Evening star., 1943-10-23
Lesser Teamwork
important to UNITY
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot


"The key to victory in this war is
unity of purpose and effort, implemented
by unity of command and inspired by
unified will to win"
In word-teamWork.
The words quoted above are taken
from report by an officer of the Marine
Corps who has since risen to great dis
tinction; at the time he wrote them.
he was an American observer with the
British forces in Egypt, and the United
States was not yet at war. They are
words which will bear repeating, and
repeating over and over again; they
ought to be printed in large block letters
and hung in every Government office.
in every machine shop, in every unit
headquarters of the armed forces and
indeed in every classroom throughout
the land.
TeamWork-how much it means in
war. 1t is important in peace, but in
war it is the vital ingredient of victory.
We are becoming familiar, through
eyewitness accounts, movies and radio
dramatizations, of the teamwork neces-.
sary to operate one of our big four
engine bomberS. We know that the pilot
Is important but he is not everything.
1t Is no use having a good pilot if a
poor navigator takes him far off mis-
course. 1t is no use having good navi-
cation, II a poor bombardier cannot hit
the target when it is reached. 1t Is
no use having the best bombardier in
the service, if a poor engineer fails 10
keep the engines going to get that bonn
bardier and his bombs over the target.
1t Is no use having all these good men
together, If gunner fails at the crucial
moment and lets Messerschmitt get a
burst of cannon fire into the body of the
Flying Fortress. And it is no use having
good individuals if they are not trained
to work together as a team.
But when all this is understood, we
are only at the beginning of the team
work necessary to deliver those bombs
at given point in German industrial
area. The plane itself, its engines and
equipment, must be in first class condi-
ton. II 1t fails, its crew, however good,
will fail, too. That is the task of the
ground crew But the members of the
ground crew cannot do better than per-
form their daily miracles. They are de-
pendent on the supply service to bring
them the spare parts and materials they
reach back across the ocean into every
corner OF the United States to get this
and that and the other thing which
must be at the right place at the right
time in order that the big bomber may
take off on schedule. failure any
where along those far-f1ung lines of sup
ply may mean a failure at the front:
the sum total of many failures NAV
mean the loss of battle, or a delay
in operations which might even entail
the loss of a campaign
Nor is that all. The intelligence serv-
ice must give the flying men accurate
up-to-date information. The meteor
logical service must forecast the weather.
Armament, communications, engineer
ing personnel must all perform their
tasks. The medical officers must see
to 1t that men unfit for duty are not
permitted to endanger the lives of
others. And so it goes. Every member
OF the team must do his or her ap-
pointed task, do it promptly and well,
and do 1t as member of the team
and not as an individual. Little teams
work together as parts Of larger teams.
Larger teams in turn make up still
larger teams.
Go back to your bomber 1t is part of
flight. With the other bombers in the
flight, it must work in close co-ordina-
ton, whether in attack or defense. If
Its gunners fail to cover a comrade' s
flank, for example, they have let down
their team. The flights form a squad
ron; squadronS are formed into groups,
and groups into wings In each of these
organizations there must be perfect
teamwork, under unified command.
The will Of the leader must be supreme,
which means not only that he must
know how to lead, but how to inspire;
that he must be as loyal to his sub
ordinates as they must be to him. And
still the tale of teamwork is not told.
For the bombers form only part Of
the vast organiza ton of the air forces
in the field They must he protactad
by fighters; their bases must be pro-
tected by antiaircraft artillery; they
must, at need, be prepared to work in
close support of ground troops or of
naval units; there is no limit to the
variety Of the big teams which may
have to be formed for the execution of
different tasks. But when all is said
and done, the work of the big teams
armies, air forces, feets-depends on