivation, arrangements were made whereby the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA), the American civilian agency responsible for the procurement of supplies from foreign sources, provided technical advice, seeds, fertilizers, and insecticides and maintained pools of tractors, plows, and seeders. In return for these services approved farmers offered their surplus produce for sale to Quartermaster collection points.106
The Fijis were the third most important source of supply in the South Pacific, providing up to 30 June 1945 about $6,382,000 worth of food under reverse lend-lease agreements.107 Procurement in other island groups was unimportant. In a few instances tropical products were obtained by barter with the local populations. Tobacco, pipes, twine, fishing equipment, pocket knives, soap,
combs, mirrors, perfume, and bright-colored calicoes were exchanged for bananas, pineapples, coconuts, lemons, and limes. The limited resources of the islanders, however, left them little to spare after satisfying their own wants, and barter never attained much significance as a means of procurement.108
The recovery of the Philippines in 1944 and 1945 once more gave the United States possession of territory that in peacetime had helped supply the American forces stationed there. But the Philippines of the war’s closing months were islands devastated by the contending armies. They were unable to provide for themselves adequately, let alone give the United States much economic assistance. During the reconquest factories, mills, warehouses, ports, even crops, suffered immense damage from bombing, shellfire, looting, and willful destruction by withdrawing Japanese. To restore production, seeds and agricultural plants as well as industrial equipment had to be imported, and mills and warehouses repaired and in some cases rebuilt.109
In spite of these hindrances to the quick acquisition of supplies, General MacArthur’s headquarters in October 1944 authorized a procurement organization in the Philippines modeled on that in Australia. The General Purchasing Board operated pretty much as did the corresponding board in Brisbane and Sydney while the Philippine Commonwealth performed functions similar to those carried out by the Australian Government. The immediate task of the new organization was the purchase of commodities, not so much for American soldiers as for destitute civilians and Filipino
employees of the Army. Procurement of Quartermaster supplies was rendered doubly difficult by the stipulation that buying should not cause hardship to the Philippine people, a requirement that automatically precluded the purchase of such scarce items as beef, pork, fish, chickens, eggs, and dairy products. Another hampering stipulation was the requirement that the Commonwealth schedule of permissible maximum prices be strictly adhered to. This policy effectively barred procurement of sugar, fruits, and vegetables, for these commodities were handled almost exclusively on the flourishing black market where they commanded exorbitant prices far exceeding those officially allowed. Yet enough food and cigarettes were obtained to supply the wants of Filipino guerrillas and civilian employees of the United States.110
By July 1945 economic conditions had begun to improve, and it became possible to buy a few supplies for American troops. Two large breweries, whose equipment and raw materials were provided by the QMC, furnished beer to post exchanges, while recently repaired Manila plants supplied soap and those traditional Philippine products, rope and cordage. At this time the Procurement Division, operating in the Philippine Base Section, reported that it had obtained avocados, papayas, camotes, and pineapples but that black market prices in general still prevented the acquisition of enough fresh vegetables to feed even the relatively few hospital patients. It was also able to buy some sweet corn, which was grown in scattered districts of the central islands. Unfortunately, only a few ounces could be procured for each American soldier.111
Army Farms
In addition to obtaining supplies in the commercial centers of the Pacific areas, the QMC attempted to increase the amount of local procurement by fostering wherever practicable the operation of Army vegetable farms. These projects would, it was hoped, furnish fresh provisions for local, particularly hospital, consumption. In the Central Pacific the coral soil did not lend itself to agricultural production, but below the equator more propitious conditions permitted the establishment of farms at some of the island bases. Smaller tracts, dubbed “gardens,” were occasionally cultivated by Army units.
A host of troubles plagued both base and unit enterprises. Limited in size, most of them produced hardly enough vegetables to supply nearby hospitals.112 In some areas satisfactory cultivation hinged upon irrigation, yet few of the smaller islands had a dependable water supply. The absence of approved tables of organization and equipment for agricultural projects further hampered cultivation by making it difficult to obtain agricultural machines and insecticides and by necessitating the employment of islanders having no knowledge of vegetable cultivation. Even managers of farms often lacked complete information about the production
of temperate-zone vegetables in the tropics; some of them did not even know what varieties of seed were best adapted to tropical environments.113 Inexperienced natives prepared the soil poorly and planted seeds before the land was thoroughly weeded. Frequently, they could not operate the few available farm machines and knew so little about keeping records of vegetable production that these necessary guides to future plans were usually lacking.114
The South Pacific Area manifested more interest in agricultural projects than did either of the other areas.115 The Quartermaster farm on Guadalcanal, the largest project of its kind in the South Pacific, typified many aspects of Army agriculture. The first plantings, begun on a small scale early in 1943, were designed to determine what fruits and vegetables grew best on the island. In February 1944, owing to the rapid rise in troop strength in the Solomons, the project was put on a mass-production basis. By September, 3 officers and about 75 enlisted men and 250 local laborers were cultivating 1,800 acres, approximately half the total area then tilled by the armed forces in the entire South Pacific. The next six months constituted the period of maximum production. Since a high yield in a short span of time was the main objective, no effort was made to
preserve the fertility of the soil. Crops were planted in rapid succession. In a single year as many as four were raised. This excessive utilization of the land, unaccompanied by protective measures, caused rapid erosion and leaching, and by early 1945 the yield per acre had dwindled to about half that of two years before. In spite of shrinking productivity and the loss of some crops by floods, 11,000,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables were raised between 1 May 1944 and 30 September 1945.116 Included among the produce were cucumbers, corn, eggplants, watermelons, cantaloupes, peppers, radishes, Chinese cabbage, tomatoes, okra, and onions.117 Hospitals had first priority on the production of the farm; troops on Guadalcanal, second; and those in the northern Solomons, third.
As the number of troops throughout the Solomons area declined steadily after February 1945, the number of acres under cultivation on Guadalcanal correspondingly fell. By June it had shrunk to about 425. Other South Pacific farms located on Espiritu Santo, Efate, Bougainville, New Georgia, and New Caledonia at their peak cultivated all together between 1,000 and 1,200 acres. Unit gardens added still another 400 or 500 acres.118
Before the recovery of the Philippines the Southwest Pacific Area conducted only a 110-acre farm at Port Moresby and small, ephemeral projects at Dobodura, Oro Bay, and other places in New Guinea. At the
Quartermaster farms on Guadalcanal were among many such projects in the South Pacific furnishing fresh vegetables for the Army.
Quartermaster farms on Espiritu Santo were among many such projects in the South Pacific furnishing fresh vegetables for the Army.
height of its productivity in September and October 1944 the Port Moresby enterprise harvested in each month more than 100,000 pounds of vegetables, mostly of the varieties grown on Guadalcanal. During this period lettuce was grown in amounts that permitted the issuance of one pound a week to each man at the base. With the shift of operations to the Philippines the Port Moresby farm was abandoned, and most of its equipment transferred to the new and larger project at San Miguel in Luzon.119
Started in April 1945 and continued after V-J Day, the San Miguel farm occupied part of a large sugar plantation. According to its historian the project was the first large-scale venture in vegetable production “ever carried out to any degree of success” on Luzon.120 Owing to the general absence of knowledge among Filipinos about the production of such vegetables, the farm was pretty much an experiment. From the outset it was hampered by heavy labor turnover and by slow delivery of equipment, seeds, fertilizers, and insecticides. But its worst handicaps were partial depletion of the soil from a century of intensive sugar and rice culture and lack of water for irrigating more than 500 acres, a deficiency that made impossible the realization of the original plan for a 2,000-acre farm. Only those vegetables were planted which deteriorated rapidly during shipment from the United States or which lost quality and palatability when canned. In the year ending on 31 March 1946 a total of 1,414,000 pounds of produce was gathered. Cultivation had just then reached a peak, 725,000 pounds having been harvested in the previous four weeks.121
The reasonably satisfactory results achieved by the San Miguel venture demonstrated that even under relatively unfavorable conditions vegetable farming in the tropics could be moderately productive. The comparative success of this project, like that on Guadalcanal, was attributable to expert supervision, use of a sizable tract of land, and the employment of a large body of civilian laborers. Had similar conditions prevailed generally on military farms, they might have become significant sources of fresh food. Actually, they never attained more than local importance because they were hastily embarked upon in answer to temporary exigencies rather than in response to plans carefully prepared in advance. What was probably needed most of all was area-wide programs, but the highest Quartermaster levels had few or no qualified officers who could be spared from more immediately pressing matters to formulate and supervise such programs. Agricultural projects thus became largely hit-and-miss affairs of individual bases and units and seldom produced worthwhile results.
Despite the comparative unproductive-ness of its bartering activities, military farms, and other minor features, the Quartermaster procurement program emerged as a conspicuous success that contributed materially to effective support of combat forces. The supply of perishable foods was its most significant accomplishment, a fact that ought not to be obscured by the frequent lack of refrigeration for these items. Troops below the equator would indeed have had scarcely any fresh provisions had not Australia and New Zealand furnished
them to the limit permitted by their agricultural capacity and internal necessities. By wise abandonment of traditional methods of buying perishables and by bold substitution of the market center system in the midst of war, the QMC in the Southwest Pacific contributed heavily to satisfactory procurement operations.
Though home sources provided the bulk of Quartermaster items issued in the Pacific, this circumstance should not detract from the major importance of local sources. At times in 1942 and 1943 they actually furnished more Quartermaster supplies in parts of that theater than did the United States. During the entire war local sources provided nearly 30 percent of Quartermaster items in the Southwest Pacific.122 A procurement system that achieved so remarkable a result despite all the difficulties inseparable from dealing with suppliers unfamiliar with American requirements and ill equipped to meet vastly increased demands cannot but be considered of outstanding merit.