Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. No, sir; we can't procure over therewe couldn't procure over there in 1946 and 1947. I don't know how it is now, but I had an optical shop over there then and I had to make my own glasses. We had quite a bit of trouble. Maybe it is different today; I don't know, but I do know there is nothing up in Korea and we have five or six units in Korea and one or two in Japan. Mr. BROWNSON. With the number of Japanese wearing glasses and at the rate they are turning out other things, it would seem they would certainly be able to turn out spectacles in Japan.

Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. I couldn't tell you, Congressman. I know we couldn't get them in 1946 and 1947. I happened to be there. I was a medical supply officer and tried to contract for them. Their technicians were scattered all over and they were having quite a time getting their technicians back together. There were a lot of production problems, I suppose, that they had in those early days after the war.

Mr. BONNER. Where do you train your technicians? Do you have an optical school?

Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. I believe someone check me on this— they are trained in St. Louis.

Mr. BONNER. That is just what I want to find out. You send them down to St. Louis and train them under the Army training program? Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. I am not sure.

Mr. BONNER. I understood at St. Louis that they trained a good number.

Mr. CURTIS. I talked to a couple of enlisted men this morning and both of them said they were trained at St. Louis.

Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BONNER. That is what I wanted to get to. You send them down and train them in an Army training program and then you come back and train them in a separate unit.

I think it is clear that one optical shop could supply all the services.

OBSERVATIONS ON MEDICAL TEST

Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. I have some general observations on the medical supply test that I would like to make at this time, which will finish up my part of the presentation here. A detailed presentation on the test operation will be made by a member of my staff. However, I would like to present you gentlemen with a few observations that I have made here during this test, or prior to this test and during the test.

This depot is a relatively new activity; movement of stock, personnell, and equipment from the San Francisco Medical Depot was not completed until December of 1951. The suport of the Army and Air Force activities based upon this depot was continued without interrution during the move, which involved the transfer of approximately 10,000 tons of medical matériel alone.

On December 29th the Department of Defense directive, which officially ordered the test at the Alameda Medical Depot, was signed by the Chairman of the Munitions Board. This was forwarded to

Policy and planning documents, medical and dental group, supply systems study project, may be found in the appendix of the hearings held February 22, 27, 28, March 5 and 11, 1952, by the Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, on Federal Supply Management (Textiles and Clothing) (ASPR Conference).

us down here at this level on the 11th of January 1952 by the Surgeon General, with instructions to begin full-scale operations on the 15th of February-just 1 month and 4 days. This date was subsequently extended to March 1, 1952, approximately 12 months away, in order to permit the movement of stocks from the Oakland Naval Medical Depot, which is the reason it was extended from the 15th of February to the 1st of March.

While the performance of this depot during all this period has come up to the expectations of higher authority, I believe it could have been better had a reasonable shake-down period been allowed this depot after this major move of the Army stocks over here and assuming our new mission prior to taking on the large mission of the Navy. That is my personal observation. Therefore, we had to assume this large additional mission, special reporting, and so forth, without the necessary shake-down period, although the performance of the depot was very high even in spite of this.

The selection of this depot was unquestionably justified, however, since it was desired that the test be conducted in an area where Navy population could be of sufficient size to produce a test of real significance, and in supply of an active oversea theater. Neither St. Louis, Atlanta, or Schenectady qualify under that criteria.

DELAY IN STARTING TEST

Mr. BONNER. Mr. Lovett told us on July 19, 1951, that the test would get underway immediately and, according to your testimony it hadn't gotten under way until March 1952?

Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. That's right.

Mr. BONNER. What was the reason for that?

Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. Well, sir, the first time I heard about it was in November 1951; that is the first inkling I had of it. The group came out here and started to work on it. We assisted in the preparations-writing up the directive out here. They went back the latter part of November, I believe, thinking it would kind of die on the vine.

SUBCOMMITTEE CONTINUED PRESSURE FOR THE TEST

Mr. BONNER. The subcommittee didn't let it die on the vine. This subcommittee has been very much interested in this subject and the reports will show we didn't want it to die on the vine.

Lieutenant Colonel ASBILL. Well, I don't know; it was quite slow until we received our directive in January. I don't know what took place in the interim, but it was November when we first knew about it. I would like to present Colonel Strnad, Chief of the Army Liaison group, who will present the test operations.

STATEMENT OF LT. COL. J. J. STRNAD, MEDICAL SERVICE CORPS, CHIEF, ARMY LIAISON DIVISION

Lieutenant Colonel STRNAD. Mr. Chairman, and ladies and gentlemen, I am Colonel Strnad, Medical Service Corps, Chief of the Army Liaison group here at the depot, and also Chief of the Stock Control Division of the depot.

We are going to attempt to present for your information today all of the test operations conducted here at the Alameda Medical Depot, which we feel you will be very much interested in, as well as some aspects of this installation with respect to the medical supply service as a whole.

There is a great deal of detailed statistics in the brochure and I do not intend to go into all of them. However, there are certain very important operational procedures, which I know you will be interested in and which I will touch upon in this presentation. If there are any areas that I cover, or that perhaps you desire to have further information, we will be very happy to go into further details as presented in the brochure.

NAVY FURNISHED STOCK FOR ITS USE

With the receipt of directives officially ordering the test at the Alameda Medical Depot, movement of Navy stock from the Oakland Naval Medical Supply Depot commenced approximately January 15, 1952. It had previously been agreed the stock would be moved by Government vehicles palletized to expedite delivery into storage, here at Alameda. This was done to avoid multiple locations of stock at the depot. This transfer involved approximately 5,000 items, weighing 1204 short tons, representing an estimated 3-month issue demand of the Navy. This movement was accomplished without too much difficulty and, at the same time, we conducted some advance training of Navy personnel so that on the 1st of March we were ready to receive the first requisition from Navy activities.

ARMY ORGANIZATION RELATIVELY UNCHANGED IN SUPPORTING NAVY

The organization of the Alameda Medical Depot for this test has been relatively unchanged by virtue of the support of the Navy mission. A Navy liaison office, as has been explained previously, was established to provide control of issue to Navy activities and the control of their stocks at this depot.

Requisitions and shipping documents have been processed by the Stock Control, Storage, and Transportation Divisions under existing Army procedures, right down the line, modified only slightly where necessary to accomplish support of the fleet.

Now, this chart shows the requisition and shipping document flow under the test. The requisitions come in from Army, Navy, and Air Force activities to the headquarters and are channeled immediately to the respective liaison offices; Army requisitions to my office; Air Force to Air Force liaison and Navy to Navy liaison. These liaison sections determine that the requisitions are in order; that they are not excessive; that they have been properly justified. If the requisitions are considered in order, they are forwarded immediately to the Stock Control Division for processing. If there is something wrong with the requisition, it is returned to the requisitioner over the signature of the appropriate liaison officer.

At this point, it should be noted that the large operational functions of the depot are stock control, storage, transportation control and shipping. These are unified functions, operating with the same procedure. That change is not completely unified, except for the liaison

functions, which is intended to permit the departments to control their issues from their stocks.

FIRST COME FIRST SERVED IN TEST

Within those unified functions of the depot of stock control, storage, transportation and shipping, the priority of handling requisitions and shipping documents is based strictly upon the urgency of need. We don't differentiate between Army, Navy, or Air Force. It is the case of the man who needs it most getting his shipment through first. and out the front door.

STOCK CONTROL AND ACCOUNTING

I would like to go now into some detail in regard to actual stock control and accounting at the depot, because I feel those operations are significant in the success which we feel we have had out here under the test operations.

TRI-SERVICE STOCK OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL

The Department of Defense directive pertaining to the Alameda medical supply test stipulated that plans for the test would observe the principle of tri-service stock ownership and issue control. A clear understanding of stock accounting and control under the test necessitates that some time be devoted to the explanation of this principle and the reasons for its observance.

ARMY ALREADY SUPPLIED AIR FORCE

At the time that the test was originally conceived a year ago, the Army was already providing medical supply support to the Air Force from the Army medical depots on a common service basis from its Army medical depots, based upon joint agreements. Air Force personnel participated in the operation of these depots; the command control of the depots was vested in the Surgeon General of the Army. In order to obtain maximum use of warehouse space, the Army and Air Force stock in these depots was not segregated by service at all; it was all stocked together. It was, however, accounted for separately in bookkeeping accounts. We have stock account 11 for the major issue stocks of the Army; stock account 13 for the stocks of the Air Force. Since this mode of operation was considered the only way to operate a triservice depot successfully and was the only way to operate a unified depot of this type, it was determined to include the Navy into the operation on the same basis and to set up an account for the Navy, which was stock account 14.

Now, this chart [indicating] is intended to portray in a pictoral manner the way this unified supply operation has worked, together with this plan of triservice stock ownership and control. Incidentally, there are copies of each one of these charts in the brochure, but in a smaller size, and any of you who cannot see the details can follow the one here on the board.

See testimony of Assistant Secretary of Defense McNeil on this point in Federal Supply Management (Air Force Supply-Munitions Board), p. 147 et seq.

JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF DIRECTS DEPARTMENT TO COMPUTE REQUIREMENTS

Based upon directives from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the departments developed their own operational plans and computed their own quantitative requirements for each item.

These item requirements are then forwarded to a single procurement agency. In case of medical, for illustration, medical procurement agency at Brooklyn. At this point unified supply operations begin. These individual service requirements are combined into single contracts, as you know, and placed with industry on a bid basis. Inasmuch as the total military requirements are included on these contracts, it results in lower production costs and more attractive prices to the Government.*

JOINT PROCUREMENT OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES AT BROOKLYN

Then, consolidated deliveries are made from contractors on these contracts into our unified depots where the stock is stored, again on a nonsegregated basis-all together in the same stack. We do, however, on paper, check up the stock either in the Army, Air Force, or Navy, depending upon the service which originally developed the planning program. Then, of course, as requisitions come in, these liaison officers at the depot assure that the requisitions are in accord with the departmental policies and that these items are used for the purpose which they were originally intended. As you can see, under this type of operation, the large supply functions of procurement, production, storage, distribution, and maintenance are unified and offer the advantages and economies inherent in such unification.

The triservice functions which are retained are planning, requirements determination, and issue control. Now, despite the fact that only a relatively small number of people are engaged in these individual service functions-that is, planning, requirements, and issue control-the Congress may hold each individual service primarily responsible for its own supply program and still achieve the benefits of unified supply operations.

This is the general picture of the way we have operated under the test, with one minor exception. Due to the fact that it was merely a test, the stocks we have received from the Navy have been turned over to us from the Oakland depot. We haven't received anything directly from Oakland as far as the great bulk of our stock is concerned. We have, of course, procured some stock for the Navy, locally, but since we do receive on these contracts of the agency for the Army and Air Force, the receipt of Navy stock would pose no particular difficulty and consequently was not significant in the test

itself.

Now, there are people who feel that this operating stock accounting for the Army, Air Force, and Navy has an undesirable aspect in that the stock of one service is not available for use of another service. I am going to go into considerable detail on the cross-servicing later on in the presentation, but at this point I would like to state we have done a great deal of cross-servicing at this depot during the test and we have been able to take full advantage of the assets of services to meet the needs of the requisition service.

As to validity of this statement, see p. 196, Field Conferences on Federal Supply Management.