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MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND INFORMATION ACQUIRED FROM GERMANY AND JAPAN

Mr. CANNON. What serviceable planes did you get in the German and Japanese surrenders?

General VANDENBERG. From them, sir?

Mr. CANNON. From them at the time they turned their material over to you?

General VANDENBERG. None, sir.

Mr. CANNON. What information, scientific research information, did you get from either of them?

General VANDENBERG. Off the record, sir?

Mr. CANNON. Yes.

(Discussion off the record.)

RUSSIAN JET FIGHTERS

Mr. SIKES. Let me ask you this question: What is the extent of our information, both from the standpoint of its completeness and from the standpoint of its reliability, on the Russian jet fighter and on their progress toward jet bombers?

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. MAHON. Are there any further questions? If not, we want to thank you, Mr. Secretary and General Vandenberg, for coming this afternoon. You have been most helpful.

Secretary FINLETTER. We are glad to come at any time, sir.
General VANDENBERG. Thank you, sir.

USE OF COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT TO MEET PRESENT EMERGENCY Mr. MAHON. Do you have in use under your MATS program a number of commercial aircraft, contract or otherwise?

General RAWLINGS. We entered into contracts with commercial air lines to provide a given number of trips to the extent of 65 aircraft. We did not take over the aircraft, but rather contracted with the air lines so that they would use all of their facilities and we would not have to build them up. That program is currently scheduled to phase out in 6 months, and the funds in this bill are on the basis of phasing that list out at the end of 6 months, at which time our own organization will carry the full load.

Mr. MAHON. I note the chart on the wall shows the operation of the Air Transport system. Is there anything particularly significant about that chart with respect to the present request for funds?

General RAWLINGS. Sir, there is. The amount of money to provide for the commercial airlift for 6 months. It is included in the estimate that is shown on the chart. Also, there is the build-up of MATS in going to the 58- and 69-group programs; which is reflected in the figure that will back up the chart.

Mr. MAHON. I want to say that your presentation, General, has been very ably and well presented. We appreciate it very much.

TECHNICAL TRAINING PROGRAM

WITNESS

MAJ. GEN. K. P. M’NAUGHTON, DIRECTOR OF TRAINING

Mr. MAHON. Tell us about the training program.

General MCNAUGHTON. I can present this chart, Mr. Chairman, just to show the flow of personnel from our procurement sources.

We have three categories of personnel the prior service qualified Reserves will go directly to the tactical units. The prior service nonReserve personnel will go through processing stations for 2 weeks' screening. Some will go to technical units after screening and some will go to the technical courses-the schools. The recruits will go through the indoctrination division and then--to the technical courses. Some will go directly to the tactical units.

The significant point on this chart is that we have reduced the indoctrination course from 13 weeks to 8 weeks and put them on a 6-day week. Fifty percent of these raw recruits will go to the technical

courses.

At the top of this chart we show the 48-group program.

Mr. TABER. How many pilots do you have in that program?
General MCNAUGHTON. I will give that on another chart.
These are the technical training airmen.

Mr. MAHON. Mechanics, and so forth?

General MCNAUGHTON. Under the present 48-group program we would have trained 50,000 mechanics this year. By reason of eliminating expiration of term of service, we will save 35,000 of those people that we otherwise would have lost through nonreenlistment. We will lose 15,000 anyway from other causes-sickness, compassionate reasons, deaths, and so forth.

In the 58-group program we have 15,000 that we would normally have up here [indicating] that we would lose anyway, plus 51,300, plus 15,800 for the Far East Air Force build-up.

The air augmentation of the 58-group, plus the FEAF augmentation amounts to about 131,000 airmen, 41,000 of whom are for the FEAF augmentation and 90,000 for the build-up.

We figure that 50 percent of the people brought in for the FEAF augmentation will not require any technical training at all, but that 75 percent of the remaining 50 percent; in other words, 371⁄2 percent of the entire number, will require technical training, and that amounts to this 15,800.

We figure that 57 percent of the 90,000 will require a form of technical training, and that amounts to the 51,800.

The technical training load is based upon the assumption that there will be no expiration of term of service during this period; otherwise, we would have 82,000 plus the 35,000 to train.

We can do it in our present six technical stations on 6 days a week, three shifts at every station, by carrying a total load of 38,000 students in training all the time in our six stations, and an average load of 25,100 in our one indoctrination center, plus our overflow into another station.

Mr. MAHON. In speaking of those stations, do you have reference to stations like the school at Wichita Falls, Tex.?

General MCNAUGHTON. Yes. Sheppard Field is a mechanic-technical school.

Mr. MAHON. You do not contemplate a necessity for creating additional stations for this type of training under this appropriation?

General MCNAUGHTON. Under this appropriation we go to 6 days a week and put in a third shift in some cases, and do it with the present number of stations.

Mr. MAHON. You economize somewhat by doing that?
General MCNAUGHTON. Yes, and we do it more quickly.

CURRENT AIRCRAFT CREW TRAINING

This is our present pilot program. The red line indicates what we are doing specifically for the Far East Air Force augmentation. As you know, in our present program, we have 3,000 pilots. We have our rate. We have our primary flying schools. We have our advanced multiengine flying schools, radar observation schools, navigator-bombadier, and so forth.

Now, for the specific purpose of the Far East Air Forces we are training 45 crews per month, divided about evenly between the F-51 crews and the F-80 crews for immediate shipment to the combat units in the Far East.

We are training 50 navigators and bombadiers per month, refreshing 50 from Reserves for the stragetic units that are being used in the Far East. We are training 10 crews per month for the light bomber crews to be used in the Far East Air Forces.

The significant point that I would like to make on this chart is the concept of our present program. I point that out because in our new program we have changed our concept.

The 3,000 rate and the present concept is that operational qualifications and crew assembly will take place within the combat units. In other words, all the training command is doing now under its present program is to train the pilot individually. He does not have gunnery; he does not have formation flying.

Mr. MAHON. He gets that after he goes to the tactical unit? General MCNAUGHTON. He has to get that at the tactical unit under the present concept.

Mr. MAHON. That expedites your training as far as the training command is concerned?

General MCNAUGHTON. But slows it way down for the combat units. Mr. MAHON. I see.

Mr. RABAUT. What effect will it have on the loss of airplanes? General RAWLINGS. In peacetime it does not have much effect because it is closely supervised. In wartime, if you did that, it would probably be pretty costly.

Mr. RABAUT. You are figuring now for peacetime work?

General RAWLINGS. He is going to show you the proposed program in the estimate.

PROPOSED STEP-UP IN TRAINING

General MCNAUGHTON. I am showing you the program in the proposed estimate at the 4,000 rate.

The present program stops the training rate at this point—at graduation from advanced schools, advanced single-engine schools, and advanced multiengine schools.

We have included between the advanced single-engine schools and the advanced multiengine schools and combat units combat crew training schools for the all-weather fighter, combat training schools for the fighter bomber, a combat crew training school for the medium bomber, the B-29 and the B-50, and the combat school for the light bombers.

The concept has changed. The crews report now intact and operationally qualified to the combat units, and that has become necessary because with the readiness demand on the combat units they do not have the flying time or the means to qualify these people into combat units.

General RAWLINGS. That was the same scheme which was used during the last war.

General MCNAUGHTON. The lack of these schools in our present training program has been the weakest link in the entire flying training program of the Air Force. We know we are on sound ground here without any question.

Mr. MAHON. You know that you are on sound ground in the present program, but you do not like the projected program so well. What was your statement on that?

General MCNAUGHTON. We know that we are on sound ground in the projected program. The lack of these combat troop training schools in the current program has been the weakest link in the flying training program. The crews now will report to the combat units operationally qualified. Before they were reporting merely as students equipped to fly aircraft, but had no operational training whatever.

Mr. RABAUT. They will be rounded out now?

General MCNAUGHTON. Yes; under this program.

Mr. MAHON. Will this program call for increasing the number of active stations?

General MCNAUGHTON. Yes.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. MAHON. Have you completed your presentation?
General MCNAUGHTON. Yes.

POSSIBILITY OF USING CIVILIAN CONTRACT SCHOOLS

Mr. MAHON. I would like to ask some questions.
Do you contemplate having civilian contract schools?

General MCNAUGHTON. We are investigating that possibility this moment. General Harper has a directive from our headquarters to survey all the existing bases we had in the Second World War, plus a few Air Force stand-by bases, with the idea of having civil contractors bid.

Mr. MAHON. Would that in any way change your picutre?
General MCNAUGHTON. No, sir.

Mr. MAHON. If you go to the contract schools, will that change the picture as explained to us here?

General MCNAUGHTON. Not at all.

General RAWLINGS. The only difference is that it would be under a civilian contract operation rather than by building up our facilities for doing it.

General MCNAUGHTON. That is correct.

General RAWLINGS. What we would do, Mr. Chairman, would be to convert resources that are in this appropriation for people into the funds required to run the program. We will do it on the basis of how we can get the most for our money, and how we can do it most expeditiously. That is the way we plan to operate the program.

NUMBER OF AVIATION CADETS

Mr. MAHON. Will you have any difficulty in getting the men for the step-up of 1,000 pilots per year? How will you get them?

General MCNAUGHTON. Are you talking about the mechanics?
Mr. MAHON. The men.

General MCNAUGHTON. The aviation cadets?

Mr. MAHON. The aviation cadets.

General MCNAUGHTON. I would like to answer that in this way: We had difficulty in getting sufficient cadets to support the 3,000pilot program, so it would be foolish for me to say we would not have difficulty in supporting the 4,000-pilot training program. However, the Korean situation and the recent tenseness in the world situation have caused quite a determined increase in aviation cadet applications, so about all I can say is that it is a goal we must hit, but it is going to be difficult under any circumstances.

USE OF CIVILIAN CONTRACT SCHOOLS IN WORLD WAR II

Mr. ENGEL. Coming back to your pilot training, was not there some dissatisfaction with training pilots by civilian schools rather than by your own schools?

General RAWLINGS. Sir, I will speak from the money end of it first. I think that is where the dissatisfaction came in.

It was

done before on an all-out-blitz effort to get the job done. The contracts necessarily were written very loosely. This meant that it was difficult to check the records; the contractual arrangements were such it appeared we were paying too much money in a number of cases, and those were the problems that surrounded us.

From an operational point of view I think the product was good. Mr. ENGEL. Was not there some difficulty from the operational point of view?

General MCNAUGHTON. Very little. I handled that entire program in the Second World War and opened up about 57 of those schools and only in two or three instances did we find that we had to relieve a contractor of his contract. The product was good.

Mr. ENGEL. It was not a question of relief, but as I recall, in the early part of the program particularly, the program did not conform to your program entirely and you were up against the proposition of trying to reeducate them on certain ideas that they were taught; in other words, trying to unlearn them. That is difficult to do once they have gotten into the habit.

General MCNAUGHTON. We sent all the civil contractor instructors through a central instructors' school where we standardized them before they ever flew a student; so that was not a problem. I wonder if you are not thinking of the old CPTC program.

Mr. ENGEL. That may be it.

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