Part Three: Determination of Army Requirements
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Chapter 6: Army Requirement Programs: World War I to Pearl Harbor
Nature and Implications of Army Requirements
The starting point for all military procurement is the determination of military requirements—the kinds and quantities of end items required to carry out the military mission. Until some decision is reached as to what and how much is to be procured in a definite time period, no procurement operations can take place. Likewise, in the absence of knowledge of the types and quantities of end items needed, requirements for productive facilities, materials, manpower, and other contributory resources cannot be estimated, requests for appropriations cannot effectively be made, and even procurement planning cannot be projected much beyond the level of broad generalities.
Paradoxically, although it is the starting point for procurement activity, the formulation of military requirements is, of all aspects of industrial mobilization and procurement, the most difficult of satisfactory achievement. For World War II in particular, two decades of disarmament, grave divisions in political opinion prior to Pearl Harbor, the eventual magnitude and scope of Army operations, their dispersion to all parts of the world, their technological complexity, the rapidity of change in the kinds and uses of needed equipment, and the heavy Allied claims upon the United States as the “arsenal of democracy,” all made the task of accurately estimating requirements wellnigh impossible. The domestic political difficulties which hindered the formulation of national objectives previous to 7 December 1941 gave way thereafter to broad problems of determining Allied strategy and its supporting logistical arrangements on a global basis.
To the many political and methodological problems involved in computing requirements for World War II were added numerous practical barriers of an administrative nature. These included shortages of experienced personnel, the necessity for developing new organizations and procedures, the pressure of cruel deadlines in an atmosphere of urgency, and many other elements—all contributing to the difficulty of the underlying task. It is not surprising, therefore, that the armed services were sometimes slow in computing firm, long-range estimates of requirements and that these were subject to a substantial margin of error and the necessity for constant revision.
The importance of timely and accurate determination of its requirements for World War II extended far beyond the procurement operations of the Army itself. Since
the Army in that war was the greatest single claimant upon the nation’s productive resources the industrial mobilization plans of the entire nation depended heavily upon the nature and magnitude of Army requirements. Thus the central economic mobilization control agencies had a vital interest and stake in the designation of Army needs. But beyond the Army, and beyond the technical problems of industrial mobilization and war production, was the ultimate interest of the nation as a whole in the adoption of procurement objectives which were at once adequate to assure victory and sufficiently controlled to keep wasteful procurement to a minimum. The magnitude of Army requirements for World War II was such that overstatement could easily nullify economies of both materials and money painfully obtained by conservation, substitution, close pricing, contract renegotiation, and other measures. On the other hand, understatement would not only jeopardize the nation’s security but would also be economically costly by resulting in piecemeal procurement and other inefficient production arrangements.
A detailed exposition of the Army’s activities in planning its requirements for the World War II period, its achievements and its shortcomings, would require many volumes. The present condensation (Part Three) attempts only a broad portrayal of the evolution of requirement programs, the methods by which the Army computed its requirements, and some of the major issues in the area of requirements determination which arose throughout the planning cycle.1
Army Attrition and Gradual Rehabilitation: 1920 to 1939
During the two decades between World War I and II, Army requirements problems rested upon two related but distinguishable questions: (1) What should be the peacetime strength and equipment of the Army?
(2) What plans should be made regarding the size and equipment of the Army to be mobilized in case of war? The answers to these questions were furnished by the interaction of a complex set of factors and influences, many of which were outside the jurisdiction and scope of War Department activity.
At the end of World War I the United States had approximately 3.5 million men under arms, together with huge surpluses of war matériel belatedly accumulated before the sudden cessation of hostilities. With painful memories of poorly planned mobilization fresh in mind, Congress in 1920 adopted the statutory expression of U.S. peacetime military policy. The National Defense Act of that year provided the basis for definite answers to the two questions stated above: (1) it defined in considerable detail the organization, composition, and size of the peacetime Army; and (2) it made specific provision for advance planning of the mobilization process to be used in the event of war.2 It is of interest to examine the record during the interwar years in the light of the policy expressed in this act.
The National Defense Act specified, in Section 2, the size of the peacetime Army as “not to exceed” 280,000 men. This figure, plus some 425,000 men contemplated under the National Guard, would give the United States nearly three quarters of a million trained soldiers as an Initial Protective Force (IPF) in case of emergency.3 Such a force was regarded by military planners as the minimum needed for initial defense and for providing a balanced nucleus from which Army expansion would be evenly and rapidly made in the event of war.
The size of the Army contemplated by the National Defense Act was never realized in the two decades following its enactment. Lack of funds, together with specific limitations upon the Army’s size by successive appropriation acts, confined the Army’s actual strength throughout most of the interwar period to a fraction of the 1920 objective.4 The desire of a war-weary nation to “return to normalcy,” the heritage of a war debt of unprecedented size, the lack of any apparent urgency, and faith in disarmament as the only sure pathway to peace were among the factors contributing to Army deterioration. As early as mid-1923, the enlisted strength of the Army had fallen to less than 120,000 and not until a dozen years later did it exceed 130,000. For the bulk of the period, Army strength hovered around 40 percent of the target expressed in 1920. The National Guard fared little better, becoming stabilized at around 190,000 men in the early 1930s. (Table 16)
The effects upon the Army of its attrition in manpower could not be adequately measured by the simple ratio expressed by
Table 16: Strength of Army and National Guard, 1920-1945
[Actual Strength as of 30 June for Each Year]
| U.S. Army a | National Guard | |||||
| Year | Officers | Men | Total | Officers | Men | Total |
| 1920 | 18,999 | 184,848 | 203,847 | 2,073 | 54,017 | 56,090 |
| 1921 | 16,501 | 213,341 | 229,842 | 5,843 | 107,787 | 113,630 |
| 1922 | 15,667 | 132,106 | 147,773 | 8,744 | 150,914 | 159,658 |
| 1923 | 14,021 | 118,348 | 132,369 | 9,675 | 150,924 | 160,598 |
| 1924 | 13,784 | 128,233 | 142,007 | 10,996 | 166,432 | 177,428 |
| 1925 | 14,594 | 121,762 | 136,356 | 11,595 | 165,930 | 177,525 |
| 1926 | 14,143 | 119,973 | 134,116 | 11,435 | 163,534 | 174,969 |
| 1927 | 14,020 | 119,929 | 133,949 | 12,192 | 168,950 | 181,142 |
| 1928 | 14,019 | 121,185 | 135,204 | 12,428 | 168,793 | 181,221 |
| 1929 | 14,047 | 124,216 | 138,263 | 12,535 | 164,453 | 176,988 |
| 1930 | 14,151 | 124,301 | 138,452 | 12,930 | 169,785 | 182,715 |
| 1931 | 14,159 | 125,467 | 139,626 | 13,249 | 174,137 | 187,386 |
| 1932 | 14,111 | 119,913 | 134,024 | 13,550 | 173,863 | 187,413 |
| 1933 | 13,896 | 121,788 | 135,684 | 13,569 | 172,356 | 185,925 |
| 1934 | 13,761 | 123,823 | 137,584 | 13,507 | 171,284 | 184,791 |
| 1935 | 13,471 | 125,098 | 138,569 | 13,571 | 172,344 | 185,915 |
| 1936 | 13,512 | 153,212 | 166,724 | 13,721 | 175,452 | 189,173 |
| 1937 | 13,740 | 164,993 | 178,733 | 14,110 | 178,051 | 192,161 |
| 1938 | 13,975 | 170,151 | 184,126 | 14,443 | 182,745 | 197,188 |
| 1939 | 14,486 | 174,079 | 188,565 | 14,666 | 184,825 | 199,491 |
| 1940 | 18,326 | 249,441 | 267,767 | 14,775 | 226,837 | 241,612 |
| 1941 | 99,536 | 1,341,462 | 1,460,998 | (b) | (b) | (b) |
| 1942 | 206,422 | 2,867,762 | 3,074,184 | (b) | (b) | (b) |
| 1943 | 579,576 | 6,413,526 | 6,993,102 | (b) | (b) | (b) |
| 1944 | 776,980 | 7,215,888 | 7,992,868 | (b) | (b) | (b) |
| 1945 | 891,663 | 7,374,710 | 8,266,373 | (b) | (b) | (b) |
a U.S. Army figures include personnel in AAF and its predecessors, Philippine Scouts, Army Nurse Corps, WAC, and miscellaneous components on active duty.
b Assimilated into U.S. Army.
Source: Records of Statistics Branch, Program Review and Analysis Division, Office of the Comptroller of the Army, Office, Chief of Staff.
a 60-percent reduction from the National Defense Act objective. This curtailment meant the virtual abandonment of the major peacetime function of the Army—the progressive training of both individuals and organizations as specialized and cooperating units in military activity. The balance in the size and composition of the several combat arms—the Infantry, Cavalry, Field Artillery, Coast Artillery Corps, combat engineers, and others—as well as of individual battalions, regiments, divisions, and larger organizational units, was drastically upset. The necessity for preserving essential overhead activities, vital to the existence of the Army as a national unit, threw the burden of reduction heavily upon functional units at lower echelons. The end results
were cogently expressed by General MacArthur in his annual report as Chief of Staff in 1932:
After all these essential needs have been satisfied there is left in the United States for organization into tactical units approximately 3,000 officers and 55,000 men. Due to the requirements of civilian training, and because of the distribution of existing housing facilities, these units are scattered in small posts and detachments throughout the length and breadth of continental United States. ... in this situation combined training by the various arms and services of the Regular Army is limited to small concentrations. Many garrisons are at such reduced strength as to constitute little more than service detachments for local maintenance and for civilian training camps. ... it has become extremely difficult, and in some cases almost impossible, for even the smallest units to follow a progressive training program.5
This attrition in the size and quality of the Army was accompanied by an even more serious deterioration in the Army’s stock of effective equipment. Several factors combined to intensify the matériel deterioration. The existence of huge surpluses of equipment at the end of World War I proved to be an embarrassment for the next decade and a half. Much of this surplus stock was already obsolescent at the war’s end, and the rapid, world-wide technological advance of the 1920s rendered it still less usable. Yet it was manifestly out of the question in the early postwar years for the Army to ask for any appreciable funds for new equipment. Without relaxing its attempts to develop improved weapons and other equipment for future procurement, the War Department adopted the policy of continuing to issue old types until existing stocks were exhausted.6
By the beginning of the 1930s most of the Army’s equipment, apart from quantitative considerations, was antiquated or depreciated to the point of being worn out. Unfortunately for prospects of replacement, the arrival of the prolonged economic depression resulted in substantial cuts in the War Department budget—already heavily deficient in its provision for equipment. From a figure of $345 million for fiscal year 1931, War Department military expenditures were cut over the next three years to a new postwar low of $243 million for fiscal year 1934. In the face of such retrenchment, the Army chose the alternative of further sacrificing its position in matériel:
So far as possible every reduction has been absorbed by continuing in service obsolete and inefficient equipment, and where absolutely necessary, by suspending technical research and development work. There has resulted also a serious shortage in ammunition both for target practice and for reserve stocks. The risks involved in such a policy are clearly recognized, yet in view of the necessities of the situation, it has been followed as a lesser evil than that of permitting deterioration either in strength or efficiency of the human organization maintained as the backbone of our land defense establishment.7 Long before retrenchment had reached its maximum in 1933-34, the various Secretaries
of War, Chiefs of Staff, and other War Department spokesmen had repeatedly called to the attention of Congress the seriousness of the Army’s position with respect to equipment.8 The following statements near the end of the years of attrition summarize the entire period:
This deficit has not occurred suddenly but ... is the cumulative result of years of failure to provide adequately for procurement and replacement.9
Ten years of relative stagnation ... cannot, under any circumstances, be overcome instantaneously.10
Concerning such matters, the War Department function is advisory only and in this capacity it frequently, between 1922 and 1935, expressed its conviction that in conditions then prevailing resided grave potentialities for disaster. During the past 5 years, the Department has insistently urged upon appropriate congressional committees the stark seriousness of this situation.11
Thus, in the early 1930s the Army was seriously deficient in almost all items of equipment required to fight a modern war. Specifically, it lacked motorized equipment essential to rapid transportation of troops: the Army still moved almost entirely on foot. Its mechanized combat equipment was limited principally to tanks, and these (with the exception of a handful of test units) were the obsolete World War I stocks with a maximum speed of four to five miles per hour and highly vulnerable armor. Its field artillery consisted largely of 75-mm. units lacking both mobility and flexibility of fire power: the lateral traverse was limited to 6 degrees, as compared with 90 degrees for later models, and the guns could not be towed at even moderate speeds. The infantry rifle was still the Springfield 1903 bolt-action model: as of 30 June 1934 the Army possessed only eighty semiautomatic rifles.12 Ammunition reserves were inadequate for any emergency; in mid-1935 General MacArthur hopefully proposed as a concrete objective the gradual accumulation of a thirty-day operating supply of ammunition in the essential calibers for the small peacetime Army called for by the National Defense Act. Such items as antiaircraft guns, aircraft cannon, and aircraft detection equipment had only recently been developed and improved models of these items were needed in large quantities. Only in airplane development was the Army’s equipment situation deemed reasonably satisfactory, but vastly greater numbers of the new planes would be needed in wartime.13
In order to remedy its manifest weakness in matériel and to remove its peacetime procurement program from a hand-to-mouth basis the Army devised a number of long-range programs in the hope that they would receive the support of Congress. As far back as 1927 a Ten-Year Ordnance Program had been adopted for the development and procurement of a limited number of items.14 In September 1932, a Six-Year Rearmament
and Re-equipment Program, together with a corresponding Research and Development Program, was adopted by the Supply Division of the General Staff as a basic objective in the rehabilitation of the Army. The purpose of the six-year program was to develop and supply for the existing Army and National Guard the most urgent items of equipment; the period to be covered was 1936-41. Lack of funds prevented realization of these objectives, and, in any case, additional study of problems of mechanization and motorization indicated that the program was inadequate to meet any serious threat of war; it would be necessary to provide reserve stocks of equipment, requiring a year or more to produce in quantity, to be available for sudden expansion of the Army beyond its existing strength. Hence, it was deemed advisable to project the six-year program beyond the term originally contemplated.15 Eventually a War Reserve Program was separately established with the goal of providing and maintaining stocks of critical, “long-term” items, which would be needed immediately to equip an expanding Army in the event of an emergency. In the late 1930s annual expenditures for this program averaged about $30,000,000.16
The circumstance initially arresting the deterioration of the Army’s matériel condition was the availability of funds under New Deal measures to combat the depression and restore employment. In fiscal year 1934 a grant of $10 million from the Public Works Administration (PWA) was applied to the procurement of motor vehicles for the Army. By 30 June 1935 approximately $100 million had been allotted to the Military Establishment of the War Department from the PWA; of this amount $68 million went into construction projects (posts, camps, stations, depots, and the like) and the remainder into equipment, including $6 million for ammunition and $7.5 million for aircraft. By 1938 some $250 million of relief and emergency funds had been devoted to the rehabilitation of the Military Establishment.17
From 1935 to the end of the 1930s, the record reveals moderate but steady increases in appropriations and corresponding progress in the re-equipment of the Army. Apart from the greater liberality of the New Deal government, events in Europe as well as in the Far East exerted a real and increasing influence upon the course of U.S. rearmament. During this period an average of some $20 million annually was spent for equipment under the Rearmament and Re-equipment Program, $30 million for War Reserve, and $7 million for Research and Development.18 The minimum motorization program for the peacetime Army, reported
Resources Board, August 1939
Seated, left to right: Dr. Harold S. Moulton, Charles Edison, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; Edward R. Stettinius, and Louis Johnson, Assistant Secretary of War and Chairman of the War Resources Board. Standing: Cmdr. A. B. Anderson, Admiral Harold R. Stark, Dr. Karl Compton, John L. Pratt, Brig. Gen. George C. Marshall, Acting Army Chief of Staff; and Col. H. K. Rutherford.
as 59-percent of the goal complete by the end of fiscal year 1936, had reached 79 percent by 1939. The 75-mm. field guns, left over from World War I, were gradually being modernized, both in mobility and in flexibility of fire, and the new 105-mm. howitzer for divisional artillery had been successfully developed. Stocks of the semiautomatic rifle had reached the point, with fiscal year 1939 appropriations, where “the initial equipment for all active units of the Regular Army and National Guard ... [would] be available.”19 The Army had made similar progress in the light tank program and had recorded a modest beginning in the procurement of the medium tank. Shortages in antiaircraft equipment, scout and combat cars, seacoast defense equipment, the 81-mm. mortar, the 37-mm. antitank gun, gas masks, radio equipment, and many other items had either been eliminated or substantially reduced. Measured by the later astronomical figures for the war years, the 1935-39 gains were paltry; but compared with the history of the preceding fifteen years they marked a substantial achievement and paved the way for the accelerated defense programs of 1940 and 1941.
The Munitions Program of 30 June 1940
Ever since Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933, German rearmament and open
threats against the peace had led to mounting unrest throughout the world. The last two years of the 1930s witnessed the transformation to actual invasion and open warfare. On 12 March 1938 Germany occupied Austria in a “bloodless invasion.” Six more months brought the Munich pact and 12 March 1939, the invasion of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Late in 1938, William C. Bullitt—U.S. ambassador to France—had returned from Europe with a dire message of warning to President Roosevelt. Mr. Bullitt forcefully described the fear which had spread throughout Europe and expressed his opinion of the inevitability of war. In particular, his description of the mighty German air force and the terror which it inspired made a profound impression on the President. The Bullitt report has been described as leading to the first “acute White House concern over the mounting powers of the Axis as a substantial threat to the security of the United States.”20 This concern led to a reappraisal of the state of American defenses, especially airpower, and to definite action to build them up.
From this time on, the nature of the Axis threat and the seriousness of America’s state of unpreparedness became President Roosevelt’s major concern. In view of the powerful isolationist and pacifist sentiment in the United States, he proceeded with caution. It nevertheless became known within the War Department that the President was anxious to secure an additional military appropriation from Congress in the near future, and G-4 went to work on estimates covering the more urgently needed items. On the basis of G-4’s recommendations, the President went before Congress early in January 1939 with a request for a special $110 million appropriation for the Army ground forces. This measure was passed by the House without change on 2 March, ten days before Germany overran Czechoslovakia, and was finally approved in May.21 In the middle of the summer—9 August 1939—the President appointed the War Resources Board to review the existing Industrial Mobilization Plan, and three weeks later Germany invaded Poland. On 3 September England and France declared war on Germany and on 8 September 1939 the President proclaimed a state of limited national emergency.
The year 1940 opened in the peculiar atmosphere of what was known at the time as the “phony” war. Military planners in the United States—under no illusion as to the continuation of the impasse in Europe—regarded the letdown in operations as a fortunate gift of borrowed time. General George C. Marshall, testifying in February in support of the War Department budget for the coming fiscal year (1941), prophetically remarked: “If Europe blazes in the late spring or summer, we must put our house in order before the sparks reach the Western Hemisphere.”22
Since 1936 General Staff plans for emergency mobilization of the Army had contemplated the immediate availability, on Mobilization Day, of an Initial Protective Force composed of the existing Army and the National Guard. A more inclusive force, proposed in the Protective Mobilization Plan, was to be available within ninety days after M Day by the induction of new recruits. In general, throughout the 1936-39
period, the PMP envisaged the availability of some 730,000 men in M plus 90 days, consisting of an IPF of 400,000 (165,000 Army and 235,000 National Guard) plus new recruitments of 330,000. Another 270,000 men to be obtained shortly thereafter as “replacements” would bring the total to 1,000,000 men for whom equipment would have to be available in the vicinity of M Day. It was this hypothetical 1,000,000-man force which was the basis for the Army’s equipment objectives during the late 1930s and on into 1940.23
At the time of General Marshall’s testimony before the House committee, appropriations for 1940 and previous fiscal years had financed what was then termed “full equipment” for the existing forces of the Army and National Guard. The primary objective of the pending budget for fiscal year 1941 was therefore the provision of “critical items” for the PMP force of 1,000,000 men—now stated as 750,000 for organized units and 250,000 individual replacements. Critical items were those difficult-to-procure items of equipment—ammunition, semiautomatic rifles, tanks, artillery, and so on—which would be needed immediately in an emergency but which would require from one to two years or longer to produce in adequate quantities. The early possession of such items was described by General Marshall as “like ... gold in the vault against a financial crisis.”24 Included also in the War Department fiscal year 1941 budget requests were the regular items normally covered by the annual appropriation, noticeably expanded in recognition of the existence of war in Europe.
Before the budget had been considered by the Senate, the apparent stalemate in Europe was broken with startling suddenness. On 9 April 1940 the German invasion of Norway began a rapid succession of events which in two short months saw the successful occupation of Norway, the capture of the Low Countries, the evacuation of Dunkerque, and the fall of France. The Axis threat to the Western Hemisphere and the rest of the world was now painfully obvious, and all previous estimates of U.S. military requirements were rendered obsolete. During this two-month period, the General Staff, the Under Secretary, and the various supply arms and services of the War Department were all engaged in constant review and revision of requirements estimates.25 It was clear that any major defensive force would require vastly greater supplies and munitions than the PMP force only partly provided for in the pending budget. It soon became clear, also, that a major conversion and expansion of the nation’s industry would be necessary if the supplies were to be produced in time.
On 16 May 1940 the President addressed a special message to Congress, urging the development of aircraft productive capacity in the United States of fifty thousand planes per year and requesting immediate appropriations of $896 million for national defense. Of this amount, $546 million would go to the Army, $250 million to the Navy and Marine Corps, and $100 million to a special Presidential emergency fund. An additional $286 million in contract authorization was also requested. These requests were added to the regular military appropriation bill under consideration in the Senate, along with additions permitting Army expansion to the full peacetime strength of 280,000 specified in the National Defense Act of 1920. Under these influences, on 13 June 1940 a total Army appropriation of $1.5 billion in cash and $257 million in contract authorization was approved for the fiscal year 1941.26
Even before the passage of the regular appropriation act, successive German victories were compelling the consideration of additional measures to meet the situation. On 27 May 1940 the Chief of Staff requested a supplemental half-billion dollars for current production of tanks, antiaircraft guns, bombs, and three thousand planes. At the request of Col. James H. Burns, Executive for the Office of Assistant Secretary of War, $200 million was added for the creation of new productive facilities. Colonel Burns, who as the ranking officer in OASW was deeply involved in getting the industrial mobilization program under way, had been concerned for some time about the disparity in the length of time required to induct additional troops and the longer period required to provide them with critical equipment. The President approved these requests and placed them before Congress on 31 May. As a result, the First Supplemental National Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 1941 was approved and signed by the President on 26 June 1940.27 This act provided $821 million in cash and $254 million in contract authorization and specifically permitted expansion of the Regular Army to a total of 375,000 enlisted men. Including the regular fiscal year 1941 appropriation, the War Department now had a total of some $3 billion to prepare for the emergency.
The important appropriation acts just described were not, however, sufficient to implement the President’s 50,000-plane capacity objective or to commit the economy to a long-range program of industrial mobilization. They represented essentially a short-run response to a series of events which had barely begun and whose culmination could only be a matter of speculation. What was needed in mid-1940 was a bold program which would look beyond the fiscal year and enable American industry to make the heavy capital commitments, plant expansion, and organizational changes essential to large-scale armament production. Such a program would state procurement objectives in large and round numbers, in contrast to the meticulous calculations used in previous years to defend to the penny each War Department budget request.
On 11 June 1940—a little more than a week after his appointment—William Knudsen, the NDAC commissioner for production,
Lt. Gen. William S. Knudsen, NDAC Commissioner for Production, World War II
conferred with Assistant Secretary of War Johnson. Mr. Knudsen raised two basic questions, the answers to which he desired at the earliest possible moment: How much munitions productive capacity does this country need and how rapidly must it become available?28 In reply to these questions, on 13 June 1940 Mr. Johnson presented the broad outlines of a program: (1) for the ground Army, productive capacity sufficient to meet the needs of an expanding Army of 1,000,000 men by 1 October 1941, 2,000,000 men by 1 January 1942, and 4,000,000 men by 1 April 1942; (2) for the aircraft program, annual productive capacity of 9,000, 18,000, and 36,000 planes, respectively, for the dates mentioned. The latter was in keeping with the 50,000-plane program called for by the President: 36,500 of these would go to the Army, 13,500 to the Navy.29
On 18 June Assistant Secretary Johnson outlined for Mr. Knudsen the probable cost of the program. On the basis of sample estimates, it would total more than $11 billion—over $6 billion for Ordnance, $3 billion for the Air Corps, and $2 billion for the remaining supply arms and services. This figure was considered too high by the President, and word was sent back to the War Department that cuts would have to be made. With these instructions in mind, G-4 supervised the preparation of an itemized and detailed program—more comprehensive than its earlier plan of 6 June30—which was completed on 20 June. This program known as the Munitions Program of 20 June 1940, amounted to some $7.3 billion. It contemplated equipping the Army with the critical items—over and above existing stocks and items provided in the fiscal year 1941 appropriations—necessary “for one year of a major national defense effort.” This major effort assumed that the Army would be mobilized to a strength of 4 million men within fourteen months and would reach a strength of 2.6 million in theaters of operations at a corresponding period. The memorandum of transmittal noted that “it is of the utmost importance to realize that adequate production for such a force cannot be obtained in one year.”31
The program of 20 June was transmitted to Mr. Knudsen and shortly thereafter received the approval of the President. Assistant
Secretary Johnson subsequently summed up the situation for the Chief of Staff:
The main purpose is to put American industry to work in a big way and as expeditiously as possible to produce those important and essential machines of war, together with their accessories, ammunition, etc., that would require an extended period of time for their manufacture; and to fill in the gaps and deficiencies of present productive capacity by the creation of necessary additional capacity.
This program, approved by the Secretary of War, was submitted to the President by Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Stettinius of the Advisory Commission of National Defense. It was approved by the President. It should not be changed except by approval of this office and this office does not feel authorized to make changes except with the concurrence of Mr. Knudsen. However, if you believe that changes should be made at this time, this office will gladly discuss them with Mr. Knudsen.32
The 20 June program had been hurriedly put together and possessed a number of defects. G-4 was dissatisfied with certain features and appointed a committee to revise the plan within the terms of the basic directive. Also, for reasons of both urgency and practicality, it had become clear to Colonel Burns that specific procurement objectives should replace the creation of productive capacity for the first two stages of the ground forces’ portion of the program. There were indications, moreover, that production bottlenecks would require a limitation upon the four-million-man program for critical items; it would therefore be preferable to set up the program as an objective to be accomplished as quickly as possible but without pinning it to particular completion dates.
Accordingly, a further meeting was held in the office of the Assistant Secretary of War. The result was the basic directive for what was to become known as the Munitions Program of 30 June 1940:
1. ... it is desired that the Munitions Program of June 20, 1940 be revised as follows:
a. Procure reserve stocks of all items of supplies needed to equip and maintain a ground force of 1,000,000 men on combat status.
b. Procure all reserve stocks of the important long-time items of supplies needed to equip and maintain a ground force of 2,000,000 men on combat status.
c. Create facilities which would permit a production sufficient to supply an army of 4,000,000 men on combat status.
d. Procure 18,000 complete military airplanes (less the 2,181 planes for which funds have already been appropriated), together with necessary spare engines, spare parts, guns, ammunition, radio and other supplies and accessories pertaining thereto.
e. Provide productive capacity available to the Army of 18,000 complete military airplanes per year, together with necessary engines and all other accessories and supplies pertaining thereto.
f. Provide necessary storage for above.
2. Above to be ready for submission to the President by 9:00 a. m., July 1, 1940.33
With this mandate for revision and the latest troop basis supplied by the War Plans Division (WPD) of the General Staff, G-4 went into action to meet the forty-eight-hour deadline. It prepared standard forms to be filled in by each of the supply arms, listing items of equipment included in the existing PMP Critical Items Program; these would be needed in sufficient quantity for augmentation to a two-million-man force. A directive was sent to the various supply arms on 29 June, with instructions for computing
Table 17: Munitions Program of 30 June 1940
[In Millions]
| Item | Total | Deferred | Contract | Cash |
| Total | $5,897 | $1,911 | $2,072 | $1,914 |
| Essential Items for PMP | 412 | 206 | – | 206 |
| Critical items, 2 million men | 2,286 | 700 | 900 | 686 |
| Facilities for later expansion | 717 | 317 | 100 | 300 |
| 18,000 airplanes | 1,974 | 310 | 1,072 | 592 |
| Airplane plant capacity | 72 | 72 | – | |
| Storage and distribution | 436 | 306 | – | 130 |
Source: Figures taken from Memo, Marshall for Johnson, 2 Jul 40, sub.: Program of Adequate Preparedness for the Army (written by Col. H. S. Aurand).
initial requirements, replacements, new items, estimated transportation costs, and funds required for warehouses, magazines, repair of arsenals, acquisition of land, and other needs. Indicating that time was of the essence, G-4 directed that the estimates be completed in pencil and the data returned at the earliest possible time, but “in any event, not later than 4:00 P. M. this date.”34
On the next day, the final estimates were tabulated, and the program was henceforth known as the Munitions Program of 30 June 1940. At a preliminary conference with the President’s advisers, it was suggested that requests for immediate appropriations be held to $4 billion; provisions in the bill for deferment of a portion of the costs for future financing by supplemental appropriations would permit the program to go ahead with a minimum of delay. Accordingly, the Chief of Staff submitted a recapitulation of the program as shown in Table 17, and on 3 July a meeting with the President took place. The program was approved with negligible change, and in a series of supplemental appropriations throughout the fiscal year, Congress provided the necessary funds.35
The adoption of the Munitions Program of 30 June 1940 marked a major development in the preparedness policy of the United States. In the nineteen fiscal years 1922 through 1940, the United States had spent something less than $6.5 billion on War Department military activities. The 30 June 1940 program alone called for expenditures of $6 billion. Although this was little more than half the $11 billion program proposed by the War Department on 18 June, it was sufficient to get the rearmament program under way. Together with the $3 billion appropriated in the month prior to
the adoption of the program, the total Army commitment for the coming year was close to $9 billion. Contemporaneous Navy, Marine Corps, and other defense expenditures would amount to many more billions. Hitler might well have paused to read the signs of the times.
The Victory Program of 11 September 1941
The adoption of the Munitions Program of 30 June 1940, and its ratification in the form of appropriations by Congress, represented a major turning point in the rehabilitation of the U.S. Army. In spite of large elements of political isolationism, pacifism, and opposition to the administration, the U.S. Government had succeeded in launching a program of industrial mobilization and military procurement which would require from one to two years to bear significant fruit in the form of delivery of actual munitions. The passage of the Selective Service Act three months later indicated that the United States was ready, even in an election year, to match its mobilization of matériel with the mobilization of its manpower.
The 1940 program, great as it was in comparison with the Army’s meager equipment objectives during the interwar period, was limited in concept. It was essentially defensive, designed primarily to repel a possible attack upon the Western Hemisphere. Although the size of the 1940 objective was sufficient to keep American industry, as well as the War Department, busy for many months to come, events throughout 1941 converged to force a reconsideration of U.S. military requirements. Observation of actual combat operations in Europe indicated the desirability of substantial changes in the organization and equipment of fighting units of the Army. On 30 January 1941, a recomputation of supply requirements, based on revised tables of organization and allowances, indicated the need for an additional $600 million for essential items and $4 billion for critical items.36 Moreover, British and French orders for munitions from firms in the United States, combined with the unprecedented demands of the Munitions Program, revealed an increasing number of material shortages and production bottlenecks. But this was merely the beginning of such difficulties. On 11 March 1941 the Lend-Lease Act was passed, appropriating some $7 billion for military and defense aid to nations at war with the Axis. It was evident to the U.S. military agencies that large sectors of their own procurement programs would be seriously jeopardized by this tremendous additional burden upon American industry and that a reconciliation of total requirements was essential. At the same time, Germany was consolidating its victory in Europe, and informed sources anticipated an early break with the Soviet Union. If Hitler were to conquer the Soviet Union, the outlook for the future of the entire Western Hemisphere would be grim. This prospect compelled the Army to survey all the probable alternatives and to formulate some conception of its requirements for an all-out war.
It was many months before the concept of hemisphere defense gave way to broader strategical foundation for U.S. Army requirements. The Army’s G-4 had, in the meantime, developed a series of schedules to control procurement under the 1940 Munitions Program. These schedules, known as Expenditure Programs, served both as short-run statements of requirements and (after
appropriate adjustment) as approved programs of procurement. A separate Expenditure Program was developed for each appropriation act showing the quantity of each item to be procured under the specific appropriation and listing unfilled requirements needed to complete the Munitions Program under future appropriations. As the world situation continued to deteriorate in late 1940 and 1941, Army staff planners proposed successive increases in the PMP force and in procurement of both critical and essential items to meet the expansion. For each proposed expansion the supply arms and services were directed to prepare a tentative Expenditure Program, listing all the items required to meet the objectives stated in the directive. The accumulated statements of the several supply arms were reviewed, revised if necessary, and presented to Congress as the basis for a budget request. With the increasing liberality of Congress, appropriations were made substantially as requested, and G-4 would then approve the Expenditure Programs of the supply arms with only minor modifications. This procedure for stating short-term budget requirements and approving expenditures continued long after the complete financing of the Munitions Program and was not discontinued until the summer of 1942 when the Army Supply Program (ASP) became the basis for budget requests and the sole procurement authority. All together eight Expenditure Programs were published from 12 August 1940 to 30 June 1942, authorizing procurement expenditures totaling nearly $34 billion.37
Meanwhile, numerous pressures for a complete statement of the demands upon the nation’s productive capacity had been accumulating since early in 1941. On 18 February 1941 Mr. Knudsen had urged development of a unified American production program to meet all current and expected military and foreign requirements.38 Throughout the spring of 1941 the Production Planning Board of the Office of Production Management called for the establishment of over-all production objectives based upon a general strategic plan.39 The War Plans Division of the General Staff, pointing to the confusion resulting from numerous isolated proposals and demands upon American productive capacity, recommended the preparation of over-all estimates of munitions production required for national security. Accordingly, on 21 May 1941, the Chief of Staff—General Marshall—requested WPD to prepare “a more clear-cut strategic estimate” which would provide the basis for evaluating the many individual suggestions continually being made for increases in matériel. While WPD was at work on this difficult assignment, a request from the President provided both the authority and the national objectives upon which to base long-range strategic and procurement planning.40
The Presidential request, which led to the broad statement of strategy and requirements later known as the Victory Program, had its genesis in two memoranda prepared by Maj. Gen. James H. Burns who now, in addition to being the Executive in OASW, was assistant to Harry Hopkins on lend-lease matters. Convinced of the inadequacy of the existing industrial mobilization effort of the United States, General Burns urged both
Mr. Hopkins and the Secretary of War to work toward a raising of the sights. On 2 April 1941 he had prepared for Hopkins’ signature a memorandum to the Secretaries of the War and Navy Departments urging the study and recommendation of an all-out program of munitions production. Hopkins, stating that it would exceed his authority to make such a request, dictated the substance of the Burns proposal in a new memorandum for the President’s own signature.41 During the same month General Burns prepared for Under Secretary Patterson’s signature a similar memorandum to the Secretary of War, urging that a munitions program be undertaken sufficient “to achieve victory on the basis of appropriate assumptions as to probable enemies and friends and theaters of operation.” Patterson not only signed the memorandum but obtained the approval of Secretary Stimson and had it forwarded to the Chief of Staff.42
These efforts bore no immediate fruit. But on 9 July 1941, two weeks after the German attack on the Soviet Union, President Roosevelt—in words obviously indebted to the earlier Burns memoranda—addressed identical letters to the Secretaries of the War and Navy Departments requesting the preparation of “over-all production requirements required to defeat our potential enemies.” Stating that his request involved “the making of appropriate assumptions as to our probable friends and enemies and to conceivable theaters of operation,” the President continued:
I wish you would explore the munitions and mechanical equipment of all types which in your opinion would be required to exceed by an appropriate amount that available to our potential enemies. From your report we should be able to establish a munitions objective indicating the industrial capacity which this nation will require.
I am not suggesting a detailed report but one that, while general in scope, would cover the most critical items in our defense and which could then be related by the OPM into practical realities of production facilities. It seems to me we need to know now our program in its entirety, even though at a later date it may be amended.
I believe that the confidential report which I am asking you to make to me would be of great assistance, not only in the efficient utilization of our productive facilities, but would afford an adequate opportunity for planning for the greatly increased speed of delivery which our defense program requires.43
Although the Presidential request was addressed to the problem of matériel requirements and more specifically to the “most critical items,” it appeared to General Staff planners to require a comprehensive estimate of the size and composition of the Army needed “to defeat our potential enemies.” Matériel requirements for the Army could not be computed in vacuo; they were always related to a given troop basis or mobilization plan indicating the total number of troops required by the plan and their detailed organization into armies, corps, divisions, and lesser organizational units. Each distinct type of unit within its own class (for example, infantry, armored, motorized, and other divisions) required different kinds and quantities of equipment according to established allowance tables. It was impossible, therefore, to compute matériel requirements in the absence of a relevant troop basis, which in turn would depend upon general strategic plans. The coordination of the troop basis with
strategic plans was the responsibility chiefly of the War Plans Division of the General Staff.
Upon receipt of the Presidential directive, WPD immediately went to work to devise a comprehensive strategic plan and troop basis. The many assumptions and calculations which went into the plan have been recounted elsewhere in considerable detail.44 Basically, the plan rested upon the calculated maximum number of troops available to the Army out of the nation’s total population. With strategic assumptions that the major effort would be in Europe and that 1 July 1943 would be the date of full attainment of U.S. military strength, the planners estimated the number and types of organizational units required. Consideration was given also to the availability of shipping, the control of sea lanes, the neutralization of the Pacific area, and numerous other factors. On 23 August 1941, WPD forwarded the completed and highly secret troop basis to G-4.45 It was then up to G-4 to determine the matériel requirements needed to support the Army organization detailed in the troop basis.
Three days later G-4 issued a directive to the Chief of the Air Corps and the supply services with basic instructions for the computation of requirements. The new requirements were to be those over and above all items already provided for by previous programs and were to be confined principally to critical items and motor vehicles. Some additional essential items were needed for the expanded PMP force. Quartermaster estimates were to be confined to critical items of cloth and findings and motor vehicles.46
While the estimates of U.S. Army requirements were still in the process of formulation, the Secretary of War received another urgent request from the President. Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 had added a potentially powerful ally to the anti-Axis alignment, but the Russians were desperately in need of munitions. Harry Hopkins, in his August visit with Marshal Joseph Stalin in Moscow, had received a preliminary indication of Soviet needs, and a more definitive conference had been arranged for 1 October. While this was pending, the President’s new request, dated 30 August 1941, asked for a schedule of total U.S. production of important munitions and their recommended distribution among all friendly powers for the period ending 30 June 1942:
I desire that your Department, working in cooperation with the Navy Department, submit to me by September 10, 1941, your recommendation of distribution of expected United States production of munitions of war as between the United States, Great Britain, Russia and the other countries to be aided—by important items, quantity time schedules and approximate values for the period from the present time until June 30, 1942. I also desire your general conclusions as to the over-all production effort of important items needed for victory on the general assumption that the reservoir of munitions power available to the United States and her friends is sufficiently superior to that available to the Axis Powers to insure defeat of the latter.47
This meant that the new estimates would have to include not only U.S. requirements
for all its armed forces but the needs of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and Latin America as well.
After desperate efforts to meet the President’s deadline, the Army finally assembled its completed estimates. These requirements, together with an elaborate strategic estimate and statements of Navy and merchant shipping objectives, were published in a secret report by the Joint Board on 11 September 1941.48 The total production requirements and their associated strategical foundation became known as the Victory Program, a title indicating the shift in purpose from mere hemisphere resistance to one of overcoming the potential enemy.
The term “Victory Program” possessed a variety of meanings both at the time of its appearance and in subsequent usage. Strictly construed, it referred to the ultimate requirements of munitions of all types, as estimated in the Joint Board report, necessary for the defeat of the Axis Powers. As an ultimate production goal, it thus included the Munitions Program of 30 June 1940 and all other past, current, and future procurement required to make up the ultimate Victory Program objective. The term was also loosely used to describe parts of the overall program, such as the Army or Navy component thereof, and frequently implied the strategic plan as well as the production requirements for victory. The successive revisions of the Army’s troop basis continued to be known as the Victory Program Troop Basis long after the corresponding matériel requirement programs ceased to bear the same name.49
The ultimate production requirements specified in the report of the Joint Board carried only quantitative estimates of required matériel. Although estimated unit costs of Army equipment (except planes) were shown, the shortage of time and lack of reliable or complete cost data precluded any meaningful summary prior to the deadline set by the President. It was, nevertheless, evident that the total production requirements under the program would be staggering. Subsequent estimates indicated that the Victory Program would call for expenditures of nearly $150 billion and would require until spring of 1944 to complete.50 U.S. Army ground forces under the proposed new troop basis totaled 216 divisions, 61 of which would be armored. Also planned were fifty-one separate motorized divisions and nearly half a million men for antiaircraft artillery units. Matériel requirements for all of these were exceptionally heavy as compared with regular infantry divisions. The Army’s ground force requirements for additional critical items alone under the Victory Program called for
estimated expenditures of $29 billion.51 The magnitude of the entire program had led General Marshall to conclude the 11 September 1941 Joint Board report in the following words: “The position of the Chief of Staff is that the maximum requirements of the Navy and Army, as related to tonnage and the probable conflicts in material, priority, and production facilities, should be surveyed by OPM and then if necessary readjusted by the Joint Board within the limits determined by OPM.”52 This was probably the first recorded statement in connection with the World War II production program which recognized the problem of over-all production “feasibility” and the broad administrative procedure for effecting the necessary cutbacks.
At the time of its formulation, the Victory Program was only a hypothetical plan, to be available in the event of full-scale participation of the United States in the war. It made no commitments, called for no immediate action, and was to be kept as a secret document within the War Department and other appropriate agencies. Nevertheless, a leading isolationist newspaper which had long been hostile to the administration was successful in obtaining a copy of the plan. In a widely syndicated news story this newspaper described the secret plan in great detail, quoting extensive passages verbatim and revealing the strategic plans of the United States in the event of war, the location of projected overseas bases, intelligence estimates of German strength, and similar matters. The account went on to indicate that the Victory Program represented “a war against the German people,” rather than one to overthrow Hitler and the Nazi regime, and that the primary purpose of sending American forces outside the Western Hemisphere was “the preservation of the British empire.”53
The attack upon Pearl Harbor three days later put an end to the political repercussions of this disclosure. But this incident, together with the multiplicity of problems involved in the Victory Program’s compilation, reveals some of the difficulties faced by the Army during the defense period in determining “firm, long-range requirements” to be adopted as a positive production program. The lack of such requirements during the defense period has been cited repeatedly as a basic weakness of Army planning which complicated the tasks of NDAC and OPM in adopting appropriate policies in the fields of production, priorities, and other areas of economic mobilization. But it was impossible for the Army to come up with “dependable, long-range estimates,” much less to make these the basis of an actual production program, in the absence either of adequate appropriations or of reliable assumptions as to future national policy, the course of world events, and the total military strategy to be adopted when and if the nation became involved in war. At the time of the fall of France, the Army submitted an $11 billion program and was given one of only $6 billion. In the delicate political milieu of 1940 and 1941 the only course which
seemed open to the Army was to prosecute the Munitions Program as effectively as possible and to raise the sights as circumstances permitted and required. The Victory Program in the fall of 1941 was only a paper program but it provoked a storm of controversy which might have impaired the whole defense effort had it not been followed immediately by an actual attack upon the United States.