General SOMERVELL. That means that I have been shown a compilation by the War Production Board of vital materials, which indicates that there will be enough of them.

Mr. FULTON. By that you mean, then, that the present materials that are being used for those other purposes that I enumerated and for essential civilian needs, will have to be transferred to Army use in order to operate these plants at capacity?

General SOMERVELL. I do not mean anything of the kind.
Mr. FULTON. Where are you going to get the materials?

General SOMERVELL. We are going to get them right where we are getting them now.

Mr. FULTON. How can you get a material that you cannot get now without taking it away from someone who now has it?

General SOMERVELL. Well, there are a great many things that are going on, Mr. Fulton. We had a big construction program this year which we will not have next year, a very big one, and we had certain demands for certain items, for example, steel, which we will not have next year, and we have made great progress in handling of alloys, so as to reduce our alloy requirements. We have made great progress in substitution, we are changing from brass cartridge cases to steel cartridge cases, and so on, and we changed from machinings, which require a lot of man-hours and a lot of waste, to stampings, and things of that kind.

Mr. FULTON. With those changes, you believe that you will be able to operate every finished facility that the Army has constructed or has under construction?

General SOMERVELL. We will be able to operate if we get the materials as now set up.

Mr. FULTON. But how are you going to get the materials over and above the quantities that you are getting now, except from these other agencies?

General SOMERVELL. Well, just as I told you.

Mr. FULTON. That will be sufficient?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, according to the figures that I was given yesterday.

Mr. FULTON. Without taking it from the purposes that I enumerated, such as Lend-Lease, and Agriculture?

General SOMERVELL. They are all in there.

Mr. FULTON. And essential civilian?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You think that we are sitting all right with reference to the essential raw materials?

General SOMERVELL. It looks, sir, with the Controlled Materials Plan, which will go into operation about the 1st of March, as if our raw materials requirements are possible of fulfillment; yes, sir.

Now, there has been a change in emphasis on some parts of the program, and some of the facilities will be shifted over to other things, but the program as it is laid out now looks to be susceptible of accomplishment.

FURLOUGHING SOLDIERS TO MINE CRITICAL METALS

The CHAIRMAN. Is there any speeding up of production of these scarce materials like copper?

68053-43-pt. 11-14

General SOMERVELL. I will tell you what has been done on copper, sir. We have registered the urgency of copper with the War Production Board, and they in turn with the copper-producing companies. The first bottleneck appeared to be manpower, and we furloughed something like 45,000 soldiers to the mines, to produce copper, tungsten, and zinc.

The CHAIRMAN. In doing that you almost ruined me in the last election. They brought into my home town of Butte, Mont., a large aggregation of colored miners from down South; after having taken out the Butte miners from their homes and put them into the Army, they brought these fellows in, and it raised hell with me. [Laughter.] General SOMERVELL. The Butte boys had a chance to go back.

Mr. FULTON. Is that a temporary condition, General Somervell? General SOMERVELL. No; the demands for labor in these mines will continue, and the Manpower Board has got that before it, and is taking action.

Mr. FULTON. Now, will that also arise with respect to other basic commodities?

General SOMERVELL. There will be shortages here and there, but there should not be any so critical as in the case of these nonferrous metals.

Mr. FULTON. In connection with a situation like that, where there will be a permanent need for those men, what justification is there for keeping them in the Army if they are to be permanently furloughed?

General SOMERVELL. Well, if they do not stay in the copper mines, they will go back to soldiering. The only reason for letting them out of the Army was to mine copper, and if they want to go farming sweetpotatoes, we will put them back in the Army.

Mr. FULTON. While mining, are they receiving soldier pay or civilian pay?

General SOMERVELL. They are receiving miners' pay, they were all selected by the miners themselves, all of the arrangements were made between the men direct, and the miners' representatives.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I wanted to learn. The mining corporations, then, in touch with the Army, had hired these men, and brought them to the places where they were to be put to work?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir; we assembled them, sir, in, I think, two places, one in Wisconsin, and I have forgotten where the other

was.

The CHAIRMAN. And they had to be hired at those places before they left?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. So that they were on the pay roll then of the corporations that were going to utilize them from the moment that they left?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Will the same thing be done for farmers, in the agricultural need, during the harvest season?

General SOMERVELL. We will have to come to that when we get to it.

Mr. FULTON. And with all of that, and with your plans, is it still the expectation of the Army to use whatever your latest figure, your

published figure, I thought 7%1⁄2 million in the Army, will you have an Army of that size yet or are you planning on a reduction?

General SOMERVELL. I do not care to discuss that.

Mr. FULTON. But you do have the problem that in order to get these production goals, you must have the basic raw materials, and the manpower to run the plants?

General SOMERVELL. That is right.

Mr. FULTON. As well as conform to all other requirements?
General SOMERVELL. That is right.

Mr. FULTON. Do you personally consider that the shipping would be in balance for an Army of that size?

General SOMERVELL. Of course it is going to be in balance for an Army that size, insofar as our productive capacity will make it.

Mr. FULTON. Well, of course, the latter is quite a limitation.

General SOMERVELL. Of course it is. We are not setting up an unbalanced program insofar as shipping is concerned. We would be idiots to do that.

Mr. FULTON. It is your opinion that you would be able to ship such an Army consistent with your Lease-Lend obligations within the next year?

General SOMERVELL. Of course, our shipping is in balance for the troops we plan to have overseas, or we would not be doing it. Mr. FULTON. I am glad to hear that that is your opinion. General SOMERVELL. Yes.

Mr. FULTON. It is not the opinion of many other people.

General SOMERVELL. Is anybody in the Army not of that opinion? Mr. FULTON. I have not asked the Army, except you. That is as a result of your study of all of these other requirements, such as Lend-Lease and Board of Economic Warfare to South America and elsewhere?

General SOMERVELL. Mr. Fulton, you continually try to put words in my mouth. Now, what I have said is that I am responsible for Army production and not Lend-Lease and essential civilian or the Navy or the Maritime Commission or anybody else.

I have been shown figures prepared by the War Production Board indicating that there will be sufficient critical materials to carry out the essential programs of all of the agencies for next year.

Senator ELLENDER. Well, General, at that point, I presume that you and your staff have made out what you term your requirements?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir.

Senator ELLENDER. And you have gone to the War Production Board and said, "This is what I will need for next year. Can I have it?" And you have been told that you can?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Based on that, you think that we can, with an Army of that size, equip and supply it and carry it with ships to a theater of action?

General SOMERVELL. I do not think that this is a subject for public discussion, Mr. Fulton.

Mr. FULTON. I am simply asking you whether you think it is a matter of balance.

General SOMERVELL. Do you want to tell the Germans how many men we are going to ship overseas?

Mr. FULTON. No; I want to know if it is in balance.

General SOMERVELL. Let us not discuss it.

Mr. FULTON. All right. Now, with respect to one other subject, in connection with the scarce materials, there is no question but what they are scarce?

General SOMERVELL. None whatever.

Mr. FULTON. Fuel oil and others?
General SOMERVELL. No question.

ARMY ECONOMIZES ON SCARCE MATERIALS

Mr. FULTON. There is just as much necessity for the Army to economize on the use of those materials wherever possible, as there is for civilians.

General SOMERVELL. That is correct.

Mr. FULTON. As a matter of fact, there is even greater reason.
General SOMERVELL. Why?

Mr. FULTON. Because the Army is using something which but for self-preservation ought to be applied to the well-being of the people who produced it.

General SOMERVELL. What do you think the Army is for? We are not a thing all out by ourselves, we are the people, we are of the people, we are fighting for the people.

Mr. FULTON. Certainly you are.

General SOMERVELL. And we are not something that is off in a compartment by itself; your brother, and your uncle, and your father, are in the Army.

Mr. FULTON. My father was in the Civil War; he is not in the Army. General SOMERVELL. He was in the Army, then, and we are not a lot of people who are different, we have got two eyes and ears, and everything else; we are just like everybody else. Now, there is no reason for the Army to do anything except conduct itself on a commonsense basis.

Mr. FULTON. That is precisely the point I was raising.

General SOMERVELL. If that is what you mean, we certainly should economize. We have issued orders on it, and we have been away ahead of everybody else in economy on these things that are in question.

Mr. FULTON. Now, I just wanted to ask in that respect, when did you realize that fuel oil was going to be short?

General SOMERVELL. Well, I do not know exactly; it has been talked about for quite a while, but it was quite evident that there was going to be some difficulty after the submarine campaign on the Atlantic coast last spring.

Mr. FULTON. As a matter of fact, it was evident last summer, was it not?

General SOMERVELL. Before that, last spring.

Mr. FULTON. Now, in that connection, would it be your responsibility to see to it that instead of using fuel oil in Army installations, or in defense plants to manufacture Army goods, that you used coal wherever coal was a proper equivalent?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Would you tell us what you did in that connection?
General SOMERVELL. Well, we started out last April-
Mr. FULTON. Of this year?

General SOMERVELL. Yes; to change over any oil installations outside of places where oil was immediately available. It would be perfectly silly for example to take Camp Barkeley, Tex., which is alongside a gas field, and take out the gas heaters, and put in coal. Mr. FULTON. It would be, yes.

CHANGE-OVER FROM FUEL OIL TO COAL IN ARMY INSTALLATIONS

General SOMERVELL. And on the Atlantic seaboard, for example, where we had very few oil installations anyway, we started in to cut out any of those, and change them over, and we have even gone so far as to change over rented properties, like the hotels in Atlantic City, where we have a large air force.

I think that of the Army oil installations we have converted about half to coal, and naturally those that have been converted are those that are farthest away from the oil supply, and those where the difficulties of transportation are greatest.

Take the defenses of Boston Harbor, for example; they have all been converted. In the beginning, if you take our big camps in the East, Fort Devens, Fort Edwards, Indiantown Gap, and Fort Dix and Fort Lee, all of these places here in the East which are large consumers of fuel were built with coal in the first place, simply because of the fact that that seemed to be the proper thing to do. Mr. FULTON. Did you say coal or oil?

General SOMERVELL. Coal; so we have not had such an enormous problem as we would have had if we had not been foresighted enough to have built these big installations with coal in the first place.

Now, as I say, of all of them, including all of those in Texas where there are a great many, Louisiana, where there are a great many, and Arkansas, where there are a great many, and places right around the oil fields, we have cut out 50 percent of the total, which would be a far greater percentage, of course, if you deducted those where oil was obviously the only sensible thing to do.

Mr. FULTON. When did that conversion program start? You say last April?

General SOMERVELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. FULTON. At that time had you received a directive with respect to that from any agency?

General SOMERVELL. No.

Mr. FULTON. I thought

General SOMERVELL. The directive came out in May, about the middle of May, the 13th of May.

Mr. FULTON. And that directive applied only to petroleum district No. 1, the east coast; did it not?

I am

General SOMERVELL. It applied primarily to the east coast. not too familiar with that, but we have been pushing the thing along, right along.

DOES ARMY WORK REQUIRE GREATER BULK OF GENERAL AND SPECIAL PURPOSE TOOLS?

Mr. FULTON. Now, with respect to small business, would you tell us generally what your own understanding of the question of tools, machine tools, has been?

Have you found that in most Army work, the tools, the great bulk of the tools required, are the so-called general purpose tools?