Evening star., 1940-08-04

ID II ,494 In night courses.
of a two-ocean fleet able to cope with
any possible combination of powers.
At present there are in commission
IS battleships, aircraft carriers, 27
light and heavy cruisers, 236 destroyers
and 10l submarines. Every category
save that of heavy cruisers, reveals
some proportion of over-age ships. On
the building ways are 10 battIeships, S
aircraft carriers, 81 cruisers, 81 DESTROY
ers and Al submarines. The battleships,
Of $4,000 and $4,000 tons, are two to
four years from completion.
The Allies were certain at first thev
needed only money and munitions from
the United States. and asked no more
than division of token" soldiers. As
one deadly month followed another, the
requirement rose to 500 900 men, then to
100000 and finally to 1000 900. For
different reasons, Army spokesmen COM
plain, a grand strategic plan for sup
plies IS just as impracticable today.
The general staff has proposed an
eventual Army of 100000 trained and
equipped men; but if war comes a wear
from now, it is maintained, there is
not man alive who knows whether the
main theater of American operations
Will be the British Isles, the United
States, Canada, South America or the
Orient.
A few examples regarding munitions
and supplies will paint the 1917 picture
The Graham Investigating Committee
found that the Government spent 1884, =
226608 on 998 contracts for 3-inch, 155-
millimeter and 92-inch shells, and that
none of them ever reached the firing
line. The sum of s343,657,5l0 was spent
on l,128 contracts for 47-inch and rs
millimeter shells, of which only 10000
were fired by American troops, at an
average cost of s17182 a shell.
Contracts for 240-caliber howitzers
were let in June, 1917. The war was
over before deliveries began. Several
of the first guns tested blew up; it was
not until 10 years later that this style
of howitzer was perfected.
The Army had eight procurement
agencies which bid flercely among them
selves for supplies and labor, and also
against the Navy. The War Depart
ment's Ordnance Office cornered three
times as much leather for harness as
there were horses to wear it, with the
result that the departments Office of
the Quartermaster General was unable
to provide shoes for soldiers. Loaded
freight cars, nearly all marked with
priority" tags, congested traffic in
30mile radius of New York Harbor.
Not until the War Resources Board was
reorganized in March, 1918, was any
success attained in controlling prices
and restricting competitive bidding
among Government agencies. Congress
cut the traffic snarl at last by NATIONAL
izing the countrys railway system.
M-Day Schedules Worked Out.
A series of M-day schedules for in
dustrial mobilization has been worked
out in detail, so that the War Depart
ment today knows it will require, in case
of hostilities, some 10000 specific and
separate items, of which about 1900
would give trouble. 1t has surveyed 20
900 industrial plants, and chosen 1900
for possible allocations. A scheme of
educational orders" has been worked
out by which firms are financed for
the installation of sample" machine
tools and crews, with the purpose of i'm
plementing short cuts to mass produc-
tion
Finally, there is the new National
Defense Advisory Commission, which in
two months has cleared $1728, 8,195,829
of Army and Navy contracts, which
could be converted over night into
War Resources Board, and which con-
tains in embryo all necessary war estab-
lishments.
To sum up, the crucial problem Of
1910, as it was in 1917, will not be man
power but material. One advantage Of
today is that the United States has
reserve of nearly 100000 World War
veterans, with an average age OF Al
years. Profit has been gained in many
respects from the lessons OF q years
ago. It is evident at least that the
same program of preparation could be
achieved today with an economy Of bill
lions of dollars and four to nine months
of time, every single day Of which might
well prove invaluable. The difficulty is
that the same program, owing to revo-
luton in the alignment of the great
powers, can no longer serve.