The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-01
Two Big Safes Army Secret: For Repelling
By THOMAS M. JOHNSON fNlEA Service Military Writer

(NEA Service hAilitaxy writer
 Washington, March 1 - @War be- gun2" replied Moltke, drowsily, when they woke him deep in the night. Top drawer. Full plans. Just fol- low them."
 Then he rolled over and slept
 The thorough Prussian who pre- pared for France in 1870 Q defeat uneQualled until lo4O, set Q style for military preparedness that has been adopted and improved upon in de-- fense 5everish Washington.
 For example, suppose that -.
 Over Iceland, enemy bombing planes fly Americaward; in Mexico, e general starts Q revolution; in Japan, q premier makes Q threaten ing speech Then, in the quiet ofice of the War Plans Division, General stan, War Department, a bright.eyed, sturdy man ip Q dark business suit at a big mahogany desk will push . button.
 Let's look over the Black Plan, he will say. Or the green, or the red. PLANS HAVE REPLACED
 BOTTLE or BOURBON
 Tn Moltkes day, his American counterpart would have extracted from Q compartment of that desk Q bottle of Bourbon whiskey. But nt- tie Phil Sheridan,s l94l successor, Brigadter General Leonard T. Gee row, needs no artifical stimulus these startling days.
 His jobs official definition Is to formulate plans for use in the the- ater of war of the military forces, separately, or in conjunction with the naval forces"
 The approved procedure is this: First estimate the situation, weigh irlg information on 454 factors cov- cred in Intellige1ce's strategic in- dex-then prepare your plan. But in these days of lightning warfare, WpD must be more elastic than Moltke.. Its 2l officers sometimes plan first and estimate later-if there's time. Sometimes, the plan is on one sheet of paper. That's Q. K, too, if 1t gets the Army there "fus- test with the moStest men,"
 WHO, WHAT, WHERE,
 HOW, WHEN AND WHY"
 General Cerow must look into the future, with the eyes not of Q rapt crystal ga2er, but of a hard-boiled realist. No scares-he just must fig- ure out what could "They" really do to us? All the possible "Theys"? What must we do, to forestall or stop them? Will they attack the Philippines? VIII they land in Brazil-by air, by sea, or both? How many troops do we need; guns, tanks planes How do they get theres Then what?
 WE'D must be ready to pull out of ths hat plans to meet any ene- my anywhere. But It's favorite ene- my is old Man LogfiStics, always quizzing: How are you going to get there?"
 By railP Thirty men to a coach, 36 to a boxcar-figure 1t out By roads A field army would choke roads from New York to Albany for 0 wesk. And feed 'em! Two thous- ands tons of food for man and beast; ten thousand tons of supplies Q day--gas omitted. Ditto 18,000 tons of ammunition when they fight. March tables; time tables; supply tables: maps. With these, WPD fights Logistics.
 By sea? The Navy must escort troopships, maybe blast landing on some island. Talk that over with the Navy. More maps; charts; weather reports. Land here? No Soap-ro:kbound coast; nor here shoals. An, here's the place-but the oither fellows know that, too. Can they get there first?
 STEEL SAFES SUPPLANT
 AN OLD DESK DRAWER
 Such work requires all-aroundress and General Gerow has 1t. Born near the Petersburg, Va, battlefield, he went not to West Point, but, like General Marshall, to v. M. I. He started as an infantryman, smelled powder at Vera Cruz. In France he had e high Signal Corps job. He went through all the army,s graduate schools, including War College; then CvuSAASk9 S4eSAsaSUA W08 &0ASp tdASh WSAiV back to infantry, serving in the Philippines and China and in im- portant jobs here, including WPD before he became Its head in De- cember.
 Under him, WPD works out ev- erything, puts 1t on paper, classifies the papers Then Green Plan, for instance, might have to do with Eu- ropean invasion of the St Lawrence Valley, lately studied in detail by picked officers at the War College. But neither 1t, nor the Red Plan, nor Blue nor Yellow, is in the top draw CT of Sheridan's old desk. These plans are in two large green steel safes, very moedrn, very secure. Per- haps no safes in this country hold anything quite so important as these blueprintS for repelling invasion