Our depot structure, as it stood in 1959, was based on a mobilization plan that had been established-I am not exactly sure of this, but I would say about 1956 or 1957. (Later determined to be 1954.)

So with the broad factors like that, it was obvious to me that I had too much space.

Another thing, sir. We try and maintain about an 80-percent storage occupancy in our depots, and if I don't maintain that, then it is apparent that I have too much space.

Mr. HARDY. General, I don't want to press this point particularly, but I was impressed by the fact that you said when you took over you were faced with a declining budget. And every now and then we run into evidence that military decisions are made on the basis of budgetary limitations. And I wanted to be sure that didn't happen in this case.

Of course, now, I am a stickler for economies, myself. But I would hate to see us get into the position of making military decisions just because somebody cuts off the money. Maybe that is what you have to do, but at least we have a separate recommendation if it is militarily justified.

General LYNDE. That was not the sole consideration in this case, or even an extremely important one.

Mr. HARDY. Thank you.

Mr. HÉBERT. Now, General, in connection with Mr. Hardy's questions, you initiated these studies in 1956 when you had a certain mobilization plan.

General LYNDE. No, sir. I came to this particular office, the position I now hold, in June of 1959.

But the Army strategic objectives plan we were operating on was dated July 18, 1958, which was based on a mobilization force established in 1954.

Mr. HÉBERT. Well, the studies preceded you then?

General LYNDE. Those were the basis for this: The number of troop units the number of divisions that would be mobilized.

Mr. HÉBERT. Your studies for your needs were initiated before you came to the office? In other words, between 1956 and 1959 nothing was done about making a study?

General LYNDE. We were engaged in deactivating three unit installations, sir. Rossford Depot maintenance mission was reduced and San Jacinto Depot was inactivated.

Mr. HARDY. You sure weren't anxious to do that one.

General LYNDE. I wasn't in office at that time. I inherited the closeout.

Mr. HARDY. That was a rather bitter one. And we remember that one pretty well. We know that one, General, was not originally motivated by military considerations. So I think it might be unfortunate that you brought that one into the picture.

General LYNDE. I am not aware of the circumstances there. I executed the last 6 months or so of it, and finally turned it over and closed it out.

Mr. HARDY. As a matter of fact, at the time that San Jacinto— before San Jacinto was eliminated, you were right in the act of trying to get a new one at Point au Pins, or whatever you call it.

General LYNDE. May I say though, sir, that when I came to my position we were closing out the depot maintenance mission at Ross

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ford, the depot maintenance mission at the Atlanta General Depot, and-well, that was before my time.

Mr. HARDY. Well, you must know that the abandonment of San Jacinto was a bitter pill for the Army. And it was resisted by anybody in the Army that had any power that I know of. Didn't you know that?

General LYNDE. I can truthfully say I did not.

Mr. HARDY. Then, General, I don't know how in the world you qualified for the job you are now in if you didn't know about that. Because certainly anybody that had anything to do with Ordnance must have knowledge of what happened to San Jacinto.

I don't know how any Member of Congress could help but know all about it from all those who came to see us here, and when we saw people up and down the halls peddling and trying to drum up support for maintaining it.

General LYNDE. My responsibility was simply to finalize the closeout, which I did on schedule.

Mr. HARDY. In other words, you were acting under orders. And you weren't concerning yourself at all with the motivations that went behind it, or the propriety in eliminating it? That wasn't your job?

General LYNDE. No, sir; that was not.

Mr. HARDY. I understand.

Mr. HÉBERT. Now, in connection with these two installations under discussion, they are being closed on your recommendation in keeping with the mobilization plans as initiated, of 1956; is that correct? General LYNDE. The mobilization plan initiated in 1954-refresh me or correct me on this-would be about the ASOP of 1959. Mr. HÉBERT. What is an ASOP?

General LYNDE. Army Strategic Objective Plans.

Mr. HÉBERT. Mr. Gavin is going to ask you the question anyway, so I anticipated.

Mr. GAVIN. You fellows live with this stuff all day and then you come over and throw it at us, and we are expected to absorb it and digest it without knowing what you are talking about. [Laughter.]

Mr. HARDY. You are not suggesting that the rest of the information we are getting here belongs in the kind of a class that Aesop put out. [Laughter.]

Mr. HÉBERT. Well, General, answer my question. Is it the 1956 mobilization plan?

General LYNDE. (Deleted.)

Mr. HÉBERT. And that is the basis on which you initiated the closing of these two installations.

General LYNDE. That is right, sir.

Mr. HÉBERT. Now, I am sure that you are familiar with the situation as it stands today, in the international situation, and the statement also of the Assistant Secretary of Defense that they probably would have to call up the Reserves and National Guard. General LYNDE. Yes, sir.

Mr. HÉBERT. That sort of changes the mobilization picture, does it?
General LYNDE. No, sir, it does not.

Mr. HÉBERT. It does not change the mobilization picture?
General LYNDE. No.

I have reflected on that a great deal. And such a program will not generate work for my depots, because it will involve new production which will go to troops.

My depots have subsisted largely in the past on the rollup of World War II and Korea, which is now pretty much exhausted. Mr. HÉBERT. All right. Suppose we have an all-out war; would you need these two installations?

General LYNDE. I do not believe so.

Mr. HÉBERT. You would not need them?
General LYNDE. No, sir.

Mr. HÉBERT. Now, Mr. Baldwin, you take over.

Mr. BALDWIN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say, first, that in the three-page document which was submitted to this committee by the Defense Department-and it was labeled "Revised June 27, 1961, which you attached when you sent us notice of the hearing. Page 2 of this document reads as follows-this refers to the eight Army depots in the seven Western States. It says:

While Benicia ranks among the smallest in size and capital investment, it stands No. 1 today in employment and workload.

And I am quoting the next sentence:

This indicates that while small, Benicia has been carrying a major part of the workload due to the many factors which have made it an efficient, favorably located installation.

These on page 2, the third and fourth sentences the fourth and fifth sentences on that page. Now, why is it that Benicia is handling more volume than any other of the six installations on the Pacific coast?

Well, the reasons are pretty clear.

First of all, it is on the coast. There are two installations, Benicia and Mount Rainier, that are on the coast. Benicia is the only one of the two that can actually load directly on barges. And it loads a considerable portion of its material directly on barges to go to the Oakland Army Terminal to ship out to all the Pacific bases, in the Pacific and the Far East.

It shipped a good deal of the material that has gone to some of our allies there South Korea, Japan, Formosa, the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam. A lot of material for those areas has gone through Benicia. Let me quote to you-and these are not my figures. These are the Army's.

Here are the Ordnance reimbursable sales of the Army stock fund, fiscal year 1960, for the eight major ordnance depots in the country that handle this kind of sales.

Which is on the top of the list? Benicia. Here is the figure for fiscal year 1960:

Ordnance reimbursable sales, Army stock fund.

Benicia, $45 million.

Letterkenny, $43 million.

Anniston, $35 million.

Red River, $30 million.

Erie, $21 million.

Pueblo, $20 million.

Mount Rainier, $12 million.

Raritan, $5 million.

Benicia was the top one.

Now, this wasn't accidental. It was because it was a location that made it particularly strategic.

In the seven Western States, over 80 percent of the troops of the Army are on the Pacific Coast States; 45 percent of them are in California.

Now, the Army proposes, primarily for budgetary reasons, in my opinion, to close the only two arsenals they have on the Pacific coast, and move this storage almost 900 miles inland.

Now, according to the Army figures themselves, they say the average freight shipping time is around 3 days at best, and around 4 days in the case of Tooele to Washington.

This means they are going to have to remove the materials and supplies 3 more days away from the needs for them, which is the Pacific coast and out in the Far East.

Now let me just cite a couple of other figures. And these are from Army figures. This was the last briefing that I received at Benicia Arsenal-statistics that are given regularly when they brief people at the various installations. More line items of Army supplies go out to the San Francisco Overseas Supply Agency than any other oversea supply agency, including New York and New Orleans. These are the figures:

San Francisco, on the average, was shipping 14,000 line items per month. These were coming from Benicia, primarily.

New York, 8,500 line items per month.

New Orleans, 3,200 line items per month.

In the case of real emergency, that something has to be shipped by air, the main MATS base for the whole west coast is at Travis, which is just 15 miles from Benicia, and that means that these items can be put on MATS planes immediately.

What about Tooele? There is only a commercial airport 35 miles away at Salt Lake City. The nearest Air Force base is about 60 miles at Ogden.

What about freight rates?

If items are shipped from somewhere in the middle of the United States to either Benicia or Tooele, the base rate is the same. But if the items are broken down, as they many times are, so they wouldn't have the transit rate, then to go from Tooele again to the Pacific Coast, where the needs are, they would be paying another $36 per ton. Whereas Benicia, getting through the one base rate, the only thing they would have would be about a charge of $1 a ton for barging down, just down to the Oakland Terminal.

Let me read what the Army said-not me, but the Army. Here is the Army Ordnance Depot Procurement and Supply, history of World War II. I just want to read you some questions about installations in isolated areas, because this is an isolated area.

It says:

The vast western depots on the level floor of a high mountain valley or on widespread prairie with orderly and accessible roads from igloos-

I am reading from page 33

stretching as far as the eye could see against the background of snowcovered peaks had the virtue of isolation and an important consideration, yet isolation created a desperate problem of manpower.

Let me just read the next from page 378

At all the depots, the igloo construction was a permanent type, but in other respects there is a difference between the buildings erected at the first eight depots called the A program and the second called B. At Anniston, Umatilla, Oreg; Portage, Wingate, Milan, Seneca, San Jacinto, and Red River all begun in 1941, most of the administration buildings, warehouses for inert supplies and like construction were of permanent type.

But now listen to this:

But at the B depots, Sierra, Navajo, Letterkenny, Sioux, Black Hills, Tooele, Bluegrass, and Pueblo, most construction was of a type called mobilization designed to last 5 years or theater of operations designed to last only for the duration of the war.

And that is what is there today-wooden buildings as compared to the permanent structures at Benicia.

Let me read two more quotes. And this is the Army's summary, in World War II, page 383:

Problems of distribution aside, and these would become acuate in 1943 when the emphasis shifted from domestic supply to oversea supply, the disadvantages of isolation came to be keenly felt in the case of combat equipment.

And remember the basic issue here is they are moving these bases from the Pacific coast, where the need is, 900 miles inland to an isolated base.

Now, here is the next sentence:

Ordnance supply experts felt later that general supply operations were more seriously hindered by isolated locations than the lack of skilled labor resources than were the same ammunition supply operations at the same depot.

Now, one more quote, here on page 393 :

The Ordnance experience in World War II showed that the efficiency of a supply and distribution system depended on many factors, chief of which were the location of depots, the nature of depot facilities, and availability of civilian workers.

In its final report, "Logistics in World War II," ASF observed:

As the war progressed, it became evident that the entire distribution system depended for its efficiency upon the location of the depots. Unfortunately no pattern of depot locations would serve all purposes equally well. Nearness to manufacturers was an advantage that had to be weighed against nearness to

ports.

Benicia qualified on both. Tooele, not.

The next sentence:

In terms of safe storage of ammunition, vast desert tracts were ideal, but in terms of labor supply they left much to be desired.

Now, this is the issue before this committee, as to whether for budgetary considerations there is a real loss being made to the possibility of meeting anything that may develop in the Pacific today or any time in the future.

I want to read one more quote, on page 459.

In striving for efficient operation of its vast supply and distribution system, Ordnance found that many factors had to be considered. Nearness of depots to manufacturing plants had to be weighed against nearness to ports of embarkation; the desirability of vast desert tracts for safe, dry storage had to be balanced against the problem of labor storage in such areas.

Now, where does Tooele stack on this? It is not near to the manufacturing plants. It is not near to the ports of embarkation. It isn't a good location from the standpoint of labor availability.