Evening star., 1943-01-03
Size of the Army

Growing shortages of manpower
and increasing scarcities of mate
rials will reopen the debate, this
winter, over the size of the Army.
Many persuasive arguments will be
advanced to the effect that in aiming
at an Army of about seven and a half
million men we are biting off more
than we can chew. 1t will be said
that if the Army and the Navy take
more men and more materiel than
we can support as a Nation, or trans
port to overseas battlefields, it is
common sense to revise previous
estimates and come down to brass
tacks about what we can do.
But we must remember this fact:
The Army and Navy are building
their forces to size determined by
military technicians who have de-
voted continued study to a plan of
operation for global warfare. What
is being done is being done with a
known objective in mind and with
knowledge of the resources of the
Nation. On the other hand, the
civilian manpower problem is so
new that the problem it represents
Is being tackled piecemeal; there is
merely the outline of a plan that
may work, but with no assurance
that 1t will work. Only recently was
the civilian manpower plan consid-
cred important enough to justify an
executive order from the President
giving semblance of legal author
lty to those in charge of admins
terlng it. And we still are debating
whether we can fill our civilian needs
by voluntary methods, or whether
we shall have to have a national
service act, comparable to the Selec-
tive Service Act, enabling us to draft
manpoWer where voluntary services
and placements in industry prove
inadequate.
We talk, sometimes, as if civilian
industries are the only ones bearing
the brunt of shortages and shifts
in manpoWer that deplete their re-
sources of trained and skilled men.
What about the Arny's own diff
culties in such respects? The Army
has expanded so rapidly that it's
relatively small force of professional
soldiers has been used, and continues
to be used, to train new men. Before
a new organization gets good enough
for combat duty many of its best
men are apt to be taken away and
designated for officer training or for
training in highly technical branches
of modern warfare. This constant
turnover is the nightmare of unit
commanders working to build up
their own, efficient fighting teams.
But it Is the only way to build new
Army quickly. And it is being done
according to plan and it is working.
1t is not likely that the American
people will tolerate an attempt to
defeat the enemy with numerically
inferior forces. If the men who are
building our Army could be told by
some omnipotent authority to freeze
its size at some smaller force than
they contemplate now, it would be,
for them, blessing. If the generals
discovered that some estimates of
military nlanpower needs are too
large because they outstrip produc-
ton of material and that the number
of trainees can be reduced, they
would hail the discovery as another
load off their shoulders. It would
solve countless difficulties In train
ing. But unless the military men
are professionally incompetent, Or
can be shown to have overshot the
mark by failing to consider the civil
ian side of the picture, who is going
to know better than they know the
best size of the Army with which
we expect them to fight the war?
Certainly many things remain to
be done to mobilize our civilian
manpoWer before we reach for the
rash expedient of cutting the size
Of the Army. For one thing, as As
sistant Secretary of War Patterson
has said, we can work longer hours.
For another thing, we can make up
our minds about drafting men and
women for civilian service Certainly
we cannot say yet that the civilian
manpower problem is not solved by
any plan short of cutting down the
size of the Army. For, as yet, we
have really tried no plan at all as
regards civilian mobilization.
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