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Admiral SPRUANCE. I think unquestionably those things should be coordinated. For instance, you do not want to have competition for scarce items.

Senator MAGNUSON. Which is what we had at the beginning of the

war.

Admiral SPRUANCE. On things of that kind, yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Was not that changed during the war, Senator? Senator MAGNUSON. It gradually was changed. There is no question about it, there was a lot of duplication, a lot of waste.

Senator ROBERTSON. Admiral, the Research Agency, Intelligence Agency, procurement and Supply Agency, and Education and Training Agency, those are possible of a certain amount of coordination, are they not?

Admiral SPRUANCE. I think so, if they do not get into a lot of administration.

Senator ROBERTSON. Now you, throughout your very splendid statement here and I do congratulate you, I think it is one of the most constructive statements that we have before us-you use a word there that I do not recall being used in the statements of any of the other officers or civilian heads of the Navy, and I think it is a very useful one. You use the word "tool," which I think is a very important word. I take it that you feel that the tools which the Navy uses are particularly for the Navy and should be ordered and built particularly for the Navy, and that you would not feel that any coordination would be possible unless you get the right tools that the Navy requires.

Admiral SPRUANCE. I would not want the Navy use something which was not suitable. On the other hand, if, for instance, in the matter of long-range landplanes the major user developed something suitable, it would be very foolish for the Navy to try to develop something else just to be different.

Senator ROBERTSON. And as to the carbines, rifles, hand grenades, such things as that, one procurement agency would be very satisfactory in those things?

Admiral SPRUANCE. Perfectly.

Senator ROBERTSON. But even in your land-based planes, they would have to be somewhat different to those used by the Army land-based planes? I mean they would have to be made for sea work.

Admiral SPRUANCE. Well, you have different functions. You would have to design them a little differently, but it would not mean just refusing to use what the other man who was the major user developed. It would be very foolish.

Senator ROBERTSON. We had a very excellent witness here before us, Mr. Charles Wilson, of the General Electric Co., and in their vast empire almost that they have in General Electric, he pointed out to us how each department, for instance, radar, would be entirely a self-contained department, even to the very ordering of the things that were essential for radar, and while the General Electric, the main body, would order such things as steel and fuel that they used, these other various tools which were necessary for the production of certain parts were left entirely to that division of General Electric to procure themselves and to get exactly what they wanted. I gather from your statement you feel that the Navy should, as the Army

should and as the Air Force should, be able, each one, to get and to develop the particular tool necessary for the particular job. Admiral SPRUANCE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. We thank you, Admiral, very much. Admiral Turner, will you come tomorrow morning?

Admiral TURNER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. We will excuse you from today until tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 11:55 a. m., the committee recessed to 10:30 a. m. of the following day, Thursday, July 11, 1946.)

UNIFICATION OF THE ARMED FORCES

THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1946

UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON NAVAL AFFAIRS, Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:30 a.m. in room 212, Senate Office Building, Senator David I. Walsh (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Walsh (chairman), Byrd, Willis, and Roberston. The CHAIRMAN. The witness this morning is Admiral Richmond K. Turner, United States Navy, representative of the Chief of Naval Operations on the military staff committee of the Security Council of the United Nations Organization.

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL RICHMOND K. TURNER, UNITED STATES NAVY, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS ON THE MILITARY STAFF COMMITTEE OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL OF THE UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral, you might tell us first your duties during

the war.

Admiral TURNER. I am a line officer, postgraduate in ordnance engineering, and a naval aviator. I was Director of War Plans in the Navy Department from October 1940 until June 1942, and Assistant Chief of Staff to Admiral King in the latter part of my duty. In June 1942, I went to sea, in command of the Third Amphibious Force in the South Pacific Ocean. I was in command of the expeditionary force at the capture of Guadalcanal, Russell's Island, New Georgia, and of the supply operations for the Solomons until July of 1943. Í was then assigned to the Central Pacific; organized the Fifth Amphibious Force for the naval campaign across the Pacific.

In April of 1944 I was made commander of the amphibious forces of the Pacific Fleet, comprising the Third and Fifth Amphibious Forces, and in May of 1945 I was given command of all the amphibious forces in the Pacific, including the Seventh, which had been in General MacArthur's command.

I was in command of the expeditionary force for the capture of the Gilberts, Marshall Islands, the Mariannas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and at the end of the war had been put in command of the expeditionary forces for the capture of Kyushu in Japan. Sections of my forces were used in the New Guinea operations, in the Pelelieu operations and Philippines.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed with your statement.

Admiral TURNER. My understanding is that the committee desires me to present my views as to the effect the enactment of S. 2044, with proposed amendments, would have on the future security of our country; and to present recommendations for specific amendments to the bill to more effectively implement our national security.

I have read some of the testimony and comments on the bill prepared by officers of the Navy Department detailed for work on the subject of unification, but I have in no may been connected with that work. I cannot say that I am thoroughly familiar with all the implications of either this bill or the unification plan proposed by the Navy Department.

But through practical experience I am familiar with military administration and operations, and have definite opinions concerning collaboration between the various services. Consequently, my testimony in commenting on this bill will be based on my own personal views. I have no complete plan of my own.

Because it may be possible that in discussing unification we have paid too much attention to details, I will try to keep in mind the fundamentals of what is being sought by the unification of the military services.

In the first place, I believe past collaboration between the Army and Navy has been faulty to a limited degree, though it has been much better than in any other nation I know about. If we cannot obtain adequate cooperation unless we set up a single Department of Common Defense, then we ought to have a single department. I think that idea is only a theoretical estimate as a single military department has never worked well in any other nation. Some improvement can be effected by legislation and some by administrative action. But thorough-going improvement can come only through the elimination of animosities developed in the past few years in the minds both of civilians and military personnel, and the development of a better appreciation of the proper functions of the services in the over-all military position of the United States. No one of the three kinds of military service alone can provide the country with adequate security, nor should it try to cover the entire field, because it will fail. All are dependent on the others for success in war, and the country needs the vigorous efforts of all three.

It is doubtful if any system set up by law or regulation will operate successfully:

(a) Unless officers of each service and their civilian supporters respect the positions and value of the other services in the totality of the national security structure.

(b) Unless each service refrains from attempting to advance its own interests and influence at the expense of the other services.

(c) Because building the defense structure is a very long-range affair, no system will operate successfully unless the various services can count on a high degree of permanence in the assignment to them of basic activities and functions.

Frankly, I believe that the Navy as a whole objects to so-called unification because under any system the Navy will be in a numerical minority and the Army and Air Force, a military majority and scattered throughout the country, will always be in a better political position than the Navy. In spite of any possible degree of good will on

the part of the Army and Air Force, I think the superior political position of those services will be used to the disadvantage of the Navy unless the Navy has at all times free and direct access to the President and Congress.

Because the Navy has had and should retain in the future its position as the first line of military security for the United States, I believe the Navy will never willingly agree to a consolidation of national military forces in any manner that will silence the Navy's voice in military affairs or materially restrict its present responsibilities. It is not enough to adopt a slogan of "unification" as a cure-all for defects, and then to be satisfied with any plan that is offered just because it claims to effect unification, and when it may really be wholly superficial and not strike at the roots of the difficulty. A unification law that does not produce unity may actually produce even more difficulties.

What we really want to unify is mental and physical effort-so that all services, each in its own proper sphere and discharging its own proper function, will work loyally together in assisting each other to a higher technical development for the purposes of national security. The absorption by one service, in the name of unification, of the activities and functions properly attributable to another service and developed by it will not result in unity-but it far more likely to result merely in the atrophy of that activity.

Any bill which aims to effect unification should have as its fundamental legislative feature, clear and specific definitions of the separate fields of action-that is, the proper over-all functions-of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and also of the unified function and field of overlapping interest in which the three services may establish better unity of administrative and strategic effort. S. 2044 does not have this feature. It omits it, and leaves to future administrative study the drafting of provisions which should be the heart of the original bill. By the term "function" I mean the activities which peculiarly and inherently pertain to any particular public office or public business. For example, the naval function includes all activities which normally pertain to sea operations. The naval function should not be restricted through any artifically imposed limitations as to its control of the kinds of personnel or kinds of material means-that is, the tools that Admiral Spruance spoke of-that may be required for the adequate and efficient conduct of sea operations.

Fleet Admiral King in recent testimony before a congressional committee defined the field of the Navy's function in these words:

The Navy's functions and capabilities are to deal with (1) seaborne objectives, (2) with land objectives that can be reached from the sea, (3) with moving ground forces overseas and establishing them on shore, (4) with movement of ground elements of air forces overseas, and last but not least, (5) in keeping the seaways clear and open for the line of supply of all forces overseas-ground, sea, and air. The Navy has demonstrated its ability to do these things in the face of enemy efforts, whether by land or sea or air. This use of sea power is a function of the sea forces.

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Aside from the Navy's and Army's functions there is also a purely strategic air function in the national strategy which has grown tremendously and will continue to expand in usefulness in the future.

The ultimate aim of a national war effort is the destruction of the enemy's will and ability to fight. As a matter entirely separate from

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