UNITED STATES ARMr IN WORLD WAR II The Technical Services THE ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT: PROCUREMENT AND SUPPL Y by Harry C. Thomson and Lida Mayo CENTER OF MIUTARY HISTORY UNITED STATES ARMY WASHINGTON, D.C., 1991 Foreword In cost and bulk, the munitions manufactured by and for the Army's Ordnance Department during World War II exceeded the output of all the other technical services of the Army combined, and in cost they rivaled that for the aircraft and ships with which the war was fought. The process of getting these munitions to fighting forces all over the world—of storing them until needed, of keeping track of them, and of keeping them in repair—was almost as complicated as their manufacture. In writing the story of these two main aspects of the Ordnance mission on the home front, the authors have produced a record of enduring value; for whatever the character of military procurement now and in the future, the problems of producing and distributing military equipment on a very large scale remain much the same. Since private industry and civilian labor inevitably are called upon to contribute enormously to the making of munitions on any large scale, civilian as well as military readers should find much in this volume to instruct them. Perhaps its greatest lesson is the long lead time required to get munitions into full production, and therefore the need for calculating military requirements with the utmost accuracy possible. It is imperative, in this age of international tension and partial mobilization, that all of the intricacies of military production be clearly understood if the nation is to get the maximum of economy as well as security in preparations for its defense. Washington, D. C. JAMES A. NORELL 22 September 1959 Brig. Gen., U.S.A. Chief of Military History vii Note on the Authors Harry C. Thomson received his doctorate in government from Harvard University. During World War II he was a historian with the Army Air Forces, serving both as an enlisted man and as a commissioned officer. He became a member of the Ordnance Historical Branch in 1948, serving as its chief from 1952 until June 1959, when he resigned to become Assistant Editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Lida Mayo, a graduate of Randolph-Macon Woman's College, served as Historian with the Military Air Transport Service from 1946 to 1950, when she joined the Ordnance Historical Branch. Except for the years 1954-56, when she was Project Historian on the staff of The American University, she has continued with the Branch, becoming its chief in June 1959. viii Preface This is the second of a 3-volume series on the role of the Ordnance Depart- ment (now Ordnance Corps) in World War II. As the first volume, subtitled Planning Munitions for War,1 gave emphasis to research and development, this volume deals with procurement and supply, and the third will describe Ordnance operations overseas. It is particularly important for the reader of this volume to bear in mind that the first volume includes, in addition to research and development, separate chapters on the early history of the Ordnance Depart- ment, its organizational and personnel problems during World War II, and its efforts to conserve scarce materials such as copper, steel, and aluminum. The organizational charts in the earlier volume may be of special assistance to the reader not familiar with Ordnance organization. Taken together, the three volumes deal with every major aspect of Ordnance history in World War II, and give some attention to the prewar years when the art of munitions making was sadly neglected. The authors have studiously avoided duplication of material in other volumes of the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, particularly The Army and Economic Mobilization by R. Elberton Smith. In his preface to Charles Ffoulkes' little classic, The Gun-Founders of England, Lord Cottesloe observed, on the eve of World War II, "In all that has been written about war, but little mention has been made of the making of weapons; it is their use which is dramatic and tragic and commands public attention." The mystery of such important matters as the invention of gun- powder in the 13th century and its employment in crude firearms in the 14th century has never been properly unraveled; nor has the method by which medieval chain mail was manufactured in quantity ever been satisfactorily explained. Neglect of the armorer's art by historians has been traditional in this country as well as in England, owing in part, no doubt, to the reluctance of scholars to explore the sooty mysteries of forge and furnace. After World War I, this reluctance was reinforced by a strong desire to emphasize the pursuits of peace rather than the ways of war and to write new textbooks giving less space to battles and political campaigns and more to social, economic, and cultural history. Most professional historians of the 1920's and 1930's systematically avoided the study of both warfare and munitions manufacture, while a number of journalistic writers turned out lurid accounts 1 Constance McLaughton Green, Harry C. Thomson, and Peter C. Roots, The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1955). ix