fact is that the best efforts are being put forward right now to do that. This submarine menace is like the common cold; it is a little difficult to cure, and it develops in spots and stages. Types of defense against it vary, and various people have various ideas as to what the best defense is.

There is a concentrated effort to do just what you indicated, and obtain a balanced merchant fleet with a balanced combatant fleet to protect it. So far as my judgment is concerned, it is going along very well and will be in being in the not too distant future. From day to day it is improving and improving tremendously. Four months ago the situation wasn't very happy, but it is materially improved today and is continually improving. Insofar as our ability is concerned, I think we will get on top of the job at a time not too far away.

We have an unpleasant winter ahead because the submarine has a little better break in slightly bad weather, and a little better break in the shorter hours of daylight, because they operate, as you know, from concealed bases, even if it is under water, and they operate more successfully in bad light and bad weather than they do otherwise. It is much more difficult to detect them. I don't look forward with a great deal of happiness to how the submarine menace may hit us for the next few months, just on the weather basis and on the short sunlight day basis. But we will get on top of it; that is what we are in the game for and that is our main object.

Of course that is the thing that hits the Maritime show more closely because we are not so much concerned with the actual battles of the combatant ships, but with the submarine and any other such type of craft.

Senator DowNEY. Admiral, would you give us an approximation of how long it takes a freighter to make the round trip say from Los Angeles or San Francisco to Sidney, the round trip?

Admiral LAND. Between 4 and 5 months.

Senator DOWNEY. And then would the ship have to be laid up for overhauling and repairs?

Admiral LAND. Not necessarily. The reason it takes so long is just what the Senator brought out here, that there is a lot of this convoy work, which means the speed of the convoy is the speed of the slowest ship, the delay in starting and finishing, the delay in starting back, and so forth: So your normal peacetime operation is in no way comparable to the wartime operation, which is very confessedly, decidedly inefficient. War itself is damnably inefficient. Ship operation in wartime is bound to be inefficient. You may criticize us to your heart's content, but we admit it.

Senator DOWNEY. I didn't have anything critical at all in what I said.

Admiral LAND. I didn't mean that at all, Senator. I have that in mind so much that I like any audience I have to get an understanding of these rank inefficiencies for which we are responsible. Some of them are insuperable and the convoy is the best example because the speed of the convoy can be only the speed of the slowest ship. That is one prime reason your turn-around is so long. Whether my estimate is correct, I don't know, but it is something in the neighborhood of 41⁄2 to 51⁄2 months.

Senator DOWNEY. How long is the round-trip time from our west coast, say, to the Mediterranean, around that way?

Admiral LAND. Well, it would be somewhere around the same length of time. Of course there aren't very many of our ships going into the Mediterranean now. Maybe they will be soon.

Senator DOWNEY. How are we supplying our army in Egypt with materials?

Admiral LAND. To the west coast of Africa, the east coast of Africa, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and by all possible means of transportation, from ships to airplanes. As far as I know that is it, but you know just as much about it as I do. I am not giving you technical answers, but there are ports available and there are means available in those various areas.

Senator DOWNEY. Well, then, in the use of the merchant marine from California over to Asia you might hope for two and a half or three round trips a year?

Admiral LAND. Yes, sir.

Senator DoWNEY. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. In pursuance of that, in regard to the time element that was mentioned by the Senator, doesn't the route taken by the convoy have a great deal to do with it? In other words we all know that they don't every day follow the same shipping lanes?

Admiral LAND. That is true.

The CHAIRMAN. For instance, one convoy going to Sidney or Melbourne might take the same route used by the regular passenger lines, and on the other hand they might go directly South to some of the islands and then cut across- and that is the time element that figures it very materially?

Admiral LAND. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral, we are very much obliged to you for coming and hope that we haven't taken up too much of your time. Admiral LAND. I am glad to be here, sir,

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will now adjourn until tomorrow morning at 10:30 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 3:50 p. m., the committee adjourned until Friday morning, November 6, 1942, at 10:30 o'clock).

MANPOWER

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1942

UNITED STATES SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a. m., in room 316, Senate Office Building, Senator Robert R. Reynolds (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Reynolds (chairman), Hill, Downey, Austin, Gurney, and Thomas of Idaho.

The CHAIRMAN. The meeting will please come to order.

STATEMENT OF DONALD NELSON, DIRECTOR, WAR PRODUCTION

BOARD

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Nelson, we are very happy to have you with us, and we thank you for giving us your time in coming here this morning. We will be glad for you to read a prepared statement, or to speak extemporaneously.

Mr. NELSON. I did not prepare a statement, sir. I have a lot of facts and figures with me in case there were questions that you wanted to ask in regard to those.

Of course, I think it is very pertinent to have the committee investigating manpower at the present time, because, in my opinion, that is probably today the single main important problem facing us in connection with the war effort and the winning of the war. Now, as I see it, manpower is now going through one of the cycles that we have gone through on materials of various kinds incident to the size of the job which this Nation has undertaken and it is going to require some very fine thinking and careful deliberation to balance all of the factors. that have to be balanced in arriving at the right conclusion.

The problem is manpower, of course, starts first with the Chiefs of Staff. They determine how many men it is going to take in the military services, in their opinion, in order to win the war. Now the Chiefs of Staff make that determination. They, of course, pass that on to the Commander in Chief, the President. It is then passed down to the production division, to W. P. B., and to the Manpower Commission, Mr. McNutt.

Now then, it goes back up and down four or five times in the ordinary course of procedure, in discussions back and forth with the Chiefs of Staff as to whether or not those requirements can be met. That discussion goes along in connection with materials, and with manpower. Frequent discussions are had with the Chiefs of Staff themselves on the difficulties of meeting their requirements.

Now, naturally, in a war of this kind, the war forces upon us some very aggravated problems, because we have to plan to fight an enemy all over the world. Of course, nations fight wars in order to win them, and we are fighting this war in order to win it.

It was thrust upon us, but having had it thrust upon us we have to win it, and we have to win it with the use of manpower and materials, and there is no question but what the winning of this war will strain to the limit every resource we have in these United States because of the size of the problem.

We are today the arsenal of democracy for the whole world. We are supplying materials to all of the world, with the exception of the Axis Powers. The production of England to a large extent depends upon us-upon our making subassemblies, upon our sending finished and semifinished materials of one kind or another to Russia.

Russian production also depends very largely upon the things that we can send to Russia, not alone finished materials of war, tanks, planes, and so forth, but materials from which they can build the materials for war which they need. These materials are constantly being shipped to England, to Russia, to China, to Australia, to South America. We have the job of not alone supplying our armies and navies with what they need in material, but also of keeping our civilian economy sound and virile.

As I have repeatedly said, our economy is lean, and will be much leaner before we are through, but it is sound. We cannot let the civilian economy break down. If we did, we could not produce the materials for war. We must produce the food which we need in order to feed our armies, in order to feed our civilian population, in order to feed our Allies all over the world.

Our railroads must be kept sound so they can transport the materials which we need from place to place. Our communications systems must be sound, our health services must be sound, and our fire services must be sound. We cannot have fires in and around where we have important factories, for if they burn down, we have lost that much production.

The doing of all of those things brings a tremendous strain on our materials.

Now, the doing of the additional thing, which is to prepare the men for action, produces very difficult problems of manpower, bringing us face to face with some problems which we, as a Nation, have to look squarely in the eye, to go out and win the war. It is not up to me to say whether the plans of the Army and Navy for manpower are too large or too small, it is up to me to point out what effect the taking of men into the services has on production, which I have done and will continue to do. It is also up to me and to all of us, it seems to me, in my particular job, having once determined that a certain size of Army and Navy, Maritime Commission, and Air Corps is necessary to win the war, to try to go in and do it, and not just throw up our hands and say it cannot be done.

We haven't done everything yet that can be done to conserve manpower. We have had to go through this thing on materials.

We started on copper 18 months ago, realizing that copper was going to be one of our choke points. We have had to curtail the actual use of copper. I am sure you heard a good deal from your constituents about the necessary curtailment of copper, but it had to be done and

the very fact we are today still short of copper to make the needed ammunition proves that the things we did then were right and sound, and had to be done.

Progressively, as we went along, the problem became bigger and bigger, we had to curtail somewhat more the uses of copper, until we had to cut copper from the transportation system and the communication system, and they had to learn to get along with less copper, had to learn to do things which they never thought possible; they had to find substitutes for copper, find ways of doing without copper. We have to go through with it, in my opinion, in this whole problem of manpower. There are many ways in which manpower can be conserved, such as the lengthening of the work week, increasing the productivity of labor through better management in our factories, through better utilization of labor itself, through a greater emphasis on the part of labor itself, the men at the factories. Not that they are not doing it; I think they are all patriotic Americans, but as this problem becomes deeper and deeper and it is impressed more and more into the consciousness of the people, there should not be as much absenteeism in our plants, Monday-morning sickness, pay-roll sickness.

We have to cut out absenteeism. The hours will have to be lengthened. New sources of labor have to be brought into this picture, such as women, minority groups that have not been used before in places because of prejudice; these sources have to be brought into this picture in order to conserve manpower. Less essential uses of manpower have to be cut off and have to be devoted to the war effort, to production at machines.

I think a great deal more has to be done in the selective service systems themselves in our methods of recruiting. I think voluntary enlistment must be stopped. I think all of these problems have to be faced and faced promptly and quickly in order to get the force necessary to go out and win the war, just as we had to do it to get the materials to go out and win the war. It is a war problem. It is going to hurt, going to hurt all of us. We are going to have to do things that we never thought possible, but we are out to win a war. Now, I believe in a full and complete discussion of this problem, and I feel it is very good to have this committee discuss it, to bring home to all of us the ways in which this problem is going to affect our economy.

In a democratic system, that is what we have to do, to discuss these things and let everybody know what is ahead of us.

That is all I have to say. If there are any questions, I will be glad to answer them if I can.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions, Senator Hill?

Senator HILL. I want to ask Mr. Nelson a question. Mr. Nelson, you have been able to control your material situation and to use it, such as your copper, to the best advantage for the war effort, because you had legislation giving you the power to do the things that you have done. Is not that true?

Mr. NELSON. Yes, sir; we have the priorities power to direct the flow.

Senator HILL. Incidentally, this committee is the committee that reported that bill out.