Chapter 7: Army Requirement Programs: Pearl Harbor to War’s End
The President’s Objectives and the War Munitions Program
The advent of Pearl Harbor converted the Victory Program from a planning document to a working basis for immediate expansion of Army procurement and subsequent requirements planning. Despite its heavy requirements, the Army’s Victory Program had included only major items of equipment (critical items, motor vehicles, and the like). In response to a letter from Donald Nelson, requesting a statement of requirements by time periods, Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy pointed to the need for a restudy of the program in the light of recent events: “... it is now evident that the basic foundation on which the Victory Program was based should be re-analyzed prior to its commitment to a vast industrial effort”.1 Ten days later Secretary Stimson informed the President of the Army’s procurement progress in the two and a half weeks since Pearl Harbor:
The Victory Program is now on its way to becoming a reality. The Office of Production Management and Supply Priorities and Allocations Board estimate that the total munitions production potential of the country for the year 1942 is approximately 40 billion dollars. Of this 40 billion dollars, 27 billion dollars of munitions are already scheduled. ...Of the margin available for new production in 1942, it is expected that approximately 6 billion dollars will be for ground army munitions, 3 ½ billion for aircraft and accessories, and the remainder for military construction, the Navy, Maritime Commission, and other purposes....the War Department will continue with its re-analysis of the list of matériel originally submitted for the Victory Program to the end that its portion of that program will be on as firm a basis as it is possible to make it for an all-out industrial effort.2
Definite steps to obtain the desired revision followed shortly thereafter. On 29 December 1941 Brig. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, the new G-4, issued a directive to the supply arms and the Air Forces calling for a recomputation of the Army’s total requirements for equipment and ammunition through 30 June 1944. The new figures were to be based on three estimates of Army troop strength: Force A (4,150,000 men) to be mobilized by the end of 1942; Force B (8,890,000 men) required by the end of 1943; and a total force of 10,380,000 men to be available by 30 June 1944. All items of initial equipment, plus six months’ combat
supplies of equipment and ammunition, were to be covered in the new program.3
While the War Department was working on its program of total munitions requirements, high-level conferences on broad Allied strategy and the matériel requirements therefor were being held by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, along with the British Minister of Supply, Lord Beaverbrook. Influenced by Beaverbrook’s observations Roosevelt independently announced, in his 6 January 1942 State-of-the-Union Message to Congress, his celebrated “Must” Program for the production of astronomical quantities of planes, tanks, merchant ships, and antiaircraft guns. The President was convinced that a dramatic, publicly announced program for selected crucial items would rally the American public behind the war production program and serve notice upon the entire world—allies, enemies, and neutral powers alike—that U.S. industrial capacity was so enormous there could be no doubt about the final outcome of the war. In announcing the program the President made clear that he was in earnest:
This production of ours in the United States must be raised above present levels, even though it will mean the dislocation of the lives and occupations of millions of our own people. We must raise our sights all along the production line. Let no man say it cannot be done. It must be done—and we have undertaken to do it.4
The President then announced the specific production goals which he had set for the nation:
| Item | 1942 | 1943 |
| Planes | 60,000 | 125,000 |
| Tanks | 45,000 | 75,000 |
| Antiaircraft guns | 20,000 | 35,000 |
| Merchant ships (d. w. tons ) | 6,000, 000 | 10,000, 000 |
This dramatic announcement—made at a time when reports of fresh Allied losses were received almost daily—provided a degree of inspiration badly needed by the American public and allied nations. Nevertheless, it soon became evident that an attempt to realize the President’s “must” objectives at all cost would severely hamper other segments of the war production program. Moreover, unless the selected items were accompanied by all the required complementary items, they could not be successfully utilized. The production of 185,000 planes without adequate landing fields, hangars, operating supplies, and maintenance facilities—to say nothing of trained personnel at all echelons—might well be a liability to the war program as a whole. The Army later attempted to raise its other requirements in keeping with the President’s objectives, but the total added up to more than the nation was capable of producing. For several months, however, the President was adamant in his position that the goals should not be lowered and later permitted modification only when they were demonstrated as clearly unattainable, or on condition that any reductions would be compensated by increases elsewhere in the program. By the end of 1942, the modified objectives had become fairly well assimilated
into the general production program and caused no great concern thereafter.5
In the meantime, after the announcement of the President’s objectives on 6 January 1942, the War Department abandoned the Victory Program nomenclature for its new statement of requirements then under preparation:
The Victory Program has been replaced by the War Munitions Program. The document submitted to the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board containing quantities of various items for the Victory Program is now obsolete and has no further usefulness.6
The new estimates, captioned as the Overall Requirements for the War Munitions Program, were completed and distributed on 11 February 1942. The total dollar value of the new program was estimated at roughly $63 billion for the two-and-one-half-year period in question.7
Although a more accurate statement of Army requirements than the superseded Victory Program, the hastily computed War Munitions Program was defective in many respects. Its estimates had been made on the basis of total need, with generous allowances for combat maintenance, but without regard to stocks of equipment and ammunition on hand; to that extent it exceeded actual production requirements. On the other hand it failed to cover miscellaneous and expendable supplies, construction, Navy and lend-lease requirements to be filled by Army procurement, and other items. Moreover, its methodology of requirements computation was crude, omitting distribution requirements, zone of interior (ZI) replacement, and other refinements, as well as neglecting in toto the question of whether shipping facilities would be adequate to transport the Army and its equipment overseas at the rates contemplated by the several force augmentations. As a consequence of these inadequacies and in the light of developments which were taking place even before its completion, the Army’s War Munitions Program was replaced, within two months of its publication.8
The Army Supply Program
Background and Nature
Events Leading to Adoption of ASP –
Observers of the Washington scene at the beginning of 1942 may well remember the peculiar atmosphere of urgency, confusion, frustration, and perpetual reorganization which characterized the early post-Pearl Harbor period. The word “defense” was summarily replaced by “war” in all agency names, programs, and activities; individuals and organizations alike, eager to contribute as directly as possible to the war effort, sought positions of indispensability in the prosecution of the war. All were looking for an objective and a mandate—a definite goal toward which to apply their energies and the authority to go ahead. For the home front, such objectives depended ultimately upon a firm and comprehensive statement of munitions requirements.
The U.S. Army in World War II was only one—albeit the major—claimant upon the nation’s resources. The Army’s strategic plans, which called for frequent re-examination and adaptation of its basic requirements, were a part of the larger strategic program approved by the allied powers at the highest level. The administrative machinery for formulating basic Allied strategy came into being gradually after Pearl Harbor.9
Briefly, top-level strategy of the United States and Great Britain was formulated by the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), which reported directly to President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. The American members of CCS also constituted the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), which was responsible for the development and coordination of basic strategic plans for the armed forces of the United States. The JCS consisted of the military heads of the Army, Army Air Forces, and Navy, together with the President’s chief of staff.10
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, which gradually replaced the prewar Joint Board, originated early in 1942 and grew rapidly thereafter into a large and influential organization. Many joint staffs and committees were eventually created to support the work of JCS. Among these were the Joint Strategic Committee and the Joint Logistics Committee, whose activities in determining military priorities and adjusting total military requirements to production limitations brought them into the field of economic mobilization. Within the Army the Operations Division (OPD) replaced the War Plans Division of the General Staff and became the key staff agency which developed and coordinated broad strategic and logistical requirements into programs to be refined and executed by the procurement and distribution machinery of AAF and ASF.
The Army had procurement responsibility for equipment and supplies for a wide variety of non-Army users in addition to its own combat and supply arms and the AAF. Requirements for outside users, after broad screening by CCS and JCS, were assigned to the Army and in turn to its technical services
on the basis of normal procurement responsibility for the classes of items involved. The largest single category of additional procurement thus assigned consisted of the great array of lend-lease requirements for allied nations. Army procurement of lendlease equipment and supplies amounted to many billions of dollars, in most cases involving items identical with those used by the U.S. Army and procured from the same sources under common contracts. Under the lend-lease machinery, munitions were assigned to all the allied powers, including the United States, from a common pool.11
A substantial portion of Navy (including Marine Corps and Coast Guard) requirements for certain classes of items was filled by Army procurement. Thus, 90 percent of all perishable foods and 85 percent of nonperishable foodstuffs for the Navy were purchased by the Army Quartermaster through the Chicago Quartermaster Depot. On the other hand, the Navy procured certain items for the Army, and in some cases joint procurement operations were conducted.12 The Army also procured items for the Office of Strategic Services, the French forces in North Africa, and other non-Army users. In computing these requirements the Army acted only in a liaison and screening capacity; the agencies involved made their own estimates and periodically presented them for incorporation into the Army’s statement of its total procurement requirements. By the end of 1941, the multiplicity of demands upon Army procurement made imperative the early development of a system for the orderly recording and programing of requirements; otherwise the Army’s whole procurement program threatened to bog down in confusion.
During the last half of 1941, OPM and SPAB had been bringing increasing pressure to bear upon the procuring agencies for more definite statements of requirements and, above all, requirements spelled out in terms of time objectives. With excess industrial capacity rapidly disappearing the question of priority, or relative production urgency, became increasingly important. In a milieu in which everything could not be produced at once, the question of “when” to produce became coordinate with “what” to produce. Now, in the face of all-out war, the Army made renewed efforts to determine its needs by time periods, both for its own purposes and for those of the newly established War Production Board.
Within the Army, the most vigorous exponent of a fresh approach to the formulation of requirements was the new Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, General Somervell. Known as a man of action from his early days as WPA administrator for the New York district and more recently as the reorganizer of the Army Quartermaster construction program, Somervell brought to G-4 an unusual combination of engineering knowledge, administrative ability, and drive. When he “took over” in G-4, his influence was felt from the start.13
General Brehon B. Somervell, Commanding General, Army Service Forces, throughout World War II. (Photograph taken in 1945.)
G-4 had long been the duly constituted War Department agency for supervising the formulation of the Army’s matériel requirements. With the advent of the Defense Aid Program and the growth of civilian production control agencies, as well as the expansion and addition of offices and agencies within the War Department, the total task of estimating military requirements had become widely scattered. Foreign military requirements, which of necessity cut into and shaped the formulation of the Army’s own program, were handled by the independent Office of Lend-Lease Administration, with liaison groups in OASW as well as in G-4 and the various supply arms and services. The reconciliation of Army and Navy requirements, especially with respect to their impact upon raw materials and industrial facilities, was handled by the ANMB. The civilian mobilization control agencies—NDAC, OPM, SPAB, and now WPB—had been in continual contact with the Army, Navy, and Maritime Commission in an endeavor to determine the over-all objectives of war production.
Almost immediately after his arrival in G-4, General Somervell proposed the adoption by the War Department of a single, comprehensive Army Supply Program, to be set forth in a publication which would become the bible of the Army supply system. Responsibility for the consolidation and publication of all requirements (Army, Navy, lend-lease, and others) to be filled by Army procurement would be vested in a single agency of the War Department. This agency would be charged with the continual refinement and improvement of the program and with representing the War Department in relations with all outside agencies in matters of supply requirements. Somervell believed that the appropriate agency for this task was an expanded G-4.
On 22 January 1942 he addressed a tenpage memorandum to the Deputy Chief of Staff, outlining with great vigor and in great detail the need for a consolidated Army Supply Program, the kind of organization required to administer it, problems to be faced, and methods of meeting them. The memorandum stressed such important matters as the development of a sound strategic base for requirements, keeping requirements within the realm of production feasibility, the need for a single set of requirements estimates based on a common set of assumptions, and the responsiveness of the program
Army And Navy Munitions Board, 1941
Seated, left to right: Brig. Gen. Charles Hines, Brig. Gen. H. K. Rutherford, Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, Under Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, and Capt. E. D. Almy, USN. Standing: Maj. G. K. Heiss, Col. H. S. Aurand, Cmdr. V. H. Wheeler, and Cmdr. L. B. Scott (ret.).
to changes in the underlying economic and military situation. Somervell did not wait for a directive but concluded his memorandum with the words: “In order to make its Supply Program more complete and useful, the Supply Division, G-4, is proceeding at once with the following action. ...” A full page followed listing intended activities on the part of G-4, all indicating the early launching of the Army Supply Program.14
Before the first complete edition of the Army Supply Program could be published by G-4, the far-reaching reorganization of the War Department on 9 March 1942 had taken place. Instead of heading an expanded G-4, Somervell now found himself in command of the Army’s entire machinery for procurement, economic mobilization, and supply—the Army Service Forces. Under the new regime, the development of the Army Supply Program was given top priority and there soon emerged a complex but systematic organization and procedure for determining and presenting the multifarious requirements upon Army procurement.
Character and Content of ASP –
In its broadest sense, the Army Supply Program as developed by the Army Service Forces represented the entire framework of activity carried on by the War Department for equipping and supplying the U.S. Army and other recipients of matériel procured by the Army during World War II. In this sense, ASP was the integrated program of activity which included the formulation of the Army’s matériel needs and the conversion of these requirements into programs, contracts, production schedules, procurement deliveries, and the distribution of finished supplies to troops in the field.
In its narrower and more specific sense, ASP was the periodically published document setting forth the long-range objectives of Army procurement in all important categories by calendar years for two and sometimes three years in advance. In this capacity, ASP became the Army’s authoritative statement of requirements and its basic procurement directive. It was used as the basis for requesting Congressional appropriations, authorizing procurement expenditures, establishing production schedules, assigning priorities, determining raw material requirements, and allocating materials and other scarce resources. In short, the Army Supply Program became the foundation for the Army’s entire procurement effort.
Inasmuch as ASP was a dynamic program attuned in varying degrees to constantly shifting circumstances and strategic needs, the types, quantities, and dollar value of supplies covered by the various sections changed from one edition to another. With the passage of time, ASP covered not only the Army’s regular procurement and construction needs but Navy and lend-lease items, as well as special requirements for task forces, the Office of Strategic Services, the French forces in North Africa, and civil governments in occupied areas.
ASP was published in a number of sections. The first completed edition contained six sections, each appearing separately in 1942 at the indicated dates:
| Section | Issued | |
| I. | Equipment-Ground | 6 Apr |
| II. | Equipment-Air | 9 Apr |
| III. | Miscellaneous and Expendable Supplies-Ground | 17 Mar |
| IV. | Miscellaneous and Expendable Supplies-Air | 4 Jul |
| V. | Construction | 11 Apr |
| VI. | International Aid-Miscellaneous | 1 Sep |
Section I, which covered ammunition as well as all important items of Army Ground Forces equipment—guns, tanks, motor vehicles, clothing, personal equipment, signal, medical, engineering items, and so on—was by far the most important. It normally accounted for some 80 percent of the total dollar value of the entire Army Supply Program. Along with basic equipment for the organized units of the ground forces, it included common items for the Air Forces, Navy, and allies under lend-lease. It was this section which was most affected by changes in the troop basis and which underwent the most frequent revision.
Section II covered items of equipment and munitions (except aircraft) peculiar to the Army Air Forces, regardless of procuring agency. Many of these were procured by the Army Air Forces directly; the greater share, consisting of important items such as ammunition, armament, and signal equipment, was procured by the several technical services under the ASF. Requirements for aircraft, as such, were omitted; these were entirely outside the Army Supply Program. Aircraft requirements were separately determined, in keeping with the
Weekly Staff Conference, Headquarters, Services of Supply, June 1942
Seated, left to right: A. R. Glancy, Brig. Gens. James E. Wharton, Henry S. Aurand, Charles Hines, Charles D. Young, Maj. Gen. John P. Smith, Brig. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, Robert P. Patterson, USW, Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, Commanding General, Army Service Forces, Brig. Gens. Wilhelm D. Styer, LeRoy Lutes, Clarence R. Huebner, C. P. Gross, Mr. James P. Mitchell, Cols. Frank A. Heileman, A. Robert Ginsburgh, and Albert J. Browning. Standing: Cols. Clinton F. Robinson, Walter A. Wood, Jr., Robinson E. Duff, Brig. Gen. A. H. Carter, Col. J. N. Dalton, and Capt. Harold K. Hastings.
President’s objectives, and published as production schedules for engines, airframes, and propellers. This was done by a joint agency—the Aircraft Resources Control Office (and predecessor agencies) at Dayton, Ohio—which handled all aircraft scheduling and dealt directly with industry and the War Production Board. The dollar value of the Army aircraft program, though less than total requirements for the Army Service Forces, was far larger than that of the air items in Section II of ASP, although this section included air items for Navy and lend-lease.
Sections III and IV—later incorporated in Sections I and II as Part B of each—covered expendable supplies (other than ammunition) for the ground and air forces, respectively, as well as all items of equipment (except motor vehicles) for zone of
interior posts, camps, stations, general hospitals, and other establishments. Also included in Miscellaneous and Expendable Supplies were thousands of minor items so numerous that they were frequently grouped together in classes and reported in dollar value rather than in quantitative terms. Among the more important expendable supplies were subsistence, fuel, and lubricants.
Section V (later designated as Section IV) comprehended all uncompleted War Department construction projects—proposed, authorized, and under way—essential to the execution of the Army’s total war effort. Data included cost, source of funds, location, description, estimated completion dates, and eventually estimates of the total value of completed jobs as well as forecasts of annual maintenance, repair, and operating expenses for all completed War Department establishments. Data for highly secret construction projects, such as for the atomic bomb, were carried in a separate subsection with only limited distribution.
Section VI (International Aid, Miscellaneous)—later designated as Section III—did not appear until 1 September 1942, by which time Section I had already been twice revised. Its purpose was to concentrate in one section all minor items and expendable supplies required by the allied nations. Hence, all items of International Aid originally carried in Section III were transferred to Section VI upon its appearance. This procedure was particularly desirable because of the noncommon nature of many International Aid items and the difficulty of including them in the classification scheme used in Section III. Major items of equipment for lend-lease continued to be carried in Section I.
The procurement objectives stated in the Army Supply Program represented “required production” from U.S. sources rather than gross military requirements. Gross military requirements for given time periods were reduced by the exclusion of three categories in order to arrive at net required production: (1) supplies on hand; (2) overseas procurement; (3) production limitations.
The determination of “on-hand” figures was a laborious assignment never satisfactorily accomplished. Total supplies on hand consisted of quantities in the hands of troops, wherever located, as well as unissued stocks in depots, in transit, and at many hundreds of posts, camps, stations, and other installations. The acquisition of accurate, uniform, and timely inventories of unissued stocks of thousands of different items from all of the Army’s scattered establishments and troop locations was a mountainous undertaking. Moreover, estimates of quantities in the hands of troops were at best a matter of rough judgment. For the first few editions of the ASP, a calculated over-all on-hand figure was used. This was a composite of available inventory figures for major issuing depots plus estimates of station supplies in the hands of troops. The lastnamed estimate was made by deducting calculated losses from previous issues; no attempt was made early in the war to burden field commanders with the taking and reporting of inventories. For the 1 August 1943 ASP, an attempt was made to gather inventory figures at posts, camps, and stations as well as at major issuing depots. This proved to be impractical, especially for several of the technical services, and by mid-1944 the use of inventories for requirements purposes was confined for all services to major issuing depots. At the same time the theoretical estimate of equipment in the hands of troops was abandoned. Except for
known shortages, all troops were assumed to be fully equipped and supply “pipelines” filled. Thereafter requirements were largely determined by fluctuations in replacement needs and the distributional stock levels required to insure timely delivery.15
Overseas procurement, consisting primarily of subsistence items and miscellaneous supplies for troops based in the British Empire, was a part of the lend-lease program known as reverse lend-lease. It was given considerable encouragement by the agreement between the President and the British Prime Minister early in 1942 to make maximum use of the productive capacity of each allied country and to conserve shipping space wherever possible. By the fall of 1942 overseas procurement had reached sufficient volume to warrant the adjustment of planned procurement in the United States. Required production in the Army Supply Program was therefore reduced by the amount of anticipated overseas procurement under the War Department’s General Purchasing Board.16
A major purpose of the Army Supply Program was to achieve a balanced program in keeping with production limitations as well as with military needs. Organizations and procedures for this purpose were difficult to develop but by the end of 1942 the task was fairly well in hand. Standard procedures were developed for the advance screening by ASF production personnel of preliminary estimates of requirements. Each of the technical services was required to develop “master production schedules,” based upon actual contracts and deliveries thereunder, showing estimated monthly deliveries of each item of procurement in keeping with the annual production targets of ASP. A careful month-by-month comparison of production schedules with actual procurement deliveries revealed deficiencies in procurement, calling for appropriate action to overcome shortages of materials, facilities, manpower, or other contributory resources. Quite frequently, however, shortages of basic resources could not be overcome and constituted a definite limitation upon production. In this event, efforts were made, prior to the next edition of ASP, to adjust stated requirements to feasible levels. Major cutbacks for feasibility reasons were usually requested by the War Production Board after a careful exploration and discussion of the alternatives, and an appropriate notation was carried in the ASP to distinguish requirements thus modified from those representing true military needs.17
Those responsible for the determination of requirements realized from the beginning that the ASP would undergo continual revision to reflect changes in the troop basis, the improvement of military technology, the progress of the war, the refinement of estimating
techniques, and many other expected as well as unforeseen developments. Originally it was hoped that complete recomputations of the program could be limited to an annual basis, with interim changes only for individual items and categories as the need arose. Sweeping changes early in the program led to an announced policy of complete revisions once each quarter; by 1943, however, a planned schedule of semiannual recomputations, in February and August, had been adopted. Important interim changes in Section I were accomplished by the periodic publication of summary sheets reflecting such changes; these were distributed to all recipients of the Army Supply Program. Changes involving less than 10 percent of required production, or more in the case of readily procurable items, were made by the relevant technical service but not published until the next recomputation of the program.18
Each separate edition of ASP was the result of an intensive period of preparation and activity within the ASF. The recomputation cycle was launched with the issuance of a basic directive by Headquarters, ASF, to the technical services responsible for preparing the several segments of the program. The basic directive transmitted the latest revision of the troop basis, the methods of determining combat replacement and reserve levels, and so far as practicable all other specific policies and procedures affecting the recomputation.19 In addition to the specific directive governing the recomputation of individual editions, there was throughout the life of ASP a succession of memoranda and administrative orders constituting a cumulative statement of its general purpose, scope, policy, and procedures. These scattered instructions were replaced on 25 January 1944 by the issuance of War Department Technical Manual 38-210, entitled Preparation and Administration of the Army Supply Program.20
All together seven editions of the Army Supply Program were published from its inception to its formal replacement by the Supply Control System (SCS) in January 1945.21 The early editions were relatively crude, showing cumulative instead of separate annual estimates and expressing required production in terms of physical quantities only. The lack of dollar-value totals was a considerable shortcoming, handicapping analysis and discussion of the program
Table 18: Army Supply Program, Section I: Army Ground Forces Requirements in Successive Editions of ASP
[In Billions]
| Date of Edition* | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 |
| 6 April 1942 | $16.9 | $31.6 | – | – |
| 1 September 1942 | – | 28. 1 | – | – |
| 12 November 1942 | – | 22. 2 | – | – |
| 1 February 1943 | – | 24. 3 | $26.8 | – |
| 1 August 1943 | – | 20. 4 | 21.7 | $19.6 |
| 1 February 1944 | – | – | 17.8 | 15.8 |
| 1 October 1944 | – | – | 18.3 | 17.3 |
* First three editions include Section III, later carried as Part B, Section I.
Source: ASP editions as indicated, except for first three. For first editions: WPB, Div of Statistics, tabulation of 8 Apr 42; second and third editions; Frank, Doc. 48.
Table 19: Army Supply Program, Section I: Required Production for Calendar Years 1943 and 1944
[In Millions]
| Part A (Equipment-Ground) | Part B | ||||||
| Technical Service | Year | Total of Parts A and B | Total | U.S. Army | U.S. Navy | International Aid | Miscellaneous, Equipment and Supplies |
| Total | 1943 | $24,311.8 | $19,278.7 | $12,642.7 | $1,110.2 | $5,957.7 | $5,033. 1 |
| 1944 | 26,757.8 | 21,077.0 | 15,284.1 | 1,020.4 | 4,580.0 | 5,680.8 | |
| Ordnance | 1943 | 14,918.0 | 14,781.0 | 8,576.0 | 973.6 | 5,582.5 | 137.0 |
| 1944 | 16,849.3 | 16,688.5 | 11,332.6 | 917.5 | 4,313.0 | 160.8 | |
| Signal Corps | 1943 | 1,506.5 | 993.5 | 861.5 | 37.6 | 115.9 | 513.0 |
| 1944 | 1,355.5 | 784.1 | 664.5 | 12.3 | 85.9 | 551.4 | |
| Corps of Engineers | 1943 | 1,616.0 | 928.9 | 780.0 | 71.l | 121.5 | 687.1 |
| 1944 | 1,850.3 | 982.9 | 798.9 | 70.1 | 70.1 | 867.4 | |
| Chemical Warfare | 1943 | 287.6 | 259.6 | 258. 1 | 2. 5 | 12. 7 | 28.0 |
| 1944 | 392.5 | 345.7 | 323.1 | 3.5 | 16.8 | 46.8 | |
| Medical Department | 1943 | 473.2 | 301.6 | 249. 6 | 2.6 | 49. 8 | 171. 6 |
| 1944 | 378.6 | 245.2 | 204.1 | 3.2 | 38.0 | 133.4 | |
| Quartermaster Corps | 1943 | 4,885.8 | 1,981.8 | 1,885.2 | 22.8 | 75.4 | 2,904.0 |
| 1944 | 5,528.1 | 1,987.0 | 1,917.3 | 13.8 | 56.2 | 3,541.1 | |
| Transportation | 1943 | 592.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 592.4 |
| 1944 | 379. 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 379. 9 | |
| AAF (Miscellaneous Equipment) | 1943 | 32.3 | 32.3 | 32. 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1944 | 43.6 | 43.6 | 43.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
Source: Army Supply Program, Sec. I, 1 Feb 43.
Table 20: Army Supply Program: Comparative Magnitude of Sections I-IV in mid-1943
[In Billions]
| Section | 1943 | 1944 |
| I—Ground | $20.8 | $22.0 |
| II—Air | a 4.3 | 6.1 |
| – AAF Procurement | a 0.9 | 2.1 |
| – ASF Procurement | ||
| –—Ordnance | 1.2 | 1.4 |
| –—Signal | 1.9 | 2.2 |
| –—Chemical | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| III—Miscellaneous International Aid | 1.0 | 0.5 |
| IV—Construction b | 2.8 | |
a AAF procurement covered for last 6 months only of 1943.
b Uncompleted projects to be put in place without specification of calendar year.
Source: Frank, Requirements, pp. 78-79.
until special tabulations could be made for the purpose. Since changes were often made in the interim, and since tabulations were made by different agencies, the resulting figures were often difficult to reconcile. This condition was rectified in the 1 February 1943 and subsequent editions, which contained dollar-value summaries and numerous improvements in form as well as substance.22
An indication of the magnitude of Army Ground Forces requirements, as well as the gradual reduction in the dollar value of these requirements under successive editions of ASP, is shown in Table 18. The largest share of the general reduction was represented by changes in the planned composition of the Army under which the number of heavily armored and motorized divisions was drastically cut.23 Together with curtailment in the over-all size of the Army as planned at the beginning of 1942, reductions in unit costs, adjustments in the lend-lease program, and numerous other factors, this decision resulted in the paring of many billions of dollars from Army requirements as estimated at the beginning of 1942.24
A broad summary of Army requirements for Ground Forces matériel, classified by technical services, is furnished by Table 19. This table shows estimated requirements for the calendar years 1943 and 1944, as they stood on 1 February 1943. Especially to be noted are the heavy demands for Ordnance equipment and ammunition by allied nations under the lend-lease program. For 1943 these amounted to nearly two thirds of the Army’s own requirements for such items.
The comparative magnitude of the several sections of ASP is suggested by Table 20, which contains partial figures from the program as it stood in the summer of 1943. At this time Section IV (Construction) carried
$2.8 billion of uncompleted projects remaining to be put in place without specification of calendar year. Although the relative shares of the several sections of ASP fluctuated from one edition to another, Section I remained the overwhelmingly predominant portion of the Army Supply Program.
Major Developments Under ASP
The Feasibility Dispute
Despite the efforts of the ASF properly to control the Army’s procurement program, there were numerous shortcomings—especially during the exploratory period of organization and planning to meet the numerous problems which descended upon the War Department immediately after Pearl Harbor. Foremost among the problems of 1942 was the determination of long-range Army requirements which, together with other essential programs, would be within the nation’s capacity to produce. The controversy which developed between the Army and the War Production Board over this issue—later known as the Feasibility Dispute—was one of the most acrimonious of the war.
The Feasibility Dispute has been described in detail elsewhere,25 but a brief recapitulation is necessary to indicate the Army’s role in the controversy. Early in 1942 the War Production Board, particularly its Planning Committee headed by Robert R. Nathan, became convinced that total military procurement objectives for 1942 and 1943, when added to the needs of the civilian and industrial economy, were greatly in excess of the nation’s productive capacity. The problem was aggravated by the fact that proposed construction programs for both military and industrial facilities accounted for a substantial portion of the total war production program. In view of serious existing material shortages, it became clear that further diversion of materials to construction programs would result in still greater imbalance. Not only would new construction chew up vast quantities of materials needed for finished munitions; after their completion the new facilities themselves would be forced to remain idle or operate at a fraction of capacity for lack of raw materials.26
At various times in the spring and summer of 1942, WPB called the attention of the procuring agencies to the feasibility problem and some adjustments in programs were made. But the procuring agencies were preoccupied with placing contracts and expediting production; moreover, considerable research was needed to estimate the nation’s production potential with any degree of accuracy. Finally, on 8 September 1942, Nathan transmitted to General Somervell an extended report on the feasibility problem prepared by Dr. Simon Kuznets, a WPB economist with an established reputation in the field of national income analysis.
The Kuznets analysis pointed to two major barriers to the attainment of existing production objectives: (1) inadequate capacity of the economy as a whole, measured by dollar-value estimates; (2) material shortages and defects in the scheduling of production all down the line. The report recommended a drastic curtailment of military procurement objectives and the establishment of a superboard—with full powers over the Army, Navy, Maritime Commission, and other agencies—to coordinate military strategy with production possibilities.27
The Kuznets report, together with a transmittal memorandum from Nathan elsewhere described as “somewhat peremptory in tone,” came to Somervell’s attention late on a Saturday afternoon. Somervell’s reaction was immediate. He did not agree with the findings and referred to the proposal for a superboard on strategy as “an inchoate mass of words.” He wrote out a reply to Nathan in longhand, concluding with the words: “I am not impressed with either the character or basis of the judgments expressed in the reports and recommend that they be carefully hidden from the eyes of thoughtful men.”28
Needless to say, the Somervell memorandum provoked considerable discussion within WPB and a formal meeting of the War Production Board, on 6 October 1942, was devoted to a showdown on the issues. This meeting was attended by seventeen invitees, including Somervell and Nathan, in addition to the fourteen regular participants. Early in the meeting, Nathan reviewed the Kuznets feasibility study and urged the creation of “an administrative mechanism to combine strategy and production.”29 Thereupon a general discussion of the feasibility problem ensued, in which the programs of the armed services came under considerable attack. Somervell conceded that the 1942 program would probably fall some 10-percent short of completion by the end of the year but indicated that the material-shortage problem was being relieved by a number of measures and that dollar figures could not be relied upon as a measure of national productive capacity. At this point, Leon Henderson, director of the Office of Price Administration (OPA) and ex officio member of the War Production Board, stated that dollar figures represented the “best common denominator of capacity.” Then after a lull in the discussion in which it appeared that the meeting might end without a positive decision of the issues, Henderson is reported to have reflected on Nathan’s $90 billion estimate of 1943 munitions capacity and to have stated in substance: “Maybe if we can’t wage a war on 90 billions, we ought to get rid of our present Joint Chiefs, and find some who can.” Henderson then “turned to Somervell and proceeded to make the most violent personal attack ever heard in a meeting of the War Production Board. ... For a considerable period Henderson gave vent to every grievance he had accumulated throughout the first year of the war.”30
The explosive 6 October meeting made it clear that early cutbacks in military requirements would have to be made. On the following day, Under Secretary Patterson addressed a memorandum to General Somervell
conceding the correctness of WPB’s basic position:
The WPB position, that production objectives ought not to be far in front of estimated maximum production, is believed to be sound as a general rule. Otherwise our scheduling of production cannot represent reality, and it is generally agreed that without realistic scheduling we will continue to suffer from maldistribution of materials, thus cutting down the actual output of finished weapons.31
Patterson went on to state that it would be up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acting within the framework of strategic considerations, to reduce the program to a limit set by WPB and that the bulk of the reduction would undoubtedly fall upon the Army and Navy; the aircraft and shipbuilding programs as well as those for expansion of raw material production probably would not be touched. Accordingly, at the next meeting of WPB, on 13 October 1942, Somervell and Patterson suggested that WPB inform the Joint Chiefs that their existing program, together with the President’s objectives, was not capable of attainment. It would then be the JCS responsibility to redefine the program within the limits established by WPB.32
This was the solution actually adopted. It avoided the question of a superboard on strategy and production and spared WPB the necessity of again challenging the President’s objectives, an unpleasant task which had been attempted with embarrassing results earlier in the year.33 The Joint Chiefs went to work on the combined military program for 1943 and pared it down from $93 billion to $80 billion. Of the $13 billion reduction, $9 billion came from the Army Supply Program alone.34 This change, published in the 12 November 1942 edition, represented the greatest single reduction during the life of the Army Supply Program. To accomplish the reduction the Army revised its troop basis, decreasing its planned strength for 1943 and 1944 by some 300,000 men and effecting heavy reductions in armored, motorized, airborne, and infantry divisions, as well as in tank battalions, field artillery units, and tank destroyer battalions. Also, the Army at this time extended the practice of issuing only 50 percent of standard allowances of critical equipment to training units in the United States.35
The 12 November 1942 cutbacks in military requirements put an end to a controversial situation which had been growing in seriousness for nine months. There has since been some speculation as to why the resolution of the controversy was so long delayed.36 The Army has frequently been charged with ignoring the existence of the feasibility problem early in 1942, and Somervell specifically with failure to understand the use of dollar-value
estimates of national productive capacity. Neither of these offers adequate explanation. General Marshall, it will be recalled, had raised the feasibility question as early as September 1941, at the time of the submission of the Victory Program. Moreover, it was Marshall’s suggestion at that time that any feasibility problem be resolved by a reformulation of the military program within limits established by OPM, the then existing civilian mobilization control agency.37 Likewise, General Somervell—even before he became the head of the Army Service Forces—had clearly indicated his understanding that military programs would have to be kept within the limitations of productive capacity:
The supply program is primarily based on military need. It must, however, be conditioned by the practicalities of production and conflicts with Navy, Allied, and civilian needs. There is nothing to be gained and an actual danger in setting up requirements that are wholly impossible of attainment. This means that the Supply Division itself can only formulate a tentative program of requirements which must be reviewed from the procurement and allocation standpoint before it can be set up as a program for execution.38
The real issue, so far as Somervell was concerned, turned on questions of fact rather than principle. In the early post-Pearl Harbor period, he did not believe the data available were sufficiently accurate to afford a reliable measure of national productive capacity, especially in the field of munitions production. His distrust of dollar-value estimates was not a failure to understand the use of dollar figures in national income analysis but a direct inference from his knowledge of the state of procurement contract prices. In the spring of 1942 Somervell had testified at length before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the impossibility of setting initial contract prices close to cost.39 Initial contract prices, upon which the estimated dollar value of military procurement programs was based, would inevitably be greatly reduced as production got under way, and this reduction would reflect greater efficiency in the use of real resources with corresponding increases in physical productive capacity. In view of all the uncertainties in the spring and summer of 1942—the manifold problems of industrial conversion to war production, the constant flux in prices and costs, repeated changes in the composition of military requirements, and so on ad infinitum—Somervell considered it premature to rely on tentative national income estimates as the basis for a major reduction in the program, and he was optimistic in the matter of increased output and improved distribution of essential materials. Moreover, in common with President Roosevelt, Somervell believed in the efficacy of “incentive goals” as an important determinant of the nation’s productive capacity. Finally, there is no doubt that both Somervell and Patterson—in their role as champions of the military program—customarily assigned a lower importance to civilian claims upon the nation’s productive resources than they did to military requirements.
By the fall of 1942, however, the war economy had become sufficiently developed and stabilized to permit the satisfactory resolution of the Feasibility Dispute. The substantial completion of industrial conversion to war production, the corresponding development and stabilization of governmental war agencies, the steadily augmented and
refined flow of statistical and other information, and the growing crisis in material shortages and the administration of material control systems all converged in late 1942 to force as well as to permit the necessary cutbacks in military programs. It is questionable whether intelligent and appropriate adjustments thereto could have been achieved much sooner in the absence of the necessary underlying conditions.
After coming to a head in October 1942, the controversy over feasibility rapidly subsided, and its resolution marked the widespread acceptance of one of the most significant lessons to be learned from the World War II industrial mobilization experience. This was the painful but unavoidable conclusion that even the U.S. economy, great as it was, could not undertake widely unattainable production objectives without slowing down production all along the line. The resolution of the Feasibility Dispute was soon followed by the successful adoption of the Controlled Materials Plan and collateral measures to ration the nation’s industrial capacity for the achievement of balanced procurement objectives.
The War Department Procurement Review Board
A second major development during the life of the Army Supply Program occurred in connection with the review of War Department procurement activities during the summer and fall of 1943, when the war economy was approaching peak production. Early in the summer of 1943, the newly established top-level coordinating agency—the Office of War Mobilization (OWM)—requested each of the major procuring agencies to appoint a board of review to examine the composition of its requirement programs in terms of essentiality and balance and to make recommendations concerning the control and efficiency of procurement as a whole.40 The War Department Procurement Review Board (WDPRB) was appointed as a result of this request. The Procurement Review Board studied the strategic plans of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the background of the Army Supply Program, and the current status of requirements, procurement activities, and inventories of finished matériel. In the course of its activities, the board made two field trips and interviewed some seventythree witnesses including War Department officials concerned with military requirements and procurement. The board’s report of sixty-eight pages and associated material, submitted on 31 August 1943, furnishes excellent insight into the problems, achievements, and shortcomings of the Army’s supply system at the peak of its World War II procurement program.41
In general, the board found that the Army’s supply operations were successful: “No approved operation has been hampered by shortage. The quality of equipment has been good. All those connected with design, procurement, production, and distribution are to be commended on the
results.”42 The board noted “a war cannot be run like an industry; the criterion is not low costs but victory. The enemy is resourceful: changes in strategy and equipment are constantly necessary—regardless of expense in money and materials—if the enemy is to be countered vigilantly, driven to the defensive, and finally overwhelmed.”43
On the debit side, the board felt that the time had come for a much more adequate screening of requirements, especially for certain categories of supply. It found the Quartermaster Corps’ ninety-day reserve supply of nonperishable food in the United States too high; the nation’s food-raising capacity and a transportation system insuring quick movement, the board believed, would permit a substantial reduction in zone of interior reserves. The Army’s methods of determining requirements for ammunition came in for particularly heavy criticism. The use of the “day of supply” concept, with arbitrary estimates of probable expenditures per gun, had resulted in the building up of huge reserves of ammunition:
Our stocks of small arms ammunition are now measured in billions of rounds. If we continue to produce on the basis of assumed figures which are widely variant from actual expenditures, our reserves of ammunition will soon be astronomical. They are now tremendous. The on-hand stock of small arms ammunition in this country amounts to some 2.5 billion rounds. In reserve in North Africa is an additional 1.4 billion rounds.
The Board is convinced that the War Department must take steps to bring production of ammunition and stocks of ammunition into the realm of reality.44
Extending its observations to the matter of reserve supplies in general, WDPRB noted an increase in the value of major ASF items in storage from $2 billion to $4 billion during the period December 1942 to June 1943. Specific examples included stocks of gas masks (from 500,000 to 1,800,000) and demolition bombs (from 346,000 tons to 800,000 tons). Accordingly, the board recommended greater attention to inventory control and a thorough restudy of reserve levels.45
A further target of the board’s criticism was the automatic supply of equipment to troops and organizations on the basis of established tables of allowances without distinction between different theaters and often without serious consideration of the actual usefulness of the equipment under specific circumstances. The report pointed out that complete organizational transport equipment was furnished to units on Pacific islands where roads still had to be hacked out of the jungle. Similarly, the board observed that 155-mm. howitzers, highly essential in ordinary terrain, might be entirely too cumbersome for the mountain roads of the Balkans. Complex radio equipment suitable for trained American troops was probably not practicable for Chinese troops supplied on a divisional basis by the U.S. Army. Furnishing full allowances of ground radio equipment to air squadrons in England appeared to be gratuitous since the British communications network could be used.46
The board also noted a repetition of the World War I tendency to overequip the individual American soldier:
In the last war the American soldier and many of his units were overequipped. As a result, the first engagement or extended march saw French villages and French roads
Heavily burdened soldiers debarking at Phosphate Pier, Casablanca
littered with discarded equipment. The Board senses that a similar situation exists in this war.
A visit to the New York Port of Embarkation provided visual evidence. It was a hot July evening and troops on a North River pier were pouring aboard a transport. As they went up the gangplank, bowed down with the weight of their equipment, they looked like pack mules. They carried their weapons, a full pack, a barracks bag, an overcoat, and an antigas suit. An additional barracks bag for each soldier already had been stowed in the ship’s hold.47
These observations were pointed up with the statement that “the issue of equipment to individuals and units simply because the documentary tables call for it is sheer waste.”48
Still another condition observed by the board was the failure to curtail construction and supply operations in obsolete theaters of operations:
No nation is rich enough or productive enough to supply and maintain battlefronts where there is no longer a battle.
The Caribbean area is a case in point. In the dark days of 1940 when it appeared possible that Germany might overrun Europe and Western Africa, when there was at least reasonable doubt as to the continued availability of the British fleet, we embarked on a program of bases in the Caribbean. When the tide of war turned in our favor, the need for these bases became less pressing. Nevertheless, construction of bases for large garrisons continued. Today we have in these areas “ghost” camps which cost more than $200,000,000 and which were laid out for garrisons that will probably never be there. It appears evident that the difficulties encountered in the Caribbean will be repeated on a much larger scale in North Africa unless strong measures of control are taken forthwith to prevent such repetition.49
A similar illustration was the continuation of 1940 plans for modernization of U.S. harbor and seacoast defenses. Although it had been revised downward from time to time, the program still contemplated the completion of twenty-two 16-inch and eight 12-inch gun batteries in addition to fifty 6-inch gun batteries. In the light of current conditions, the board doubted the wisdom of the heavy gun program, particularly since it involved the manufacture and installation of mechanical and electrical components requiring the highest type of workmanship and shop facilities badly needed throughout the war production program. The board therefore recommended the reexamination and curtailment of the seacoast heavy gun program.50
Many of the recommendations of the Procurement Review Board had been put into effect by the time of its report.51 A major consequence of the report was the appointment by the Deputy Chief of Staff on 3 September 1943 of the Special Committee for the Re-Study of Reserves. This committee, known as the Richards Committee after the name of the chairman (Brig. Gen. George J. Richards), was charged with the responsibility for the resurvey of five specific areas of requirements determination: (1) the strategic reserve; (2) theater reserves; (3) stockpiles in the United States; (4) day of supply; (5) maintenance, distribution, and shipping loss factors.
Like the Procurement Review Board, the Richards Committee conducted intensive hearings and studies and submitted its report within a two-month period. While it warned that the heaviest fighting of the war still lay in the future, the committee also found the Army’s current requirements estimates excessive and made numerous recommendations for their reduction. It also suggested the adoption of improved procedures in gathering pertinent data and in computing and screening requirements. The committee’s fifty-seven specific recommendations were incorporated in whole or in part in a general implementing directive issued by the Deputy Chief of Staff on 1 January 1944. The McNarney Directive made a number of important changes in procedure as well as substance, transferring certain functions
from the Army Service Forces to the Supply Division of the General Staff.52
The general result of the reports of both the Procurement Review Board and the Richards Committee was a broad reduction in Army requirements together with increased attention to the improvement of the procedures for requirements determination. The reports had the effect of expediting the development of the Supply Control System, which gradually replaced the Army Supply Program in the last year and a half of the war.
The Supply Control System
By the end of 1943, procurement of initial equipment for the expanding Army was for the most part complete and stocks of munitions in many categories had reached comfortable or even excessive levels. After the report of the Richards Committee and the ensuing McNarney Directive, the ASF took steps to refine its methods of determining requirements and to bring into balance all stages of the procurement and distribution process. On 28 January 1944, Maj. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, Director of Materiel, indicated to all his staff divisions the need for many changes in procedure and announced that specific instructions would soon be issued.53
The new instructions issued on 7 March may be regarded as launching the Army’s Supply Control System.54 The basic purpose of the procedures established by the new system was to improve and coordinate four related activities: (1) requirements determination; (2) revision of procurement schedules; (3) distribution and issue of matériel; and (4) the disposal of surpluses. All items of procurement were to be divided into two control groups: Principal (P items) and Secondary (S items). P items were those which were important from a military or monetary standpoint and which fell into either or both of the following categories: (1) central control necessary because of production considerations (lengthy production “lead time” or controls over materials, components, manpower, facilities); (2) past issue experience inadequate for the computation of requirements (sporadic or special project issues). S items included all matériel not specifically listed as P items. Classification of items was made the responsibility of the technical service chiefs, who were directed to submit by 15 March 1944 lists of all items under their cognizance to be designated as P items. It was anticipated that many items in the P category would eventually shift into the S group as control procedures were perfected. Requirements for P items were to be carefully reviewed at least once quarterly and individually listed as long-range procurement objectives in the Army Supply Program. Requirements for S items were to be grouped in item or dollar categories deemed appropriate by the technical services for publication in ASP.
The new approach to requirements determination for all items was based on “supply
and demand studies” to be conducted by the technical services. The total demand for each item was described as consisting of two elements: future issue requirements and total authorized stock levels. Future issue requirements were to be based wherever possible on recent issue experience. It was considered that this basis would be appropriate for most S items. The majority of P items, on the other hand, were not expected to possess stable rates of issue and requirements for these would have to be based on equipment tables and other data previously used in computing the Army Supply Program. In all cases, current and past issue data were to be accumulated and used in conjunction with other information in forecasting future needs. The total authorized stock level for a given item was defined as the quantitative sum of all stockage authorized to be physically held within the continental United States for depot distribution as reserves. Reserve levels were established at forty-five days of supply for the zone of interior and sixty days for theaters of operations distribution, plus certain special reserve categories.55
From the sum of estimated future issues and total authorized stock levels was to be deducted total stock on hand; the remainder indicated a “desired total receipts schedule.” Against this schedule was to be matched total expected receipts from contracts in force, overseas procurement, reclamation schedules, and any other sources. The difference between desired and expected total receipts—that is, shortages or excesses—represented the “desired adjustment.” Indicated shortages were to be overcome by augmenting procurement schedules; excesses were to be dealt with by curtailment of procurement and, where appropriate, by disposal action. The new system focused attention upon supply and demand at depots in the United States through which the distribution of all Army supplies was actually or theoretically channeled. Moreover, the system would force the coordination of all aspects of Army supply—requirements, procurement, distribution and issue, reclamation, stock control, and disposal of surpluses.56
The inauguration of the new system, soon to be known officially as the Supply Control System, required Herculean efforts. Major changes in organizations and procedures were necessary. In June 1944 the Requirements Division, formerly under the Director of Materiel, ASF, was merged with the Supply Control Division, formerly under the Director of Supply, ASF. The resulting new Requirements and Stock Control Division was placed in the Office of the Director of Plans and Operations. The rationale behind these changes was threefold: (1) Feasibility considerations were no longer a serious limitation upon general requirements, hence retention of the function of requirements determination by the office concerned with production matters—the Director of Materiel—was no longer required; (2) the great importance of inventories at this stage of the war called for the closest relationship between requirements determination and stock control; (3) this consolidated activity could best be directed from the highest planning echelon of ASF, where major plans originated for the pending shift from a two-front to a one-front war, with implications of drastic changes in requirements.57
In order to carry out the purposes of the Supply Control System, planners devised an elaborate scheme of forms and records to permit the accumulation of up-to-date information on all elements and phases of the supply and demand situation. For P items the basic supply-control Long Form (WD AGO Form 0470) was developed. This form, which underwent a number of revisions, brought together on one page all important supply and demand information for the procurement item concerned, time phased by months for the three months preceding and following the date of estimate, and by quarters thereafter. For S items, stock record cards or supply-control short forms were maintained by each technical service. The general instructions governing the Supply Control System were published and revised in successive editions of ASF M-413, which superseded ASF Circular 67.58
The number of principal items under supply control coverage rose from 950 in August 1944 to nearly 1,900 by March 1945, when it accounted for approximately 80 percent of the total dollar value of ASF procurement. In December 1944 it was decided that all P items should be reviewed monthly and that the supply computations resulting therefrom would be published in the Monthly Progress Report, MPR-20 series. Thereafter the monthly progress reports took the place of the semiannual revisions of the Army Supply Program, and the 1 October 1944 edition of ASP (originally scheduled for 1 August 1944) was the last to be published. This final edition of the Army Supply Program contained requirements developed under SCS procedures and thus effected a transition to the new system.
Each monthly supply computation for the 1,900 principal items, initially performed by the technical services, was critically appraised in a “review meeting” attended by requirements, production, and distribution personnel from the technical services and ASF staff divisions. Representatives of the divisions were authorized to take final approval action for their respective agencies, and the computations as revised in review meetings became the official basis for publication in the monthly progress report. This procedure not only eliminated an enormous quantity of paper work but permitted a degree of staff coordination never before achieved. Furthermore, the 1,900 principal items published in MPF-20 represented a considerable reduction from the 4,500 items formerly listed individually in each semiannual recomputation of ASP.59
Secondary items under the Supply Control System numbered about 900,000 but constituted only 20 percent of the dollar value of ASF procurement. Spare parts accounted for the major share of secondary-item procurement, and in March 1944 the Spare Parts Branch of the Requirements Division was established to coordinate various requirements, procurement, and distribution activities relating to spare parts. This branch did much to improve the flow of information as well as the formulation
and execution of procurement policy in the field of its activity. In view of the large number and lower importance of S items, requirements thereof were at first reviewed only quarterly. In the spring of 1945, however, it was found that stocks and prescribed stock levels of secondary items amounted to some five billion dollars, or nearly a year’s supply. Inasmuch as tactical plans for the remainder of the war indicated a substantial decrease in the rate of issue demand, a comprehensive survey of secondary items was ordered by the Commanding General, ASF.60 The governing directive called for the suspension of procurement deliveries or the cancellation of contracts for items exceeding specified levels and ordered prompt redistribution and disposal action for all items reaching redistribution and disposal levels. Within four weeks the Office, Chief of Ordnance—Detroit, in response to the directive, completed the review of 216,303 secondary items, revealing stocks valued at $145,718,021 to be in excess of disposal levels. This so-called blitz review for all technical services covered more than 600,000 items and resulted in the cancellation of $491 million in procurement and the declaration of $334 million in property as excess.61
Continued attention to secondary items, highlighted by various directives, meetings, and visits of ASF personnel to stock control points, revealed that 6 percent of the more than 900,000 secondary items accounted for 80 percent of total annual procurement of these items. On 3 July 1945 an elaborate directive was issued calling for accurate monthly progress reports for secondary items to be published as MPR-19, Secondary Items. The purpose of the directive was to bring increased pressure to bear upon the services in reducing procurement and effecting disposal actions, as well as to accumulate timely information. The first presentation of the supply position of secondary items on a monthly basis appeared in MPR-19, dated 30 June 1945. This publication, which covered some 833,000 secondary items, revealed that the value of the total stock on hand as of 30 June 1945 amounted to $3,194,000,000—a notable reduction from the estimate of $5 billion in the Somerville directive of 21 April 1945.62
The Supply Control System represented the final stage of the Army’s organization and procedure for controlling procurement in World War II. Like the Army Supply Program, the Supply Control System was the focal point of all the Army’s procurement and supply operations. But it was far more comprehensive and detailed than ASP. Instead of providing only annual production targets, revised twice a year, SCS contained monthly and quarterly details and was recomputed and republished each month. Instead of showing only requirements and stocks on hand at the beginning of each year, SCS showed the supply as well as the demand position of each item for each
time period involved. Also, SCS provided for all its users a wealth of detail formerly available only in the work sheets of the various offices responsible for compiling the Army Supply Program. The SCS Long Form for each principal item was a masterpiece of economy and arrangement for the presentation of comprehensive information on a single page. Divided into seven major areas,63 as well as additional data sections, the Long Form contained individual spaces for nearly five hundred statistical entries. In addition to showing data for the detailed components of supply and demand for each time period, the Long Form contained an abundance of information such as the unit cost of the item, procurement lead time, supply classification, approved substitutes, replacement factors for each theater of operations, and special remarks.
The adoption of the Supply Control System was not without attendant disadvantages. Some of these were administrative in nature but others were substantive difficulties arising out of the basic character of the system itself. The task of preparing the elaborate assemblage of information and summaries once each month—especially in the developmental stages of the system—was a major ordeal for technical service personnel, requiring feverish efforts and long hours of overtime and leaving little opportunity for careful and considered review of the resulting estimates. More serious was the fact that marked, and sometimes violent, fluctuations in procurement schedules resulted from adjusting procurement to monthly changes in requirements estimates. Early in 1945 the chief of the Procurement Division, Office of the Chief of Engineers, pointed up the consequences for Engineer procurement: “Production items cannot be handled on a 30-day ‘stop and go’ basis, primarily because of the lead time required and secondarily ... because labor gets away from us never to return.”64 Fortunately, there were saving circumstances which minimized the consequences during the remainder of World War II. First, the overburdened technical services were slow in changing procurement schedules during the early months of SCS.65 Secondly, as indicated in the following pages, by this stage of the war the trend of requirements for the great majority of all items was progressively downward, resulting for the most part in one-directional changes in procurement schedules.
The Supply Control System was developed in coincidence with the substantial increase in contract terminations during the final year of the war and greatly facilitated the making of termination decisions. Throughout 1943 it had been official policy under the Army Supply Program to keep to a minimum cutbacks in production and their resulting dislocations: “Because of the cost, difficulty and delay which result from changes in production schedules which have been agreed upon, and which are now serving as the bases for determining raw material allocations, the general policy established for the 1 August 1943 revision of Section I
of the Army Supply Program is to make no changes in required production for 1943 except where deemed absolutely necessary.”66 Peak production had been achieved by the end of 1943 only through heroic measures on the part of industry and government alike. With military requirements ultimately needed for the invasion of Europe still in doubt, the partial dismantling of the nation’s productive machine so painfully created over a period of three years was considered to be an unnecessary and foolhardy proceeding. Hence, even though stocks of many items were accumulating beyond short-run needs, production cutbacks throughout 1943 were confined mainly to major items of imbalance, such as tanks, for which basic changes in organization and strategy had led to permanently reduced requirements. By mid-1944 the situation had materially altered. The new supply control procedures as well as independent studies indicated a fairly general over-accumulation of inventories and the consequent desirability of readjusting procurement schedules. The authorization of production in advance of scheduled requirements was prohibited except for special circumstances, and increasing numbers of contracts were terminated.67 (See Table 60, page 696.)
Demobilization Requirements
During the last year of the war the necessity for demobilization planning placed heavy burdens upon requirements personnel while they were still in the throes of the change-over to the Supply Control System. Initial planning for demobilization had begun, however, many months before the adoption of the Supply Control System. On 7 October 1943, the Requirements Division, ASF, issued instructions to the chiefs of the technical services calling for the computation of a Special Army Supply Program for Demobilization Planning. These instructions established the basic concepts and procedures to be used in formulating requirements for the stages of demobilization following victory in Europe and the subsequent victory in the Pacific. The initial stage—the period of a one-front war following V-E Day—was described as Period I. The final stage of demobilization following the defeat of Japan was designated as Period II, although no computations for Period II, as such, were made in the several series of Army demobilization plans. For purposes of the initial “dry-run” or experimental computation, Period I was assumed to last for one year and Period II for six months. Hypothetical dates for V-E and V-J Days were assumed as 31 December 1943 and 1944, respectively.68
The resulting special computation of ASP for demobilization planning purposes was published on 1 December 1943. In general the methods of computing requirements for Period I were similar to those already in use in connection with the two-front war. Initial-issue, replacement, and distribution requirements were computed for the forces assumed to exist in the zone of interior and overseas at the end of Period I.
The basic differences from the regular ASP stemmed from problems relating to redeployment and demobilization. In the first special computation, it was assumed that the Army as a whole would shrink by 2,059,000 men (from 7,670,000 to 5,611,000) during Period I. This would reflect decreases from 5,465,000 to 2,246,000 men in the continental United States and possessions, and from 1,532,000 to 529,000 in the European-African area. Deployment to the Pacific-Asiatic area on the other hand would raise the strength in that area from 673,000 to 2,836,000. An even rate of demobilization of the 2,059,000 men was assumed during Period I, as well as an even rate of expansion to maximum strength in the Pacific-Asiatic area during the same period. These changes in troop strength introduced special considerations, since maintenance and severance allowances had to be provided for demobilized units and since large-scale redeployment to the Pacific area created novel requirements for transportation and special operational projects in addition to normal differences in the needs of separate theaters on opposite sides of the globe.
The second special computation of demobilization requirements appeared on 1 October 1944, the date of the final edition of the regular Army Supply Program. Period I for this computation was designated as the twelve months following 1 October 1944. The second special computation, like the first, was limited to Period I and was also merely a dry-run computation designed more to provide increased experience in demobilization planning than to arrive at anything like firm estimates of demobilization requirements. The directive ordering the second recomputation was far more detailed and realistic than its predecessor. In addition to carrying special instructions tailored to the needs of individual technical services, it included plans for disposing of supplies in theaters, en route to theaters, at ports, en route to ports, and elsewhere. Also, it made more specific provision for establishing peacetime war reserves of equipment to be held in the United States for possible future mobilization needs. Since the new computation was based on a special Demobilization Planning Troop Basis, it reflected later developments in troop redeployment planning for the demobilization period.69
By the end of 1944 it was evident that the time was rapidly drawing near when firm demobilization requirements would have to be determined as the actual basis for procurement. Also, by this time the Supply Control System had been developed to the point where it was about to replace ASP completely; all future requirements would then have to be stated within the framework of SCS. On 8 January 1945 the Requirements and Stock Control Division called for a new computation of Period I requirements, this time to be performed under SCS procedures and published as a special edition of the Monthly Progress Report series. The ensuing publication reflected the elaborate accumulation of redeployment and demobilization plans which had been developed
with increasing intensity since the summer of 1944.70
The 31 January 1945 computation of demobilization requirements assumed the cessation of hostilities in Europe on 30 June 1945 and a Period I duration of eighteen months thereafter. Computations were based on the War Department Troop Deployment and Supply Supplement of 1 December 1944. As before, even rates of demobilization and redeployment were assumed, but in the absence of direct redeployment data it was assumed that all troop redeployment from Europe to the Pacific would take place via continental United States. This meant that for requirements planning purposes all troops destined for the Pacific area would be completely reequipped within the United States. All theaters were classified as active or inactive, and stock levels, replacement rates, and other determinants of requirements were modified and applied in accordance with this revised theater status. Timephased estimates were made of the percentage of recovery of all important initial equipment in each inactive theater. Recoverable equipment, including repaired equipment, was included as assets in computing net requirements, with an estimated time for transshipment to depots in the United States of forty-five days from date of availability at either staging areas.71
The computation of 31 January 1945, as set forth in MPR-20-X, represented a major achievement in bringing together the multiplicity of plans and assumptions for redeployment and demobilization and in producing estimates of Period I requirements which would more closely approximate actual procurement needs after V-E Day. During the ensuing weeks these estimates were intensively studied, and on 11 March 1945 the Director of Plans and Operations presented to the Commanding General, ASF, a formal report on the adequacy of Period I supply plans. The report recommended that MPR-20-X be continually revised on an up-to-the-minute basis so that it could immediately become the authorized procurement program upon the announcement of V-E Day. The report also recommended that procurement be authorized at once on the basis of MPR-20-X where requirements for the one-front war exceeded existing requirements for the two-front war as carried in the regular MPR-20. There were numerous items, either peculiar to the Pacific area or required in greater proportions as a result of the build-up
in the Pacific, for which requirements would increase with the change from a two-front to a one-front war. These included construction materials and equipment for building roads, airfields, railways, housing, and dock and storage facilities; material-handling equipment; tentage and tarpaulins; special packaging, crating and preserving materials, as well as new issues of clothing and supplies of health protection equipment, all made necessary by climatic conditions in the Pacific area. Distribution requirements resulting from the longer supply lines, nearly three times the length of those to Europe, were likewise generally increased. Transportation requirements would be heavier under the double strain of demobilization and large-scale redeployment to the Far East.
The recommendations submitted to General Somervell were tentatively approved by him, subject to his personal approval later of all items and dollar values representing absolute increases for the one-front war. The 31 January 1945 MPR-20-X revealed 544 items for which one-front requirements exceeded those for a continued two-front war. These were subject to careful screening and on 31 March 1945 General Somervell approved for increased procurement a limited list of eighty-nine items.72
Events in the spring of 1945 rapidly converged to bring to an end the Army’s task of determining requirements for World War II. The spreading collapse of German resistance indicated that Allied victory in Europe was imminent. A new MPR-20-X to improve the statement of Period I requirements was ordered late in March and was published as of 31 March 1945. In this issue no specific date was assumed for V-E Day, and Period I was defined as the nineteen months following V-E Day. The publication reflected revised instructions for establishing stock levels and computing replacement requirements. The equipment reserve for Period I (the successor to the strategic reserve briefly discussed in a later section) was blanketed into the War Department’s planned war reserve for peacetime security. Greater attention was given to recoverable excesses of equipment in inactive theaters. Requirements for special operational projects in the Pacific were refined and time phased to provide for handling in theaters prior to operations. Numerous other considerations and refinements brought the 31 March issue of MPR-20-X into close conformity with actual procurement needs as they would materialize with the arrival of V-E Day.73
During the month of April 1945, various directives to the several technical services had the practical effect of adopting the 31 March 1945 MPR-20-X as the actual basis for procurement, and objectives based on the continuation of a two-front war were abandoned.74 These directives reduced total procurement objectives for 1945 and 1946 by nearly eight billion dollars and “constituted a major adjustment of the industrial front to meet the new conditions of Period I.”75 Earlier, during the last week
Table 21: Final Estimates of Army Procurement Requirements for World War II [In Billions]
| Date of Estimate* | 1945 | 1946 |
| 28 Feb 1945 | $27.7 | $22.7 |
| 31 Mar 1945 | 24.0 | 18.5 |
| 30 Apr 1945 | 21.6 | 16.2 |
| 31 May 1945 | 21.1 | 16.2 |
| 30 Jun 1945 | 19.7 | 14.8 |
* MPR-20 and MPR-20-X for indicated dates.
Source: ASF Monthly Progress Reports.
of March and the first two weeks of April, eighty-two uncompleted facility expansion projects, estimated to cost some $230 million and scheduled for full production after 1 September 1945, had been canceled. On 20 April 1945 additional instructions were issued to cancel virtually all facility expansions not required for Period I.76
Further important reductions in planned procurement were accomplished with the publication of MPR-20 of 30 April 1945. This was the first published program for the one-front war officially adopted as a basis for procurement, and the X designation was dropped. This issue reflected sharp reductions in the day of supply for ammunition, termination of production of the M4A3 tank, use of combined and generally lower replacement factors for the Pacific area, and the elimination of numerous requirements, including current unfilled demand for the European and Mediterranean theaters, initial equipment for French rearmament not supplied as of 30 April 1945, and reserves of arctic clothing and equipment. Other changes in addition to the foregoing resulted in cutbacks of combined 1945 and 1946 procurement objectives by nearly $5 billion.77 The last few months of the war witnessed a steady reduction in the Army’s computed requirements. (Table 21) The 30 June 1945 estimates were the last to be made for World War II.78 The arrival of V-J day in mid-August was the signal for the mass contract cancellations which brought the World War II procurement program to an end.