The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-03-12

sent 10 uuIy WILL troops Far from it. There will still be the thousands of officers and tens of thousand of civilians on duty at the headquarters of what today Is the country'S biggest business, with the countrys biggest office force.
 But the w. D. organization at the top Jhas been sinplified and Chief of Staff Gen. George c. Marshall has been relieved of a tremendous load of administrative detail, transferred to the new Service of Supply under Mai. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell. By that step, General Marshall will be permitted to concentrate his en- ergies and abilities on strategy and war plans.
 From the general public's point of view, most interest in the reof- ganization centers no the position of the Air Corps, for the subjects of unified Army-Navy air command and creation of a separate secre- tary for air with cabinet rank equal to the secretaries of War and Navy have been debated in Congress and across the country with more fervor than any other phase of the defense program. Much of this debate has been based on transformation, fuzzy thinking or pure hunch: Back of itall, however, has been a suspicion that the old-line Army officers be- Titled or were enviouS of the grow ing importance of air power in modern war and were therefore con- spring to keep military aviation from coming into its own.
 AIR CORPS GETS
 PLACE IN THE WAR
 Secretary of War Stimson states that one of the primary purposes of this latest War Department reor- ganization has been to give the Air Corps its proper place in this air war. Steps toward this objective have been gradual and several in number, largely the result of the expansion of the air program, partly the result of desire to quiet some of the public and congressional clamor to let the aviators run the war.
 Under old pre-war organiza ton, the Air Corps was just another branch of the Army, rating equally with infantry, cavalry, field artillery and the rest. Last June, the or ganization of Army Air Forces" was anouItced. Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, who had been deputy chief of staff for air since October, 1940, became chief of the Army air forces as well, and as such, reported di- rectly to the secretary of war. The Army air forces were given their own procurement. maintenance and similar organizations and functions, and their own general staff, with an All, Az, A-3, mad A correspond ing to the G-1 for personnel, G-2 for intelligence, G-3 for operations and GA for supply, sections of the general staff for the ground forces. The Army air force htus became autonomous within the War De- partment organization, an Army within the Army.
 This latest reorganization carries this autonomy still further, but whether it is carried far enough to suit the civilians clamoring for separate air forceincorporating the Navy air arm and independent of both Army and Navy-iS still a question for the debating societies to wrangle about.
 EST DIVISA IN
 PARTIES TRES
 Under the new reorganization, the Army, like Caesars Gaul, is divided into three parts-air, ground and supply. Air ranks equal with all the rest of the ground forces put to- gether, but the head of the air forces reports now to the chief of staff intsead of to the secretary of war Some of the airmen might be inclined to wonder what would hap pen to them if the chief of staff were ground officer who did not appreciate the power of the air force.
 Similarly, on the new general staff of 93 officers, half are to be from the air force, half from the ground. The question here is whether an air or Q ground officer is at the head of each of the general staff sections on personnel, intelligence, operations and supply In the war plans division of the general staff. about a third of the 50 officers de- tailed will be from hte air force. The same question arises here as on the general staff proper. It is the general staff and the war plans division which advise the chief of staff who, in final anlysis. is the commander of the Army who makes the decisions as to how the war is fought It is the makeup of this general staff as a whole which will determine how effectively the air force is used.
 These points are made here not in any effort to deprecate the re- organization plan nor to indicate that there is any great feud be- tween air and ground commands. The War Department as at present constituted is unqueStionably air conscious, from Secretary Stimson, Assistant Secretary for Air Robert A. Lovett, General Marshall, Lieut.. Gen. McNair, the ground comman- der, and of course Lieut.. Gen. Ar mold, the air forces commander.
 The air force is now becoming the biggest thing in the Army and the most important. But some of the super-charged, oyerenthusiastic air. men won't be satisfied till they're running the whole show.