SURGEON GENERAL 1. Approximately 83 percent of Medical Department's contracts placed with small plants. Facilities with existing contracts have been requested to increase their subcontracting in order to further spread the load. 2. Recently W. P. B.'s representative recommended a small distressed bicycle manufacturer. Investigation disclosed their facilities were suitable for manufacture of dental chairs for which a substantial award was given them. 3. Facilities recommended by Smaller War Plants Division, W. P. B. recently received orders for dental hand pieces, long-handle dental instruments, and field surgical instruments. 4. On a recent procurement of bandages, surgical dressings and litter straps several women's garment manufacturers in New York distressed area converted their facilities and participated in this business. 5. Smaller War Plants Division have investigated the Marietta Dyestuffs Co., of Ohio and steps are being taken to have American Home Products give them a subcontract for intermediate chemicals. TRANSPORTATION CORPS 1. During period October 1 to November 23, Procurement Division awarded boat-building contracts aggregating $31,640,000 to small war plants, representing 100 percent of business placed during this period. 2. Additional facilities are constantly being surveyed in order to expand list of suitable and approved small-boat builders. Procurement, Engineering, and Construction Sections work closely with contractors and subcontractors in completion of their contracts. 3. Numerous boat-building concerns, some in operation but majority of which were about to close due to lack of work because of priorities and material shortages, have been kept in operation as result of Transportation Corps' program of spreading the load." 4. Some plants, far removed from ship construction, have converted their activities to marine work and are constructing and delivering barges, towboats, and floating cranes: (a) Pointer Willamette Trailer Equipment Co., Portland, Oreg., converted from trailer construction to barge and crane construction; (b) Dolomite Products Co., Rochester, N. Y., converted from general construction work to barge construction; (c) Kyle & Co., Fresno, Calif., converted from general construction work to barge construction; and (d) Kewanee Shipbuilding Co., Kewance, Wis., converted from manufacture of laboratory equipment to barge construction. SIGNAL CORPS 1. On a procurement of 2,170,000 flashlights, 200,000 were placed with the Usalite Co. and 200,000 with the Micro-Lite Co., both small firms in New York City. This represented 18 percent of the procurement, with a total dollar volume for small plants of $240,000. 2. Contracts are now being written for approximately $1,000,000 worth of steel towers, of which 50 percent will be placed with small plants. AFTERNOON SESSION (The committee resumed at 2 p. m., pursuant to recess.) The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Senator Millikin. Senator MILLIKIN. At the noon recess, General, we were in agreement that the fighting end of this war is being carried on in very excellent fashion, and there were some comments on the organization of the civilian effort. In the case of conflict between the material requirements of the strictly military, and those of the civilian side, who arbitrates or umpires that conflict? General SOMERVELL. It is done by the W. P. B. Senator MILLIKIN. By what body within the W. P. B.? General SOMERVELL. Primarily the Primarily the Requirements Committee. Now, the Requirements Committee is an advisory committee, and the entire voice in the thing is that of Mr. Eberstadt, who is the chairman of the committee, and he is an official of the W. P. B. Senator MILLIKIN. Is there an over-all plan in which the materials for a given period in advance are estimated in relation to manpower available and decisions made as to how those matters shall be allocated? General SOMERVELL. With reference to the manpower, you mean? Senator MILLIKIN. Yes. General SOMERVELL. That is divided between two agencies. One is the W. P. B., and the other is the Manpower Commission. Senator MILLIKIN. Now, how are those agencies brought together for discussion on those fields where their interests overlap-and I should think that there would be some very broad segments of the field where they would overlap. General SOMERVELL. I cannot give you the detailed arrangements they have for that. Both of those agencies are outside the jurisdiction of the War Department, and I have not gone into their relationships. ALLOCATION OF CONTRACTS IN RELATION TO AVAILABLE MANPOWER Senator MILLKIN. Now, in connection with your own job, where you have certain supply requirements, those of course are not operated in a vacuum. They must necessarily be related to available manpower? General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir. I can tell you how that works. General SOMERVELL. I can tell you how that works. The Manpower Commission has divided the country up into three different types of places: One, where there is sufficient manpower; two, where contracts for the next 6 months are considered; and three, where there is not sufficient manpower. Now, we have instructions from the W. P. B. that we are not to place any more orders in those areas where there is a manpower problem. For example, we have a contract that we intended to place in a location where there is a shortage of manpower. We are guided by the findings of the Manpower Commission that there is a shortage of manpower in that place, and consequently we look to another place. Now, that is regular routine. The CHAIRMAN. General, does not that create some difficulties in some instances where there may happen to be some small plants? General SOMERVELL. We have made an exception there, on plants employing less than 100 persons. Senator MILLIKIN. Assume a mythical case, General: The military has decided that it will have a definite campaign some place some time in the future, and that this will require certain tanks and ships and planes and certain guns, and so forth and so on. That of course involves the question of whether the labor is available to make up that materiel program. General SOMERVELL. That is right. Senator MILLIKIN. Do you concern yourself with that, or do you tell them what you want to do, and it proceeds to get done, or not get done? General SOMERVELL. No, sir.. The way that works is this: The Army and the Navy and the Maritime Commission, which are the three war-making agencies, so to speak, plus Lend-Lease, have prepared their programs. These programs are submitted to the W. P.B., and the W. P. B. has come back and stated what it feels is the country's capacity to produce. Our programs are then looked over, and the joint Chiefs of Staff decide, if there must be a cut, where that cut would be. In other words, whether the airplanes or the tanks or cargo ships or tankers or what not. Then we resubmit that to Mr. Nelson, stating that that is the program that the Chiefs of Staff have approved within the capacity or about the capacity that he has indicated as the country's limit. Then we have a program which is pretty well balanced against the country's potential. The problem after that becomes one of dividing up the resources. within the country's potential among the claiming agencies in accordance with this program which has been approved by the joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, when we schedule within our own groups the various things that we want to make, we decide how much .30 caliber ammunition, and how much .50 caliber, and what kind of machine guns and mortars and tanks and so forth. That of course is subject to change to meet the changes in the war. Now, you cannot write out a general strategy the way you would plan a program for the week end, because the other fellow is involved. In other words, there is an opponent, and you have to change your strategy to conform to his disposition. For that reason, there have to be changes in these schedules to meet the changes in warfare. It is just like on the football field. You see a hole in the line, and you go through that hole. Now, those things are of course based on a very carefully worked out plan, but the plan is flexible enough so that you can take care of opportunities when they arise, and the production has to be geared right into that. Senator MILLIKIN. As I understood from your testimony this morning, you have insisted upon the right to follow through your own requisitions that are approved through the process of manufacture? General SOMERVELL. That is correct, sir; that is, we will have it under this Controlled Materials Plan. Senator MILLIKIN. And I understood it is your definite opinion that that could not be handled as efficiently, or more efficiently, under, let us say, civilian direction. General SOMERVELL. Under any other arrangement, whatever it is. AN OVER-ALL STRATEGY BOARD SUGGESTED Senator MILLIKIN. Is there such a thing at the present time, General, as an over-all strategy board that determines our materieĺ questions, our manpower questions, our economic questions, and our military questions in relation to each other? General SOMERVELL. There is not any board of that kind, for such a board would usurp the functions of the Chief Executive, and he has reporting to him agencies which handle all of these things. Senator MILLIKIN. Now, I am interested in your remark that that would usurp the functions of the Chief Executive. Of course, as a practical matter we all know that the President is a very harassed and a very busy man, and that it is too much to expect that he could take an intimate, constant, active direction of the details of the civilian or of any part of the war effort. Would not our minds run together on that? General SOMERVELL. Oh, yes; but you asked me for the over-all, and not for the parts. Senator MILLIKIN. And now would it not in your opinion be the thing to have, directly under the President, and, of course, responsive to the President, let us call it an over-all board made up of representatives of the military, perhaps consisting of the heads of the War Production Branch, the Economic Stabilization Branch, the Manpower Branch, and all interests having a right to be represented would be on such a board, and such a board would be under a top director who in turn would be immediately answerable to the President. Would that not be an efficient step? General SOMERVELL. You would have a good many layers introduced if you had such a system, which might well make for delays rather than otherwise. In other words, if you have to get, or rather if the Chiefs of Staff had to get approval from some board before they could conduct a campaign, it obviously would militate very strenuously against the efficient conduct of the war. Senator MILLIKIN. Of course, I would not have anything of that kind in mind as the proper function for that board. As I see it, that board, if you want to call it that, or call it office, or something else, or anything else you want to call it, would sit there, composed of representatives of these important agencies like Manpower, and like Économic Stabilization, and like the War Production Board, for the consideration of the over-all programs, the over-all resources of the country, and material and manpower. It naturally would have before it what you gentlemen have projected as possible future military needs, and it would have before it the essentials of civilian economy that would have to be maintained, and thus operating together as a board by the intimate exchange of experience and knowledge and working as any other efficient body of that kind works, do you not think that we could perhaps get a more efficient war effort? General SOMERVELL. We already have such a board-the Cabinet of the President of the United States. Senator MILLIKIN. I thought that we agreed that the President would not be charged with the enormous amount of detail and work connected with the thing that we are talking about. General SOMERVELL. You asked me about a board, now, and now the board is the Cabinet. The extent to which the President wants to personally intervene, in any such matters, I think is something that could safely be left to him. Senator MILLIKIN. I speak strictly from a personal view; I should never suggest anything of that kind, and the President himself apparently does not like the idea, for he has not made this Cabinet his war board. And since the President does not want to work in that way, would it not be a more efficient thing, rather than to have what at least appears to be a lot of uncoordinated agencies falling over each other's feet, would it not be a better thing to have the heads of those agencies meet in a common board, a board with over-all responsibilities, headed, let us say, by a director, all responsible to the President? General SOMERVELL. Well, you are getting a little over my head, Senator. That is something that I think ought to come from the President and not from an Army officer. Senator MILLIKIN. Well, you have had a superb experience in the direction of a part of this war effort, and I think it would be a shame if we did not have the benefit of any views that you can give us on that. General SOMERVELL. My views, sir, are directly connected with the military effort. We have not got into this civilian part of it, and we do not want to get into it. Now, I am convinced Senator MILLIKIN. Might I interrupt you, General, but what you have just said is the thing that is the fear of most of the Congressmen in this Congress, and it is the fear of many of our people, that the military is oblivious of the civilian end of the thing. General SOMERVELL. There has been a good deal of propaganda to that effect, but there has been absolutely nothing to base it on. The military so far have made no efforts to invade the civilian field. As I tried to outline this morning, we have for 20 years recommended a War Resources Board, a civilian agency, which was to swallow up the military agency, the Army and Navy Munitions Board, and we have maintained that for 20 years, and our position has never varied. There is no basis whatsoever for any feeling to the contrary. There has been no act of ours, overt or otherwise, in that direction. CURTAILMENT OF NONESSENTIALS NECESSARY TO AN ALL-OUT WAR EFFORT Now, the military have been very insistent, however, in trying to obtain an attitude on the part of everybody connected with carrying on this war to this effect: This war is a war for survival. We either win it or our civilization perishes. That is the basis on which we start. We like our civilization, and we like our form of government, and we are willing to fight for it, and we are willing to die for it. insist that if the war is to be won, that we must make an all-out effort, that every force and every bit of strength that this Nation. possesses must be directed into military channels and so directed as to make the maximum impact on the enemy. uses. We Now, under those circumstances, we have been impatient and intolerant of providing gasoline for Johnnie to take his girl out for a Sunday afternoon automobile ride, or putting steel into new movie houses, or diverting other critical materials for absolutely nonessential We have taken that position. We still have it, and I will say this, Senator, that you will remember that prior to Pearl Harbor there was a divided feeling in the community, that there was a great deal of business as usual. There was a great deal of impatience with anyone who wanted to interfere with Mr. Smith's business. Some of that persisted after Pearl Harbor. There was in our opinion not quite the drive on the part of some people who were connected with the civilian side of this to curtail those things which actually were nonessential. I am very happy to say that I do not think that persists any longer. I think that is pretty well out of the picture. Now, the only reason I bring it up is that may be an explanation of some of this stuff, but insofar as our wanting to run the Nation is concerned, we want to be allowed to run our part of it, and that is all. |