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"BRING THE BOYS HOME": DEMOBILIZATION
OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES
AFTER WORLD WAR II

By

Bert Narvin Sharp

ABSTRACT OF A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Arts and Letters

1976

ABSTRACT
"BRING THE BOYS HOLE": DEMOBILIZATION

OF THE UNITED STATES ARI‘I’IED FORCES
AFTER WORLD WAR II

By
Bert Narvin Sharp

Bring the boys home was a phrase used at the
conclusion of World War II. It meant to many of those who
used it at that time that American troops should be brought
homevdth all due speed, with no excuses, and no nonsense.
Ihltime the phrase became a pejorative one and referred to
aisenseless headlong drive to return all American service-
men to their homes with no regard to national security or
international committments. Then and now the phrase
recalls a highly charged emotional period of American
kfiStory--letters to Congressmen.by the thousands, some
vfith baby pictures in them, generals cornered by angry
vdwes, letters to editors with reference to army brass,
<flmir-borne generals, and land lubbing admirals.

It was in part to prevent just such a vitriolic
reaction that the Army developed a point system, WhiCh
they hOped would be a fair means of discharging troops.
Before World War II, the United States Army and the Navy

had used the unit system of discharge; that is ‘30 say,

Bert Harvin Sharp
entire units were disbanded at one time. The point system
would individualize discharges, giving credit for time
served, combat decorations, battle stars, and parenthood.
The other armed services developed similar programs.
meant to insure fairness, the point system of the services
seemed to expand the area of complaint. Complicating the
program was the desire of Congress to have surplus
personnel released regardless of points. They also sought
the release of men for industry. There were also instances
of men being discharged who were not eligible-~movie stars,
football players, and sons of prominent political
personalities.

As the armed services sought to please Congress by
discharging larger and larger numbers of men, some of the
facilities designed for discharge became crowded. And
there were hearings on the operation of the separation
centers; some of them were visited by the Special Committee
to Investigate the National Defense Program. There were
also investigations of trans-oceanic operations by both
the House and the Senate, as answers were sought to the
seemingly slow return of men from the Pacific, particularly
the Philippines.

It was in the Philippines that the most serious
challenge to military authority took place, with men
numbering in the thousands, demanding to be returned home,
and where a plethora of headquarters personnel cranked out

letters on mimeograph machines which were sent to the

 

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Bert Marvin Sharp
President and Congress. There is a discussion of the
causes of these demonstrations, the reaction of the public
to them, and an analysis of what they accomplished.

In what appeared to be the genuine will of the
people to have their loved ones return, the President
though privately worried, about the effects of our rapid
demobilization, said little. This may have been the case
with many of the Congressmen, but a fairly substantial
number of Congressmen from the Midwest, most of them
prewar critics castigated the Administration sharply for
not wanting to bring the boys home.

The thesis concludes that the emotional reaction
of the American people was an understandable one, and one
that we could have done very little to prevent. It also
concludes that the peril to our national security was not
as great as was feared at the time and offers the observa-
.tion that the only conceivable threat to our security was
the Soviet Union which was so involved with problems of
its own, many of which grew out of her own rapid
demobilization that she was not the threat to United

States security that some thought she was.

"BRING THE BOYS HOME": DEMOBILIZATION
OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES
AFTER WORLD WAR II

By

Bert Marvin Sharp

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Arts and Letters

1976

Chapter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . .

l.

2.
3.

10.

ll.

PREPARING FOR WAR'S END: THE
NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING
BOARD AND CONGRESS . . . . . . . .

CONGRESSIONAL PLANNING . . . . . . .

HOW JOHNNY CAME MARCHING HOME:
DISCHARGE PAST AND PRESENT AND THE
EVOLUTION OF THE POINT SYSTEM . . .

TWO WARS ARE TOO MANY: REDEPLOYMENT
TO THE PACIFIC . . . . . . . . . .

GETTING THEM OUT OF THE ARMY AND
GETTING THEM INTO THE ECONOMY . . .

TOO MANY MEN, ALL BUSY DOING NOTHING

THE POINT SYSTEM: OPERATION AND
COPPLAINT‘S C O O O C C O O O O O O

BRINGING THEM HOME: FULL SCALE
DEMOBILIZATION AND FULL SCALE
PROBLEI‘KB O O O O O O O O C O O O O

TROUBLE IN THE RANKS: GI PROTESTS
AND DEMONSTRATIONS . . . . . . . .

CONGRESS AND DEMOBILIZATION:
CORRESPONDENCE, HEARINGS, AND
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY . . . . . . .

A RETROSPECTIVE LOOK AT DEMOBILIZATION
FOREIGN POLICY AND SOME OTHER
AFTERTHOUGHTS . . . . . . . . . .

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ii

Page

25

40

66

80
9A

130

153

192

223

267
282

iii
Chapter Page
BIBLIOGRAPHICESSAY................ 287
GLOSSARY..................... 306

INTRODUCTION

On September 2, 1945, WOrld war II came to an end
with the signing of a surrender document between the United
Nations and Japan. At the conclusion of Werld war II, there
were over twelve million men and women in the armed services
of the United States. They had participated in active
combat or other military activities on every continent and
on most of the world's oceans. Uniformed personnel were
scattered over scores, if not hundreds, of islands from
Greenland and Iceland to the Bahamas and all across the
Pacific. In all recorded history, no country had ever waged
war over such an extensive area of land and water on such an
intensive scale, nor waged it so well.

These men and women would now have to be brought
home, many of them over thousands of miles of water. It
would be a massive undertaking, for which there had been no
parallel in modern human history. In the space of a single
year the armed services would bring home most of the forces
they had taken over three and a half years to deploy. As a
further complication, those troops would have to be brought
home by a priority of discharge method that had been devised
by the services. In previous wars, discharges for the most
part, had been given on a unit basis; that is, entire units

1

were disbanded at one time.

This time the services relied upon an elaborate
system of individual discharge based upon an accumulation
of points for length of time in service, amount of time
overseas, campaign battle stars, combat decorations, and
dependency. Constructed in such a manner as to give credit
for a number of considerations, all of which it was hoped
would ultimately result in a fair,democratic system of
discharging men. It also had the result of increasing the
area of complaint. Although the majority of servicemen
apparently considered the point system fair, others were
dissatisfied. More serious was the friction created by
shipping delays, by relations between officers and enlisted
men, by housing and living conditions, and by favortism in
assignments. In short, the whole area of human concern that
might be experienced by unhappy men. That discontent soon
resulted in thousands of letters to public officials,
Congressmen, Senators, officials of the armed services,
and even the President of the United States. Servicemen
who had shivered in zero weather in Belgium but obeyed
orders, who had fought the Japanese and the mosquitoes but
obeyed orders, were now taking part in activities that were
close to mutinous. There were demonstrations and marches
with placards and bull horns in Europe and the Pacific as
well as telegrams written at interminable length and signed
by hundreds of men. In the words of the unknown humorist

who first said it, everyone wanted to come home the day

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before yesterday. That this may not have been a responsible
or even a sensible position did not seem to worry the men
who were doing the complaining.

Of this feverish desire to drop everything and come
home immediately and of the results of such a policy, Harry
S. Truman later wrote:

Americans hate war, but once they are provoked to
defend themselves against those who threaten their
security, they mobilize with unparalled swiftness
and energy, while the battle is on, there is no
sacrifice of men or treasure too great for them to
make.

Once hostilities are over, Americans are as

spontaneous and headlong in their eagerness to
return to civilian life. No people have been
known to disengage themselves so quickly from the
ways of war.

This impatience is the expression of a deeply

rooted national ideal to want to live at peace.

But the tragic experience following WOrld war I
taught us that this admirable trait could lead to
catastrophe. We need to temper and adjust the rate
of demobilization of our forces if we wo d be able
to meet our new obligations in the world.

But demobilization was not to be tempered or
adjusted. Congress answered letters and wrote resolutions
at a hectic rate. There were numbers of Congressmen touring
the world, listening to complaints. The Secretary of war
visited many of the principal military centers in EurOpe and
Asia and listened to delegations of servicemen. George

Marshall, while Chief of Staff, addressed members of

 

1Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, I, Year of Decisions
(Gardgn City, New York: DofiBIeday and Campany, Inc., 1955),
p. 50 .

1,
Congress on demobilization, and when General Dwight
Eisenhower became Chief of Staff, he also addressed them.
Admiral Chester Nimitz assured Congress that the Navy was
doing everything that it could to bring servicemen home as
rapidly as possible. Congress held a number of hearings on
demobilization to investigate the separation centers, the
point system, transportation, and demobilization in general.
Congressmen replied to letters and phone calls and tried to
exercise patience and restraint when visited by delegations
such as the Servicemen's Fathers Release Association, the
Parents Selectee Legion, the Wives in waiting Club, the Gold
Star Mothers, the Blue Star Mothers, and the Bring Heme
Daddy Clubs. Medical Associations wanted doctors released;
the UMW wanted miners released; LaGuardia wanted policemen
released; and college coaches wanted football stars
released. This pressure that was brought against the
government was particularly impressive in view of the fact
that it was not organized for the most part, and that it
genuinely represented the voice of the people, and
Congressmen knew this.

Critics--important critics--Truman, Byrnes,
jForrestal, Nimitz, Marshall, and Eisenhower all spoke of
'the dangers of a too rapid demobilization, but it all was
'to no avail. The American public wanted the servicemen
:returned home and angrily charged that the armed forces
were trying to build empires, and Congressmen themselves

were soon speaking of "brass hats" and "chairborne

 

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generals," giving vent perhaps to what might have been a
somewhat carefully repressed hostility that had lain
submerged during the war. Then, too, the rather emotionally
strained times brought old issues back to life vividly and
a number of them were now eager to reassert the primacy of
the civil over the military power, and one way of doing this
was to rapidly demobilize the armed forces. This rapid
demobilization, too, would mean that sizable reductions
could be made in the budgets, and this was a thought that
brought pleasure to many Congressmen whose minds had reeled
at the figures in the wartime budgets.

While the armed forces of World war II were being
demobilized, a serious omission was becoming apparent. This
was the failure to provide adequately for postwar forces.
Seemingly, the nation was loath to accept the burden of
postwar responsibilities; it wanted the glory but not the
grief. It did not want the draft but an extension of it had
to be accepted. It did not want Universal Military Training,
nor high budgets. One way was the old way, stay at home,
mind its own business, maintain a limited army and navy,
stay clear of agreements. The other way meant agreements,

a substantial army and navy, and higher budgets than were
normal in peacetime. Congress could not agree, for example,
on what it wanted in way of a postwar army, but clearly the
old army no longer existed. All of the services, for that
matter, were being cut down to the proportions that were

expected to be sufficient for peacetime; but no one had a

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clear idea of whether these would be sufficient to meet new
obligations. In important places, brows began to wrinkle
and men spoke wistfully of the size of the U.S. armed forces
during wartime and the recent period of demobilization was
spoken of ruefully as the period of the "disintegration of
the armed forces.

This study seeks answers to a number of questions.
The major part of it will be concerned with the question of
why the United States, given its postwar responsibilities,
demobilized its armed forces as rapidly as it did. Quite
evidently, the answer to this is public Opinion, an
emotional outpouring on the part of the American people
so vast as to be irresistible, and it hit Congress squarely,
that branch of the government which was the most vulnerable.
The characteristics of that public opinion and the manner
in which it was asserted requires discussion in depth.
Requiring just as much discussion is the reaction of
Congressmen and Senators to that Opinion, their reaction
as legislators representing constituencies and as lawmakers
proposing laws, engaging in debate, and conducting hearings,
and any number of other relevant activities; and certainly
an important part of that body's activities, which will also
be dealt with, will be its relationship with the President
and the various departments of the executive branch.

This study will travel over some ground that is not
new. There are published works that deal with early postwar

planning that have discussed New Deal agencies such as the

7
Natural Resources Planning Board and the wartime agency the
OWMR admirably. No attempt will be made to discuss these
agencies in detail, but an attempt will be made to discuss
them with respect to their relationship with Congress and
the effects of their contribution to the demobilization of
the armed forces. It will also attempt to come to some
conclusions regarding the effect of the demobilization of
the U.S. armed forces on the subsequent course of the
postwar world. Published studies that treat some aspect
of the demobilization of the armed forces have frequently
not given this the attention that it deserves. Unpublished
studies, studies of units, for example, of which there are
many are prone to suffer from an understandable lack of
objectivity and to substitute rhetoric for logical argument

and premise for fact. This study will attempt to do more.

Chapter I

PREPARING FOR WAR'S END: THE NATIONAL RESOURCES
PLANNING BOARD AND CONGRESS

In the hectic stages of demobilization, critics
insisted that the government had not prepared for it.
Although the confusion that sometimes arose in the program
made this easy to believe, it was not entirely true.
Planning for demobilization had begun quite early in both
the executive branch and Congress. As early as November
1940, Roosevelt had quietly asked the National Resources
Planning Board to begin "post defense" planning.1 This was
at a time when the United States was not at war and would
not be at war for over a year. To Roosevelt, it did not
seem strange for the nation to begin "post defense"
planning, for by this time, Germany had conquered Poland,
the low countries, and France, and was subjecting the
English to a deadly air campaign. The possibility of the
United States remaining out of the war was becoming more
and more remote, and the first peacetime conscripts in the

history of the United States were marching to the cadence

 

1Davis R. B. Ross, Preparing for Ulysses (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 54.

8

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9
counts of red-faced sergeants.

Once the United States entered the war, there was
little doubt in the minds of most people that the Allies
would be victorious, after which they would then set about
reconstructing the world. Curiously enough, a substantial
number of people accepted this as the legitimate mission of
the United States. Yet it would be a mistake to ascribe all
of these motives to pure idealism. Much of the concern
about a "war-torn" Europe was undoubtedly genuine, the
result of the most sincere humanitarian motives, but at the
same time much of it arose from the fear of what an econom—
ically depressed Europe would mean to the economy of the
United States. This interest in the period that would
follow the war was not confined to the executive branch.

In Congress, Jerry Voorhis of California was concerned
enough to try to create a national commission to study
problems after the war. In it, he envisioned representa-
tives from business, labor, agriculture, education, and
Congress-~five from the House, five from the Senate. The
resolution introduced in January 1941 placed heavy emphasis
on the importance of postwar planning for a sound economy.
Hearings were held on it in the summer of l9hl by the Labor
Committee and a number of witnesses testified in favor of
the resolution. The resolution was not reported from the
committee, however, until May, 1942 and was not adopted by
the House. According to Voorhis' own legislative post-

znortem, his resolution in the opinion of the House

lO

"leadership" was too early.2

Across the hall in the Senate, October, l9hl, Claude
Pepper, Senator from Florida, introduced a resolution
calling for a study group which was killed by the party
leadership. Majority Leader Alben Barkley asked Pepper not
to push for the adoption of his resolution because the time
was inopportune. There were a number of other Senators, he
explained, who wanted to introduce postwar legislation and
it would be to everyone's advantage for the sponsors to
confer together and coordinate their efforts. Satisfied,
or at least resigned, Pepper did not press the matter.3

At a time when most Americans were too preoccupied
with the course of a war which was far from being won (and
which the United States had not yet joined), Voorhis and
Pepper were in the minority. Yet the number of people who
thought as they did was growing. When they first introduced
their resolutions in 1941, the emotional involvement of the
American peOple was growing each day. wartime pictures from
the European front showing the faces of starving children
and reports of England burning during the blitz were
beginning to have their effect. And while the sentiment
favoring American involvement was rising, there was a

parallel development: a growing sentiment for permanent

 

2Jerry VOorhis, Confessions of a Congressman (Garden
City, New York: Doubleday and Co.,‘Inc., l9h8), pp. 250-5.

 

3United States,Senate, Congressional Record, 77th
Congress, 2nd session, April 27, l9h2, pp. 3717-8.

 

ll
peace, insured by some kind of peace-keeping organization.

In a Gallup Survey of persons listed in Who's Who in

 

America, 60 percent believed that the United States should
enter into a postwar league.h Wendell Willkie, proud
spokesman of the American way and of the superior virtue
of undefiled electrical power, said that the American way
would not be protected until the British way and the Chinese
way were also protected. Several months later in an inter-
view in Rushville, Indiana, he predicted that there would
be a peace league after the war.5 The following day, the
former ambassador to Belgium, John Cudahy, in a radio speech
over WTMJ proposed that Roosevelt ask the Congress to
endorse a program for a new world order composed of an
Association of nations.6
Newspaper editorials and speeches were filled with

idealistic cliches: "family of nations," "a peaceful future

free of strife." A letter writer to the New York Times saw

 

nothing impractical about the four freedoms. To him, they
‘were ". . . no vision of a distant millenisalism . . . it is
a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own

time."7 Finally, one may only speculate as to the numbers

 

hNew'York Times, Aug. 2, 1941, p. 2.

5N w York Timeg, February 26, 1941, p. 8; August 10,
1941, p. 2.

6N'ewYork Timgg, August 11, 1941, p. 6.
7New York Times, Iv, April 6, 1941, p. 8.

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12
of P.T.A. members who had to listen to some principal's
comments about the importance of education in the "world of
tomorrow."

All of this, of course, is by way of showing that
the sentiment in favor of internationalism was growing, not
riotously, but consistently. All isolationist sentiment was
not dead. Hamilton Fish was still in the House of Repre-
sentatives, as were John Vorys and George Bender, and Burton
K. Wheeler and Hiram Johnson were in the Senate. Gallused
farmers in blue denim shirts and small town bankers in white
ones still read the thgago Tribune, and certainly not all
Republicans were willing to accept either Wéndell Wilkie or
his philosophy of internationalism--far from it, to at least
one, he was not far from a war mongerer. On Nevember 6,
1941, Congressman Dewey Short, Republican from Missouri,
characterized Willkie as "Wee Windy war Willkie, a
Bellowing, Blatant, Bellicose, Belligerent, Bombastic Blow-
Hard"--effective alliteration perhaps but poor timing for
the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor a month later.8

At war as of December 7, l9hl, America was already
looking forward to its end, indeed, some of its statesmen
were confidently planning for it. A little more than a
month later, January 14, 1942, President Roosevelt sent to

Congress the - National Resources Planning Board's report

 

8Volta Torrey, You and Your Congress (New York:
William Morrow and Co., 1%“, p. I77-

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for l9hO-l9hl. In an accompanying letter, he spoke of the
Board as the "planning arm" of the executive office,
"charged with the preparation of long range plans," and with
developing plans for "winning the peace."9

Six months after the President's letter to Congress,
the director of the NRPB, Fred Delano, wrote the President
that it was necessary "to develop planning for a compre-
hensive well articulated plan for demobilization."lO A few
days later, the President replied that it was not the prOper
time to consider demobilization, and that the publicity
given to demobilization might divert the attention of peOple
from winning the war. Despite the fact that the letter was
to "Dear Uncle Fred," in places it was not far from caustic:
"there will not be any postwar problems if we lose this
war."11

Yet Delano was not the least daunted, for under the
aegis of the NRPB a conference began on postwar problems,
July 17, 19A2. In its first two months, the conference met

five times, usually with at least fifteen members present

 

9U.S., Cong. Rec., 77th Cong., 2nd sess., Jan. 14,

1942, p. 314.

10Fred Delano, Director, NRPB, to Franklin Roosevelt,
President of the United States, July I, 1942; Official File
1092 D White House Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Franklin
D. RooseveIt_Library,IHyde Park, new‘Yerk. Cited hereafter
‘gyRiile number and identification, then Roosevelt Papers,
D .

llRoosevelt to Delano, July 6, 1942; OFlO92D,
Roosevelt Papers, FDRL.

14
from the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, Navy, and war,
from the Veterans' Administration, the Selective Service,
the war Manpower Commission, the Federal Security Agency,
and the sponsoring National Resources Planning Board.
Officially known as the Conference on Postwar Readjustment
of Civilian and Military Personnel, its members preferred
an abbreviation of the title: Postwar Manpower Conference
(PMC). Meeting throughout the summer of l9h2 and into

early spring of 1943 the PMC Report, Demobilization and

 

_Readjustment was rounded into shape for the President by
two of its representatives. In June, the President submitted
the completed report to Congress.12
Its analysis of demdbilization was the most compre-
hensive of anything that had yet been done and furnished
not only a philosophy of demobilization, which was followed
in many areas, but a clear set of proposals to help achieve
an effective and democratic demobilization. Noting that
demobilization included more than the mere separation of
men from the armed services, the Conference report stated
that it should also include a review of a man's records to
ascertain his education, whatever special skills he might
have acquired while in the service, dissemination of
information concerning employment opportunities, the

opportunity for vocational guidance, and, last of all,

"relocation of the man in his total peacetime situation

 

12Ross, Preparingifor Ulysses, pp. 5A-9.

 

 

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15
including his placement in useful, productive work."13
To assure this placement of the individual in

"useful, productive work," the Conference believed that

the rate of demobilization should be adjusted to the speed
with which industry was able to absorb workers}!F To
provide a period of adjustment at the end of a serviceman's
career, it proposed a three month's furlough with regular
base pay, the amount not to exceed $100 a month. During
this time, he could secure information on "readjustment and
rehabilitation." Thereafter, the United States Employment
Service would extend its facilities and the federal
government would offer unemployment benefits for a period
not to exceed twenty-six weeks. For those interested in
agriculture, assistance would be given in locating employ-
ment or in buying a farm. For the time that the individual
spent in service, he was to be allowed credit on his old age
and survivor's insurance. Finally, the most generous
provision of all, provided for living allowances and tuition
for those who wished to resume their education.15

All of these proposals, submitted by the President

to Congress in June, were the subject of his fireside chat

 

13National Resources Planning Board, Demobilization
and Readjustment (washington, D.C., l9A3), p. 52.

ll’NRPB, ngobiligation and Readjgstment, pp. 26-7.

l5NRPB, Demobilization and Readjustment, p. A.

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of July 28, 1943.16 In October, he Presented an outline to
Congress for veterans' educational benefits, using as
resource material a report that was submitted to him by a
committee of the armed forces.17 Almost a month later,
November 23, l9h3, the President submitted the remainder
of his program for veterans' legislation. Reminding
Congress of certain benefits that already existed, notably
in the area of insurance and hospitalization, he asked
specifically that mustering out pay be added to these; that
there be a uniform system of federal unemployment benefits;
and that veterans receive credit under the social security
system for time spent in the service.

The legislation requested by the President was soon
lumped into one omnibus bill known as the GI Bill of Rights
which he signed into law on June 22, 194A, remarking that
it carried out "substantially" what he had asked in three

9

different addresses in 1943.1 Veterans' benefits had come

 

16

Samuel J. Rosenman, comp., "Fireside Chat on the
Progress of the war and the Plans for Peace," The Public
Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, XII: The Tide
Turn:5 July 28, 1943 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950),
pp- 3-5.

l7Rosenman, "Message to the Congress on the
Education of war Veterans," The Public ngers . . .
Roosevelt, XII, pp. 449-55.

 

Rosenman, "A Message to the Congress on Providing
for the Return of Service Personnel to Civilian Life," The
Public Pape;§:. . . Roosevelt, XII, November 23, I943.

19Rosenman, "Victory and the Threshold of Peace, The
President Signs the 6.1. Bill of Rights," The Public Papers
. . . Roosevelt, XII, pp. 180-185.

 

17

a long way since the PMC report, of June 1943 was sent to
Congress. In almost all areas, the provisions of the GI
Bill equaled or excelled the suggestions that had been made
by the PMC. For example, the PMC asked that the veteran be
given assistance in buying a farm, but the GI Bill provided
federally guaranteed loans for the buying of a farm, of a
home, or one's own business. The PMC had asked for
unemployment insurance for twenty-six weeks; the GI Bill
provided for fifty-two weeks. Where the PMC called for one
year of education with the veteran to be given a living
allowance, the GI Bill provided up to four years with a
living allowance for both the veteran and his dependents.20

0n the whole, the GI Bill was one of the most
remarkable laws ever passed in the history of the United
States. There is no other instance in our history of so
much having been done for so many people on so vast a scale.
The WOrld war I veteran may have been rightly aggrieved at
his treatment; but the veteran of World war II, with the
exception of those who were seriously wounded and crippled
and for whom no compensation was adequate, was generously
rewarded for his service. Apart from the humanitarian
aspects of the legislation, there was a practical side as
well. It made possible a smooth transition from a war to a

peacetime economy by putting many veterans into schools and

 

20

Rosenman, The Public Papers . . . Roosevelt,
pp 0 180-5 0

Po. In
.

.‘ I‘d

De... ..

9-...) c.

'4'.

- I47.

 

 

‘0
.
u

.
n.
I'-

.
‘|

a.“

18
thereby removing them from the job market. And for those
who did have trouble finding employment, it furnished
through unemployment payments, a means of sustenance to the
individual, and some stimulus to the economy as well.

The GI Bill became law approximately ten and a half
months before the war ended in Europe and well over a year
before it ended in the Pacific. During the spring of 19AA
when Congress was shaping the legislation, the United States
had not yet invaded continental Europe, nor had the
reconquest of the Philippines taken place; yet it was
confidently planning for the end of the war. As Roosevelt
had stated the previous October, the "time to prepare for
peace is at the height of the war."21 With the GI Bill, the
government had made a great step forward with its planning,
and an early one; it was certainly a step that was in stride
with public opinion, if not ahead of it.

The whole of the program of veterans' benefits, of
‘which the GI Bill was a part, was not obtained without some
cost. As previously stated, much of the legislation grew
out of suggestions made originally by the Postwar Manpower
Conference, a group of men who met under the aegis of the
National Resources Training Board. This Board, the agency
chosen by the President to do his postwar planning, died at
the fiscal hands of Congress, June 26, 1943, and the more

 

21Rosenman, "Message to the Congress the Education
of war Veterans," The Public Papers . . . Roosevelt, XII,
Oct. 27, l9h3, p. 453.

‘0

-
ug-

 

l9

conservative members of Congress were convinced that they
had killed a hydra-headed monster.22 This was well before
the end of the war was even in sight, and fortunately for
the President, and for that matter, for the American peOple,
the NRPB was not then at work on any major project. Its
most important report, Demobilization and Readjustment, had
already been submitted to the President. But the President
was now confronted with the possibility of not having any
agency to help him at a time when he needed help the most.

There certainly had not been too much help from
Congress, for the initiative for demobilization planning as
late as the fall of 1943 lay with the executive branch. No
one knew this better, nor resented it more than many of the
members of Congress; yet they did little about instituting
plans of their own. Much of this resentment took the form
of carping criticism of the NRPB.

The National Resources Planning Board was created
for the purpose of coordinating public works planning,
natural resources development, and research projects between
,federal, state, and local agencies. The Board came into
existence in 1939 as a result of the reorganization plan of
‘the President's office. By the terms of this plan, the NRPB
assumed the responsibilities and duties of the Federal

Ifinployment Stabilization Board which was abolished.

 

22Edward Hobbs, Behind the President (washington,
I).C.: Public Affairs Press, 195A), p. 82.

20

Strangely, there was never any statutory basis for the NRPB;
that is to say, Congress had made no provision for such an
organization. It had only consented to the reorganization
plan of the President. Congressional critics of the Board
claimed that the NRPB had no statutory basis aside from the
performance of duties that had previously been the responsi-
bility of the Federal Employment Stabilization Board. There
is a certain amount of irony in that statement, though, for
at the time of the Board's creation, Roosevelt had requested
statutory authority for the Board.23

Almost from the beginning, the NRPB came under
attack as an agency that was meant to enlarge the powers of
the President's office and usurp the functions of the states
and municipalities, not to mention Congress. The Board was
in almost constant financial trouble, for many of the
members of Congress were not convinced of the usefulness of
this particular executive creation. In a l9h0 debate on the
appropriations requested for the Board, Senator Byrd of
Virginia said, "I think that in its accomplishments it shows
less for the actual money expended than any other agency of
the government."2h There were other complaints that the
NRPB was duplicating the work of other agencies. Formidably
opposed by such Senators as Taft of Ohio, who thought along
‘the lines of Byrd, the appropriation for the Board passed

—*

23Hobbs, Behind the President, pp. 77-8.
2"U.S., Cong. Rec., 76th Cong., 3rd sess., p. 1053.

21

the Senate by only three votes.25

The House was not any friendlier toward the NRPB.
Everett Dirksen, for example, suggested that the Board plan
its way out of existence.26 The NRPB's troubles continued.
In 1941 and again in 1942, the President found it necessary
to make pleas in behalf of its continuation.27 In 1943,
with the NRPB once again experiencing trouble securing the
necessary money to continue functioning. Roosevelt wrote
to Clarence Cannon that the NRPB had done good work on the
projects on which it had worked.28 About a month later,
Roosevelt wrote to Carter Glass, stating that the NRPB would
not duplicate any of the work of Congress. Roosevelt went
on to say that he did not question Congress when that body
felt that it needed a specific sum of money to carry out a
specific function; therefore, why should Congress question

him.29

Roosevelt's efforts, however, accomplished nothing,
for 1943 was a difficult year for the NRPB--indeed, a

decisive year as far as its existence was concerned.

 

25U.S., Cong. Rec., 76th Cong., 3rd sess., February
6, 1940, p. 1059.

26U.S., Cong. Rec., 76th Cong., 3rd sess., April 12,
1915'0 9 P 0 M50 0

27Hobbs, Behind the Presidept, p. 82.

28

Roosevelt to Cannon, February 16, 1943, 0F1092D,
Roosevelt Papers, FDRL.

29Rooseve1t to Glass, March 15, 1943, 0FlO92,
Roos evelt Papers , FDRL .

22

Advocates of economy were convinced that the Board was not
economical; advocates of states rights were just as convinced
'that it intruded upon the rights of states. There were
other'critics who accused the Board of being everything from
subversive to satanic. According to one of the Congressional
(critics, for example, a woman who had researched one of the
DHIPB's reports, was a "devotee of Karl Marx," "an important
cog in the New Deal machine that grinds out socialistic
schemes to destroy private property in America."30
(hongressman Frederick Smith of Ohio said that the NRPB was
ea "grave menace" and ought to be destroyed. Smith also had
<ither objections to the agency. In one of the publications
<1f the NRPB, a statement was made about the need for family
planning and marriage counseling. In what was a remarkably
tasteful and inoffensive statement about this need, Smith
saw an attempt to influence sex morals. 0f the wicked
agency, he said: "It preposes not forthrightly and openly,
(If course, but insidiously and slyly to invade the domain
of sex life among our young people. Mark well this
salacity."31

Yet it was the counting room, not the bedroom that
was responsible for the NRPB's demise. In the late spring
of‘ll943, Roosevelt discussed the matter with Harold Smith,

 

30U.S., Cong. Rec., 78th Cong., lst sess., Feb. 8,
1943 ’ 13° 4380 o

31U.S., Cong. Rec., 78th Cong., lst sess., Feb. 8,
1943, P- 717. Po 720.

 

23

Director of the Budget:
I made it clear to the President that I had talked
to no one on the Hill about the situation so that I
knew the reactions only at second hand. He asked me
what I thought should be done to save the Board, and
I frankly told him very little. He suggested that if
I would try to get the appropriation through for
$200,000 I could say to those on the Hill--I assume
the Appropriation Conference Committee Leaders--that
he would then get the Board, the Budget, and the
Majority and Minority Leaders of Congress together
for a discussion of planning.

Despite Smith's warning that it was futile to
arttempt to save the Board, Roosevelt was determined to do
something. On July 19, 1943, he sent Samuel Rosenman a
Inemorandum in which he stressed the necessity of having an
<irganization such as the NRPB to assist in postwar planning
,and.asked that he incorporate those suggestions into a
speech that he was preparing for the President.33 Something
unmet have changed the President's mind, though, for he did
ruyt mention the NRPB by name in his fireside chat of July
28, 1943.34 The subject was not discussed at his press
conference two days later, either.35 On August 31, the
President wrote Fred Delano, the Board's Chairman, thanking

Irbm for his efforts, adding that he was sending a letter of

 

32Harold D. Smith Papers, Diary of Harold Smith,
Ccuxference with President Roosevelt, June 3, 1943, FDRL.

6 33Rosenman, The Public Papers . . . Roosevelt, XII,
p0 33 0

3"Rosenman, "Fireside Chat on the Progress of the
War," The Public Papers . . . Roosevelt, XII, pp. 326-336.

35Rosenman, The Public Papers . . . Roosevelt, XII,

Th£;.Nine Hundred and Twelfth Press Conference, July 30, 1943.

a. I,

 

‘r

24
thanks to each of the members of the NRPB.36 It died
quietly; the shades were drawn; the door softly closed.

If postwar planning were to continue, new means must be

found .

3 Roosevelt to Delano, August 31, 1943, 0FlO92,
BLosevelt Papers , FDRL .

 

Chapter 2
CONGRESSIONAL PLANNING

With the death of the National Resources Planning
iBOard, President Roosevelt sought the services of another
Eigency for demobilization. Particularly mindful of the
imPortance of good Congressional relations, especially since
lit was the absence of such relations that had contributed
mlaterially to the demise of the NRPB, the President in 1943
‘ihose as its successor the Office of war Mbbilization. It
hads good reputation with Congress, much of it due to the
Director, James Byrnes.1 Having served in both the House
and Senate, Byrnes knew his way around Capitol Hill.
sOlicitous of the feelings of Congressmen and Senators,

119* was always mindful too not to intrude into areas that
1311ey considered the special province of the legislative
blRanch.

There was another compelling reason for choosing the
OWN to head a unit concerned with demobilization. Obviously
tale war effort and demobilization were tied together quite

\_

1Rosenman, "Statement on the Establishment of a Unit
on Reconversion in the Office of war Mbbilization," The
EMblic Papers . . . Roosevelt, XII, pp. 432-433.

25

 

26
clxxsely, and there could be no demobilization until the war
was well on the way to being won. Yet that did not mean
tha1;;planning should not go forward; and if there were such
planning, there would be a certain consistency in allowing
the agency that was in charge of mobilization to assume the
task of demobilization. Then, too, by putting the unit in
“the Office of war Mobilization, things could be kept in
Perspective, for the OWM was not likely to jeopardize the
‘War”s progress by overly enthusiastic and premature planning
for demobilization. In an October 15 statement, Roosevelt
exPlained: "While we must prepare for necessary postwar
adjustments, this preparation must not interfere with the
JJJHg and hard war programs which are still ahead of us."2
Within a short time after the President had asked

Inim to set up a demobilization unit within the OWM, Byrnes
asked Bernard Baruch, Wall Street financier and director
Cut the war Production Board during world war I, to assume
control of the unit on demobilization. Although retired
from public life, Baruch maintained close social and polit-
ical contacts in Washington. He had enemies there, to be
fiiture, but he also had many more friends, among whom was
'Jélnms Byrnes. Yet Byrnes' esteem did not rest on friendship

but on his respect for Baruch's ability.3

\

, 2Rosenman, "Statement on the Establishment of a Unit
in the Office of War Mobilization . . . ," The Public
1Lapers . . . Roosevelt, XII, pp. 432-3.

 

3 James Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1958), pp.j72-3.

 

w
I

27

In November, Baruch and one of his wall Street
colleagues, John Hancock, began a study of demobilizationfi
Although the war was far from over, victory seemed a
reasonable certainty, and there was already considerable
sentiment for demobilization planning. As a matter of fact,
some tentative steps had already been taken. In September
l19A3, Nelson's Bureau of Planning and Statistics in the War
Preduction Board had undertaken a broad review of
:Peconversion problems. In early November of the same year,
the Truman Committee had issued a report urging greater
attention to problems of contract termination, surplus
IIPOperty disposal, and reconversion. Three days later, the
GeOrge Committee reported that piecemeal reconversion was
tWalking place without proper coordination and warned of the
necessity for developing a uniform policy and for well
(lirected goals.5

Baruch and Hancock worked on their study during the
(“ninmer of 1943-44 and presented in February what became
k1lown as the Baruch-Hancock Report. It stressed that
(ifiémobilization was of such importance that it should be
‘lrlder a "werk Director,"6 but it did not see the necessity
\

AByrnes, A11 in One Lifetime, p. 208.

SHerman Miles Somers, Presidential Agency, OWMR,
The Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (Cambridge,

Mass.).

6U.S., Congress, Senate, Report on War and Postwar
Adjustment Policy, submitted by Bernard Baruch and John M.
ncock to ames F. Byrnes, Director of Office of war

 

 

28

for an Office of Demobilization. This function, the report
maintained, could best be fulfilled by the OWM, which:
"dealing with the many problems of transition . . . can
see both the mobilization and the demobilization as one
whole."7 The Report also spoke of the necessity for
‘unifying the work of the Executive branch with.Congress and
‘the armed forces on the "human side of demobilization." It
(iid not mention that there was nothing that remotely
aPProached an integrated program within the armed forces.
A8 for Congress, the study suggested that the Senate and the
HOuse create committees or a joint committee that would work
‘3" a program of legislation to achieve the objectives that
e“Veryone shared: a smooth transition from servicemen to
<33hrilian.8

The Report was received favorably, earning plaudits
from some newspapers and magazines that had been critical of
Eilmumt all previous Administration efforts. Some Congress-
men were critical, though, because it was released to the

I)‘l-‘lblic before Congress saw it.9

What the report had to say about the "human side of
\

1‘(ESDbilizatiom Senate Document 154, 78th Cong., 2nd sess.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944),

7U.S., Senate, Report on war and Postwar Adjustment

112131. p. 69.

8U.S., Senate, Report on war and Postwar Adjgstment
Polio , p. 6, p. 5.

9Margaret Coit, Mr. Baruch (Boston: Houghton-
Afifflin, 1957), p. 539.

 

29
demobilization" was particularly significant, for it was
this aspect of demobilization that was being shoved aside
in the eagerness particularly by Congress, to settle such
things as surplus property, unfulfilled contracts, and
industrial reconversion. There were postwar committees,
specifically labeled as such in the House and Senate, but
these were economic policy and planning committees, and were
concerned, as one would rightfully assume, with economic
matters. There was no committee in the House or Senate
that had the human side of demobilization as its primary
Consideration, although a number of the standing committees,
Particularly Military Affairs, dealt with matters that
touched upon this. The Report noted this: "The important
point at which civilian plans must be coordinated with the
military in the demobilization of men and women in the
SeI‘vice is a crucial one, and it is now the final responsi-
bility of no one agency."

True, the adjustment that had to be made from a war
economy to one of peacetime was of such importance as to
bequire months of inquiry, research, and discussion before
de cisions could be reached and laws could be drafted. Of
Q0urse, someone had to labor hard over the cold, hard facts
\

10The House committee was popularly known as the
Colmer Committee after its chairman, William M. Colmer, and
the Senate Committee, the George Committee after Senator
Walter George. Officially, it was the House Special
QC>mmittee on Postwar Economic Policy and Planning and the

Senate Special Committee on Postwar Economic Policy and
Planning.

 

30
of surplus property disposal. But who was laboring hard
over the reconversion of the servicemen? Many were, but
they were not organized into a single committee that had
this as its sole responsibility. Congress often talked
about the average GI and a few "tears" were shed, some
sincere, some not, about the sacrifices that the "boys"
were making, and that it was the responsibility of Congress
to take this matter of demobilization in hand and to prepare
a better world for the remaining veteran. But Congress
Seemed uncertain as to the best means of doing this. If a
committee, preferably a joint cormnittee, had been estab-
lished, it could have rendered invaluable service in
establishing policies and securing laws that would have
made the transitional period from servicemen to civilian
as painless as possible. As an example of what could have
been done, Congress could have established a uniform system
or priority for release from the armed forces, insofar as
it was possible. It could have worked to coordinate
tI‘c'insportation policies and it could have insisted upon
the correlation of demobilization plans among the services,
EInd, then, in turn, between the armed forces, Congress, and
the executive branch.

In 1944, Congress did establish a committee for
which there was a definite, perhaps a vital need, and it
dealt with an area that had previously been ignored. This
Was the committee on postwar military policy. It was

eStablished in the House of Representatives and was a select

 

31

committee; that is, it could recommend legislation to the

appropriate committees, nothing more. Formed in March of

1944, it.consisted of twentyethree members, seven from the
Naval.Affairs Committee, seven from the House Committee on
the Armed Forces, and nine from the Congress at large.11
It combined the expertise of the two service committees
‘with.the impartiality of the members at large.

Over the course of a year and a half, it considered
fiauch subjects as unification of the armed forces, disposal
<Df surplus property, continuation of scientific military
research, and the enactment of universal military
tc1"'a1'.ning.12 But the order of priority with which these
EFUbjectS‘were considered defied logic. Seemingly, a subject
such as a single department of the armed forces could
‘Tithout any harm, and possibly even with some advantage,
llave been considered last of all, yet it was the first
Snbject upon which hearings were held.13 Hearings on
'uuliversal military training were held last, seemingly the
sl-lbject that should have been considered first, as the Army

\

1V lonSo: Cong. Rec., 78th Cong., 2nd sess., LXL,
Iarch 28. 1944. p. 3199.

12U.S., Congress, House, Select Committee on Postwar

IVEilitary Policy, Report no. 1356,‘Fina1 Report, submitted by
. Woodrum of Virginia to the Committee of the Whole House,

79th Cong., lst sess., December 10, 1945.

13U.S., Congress, House, Select Committee on Postwar
Nfilitary Policy, House Repprt no. 1645, A Proposal to
Ebtablish a Sipgle Dgpartment Efrthe Armed Forces, 78th
Cong., 2nd sess., May 10,11944, pp.TIL4.

IS.

a Mil-.54a-A'i- 7 -.-_ A "‘

 

‘
u

32
Ewarticularly was counting on their numbers as constituting
para; of the total armed strength of the postwar forces; to
constitute, so to speak, a reserve force, a highly trained
militia. So urgent did the Committee consider the UMT that
it asked immediate consideration by the appropriate legisla-
tive committee and the passage of appropriate 1egislation.lh
'When the committee finished its hearings on UMT, it closed
its books.

These three committees, the House and Senate Special
Committees on Economic Postwar Policy and Planning and the
3Hbuse Select Committee on Postwar Military Policy were the
COngressional committees (created solely by Congress and
‘3Onsisting of its members) that carried out the planning for
demobilization, in common, of course with the contributions
‘1? some of the standing committees. It could not be said
13191M their accomplishments were spectacular, but it must be
remembered that they had recommendatory powers only, and
131'1ere‘was no requirement that these recommendations be
followed. The House committee on military policy, for
Selammfle, recommended that the House immediately consider
legislation for universal military training, yet the House

Committee on Military Affairs insisted on holding hearings

th.S., Congress, House, Select Committee on Postwar
Military Policy, House Report no. 857, Universal Military
Trainin , 79th Cong., lst sess., July 5, 1945, pp. 1-4.

 

 

33
of its own.15 In the Senate, the committee on economic
policy advised that an Office of Demobilization be created,
yet this recommendation was not followed; instead the Senate
tool: the advice contained in the Baruch-Hancock report that
the functions of mobilization and demobilization should be
combined into one office. Even so, the Senate took its time
in adopting some of the suggestions that Baruch and Hancock
had made.

This delay disappointed Baruch who, in a letter
which he released in March 1944, commented that although
Congress complained about being by-passed on reconversion,
it had taken no action since the report had been released.
This comment of Baruch's should have been well taken by the
c:ergress. For months in a querulous mood, they had particu-
larly grumbled about the intrusion into their domain. This
had almost become an obsession with some of the members who
Inentioned it on the floor of the House and Senate, as well
as at hearings and committee meetings. In one of the
I~"eports published by the Senate's Special Committee on
Postwar Economic Policy and Planning, the statement was
InEide that though it was proper to delegate authority in
time of war it was not proper to do this in time of peace.

In peacetime, Congress "should retain in its hands the
SQttlement of the broad basic problems of the demobilization

¥

l5U.S., House . . . Select Committee . . . Military
Policy, House Remrt no. 1356,L Final Rgport, 79th Cong.,
lst sess., July 5, 1945, pp. 1-2.

— 1.1 -n_F

 

\J.

IFc‘v

‘

34

program out of which the structure of the peace economy
will arise."1

Congressional accomplishment did not always keep
pace with Congressional rhetoric, though, and during the
spring and early summer nothing was done about implementing
some of the suggestions in the Baruch-Hancock Report,
specifically the creation of a werk Director for recon-
version problems. Spurred though by Allied victories in
France, there was a flurry of activity in the middle of the
summer of 1944. On August 1, Barkley told the members of
the Senate that the Senate Military Affairs Committee would
soon be reporting out a bill on reconversion, and he
reminded all of the members that all thoughts of a recess
"would not be at all justified" until after something had
been done in the way of creating appropriate legislation
for reconversion.l

The Senate did even better than Barkley had hoped;
actually, two bills were reported. Ambitious measures, they
Provided not only for a work Director under OWM auspices,
Inn for unemployment compensation for employees who had
hmrked on federal projects, as well as transportation

‘_

16U.S., Congress, Senate, Special Committee on
I’OStwar Economic Policy and Planning, Senate Report no. 539,
IErt 2,.Baport of the Special Committee on Postwar Economic
%§ity an: Planning, 78th Cong., 2nd sess., February 9,
, p. O

1
7U.S., Congressional Record, 78th Cong., 2nd sess.,
Mgmtl,1%m,p.6flm.

 

‘I

35

charges for displaced war workers. Both of the last two
provisions were excised from the bill, 82051, when it came
before the House, but the Office of Director was accepted,
although the "Office in the opinion of critics was one in
which there was no great power.18 Roosevelt seemed to think
that the bill as finally adopted was reasonably satisfactory;
that it accomplished what was needed: statutory provision
for a director for reconversion. The Office of war
Mobilization (OWM) became the Office of war Mobilization
and Reconversion (OWMR).19

Hardly had the office been created when the
enthusiasm for demobilization dropped off rather sharply
as a result of the slowing down of the offensive against
the German Army on the western front in October and November.
It diminished even more sharply when the German counter-
attack broke out in Belgium in December 1944. Not until
spring, when Allied fortunes improved and the end of the
var drew near would it emerge. During the fairly brief time
that it was in existence, the OWMR was subject to a great
deal of criticism. Particularly critical was the Mead

Committee (President Truman's old committee) which said that

k.

1
8U.S., Cong. Rec., 78th Cong., 2nd sess., Aug. 10,
"8

1944, pp. 6833-53; . 31, 1944. p. 7440; Aug. 29. 1944.
P- 7353; Aug. 31. 1944. pp. 7432-3; Sept- 19. 1944.
pp. 7897-7903.

19Press and Radio Conference 971, Executive Office
<>f'the President, Oct. 3, 1944, Press Conferences, Vol. 24,
.RACLsevelt Paperg, FDRL .

 

36
the agency did not have but should have had direct control
over the other war agencies. The Committee also thought
that the OWMR should have had the power to "issue orders
and not confine itself to umpiring disputes."20 In other
words, the Mead Committee obviously wanted an organization
with finality of decision, an organization at a higher level
than any military or civilian office, and superior to any of
them, a departmental version embodying the powers of the
Commander in Chief. Dismissing for a moment, the temptation
to discuss what Congressional reaction might have been to
such an agency, one can say that there were several factors
that militated against the OWMR. It was not a strong agency
to begin with; legislation saw to that. Furthermore, it was
a temporary one, and, as the Mead Committee mentioned, the
staff was small.

Making provision for the expansion of the OWM into
the OWMR and for a director of the agency was the last
really significant act of Congress of what came to be called
'Mhe human side of demobilization." The war with Germany
ended seven months later; the war against Japan in ten. It
was regrettable that much of Congress was unhappy with its
Own creation.

An attempt has been made to show that planning for
13m period after the war was instituted almost with the

‘¥

20United States, Congress, Senate, Special Committee
‘M>Investigate the National Defense Program, Senate Report

W: 79th Cong., lst sess.

 

‘-

37
beginning of the war itself. It was, to be sure, modest
planning and much of it was in very general terms. At the
beginning, it would seem that President Roosevelt (although
he blew hot and cold on demobilization according to the
vicissitudes of war) showed one of the characteristics of
a successful administrator, that is, he started a program
early. It would also seem, however, that he is less entitled
to praise, insofar as the death of the National Resources
Planning Board was concerned. It is true, of course, that
Roosevelt praised the Board and that he made pleas to
Congress in behalf of adequate financing for it. But in
the Board's last days it was quite apparent that he would
not carry the battle into the trenches if it meant risking
serious Congressional disapproval; nor did he seem willing
to fight very hard for complete control of the Office of
war Mbbilization and Reconversion, quite passively letting
Congress define the responsibilities and duties of the
office and the power of the director.

As to the "human side of demobilization," the phrase
that first appeared in the Baruch-Hancock Report and that
was picked up and given currency by Roosevelt, it probably
found its highest expression in the GI Bill. Generous far
beyond anything that Roosevelt or the National Resources
Board had asked for or expected, it had the enthusiastic
endorsement of the Congress.

In Congress over the course of several years, there

was considerable jealousy toward the executive branch,

II?

I‘ - ‘._.31 d.--‘ -- I- ' " ‘

 

\

38
manifesting itself, for example, in the financial death blow
that was dealt the National Resources Planning Board when
the Congress refused to approve any appropriation for the
agency. Yet after killing it, it took Congress almost a
year and a half to make statutory provision for another
agency, waiting much too long before even beginning work
on one. This, of course, was particularly regrettable, for
there were resolutions in the House and Senate that had been
introduced much earlier and had made provision for postwar
planning.

On the whole, the performance of Congress in the
area of planning for human demobilization was considerably
below the efficiency level of the executive branch with
which it was constantly feuding. In finding reasons for
this, it would be all too easy to say that it was a failure
of initiative and energy, yet it would be difficult to find
very many people who work harder than Congressmen. The
countless phone calls, the reception of constituents, the
correspondence, the mending of political fences, the time-
consuming committee meetings, and scores of other tasks
require a vast amount of time and work. Mbst probably, it
was a very simple and understandable matter of priorities,
and the war had already expanded their responsibilities
into wider and wider areas until they were scarcely
nlanageable. Executive agencies, after all, can expand to
nmet increased responsibilities, at least to the extent to

kuch their budgets allow them, but the number of

 

39
Congressmen remains constant. On this note perhaps it would
be wise to end this discussion of Congressional and execu-
tive responsibility for planning, at least for the present,
and turn to the other branches of government, which also

had their share of troubles in planning for demobilization.

 

 

\"_. “"fi""r§ 1.
W

 

 

I.

Chapter 3

HOW JOHNNY CAME MARCHING HOME: DISCHARGE
PAST AND PRESENT AND THE EVOLUTION
OF THE POINT SYSTEM

It is a well established practice for men to look
back into their past for answers, and this is as true of
institutions as it is of men. In 1942, when the U.S. Army
first began to think seriously of demobilization, it
initiated studies of practices that had been used by the
United States armies at the conclusion of wars fought in
the past. Seemingly, there was much that could be learned,
for there were enough to furnish a considerable body of
experience. Beginning with the American Revolution, the
United States had fought in six different were before world
War II, three of which had been fought and won on foreign
SOil. In these wars, troops had been mobilized and
demdbilized, although the mobilization and the demobili-
zation were rather simple compared to what they would
become at a later date.

In the Revolutionary war, men entered and left the
Army with comparative ease; some left at the expiration of
their enlistments (as short as three months) and others
after.long campaigns. It was a constant concern to General

40

 

T

41

George Washington, particularly when enlistments were due to
expire on the eve of a campaign. Early in the war, he found
it necessary to offer a ten dollar bounty to Continental
trOOps whose enlistments were coming to an end. Only with
the bounty did he persuade them to remain for the battles of
Trenton and Princeton.1 At the end of the war, troops were
disbanded quite informally, and Dixon wecter has told us
that they strolled home in groups of four and five.2

In the war of 1812, enlistments ranged from one
month to twelve and there was a constant stream of men
coming and going. At its conclusion, men who had enlisted
for the duration of the war were discharged, and those who
remained were transferred to active regiments. At the same
time, entire regiments were disbanded. Demobilization after
the war of 1812 then was a combination of unit and individual
separation from the service and was accomplished in a some—
what disorganized fashion. Rather than demobilized, it
seems that the Army was simply dissolved.3

At the conclusion of the Mexican-American war,
demobilization followed the precedents of the War of 1812.
luring the course of the war, there were never more than

“

lEmory Upton, Military Policy of the United States
(washington: United States Government Printing Office,
1917). p. 25.

2Dixon Wecter, When Johnny Comes Marching_Home
(Cambridge: Houghton-MinIi , 1944), p. 37.

. 3Sparrow, Historygof Personnel Demobilization in the
.mnted States Army, p. 4.

-5.- I‘z 0‘

 

y .‘ "u.l. _.
“V

42

105,000 men mustered into the service, and, of these, large
numbers had already left the Army before the conclusion of
tune war. Those who remained at the end were either
regulars, who constituted only a fragment of the Army, or
t11c>se who had enlisted for the duration of the war. The
lsitster were discharged at the war's conclusion.h

The next war, the Civil war, was at that time the

ma't;ion's greatest in terms of men involved, killed, and
wounded. When it ended, there were over 1,000,000 men in
tfliea Union Army. Within nine months' time, that figure had
been reduced to something over 115,000, and by November 15,
1£§€3<5, that figure in turn had been reduced to a little over
11 , 000 men.5 Demobilization of the Union Army was conceived
irltséelligently and executed efficiently. Demobilization was
‘bIV‘ Iinit; each of the units was assigned to one of nine
PerIdezvous areas, established throughout the South and
bCDI‘der states. At these areas, inventories were made of
(=3L<:thing, records brought up to date, particularly in the
6‘1’!ea of illness and absence, soldiers were paid and
(ljlfischarged.6 The most involved of all of the nation's
(i‘étnobilizations in terms of numbers, it was also the most
e1Illi‘icient; and some of the methods of procedure,

\

"Sparrow, Hist. of Personnel Demobilization . . . ,
pp. [p-50

5Wecter, When Johnny Comes Marching Home,
pp. 151-1520

Sparrow, p . 6 .

 

43

particularly those involving administrative chores, presaged

methods that were to be used by the army at a later time.
The Spanish American war was a small war in terms of
the number of men used, the vast majority of whom were
volunteers. Beginning in August 1898, the government began
demobilization, which was far from efficient. At first,
muster out was performed at federal camps; ten days later
it. was abruptly switched to state camps. While there, the
men were given furloughs, and while they were on furlough,
the ir records were processed. Very little seems to have
been accomplished by the decision to move from federal to
State camps. As a matter of fact, it was estimated that it
took four and a half days longer to demobilize a soldier in
them. Also, nothing seems to have been gained by the
decision to furlough the men; far from it, absenteeism
bectame a serious problem. The men also did not consider
the furlough to have been a sufficient reward for the time
1"ail-Eat they spent in service; most of them would have
preferred additional pay.7
At the end of World War I, the size of the United

Stéites Army was gargantuan compared to the numbers of men
who had been enrolled in the peacetime regular army. At
WBar's end, there were over 4,000,000 men in the Army, two

million of whom were in the A.E.F. in Europe. This army was

demobilized by units, some of which were as large as a

‘_l

7Sparrow, p . lO .

 

*1;

44

division. The paper work was performed at a number of

tenmmrary camps scattered throughout the United States.

Demobilization was rapid, and everything considered,
eIEEicient. As many as 650,000 men were discharged in the
nuaxith of December 1918. By the anniversary of the war's
e11c1ing, the discharge rate had fallen to 30,000 a month,
ar1c1.over 3,250,000 men had been discharged.8

There was no priority of discharge procedure
established, though; and in some cases, men who had served
ir1 ‘the Army for only a few months were discharged before
experienced veterans with extensive service. Divisions that
were in training in the United States were demobilized as
divisions, the presence of all of the records in the camp
making the separation from the Army a comparatively easy
'téisslc. So hurried was the demobilization that trains
‘3Eilrrying draftees that were en route to Army camps were
$1Zepped, sent back to their points of departure, and the
In'551'1mustered out of the service.
Demobilization by the Navy was also quite hurried,

tll(Dugh seemingly not as hurried as that of the Army. With
‘311ea end of the war, it authorized the release of 20 percent

(xi. the Naval Reserve Force, 20 percent of the men who had
\

8Oliver Lyman Spaulding The United States Army in
Ykir ang:Peace (New York: G. P. RutnamTS‘Sons,1937), p. ASA.

9James R. Mock and Evangeline Thurber, Re ort on
Demobilization (Norman: University of Oklahoma ress, #4),

Do :31».

 

I.

A5
enlisted for the duration of the war (even though the war
had not officially ended), 10 percent of the men who had
ewilisted between April 6, 1917 and January 1918, and
5' percent of hospital corpsmen, with nothing said about
daitses of enlistment for corpsmen. The Navy also released
seeai-going personnel on a percentage basis. For the months
01? may and June of 1919, for example, the Navy authorized
tkiea release of 6 percent of the men on ships with a view to
having total personnel reduced to 250,000 by July 1, 1919.
(I). October 7, 1918, the Navy began discharging all enlisted
men who had made a written request for discharge.10 In
SuInInary then, the Navy appeared to have proceeded on a
sOrnewhat more orderly basis than the Army in its program of
demobilization and obviously did have some system of priority
‘31? discharge established which was followed, at least
insofar as it was practical to do so, for the Navy appears
t3<3 have been somewhat flexible in this regard.
Demobilization in our past wars then appears to have
he~<:1 some things in common. It was usually not planned until
the; war's end was imminent. Until World War I military
111115.125 were quite often simply disbanded with no thought
€553Ven to such things as a priority of discharge formula. In
1918, the Army tried a modified form, bringing units home in
tale order that they had been sent overseas. In these units,
hOwever, were many men who had been sent across the seas as

‘

lOAnnual Repo_rt of the Navy Department: Report of
the Secretar of the Nav (Washington, U.S. Govt. Printing

ffice, 2 , Po 7 0

 

V'.‘

46
replacements and had been members of the units for very
short times, while men with longer service remained in
Eherpe. The Navy tried to take into consideration the date
truat men had enlisted in establishing the order in which
they were to be discharged.

Six times in our nation's history before 1945, men
haici.1eft the armed services to return to civilian life at
triea end of a war. For all of the shortcomings that were
evr:i_dent, the transition from soldier to civilian was usually
a smooth one. There were rumblings of discontent among some
of? ‘the Army officers after the Revolutionary War, for
eaczagmple, but the mutiny that might have resulted from what
543 Iknown as the Newburgh Conspiracy never materialized
largely because of the influence of Washington. Otherwise,
‘111<:idents have been rare. As for the financial condition of
ex soldiers after wars, they never really appeared to suffer
u~‘l'.1‘I.'.i.Il. after world war I when the unemployment that hit the
nEition as a whole seemed to hit the ex soldier particularly
hard.

In conclusion, then, it can be said that if Army and
N"3-“ry planners had wished to do so, they could have benefited
I‘I‘om the experience of previous wars. This experience was

1101‘. so likely to furnish answers, though, as it was to
a~<=quaint the planners with the type of problems with which

'they'weuld be faced. Some problems were the same, except

that they had increased enormously in magnitude. There were,

for example, many men to be brought home, just as there had

 

rB-‘-—w__.._r. m. U. .
1
’I

47
been in WOrld war I, but this time there were many more of
them, and they were much more widely separated.

For some reason, though, the prospect of returning
men home seemed to worry very few of the responsible people
:Lrl the government, at least publicly. The greatest concern
01?’.all, and many men worried long and hard and quite
p11131ic1y about this as well, was what would be done with the

meal: once they returned home. Unemployment rates among
veatserans were quite high after Werld war I, and World war II
IIIJELnners were haunted with the prospect of a vast number of
urleenmdoyed veterans roaming the streets and standing in
Soup lines to use some of the more popular images of the
dfirzr. To prevent a recurrence, serious planning was begun
QJJfiLte early in the war.

Much of this planning was discussed in a previous
<313£1pter, wherein particular emphasis was placed on the work
Cii? the Postwar Manpower Conference, a conference whose
DEErsonnel consisted of a rather diverse group of men--
ec1‘ucators, government officials, and members of the business
“'(>11dm It was responsible for some of the earliest and most
ea:rnest planning on demobilization, and out of it came a
highly influential report, Demobiligation and Readjustment.
(1&1 it was mentioned for the first time such things as

numetering out pay, extensive unemployment insurance for
'Veterans, and free, though limited educational provisions
for qualified veterans; in short, the complex welfare and

educational provisions that were later (with substantial

 

48
modifications) incorporated into the omnibus legislative
measure that became known as the GI Bill of Rights.
Economic considerations seemed to dominate the
tilinking of the peOple at the conference, and no one consid—
eration seemed more important than that of employment.
lineare were suggestions that even the release of men from
tile; service be controlled in order not to throw too many
01? them into the labor market at one time: "the problem of
Imileitary demobilization is that of arranging the volume,
Izaxtze, and directions of this flow from the armed services
take place in such a way that there will be no unreasonable
liritserval between the time when a man leaves active military
Service and the time when he is located in some civilian
eIllployme nt . "11
Quite obviously someone soon began enlisting

3Legislative support for this program; for within a very
$31lort time, Congressman Augustine B. Kelley of Illinois sent
a; letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt in which the Congressman
E363m: a copy of his bill, H.R.2879, the purpose of which was
£31Sated as follows: "To provide that no member of the armed
1?<>rces shall be separated from the service under honorable
QC>nditions or released from active duty following the
present war until he has secured employment in civilian

\

llU.S. National Resources Planning Board,

Demobilization and Readjustment, Report of the Conference
On Postwar Readjustment of Civilian and Military Personnel,
1914-3 2 PP 0 26-27 .

 

\‘I’ ‘. s II.
,1

1+9

life." Kelley's letter was answered by the Secretary to the

President, General Edwin M. Watson. This letter refused to
take a firm position, volunteering only that the problem was
a "complex" one, that much study needed to be done on the
matter, and that meanwhile it was probably best to withhold
expressions of sentiment concerning demobilization.12

Despite watson's lukewarm response, the idea did not

die, and another Congressman introduced a resolution that
was similar to that which had been introduced by Kelley.
The resolution of Congressman Brooks, House Joint Resolution
201..., stated that its purpose was "To provide an orderly
demobilization for members of the armed services of the
United States, to aid in obtaining suitable employment for
Such persons . . . ." The resolution would have provided
for a three months' furlough. At the end of that furlough
if the individual had not secured employment, he would be
allowed to remain in the service. The three month period
Would be a transitional period in which the individual could
be reintegrated into the community: "such a three month
fLIrlough would facilitate the social and occupational
readjustment . . . of members of the armed forces who are

about to be discharged . . . , and would enable their former

12Letter Edwin M. Watson to Augustine M. Kelley,
House of Representatives, August 23, 1943, 0.1535401”
@sevelt Papeg, FDRL.

 

‘1

50
prospective employers to make suitable adjustment

13

arrangements .

The Army did not like the resolution of Congressman

Brooks. Secretary of War Henry Stimson said that he did not
Ifléint to see the legislation passed; and in his message to
the Bureau of the Budget, said that the passage into law of
5111. act that provided for mustering out payments had removed
'tluge need for such a resolution. He added that it would be
ixxllpossible to make an accurate estimate of the total cost
cut? the resolution, but that to furlough 1,000,000 men for
tikizree months would cost approximately $395,000,000.14

There were a number of high ranking officers in the

Ilrijtted States Army who thought as Stimson did although in
all fairness it must be stated that the resolutions of
Congressmen Kelley and Brooks went well beyond what the
POstwar Manpower Conference had originally proposed, for the
IPldc was thinking in terms of the speed of demobilization and
t311e level of employment available rather than specific
individuals and specific jobs. Yet there were many Army
c>~‘f‘.‘ficers who objected even to that. One of these Brigadier
C}E3nerals F. H. Osborn stated in rather frank language
t1lat it was not the part of the Army to function as a

\

13U.S., Congress, House, House Joint Resolution 20h,
Ehxreau of the Budget, Record Group 51, National Archives,
‘Washington, D.C.

11"Letter, Henry Stimson, Secretary of war to Harold
Smith, Director of the Budget, Record Group 51, National
Archives, washington, D.C.

 

;’

51
'preventative W.P.A.' and that the only factors that should
enter into military demobilization were military necessity
and availability of transportation.
It might be mentioned in support of General Osborn's

position, incidentally, that there was ample historical

precedent to support him. At the end of World War I, the

British Army began discharging personnel on the basis of the

ability of industry to absorb them. Before a discharge was

grvaJated, the potential veteran had to prove that there was a
.fiDID awaiting him-~the proof took the form of a letter or
affidavit from an employer. The enterprising and the
unethical were soon producing spurious letters which added
e"€311 more to the growing indignation of those who had to
IVBInaiin in the Army. Things finally reached a point where
In‘rtuinies broke out. Order was finally restored, though, as
a result of the trouble-shooting of Winston Churchill who

aLIliStituted a priority of discharge formula based on the

3L1Itiividual's length of service.16

This system of discharging men on the basis of the
at"ailability of employment was also proposed for the United
Es‘lates at the end of werld war I, its principal proponent,
hqeiwton C. Baker, Secretary of war. The Secretary's argument

‘Vais that a smooth resumption of the civilian economy was

\

l5Sparrow, p. 65.

16Winston Churchill, The Aftermath (New York:
Charles Scribners Sons, 1929), pp. 40-54.

 

W

52
more important than a rapid reduction of the armed forces.
The Chief of Staff of the United States Army Peyton 0. March
was not convinced of this, though, and he maintained that
it vmmld be extremely difficult to discharge men by vocation,
.fozc Army records were not too thorough concerning occupa-
tixxnal classifications.l7 In a letter written in answer to
a number of queries by Congressmen, March also said that it
wmrufild hurt the efficiency of the Army, and that it would be
IHD<>Jr economy to keep such a large number of men in uniform.
Besides, March thought that the unit method of demobilization
WOUld furnish a sufficiently large cross section of workers
t<> tihe labor market.18
It is one of the ironies of history that within a
5f€5vr years after the end of WOrld war I, the large number of
I“Unemployed veterans concerned a number of people, but the
IJrli‘ted States would probably have encountered the same
p:l:"<>blems as the English in WOrld war I if it had attempted
t0 use the armed forces as reservoirs of employment. It was
“r€3rw'probably the memory of this unemployment following
.VVSDrld war I, though, that revived the safety valve concept
()1? demobilization during world war II. Though the idea had
§3<Dme adherents, formidable opposition to it soon developed.
Etta the early summer of 19th, the Undersecretary of war

\g

l7Mock and Thurber, Report on Demobilization,

18U.S., Congressional Record, Appendix, LVIII, 66th
Cong., lst sess., may 28, 1919, p.h8835.

 

\I

53
arrayed himself alongside some of his general officers by
roundly endorsing a section of a bill on reconversion which
expressly forbade the retention of men in the armed services
for the purpose of preventing unemployment .19 And the
matter was definitely settled with the passage of the George
Bill into public law, a measure that specifically stated

that prospective employment was not to be considered a

condition for discharge.20

Now it had been settled; nothing other than military
conditions were to be factors in an individual '5 discharge
fPom the service. But the method of discharge, whether by
individual or by unit, had not been definitely decided; nor
had a means been agreed upon to determine a priority of
dis charge formula. But to the credit of the Army, it had
already begun work on such a project, and by the spring of
194.1.» had distributed questionnaires to soldiers scattered
an'-"<'>und the world. According to the Army, the questionnaire
Sampled "all kinds of soldiers in all kinds of outfits with
all kinds of backgrounds, combat men, rear echelon troops,
I\Iegroes, Whites, fathers, non fathers, married men, single

\

ES 19Robert P. Patterson, Undersecretary of war to
‘;€imuel Rosenman, October 1, 19AA (copy of letter, June lAth
I§C> Senator Murray, attached), The Papers of Robert P.
Iifitterson, General Correspondence (classified), Letters of
(Dbert Patterson, IV, Box 26, Manuscript Division, Library

Q1? Congress, Washington, D.C.

20United States, Congress, Senate, Public Law A58,
Sect. 201, 78th Cong., 2nd sess., United States Statutes at
Lar e, 19%, LVIII, Public Laws, United States Government
Printing Office, Washington, D.C., p. 785.

...-.'

 

54
men, young men, old men, and so forth." In these question-
naires, answers were sought as to which of the following
should be considered the most important in determining
eligibility for discharge: (a) combat participation (b) army
sezrvice overseas (c) total army service (d) dependent
children (e) marriage (f) possession of critical skills
needed for reconversion (g) age. After the questionnaires
were computed, the first four items were considered the most
imPortant by the servicemen: combat participation, overseas
Service, total Army service, dependent children.21
This survey, conducted by the Army's Information and
Ekilication section, was then broadened to include 25,000
Sc>3Ldiers to whom questionnaires were sent--questionnaires
which listed four items to which the soldiers were asked to
rank in importance. Overseas service consistently received
‘tllse highest number of votes, ranging from A5 percent of the
"<>1:es cast in Alaska to 56 percent of those in the South
PEEL<2ific. Ranked next in importance was dependency, receiv-
ing 47 percent of the votes cast in the European Theater
Q}: Operations and 38 percent of the vote in the South
I”353.cific. In addition to the four specific categories, there
I‘Véis a section where the serviceman could express a written
c)IDinion. The most frequent response concerned combat. Army
-a___

21United States, Congress, House, Administration of

file Army Pqipt System for Discharge, Hearings before the
Committee on Tfilitary Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., June
19, l9A5 (Washington: United States Government Printing
Office, 1946), pp. 8'90

'7”.

 

55

personnel who had seen combat action thought that separate

recognition should be given for it, recognition, that 1

in addition to the overseas credit.22

After the Information and Education Division ha

cxnnputed and analyzed the answers from the soldiers'

.S,

d

questionnaires, they developed a system which took into

account combat, awards for wounds (purple heart), number of

months overseas, number of children, length of time spent

irl 1:he Army.23 During the late summer of l9AA, the Army

Spent considerable time in trying to work out a system

that

 

UnatiflLd be as fair as possible. The future Secretary of war

Stsxreassed the importance of a just and equitable system in a

n“annorandum which he wrote to General Tompkins:

\

1.

I believe that in our planning for demobilization
we should make further revisions on the priorities
for discharge.

The system must be one that will give full effect
to the views of the troops themselves . . . . Other-
wise the Army will have a problem in morale . . . .
It is fundamental that the priorities in discharge
of soldiers should be the priorities that soldier

opinion would approve.

From talks with commanders overseas and with a
number of soldiers, I feel quite certain that
soldier opinion would give preference in the
following order:

1)men wounded in action

2) men with combat service overseas according
to length of combat service

22Samuel A. Stouffer et al., The American Soldier:

 

\mbat and Its Aftermath, II (New York: John Wiley and Sons,
965), pp. 522- 2A. 7

23U.S., House, Administration of the . . . Point

§l$tem o o o , p. 9.

56
3) men with non combat service overseas according

to length of such overseas service
A) men with service in the United States according

to length of service
5) men with dependent children but no great value
to be attached to this factor.2h
On September 7, 1944, the Army in a press release
announced that it would discharge men on a basis of points,
which would be awarded for time spent in service, time
overseas, combat decorations, and dependency; in short, on
the basis of those things which the men themselves

considered to have been the most important.25 It will

also be noticed that the list conformed to a marked degree

With that which Patterson had submitted. Patterson did seem

to be in error, though, concerning the attitude of the
Serviceman toward dependent children. Later, when points
Were assigned for each of these categories, parenthood
outweighed all other factors, but that was still in the
future, for the Army was not yet ready to assign specific
point totals for specific categories.
But that time was not too far in the future, for on

Lia], 8th, 19A5, Germany surrendered; and within a few days,
IVIBY 10th, Major General William Tompkins, Director of the
Arrhy's Special Planning Division, released the completed

\

G 2l’Robert P. Patterson, Undersecretary of War to

Peneral Tompkins, August 29, 19AA, The Papers of Robert P.
otterson, Letters of Robert P. Patterson, General

ccurrespondence, IV, Box 26, Manuscript Division, Library

of Congress, Washington, D.C.
25New York Times, Sept. 7, 19M. p. 1, p. 14.

 

57
version of the Army's priority of discharge formula, the
point system, specifying the categories for which points
were to be given as well as the number of points to be

assigned to each of them. Of the four categories, the text

01' the statement released to the newspapers, said this:

Service credit--one point for each month of Army
service since Sept. 16, 19AO . . . .

Overseas credit-~one point for each month served
overseas since Sept. 16, l9AO . . . .

Combat credit--five points for the first and each
additional award of the following for service

performed since Sept. 16, l9AO: Distinguished Service
Cross, Legion of Merit, Silver Star, Distinguished
Flying Cross, Soldiers Medal, Bronze Star Medal, Air

Medal, Purple Heart and Bronze Service Stars (battle
participation starsl.

Credit . . . given for the following decorations
by the Navy Department: Navy Cross, Distinguished
Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Silver Star Medal,
Distinguished Flying Cross, Navy and Marine Corps

Medal, Bronze Star Medal, Air Medal, and Purple
Heart Medal.

Credit . . . for awards and decorations of a

foreign country which may be accepted and won under
the war Department regulations . . . .

Parenthood credit--twe1ve points for each chgld
under 18 years up to a limit of three children.2

The Navy had no demobilization plan to offer with
the defeat of Germany as that service did not plan on
c1<3umbilizing its forces until after the defeat of Japan.
firllat is not to say, though, that the Navy had done no
I5:1anning, for actually that service had a tentative plan

I‘Eady as early as December 19A3. In that plan, it was

ESL=ssumed that military necessity would take precedence over

ELJlother matters. That much having been established, a

rromber of possible factors for a priority of release formula

¥

26New York Times, May 11, 1945. p. l, p. 11.

7

 

58
were considered including employment Opportunities, depend-
ency, length of service, resumption of education, and age.
Of these factors, age was soon "summarily dismissed," for
it has assumed that by the time that the war ended, there
WIHAld be relatively few people over 38 years of age in its
service. As for education, it was deemed wise to wait and
two see what Congress would do with some of the bills it was
considering at that time. As for length of service, it was
considered a fair base for determining priority of release,
btrt. the Navy wondered if such a factor might not conceivably
int erfere with its desire to hold onto men with extensive
semice. Discharge by dependency was ruled out as being too
likely to seriously disrupt its personnel program, although
'tllee reasons why this should be true were not made clear.
And if employment opportunities were one of the considera-
ti(Dns for discharge, a number of young inexperienced sailors
V”’01:le be at a distinct disadvantage and might conceivably
SBend an inordinate amount of time in the services waiting
I§<Ir employment. Then, too, there were a sufficiently large
number of Navy officers who thought that this was not the
I:‘Jt‘oper role for the Navy to play.27 Whether it was or not
len'time became an academic question, for Public Law A58
E31bated that men could not be kept in the service to prevent

uIlemployment. By the time the George Bill became law,
\

27U.S., Navy Department, Narrative of the Bureau of
Egyal Personnel, 1 September 19A5 to‘l OCtober‘19A6,‘Vol.
II, The History_of the Demobilization Activity, unpublished
manuscript (Washington, D.C.:—19A7), p. 51.

 

 

59
though, the Navy had already moved away from such a position
and had begun thinking that a number of factors would have

to be included in a priority of discharge formula.
In Nevember of 19AA, the Navy reached a decision as

tc> just what factors should be included in a discharge

formula. Within some areas, the formula was similar to that

of‘ the Army.
the service, time overseas, and combat service.

differed, though, in that the Navy placed a premium on age

Both branches gave credit for time spent in
They

alicl that it gave discharge points for a wife and children,
Whereas the Army plan only considered the children.

Entitled Demobilization Plan, Number 2, Revision 1, it, too,

was destined for eventual revision.28

This need for revision arose from some of the plan's

a(ixninistrative shortcomings. There was no way, for example,

()1? determining in washington how much overseas service an
jLIlCfiNidual had accumulated or what his status was concerning
tiependency. This information was contained in the records
‘3llat were with the ship, and to secure it, it was suggested
1311at an Alnav (All Navy Bulletin) be sent asking that all
£3hip commanders forward this information to washington. The

Allnav, however, was never sent as it was soon agreed that it

28U.S., Navy Dept., Narrative of the Bureau of Naval
hereonnel, . . . , Vol. II, The Hist. of the Demobilization

Activit , unpublished manuscript, p. 51.

 

60
would not be worth the expenditure of labor required.29 For
the moment, at least, the plan was shelved. As of May 19A5,
the month and year that Germany surrendered, the Navy did
not have a plan for demobilization; yet there was no panic.
The Navy had no intention of demobilizing until after the
defeat of Japan, and such a defeat still seemed months and
months away.

During May and June of 19A5, the Navy continued its
search for an acceptable priority of discharge formula.
Four informal boards were given the assignment of studying
the factors for discharge and making recommendations for
a workable formula. The factors submitted by a board
composed of enlisted officers seems to have been the most
popular. Yet strangely enough, the factors that were
supposed to have rendered the demobilization plan of the
previous November unacceptable, sea service and dependency,
were included in this plan as well. In the November plan,
they were rejected because it would not have been possible,
so the argument went, to compute sea service and dependency
status from records in washington, and all of the records,
therefore, of all of the ships at sea would have to be
canvassed. But this plan not only reaffirmed the value of
both, but actually increased the number of points that were

assigned to them. Nevertheless, it all went for naught, as

 

29Narrative of the Bureau of Naval Personnel,
Vol. II, unpublished manuscript, p. 57.

61

the plan was not adopted, and a revised version that would
have given a blanket credit of 12 points for service outside
the United States, if such service exceeded one year's time,
and 15 points for any form of dependency soon became popular
among some of the Navy planners, strangely enough; but good
sense prevailed, and most of this plan was scrapped, although
the blanket credit for dependency which it provided eventu-
ally became part of the formula by which men were
discharged.30

In late June of 19A5, though, it appeared that the
Navy had finally developed its priority of release formula.
The plan was shown to a number of people in high places
including the Chief of Naval Personnel and the Chief of
Naval Operations as well as the respective Chairmen of the
Senate and House Naval Affairs Committee. The plan was then
sent to fleet commanders. The objections of fleet
commanders, echoing the thoughts of many of their men, was
that no provision had been made for sea service. The plan
was reworked and credit given for sea service, and there it
seemed as if matters would stand, and that the plan was
ready for release to the public. But once again, the Navy
had a change of heart and decided not to give credit for sea

service, and the plan when released gave credit for age,

 

30Narrative . . . Naval Personnel, II, unpublished
manuzgrgpt,The History_of'the Demobilization Activipy,
pp- - 9-

62
credit for time on active duty, and dependency.31
A howl of outrage greeted the plan; more than
85 percent of the peOple who wrote the Navy Department
complained about points not being given for service at
sea.32 Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York could not
understand how the Navy "could consider clerks at desks and
pinafore officers in the same category as those who risk
their necks" and summed up his feelings by saying that the
men who went to sea got a "rawdeal."33 There was a host
of letters to newspapers that bitterly criticized the plan.
A writer to the Chicago Sgg harped on what became a p0pular

theme: the superiority of the Army's plan to that of the

NaVYoBI.’

The pressure worked, for within a month's time the
Navy was forced to amend its plan in such a fashion as to
give credit for overseas service. The plan that was finally
adopted by the Navy provided for the following priority of
discharge formula.
1/2 point for each year of age

1/2 point for each month of active duty since
September 1, 1939

 

31
Demobilization . . . , p.

 
  
   

o ne , II, Hist. of the

32Narrative . . . Naval Personnel, II, Historygof
the Demobilization . . . unpubl. manuscript, p. 90.

 

33New York Times, August 17, 1945. p. 7.
34Chicago Sun, August 27, 19A5, p. 10.

63

l/A point for each full month of active duty outside
the United States since September 1, 1939

10 points for dependency35
This plan was in effect from September 15, 19A5 to July 1,
19A6. In July the Navy ceased discharging people by points
and began discharging them by a quota system; that is, 30
percent from this ship; 20 percent from that station, and by
September 1, 19A6, the Navy considered its demobilization
program to be at an end.36
The sister services of the Navy, the Coast Guard and
marines were given permission to use the Navy's system of
discharge or develop their own formulas. Except for minor
variations, the Coast Guard accepted that of the Navy. The
U.S. Marine Corps, which had apparently done little work of
its own on a priority system, decided to accept the Army's
point system.37 Nothing was changed; the same criteria was
accepted; each of the factors were assigned the same weight;
there was literally not a comma's difference in the plans.
There is no way of knowing whether this decision of the
Marines was an expression of discontent with the Navy's plan

or not, although it seems to have been. The Navy's plan, to

 

35U.S., Navy Department, U.S. Naval Personnel
Bureau, Nav. Pers. 15637A, The Navy}s Demobilization
Program, NOV. 15, 19A5, wash., D.C.-

36Narrative . . . Naval Personnel, II, Hist. of the
Lgmobilization, pp. lO3-lOA. A

37U.S., Navy Department, Bureau of Naval Personnel
Information Bulletin, All Hands, washington, D.C., No. 3A2,
p. 72.

 

6A
be sure, had been in a high state of flux for such a very
long time, and then, too, it seemed to favor the older man
with dependents. The Marines, on the other hand, considered
among their very best fighting men the large number of
seventeen and eighteen year olds in the Corps. The Army
plan, too, made provision for campaigns and combat
decorations. The Navy never gave credit for campaigns,
but it would discharge individuals who had been awarded
decorations for valor. Everything considered, though, the
Marines obviously considered the Army plan as being better
adapted to their needs.

In summary, the priority of discharge formulae
evolved over a period of months from the time when the
Postwar Manpower Conference (PMC) in 19A2 and 19A3 first
spoke of discharging men as employment became available.
Despite the fact that such a plan had support, some of which
was in Congress, a sufficiently large number of Congressmen
were opposed to this and specifically prohibited it by
passing a law that forbade such a practice. Eventually,
the armed services developed priority of discharge formulae
which while fair, were also complex compared to previous
methods of discharge. The presence of so many factors to
determine eligibility for discharge also served to broaden
the areas in which men could feel aggrieved. Single men
thought too many points had been given to fathers of
children; fathers thought that parenthood had not been

sufficiently recognized. And while there was complaint

65
about the weight given to the various factors in the point
systems, there were people who wanted to scrap them entirely.
Others would defend them, but at the same time they wanted
to see the discharge of anyone who was not doing something
constructive, as well as the discharge of peOple who would
be useful in industry. Needless to say, the services
opposed the discharge of people outside the point systems,
for practices that ignored them tended to diminish their
effectiveness, as well as destroy confidence in them. The
armed forces which had not had an easy path to travel in
wartime found that the journey had improved in peacetime,

but there were places where the road was still rocky.

Chapter A

TWO WARS ARE TOO MANY: REDEPLOYMENT
TO THE PACIFIC

In May of 19A5, the war against Germany ended. The
score was "two down and one to go." Though Japan was not
defeated, the thinking of most Americans was that it was
only a matter of time.‘ "Winning the peace" for which there
had already been extensive planning had become even more
important. Some of these plans could now be put into
effect, while the war went forward with undiminished
ferocity against Japan.

A number of steps at "winning the peace" had already
been taken. Even before the war against Germany had ended,
the United States Army had begun rounding up Nazi war
criminals, imprisoning them for future trial, and the
process of denazifying Germany had also begun. Nazi
officials were systematically removed from positions of
responsibility whenever and wherever possible. Within a
short time after the war ended, an educational program was
begun that had as its ultimate objective the democratization
of'Germany. In other areas, too, peace was pursued. Most
:bmportant of all, without question, was the founding of the
Ihnited Nations in San Francisco in April of 19A5. Seemingly

66

67
then in the early summer of 19A5, there was reason to be
hopeful--the end of the war was not as far away as it had
seemed a few months before. And the peace that would follow
at the end of it seemed to offer great promise.

Yet despite all of this, there were some disquieting
factors present. Most disquieting of all was the obvious
reluctance of the American serviceman to remain in the armed
services a single day longer than was necessary. Supporting
them in their desire to return home were wives, parents,
sweethearts, relatives, friends, and thousands and thousands
of well wishers. Not everyone could be brought home
immediately, though, Germany could not be occupied unless
there were tr00ps to do it, nor could it be disarmed,
denazified, and pacified. Also, there were billions of
dollars of material that had to be inventoried, maintained,
and stored as well as protected by men carrying rifles.

And, most important of all, the war against Japan had not
yet been won; and to win this war, it would be necessary to
transfer vast numbers of troops from Europe to the Pacific.
In short, the winning of a war that was entering its final
phases, and the responsibility of protecting whatever peace
might be secured, clearly imposed serious obligations on the
American people and their sons and daughters in the armed
services.

For the average serviceman, though, obligations were
Ineant to be met by someone else. One of the most serious

mistakes made by many postwar planners was in thinking that

68
if Americans knew what was expected of them they would then
meet their responsibilities willingly. That was far from
true, particularly after the war had ended, and the reason
appeared to lie somewhere in the difference between wartime
and peacetime motivation. wartime motivation was based upon
a number of factors, which may have been present in peace-
time, but were much more subtle in the forms they took. It
would be impossible to weigh them accurately but they
included such things as patriotism as well as honor, courage,
and sense of duty to one's comrades. Men who could easily
understand the importance of capturing a railroad junction
in Germany during the war, particularly when ammunition
being fired at them was passing through that junction, found
it more difficult to accept guarding freight cars of coal in
Europe during peacetime. The coal might have been used to
keep someone from freezing to death, but it was someone who
was completely unknown and living in a city which one would
never see. Those who did see the necessity for guarding the
coal took the position that someone else should do it. To
the man overseas and a combat veteran, the man who should
guard the coal was someone who had not experienced combat or
very little of it. And to the man who was overseas but had
seen little combat, the job should be done by the man who
never went overseas at all. But to this man who was still
in the United States, the responsibility in his Opinion was
IHOt his, for he had done his part, the job should be done by

'the war worker or the AF who was never in the service at

69

all. At this time, it might also be mentioned that there
were vastly exaggerated ideas of the number of men who were
physically fit, but because of having been declared essential
to the war effort had never served in the armed forces. One
of them, once wrote:

'. . . there are several million physically fit men

between the ages of 23 and A0 in the United States

that are holding down good jobs. They say they are

essential, and I guess they are, but all of us would

be glad to change places with them and be glad to

work for our room and board just to go home. . . .

we have put in out time, now it is their turn. we

can make the munitions, planes, as well as they

can.‘

The period from May to September 19A5 was a diffi-
cult one in the services insofar as plans for demobilization
were concerned. There were a number of complaints from the
servicemen, particularly from those in the Army, that the
point system was not being administered honestly or fairly.
There were complaints, too, of the Army's policy of
essentiality. As this policy worked, a man could be kept
in the service, even though he was eligible for discharge
if his services were essential and there was no one to
replace him. This worked a hardship at times when commanding
officers were too rigid in applying the label of essential.

Considering an x-ray technician as essential might be

justified, but there were cases where drivers and clerks

1Quoted in John C. Sparrow, History of Personnel
Ihmobilization in the United States Army (Washington, D.C.,
Impartment of the Army, 1952), p. 128.

70

were considered essential.2 This discontent with the Army
during the period that we might call the period of partial
demobilization was not confined to angry denunciations of
the point system, or of the policy of essentiality. There
were a number of people who were unhappy with the Army's
proposed program of redeployment of men to the Pacific.

With the defeat of Germany in May of 19A5, the
Army's job was only half completed; there was still the
matter of defeating Japan. By the reckoning of a number of
authorities, the end of the war still appeared to be many
months away. According to the Chief of Staff of the United
States Army, the final invasion of Japan was not to take
place until the early spring of 19A6.3 The estimated date
for the defeat of Japan was November 19A6,h but the Japanese
were capable of fighting with fierce tenacity. Roosevelt
once told Churchill that he would not be surprised if the
war continued until the spring of 19A7. According to
Stettinius, no one appeared to be surprised; indeed, it

seemed to be the consensus of the military and political

 

2Sparrow, History of Personnel Demobilization in the
United States Army, pp. 126-132.

3The war Reports of General of the Army George C.
Marshall General of the Army H. H. Arnold,_Fleet Admiral
Ernest J. King_(Philadelphia and New York: J. P. Lippincott
and Company, 19A7), p. 2A0.

hHarry S. Truman, Memoirs, I, Year of Decisions
(Garggn City, New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1955),
p. 3 .

 

71

advisers who were present.5

Conscious of the fanaticism with which the Japanese
were capable of fighting, and mindful of the cost incurred
in subjugating Okinawa (39,000 casualties and over 1,000
aircraft lost),6 the services were determined to strengthen
their position in the Pacific with the addition of units
from the now inactive European theater. They planned to use
those groups that had not seen extensive combat which would
be composed, therefore, of men who did not have high point
scores. This, of course, was no spur of the moment decision.
Common sense dictated such a move, extensive planning had
provided for it, and even the servicemen themselves expected
it. The armed services knew that there would be consider-
able unhappiness among the men in the unfortunate units that
were chosen to be transferred to the Pacific. They had
hoped, however, that the servicemen themselves would accept
their duty without serious complaint, with no more than the
customary bitching, as they had done for the most part
during the course of the war.

As a matter of fact, some effort was expended to
create the impression that this was precisely how the GI

would react. From time to time, magazines and newspapers

 

5Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Roosevelt and the
Russians (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co.,‘Inc.,
I9A9), P0 72°

6The war Reports of the General of the Army George
C. Marshall,General of the Armng. H. Arnold, Fleet Admiral
Ernest J. King. p. 2A0.

72
would interview servicemen who were being redeployed to the
Pacific, and Americans could read in newspapers such as the
New York Times of how the average GI who was being redeployed
did not want to go to the Pacific, but he considered it his
duty to go and just wanted to get the war over with.7 These
were nice thoughts and in the finest tradition of American
manhood, but they seemed to have been the tHOughts that the
American public would have liked for the serviceman to have
had rather than what his thoughts actually were.

A much more realistic appraisal of what the GI's
actually thought could be found in a survey conducted by the
Information and Education Division of the Army. It found
that a decided majority of the returnees (71 percent) did
not want to go overseas again and of those who answered that
they were willing to go overseas (19 percent in one survey,
11 percent in another), the I & E suggested that some of
these might be evasive. Fifty percent of those who said
that they were willing to do more also indicated that they
expected to be discharged before the war ended. A reason-
able assumption then is that they were willing to do more as
long as they thought that they would not be around to do it.
As a matter of fact, this is stated to have been the case in
clear and unmistakeable language: "it seems likely that most

of the returnees who said they were willing to go when

 

7Drew Middleton, "What the GI Is Thinking About,"
New York Times (Magazine), New York Times, May 13, 1945,
p. 9.

‘1‘

l‘

n .V\\ -\

.__.
\LA

73

needed, believing as they did that they would not be needed,
were really little, if any, more willing to go overseas
again than the returnees who flatly said no."8

The I & E section of the Army tried to explain these
attitudes of the veterans: ". . . it was psychologically
very difficult for the returnee not to feel this way, for
he had in a sense, come to the end of the Army cycle."9 The
"cycle" as explained by the I &.E was service in Europe.
Some of those who thought that they should not serve
additional time overseas, also thought that their release
should come sometime soon. In an unusually prescient
observation, the Director of the OWMR had predicted this
two months before Germany surrendered. James Byrnes in a
letter to the Undersecretary of war commented on the lack of
information emanating from that office on the discharge
program contemplated by the Army. There would be, he said,
a hue and cry to get out of the service, that in a poll that
had been taken the previous September, 37 percent thought
that they would be discharged within one to five months
after the defeat of Germany; 67 percent thought that they

would be discharged six months after Germany's defeat.lo

 

8Samuel A. Stouffer et al., The American Soldier:
Combat and Its Aftermath, II (New York: John Wiley &.Sons,
Inc., 1965), p. A71, A59.

9Stouffer et al., The American Soldier: Combat and
Its Aftermath, II, p. A72.

10James F. Byrnes, Director OWMR to Robert P.
Patterson, Undersecretary of war, Memorandum, March 11,
1945; The Papers of James F. Byrnes, Drawer 1, Folder A8,
COOper Library, Clemson University, Anderson, South Carolina.

74

Of those who felt, incidentally, that they should be
out of the Army, there were very few who were more vociferous
than some of the veterans who were being redeployed with
divisions that were scheduled to go to Japan. Convinced
that they had done their part, they began applying pressure
on government officials and Congressmen. This was particu-
larly true among trOOps of the 95th Division. Resentful
even before the end of the war at being one of the divisions
chosen to fight in the final phases of the war against
Japan, the men of the division showed unconcealed hostility
after August 1A, 19A5, the day of Japan's actual if not
formal surrender. Clearly, they did not want to serve as
occupation troops. Members of that division while on pass
in New Orleans visited newspaper offices and sought the
support of the papers. Troops from the division's 279th
regiment sent a telegram to the United Press denying a war
Department statement to the effect that they had seen only
limited combat and emphasized that their tour of duty in
Europe included 10A days in the front lines. A letter
writer to the Times Picayune defended the division's record
by saying that it had served for more than nine month's
overseas, and that its casualties suffered in combat would
fill the pages of a telephone directory. Four soldiers took
a petition protesting the division's redeployment signed by

200 men to the Hattiesburg American.ll

 

llwashington Poet, August 20, 19A5, p. 5; August 21,
19A5, p. 2; New Orleans Times Picgyune, August 21, 19A5,
p. 8; Memphis Commercial Appeal, August 19, 19A5, 1, p. 2.

75

Despite the vigor with which this protest of the
95th Division was made, the division's commander, Major
General Harry Twaddle stated that the protest was "orderly
and not mutinous."12 Six years later, the general seemed
much more frank about some of his thinking:

'After the Division's arrival in the United States,
there was a continuous and growing opposition to
being ordered to the Pacific. A very disturbing
situation arose approaching open sedition and
mutiny. The principal disturbing elements were
centered among high point men who had been trans-
ferred into the Division prior to departure from
Germany. These men openly and vigorously expressed
the view that they had come home for discharge-~that
they had done their share of fighting in the war,
and it was the turn of those who had not had overseas
service to do their bit.'

Army officers were quite obviously loath to describe
these activities as mutinous at the time of their happening
for fear they would have reflected seriously on their own
ability to control the troops under their command, and,
besides, to have done so, might have fanned protest into
mutiny. And at the same time, it might have served to
increase publicity which the authorities were trying to
avoid. Therefore, a rather curious situation prevailed in
the Army wherein incidents that were serious were dismissed
as minor, and public relations rhetoric consistently
described disruptive activity in low key language-~leaving

the impression that the Army had things well under control.

 

12washington Post, August 20, 1945, P. 5.

13Quoted in Sparrow, History of Personnel Demobili-
gation in the United States Army, p. 138.

76

A good example of this was the Army public relations
announcement that 500 men of the Eighteenth Airborne Corps
had sent individual petitions to Congress asking not to be
sent to the Far East. The PR office said that no action
would be taken against the soldiers since these were the
actions of individuals rather than of a group.lh

That the Army had grown lenient was unlikely. To
have treated the situation in any other manner, though,
would have simply increased the amount of publicity that
the incident had already evoked, and, in addition, would
have turned the men into martyrs. This much, however, was
certain: Army authority was being questioned to a very
serious extent. There was no comparable incident during
the course of World war II that was even remotely similar
to this. These were not isolated incidents either. They
were happening in different units in different places and
were happening with enough frequency to make Congress
nervous. Sometimes Congressmen tried to transfer some of
the pressure being placed on them to the shoulders of the
President, Congressman Charles B. Hooven from Iowa, for
example, sent a telegram to the President stating that he
was being "swamped" with communications regarding the men
who were being sent overseas and that he thought changes

should be made in redeployment plans and that men who had

 

14washington Post, August 22, 1945, p. A.

77

done their share in combat should not be sent overseas.15

And apparently just about everyone thought that he
had done his share in combat. The members of the 11th Major
Port Battalion protested their proposed redeployment to
Japan in telegrams to President Truman, the Adjutant
General, the House Military Affairs Committee, and the
Office of Defense Transportation. The Washipgton Post
featured a story of 3000 high point GI's from the washington
area winning a fight to keep from being redeployed to Japan.
A plaintive note from a wife to a New Orleans paper said
that there was an immediate job awaiting her husband if he
were not sent to Japan. Private X and A79 others from the
557th Field Artillery Battalion (239 consecutive days of
combat) told the people of the Boston area that they were
being "shanghaied" to Japan. And the enlisted men of the
lAlst General Hospital told the readers of the Detroit Free
Ppppg that it was an injustice to ship them to Japan. The
Minneapolis Star Journal concluded ruefully that the GI was
a good fighter but a poor peacetime soldier and said that

the paper had been "flooded with their letters."16

l5Char1es B. Hoeven, House of Representatives to
Harry S. Truman, President of the United States, telegram
(telegram, referred to Secretary of war by Hassett,
Secretary to the President), August 27, 19A5, Official
File 190V, White House Pa ers of Har S. Truman, Har
S. Truman Library. Cited hereafter as OF (file number ;
then, Truman Papers, HSTL.

16Mem his Commercial Appeal, August 21, 19A5, p. 1;
washin ton ost, August 23, 19A5, p. 1; New Orleans Times
Pica une, August 2A, 19A5, p. 8; Boston Daily Globe, August
30, 19A5, p. 1A; Detroit Free Press, September 2, 19A5,
part 2, p. 5; Minneapolis Star Journal, September 5, p. 10.

78

On the West Coast, there was an attempt to inhibit
the free spirit of men on pass from the 86th Division by
stamping on their passes that they were not authorized to
send telegrams. Apparently not everyone believed it, for
a number of men from the camp where the men were stationed,
Camp Stoneman, gave money to a columnist and asked him to
send telegrams for them-~te1egrams to Congressmen.l7
Perhaps this was simply a liberal reinterpretation of what
the pass said. At any rate, there was at least one organi-
zation that protested against the restriction of the civil
rights of veterans. The United Parents of Veterans called
for the court martial of two generals who tried to institute
disciplinary action against servicemen who wrote to
Congress.

It was a disturbed Congress that received the
letters and telegrams, and now and then some members were
stimulated into an unusual statement or action. Congressman
Paul H. Maloney of Louisiana said that he thought that there
was enough concern about the Army's plans for redeployment
to merit an investigation, but the Congressman's reaction
was not typical; most Congressmen were prepared to ride out

the storm, which they did.19

 

l7Chicago Sun, August 22, 19A5: P. 12.

18Form Letter, United Parents of Veterans to
President Harry S. Truman, Sept. 6, 19A5, OF19OT, Truman

Pa ers, HSTL.
19washington Post, August 21, 19A5.

79
As for many of the GI's who had complained, the
members of the 95th Division remained home; those of the
86th set sail for the Philippines--sad and sullen, undoubt-
edly, and unconvinced of the need to ship them anywhere.
That the 95th Division was granted a reprieve only served
to worsen their aggrieved feelings. It was little more

than a month and a half before that the New York Times had

 

written:

the Army will do its best to make the welcome
to the men of the 86th, one they will long
remember.

Harbor whistles will shrill and bands will
play as the vessels slowly steam up New York
Bay, an army "welcome home" ship with a wac band

aboard will draw a5ongside each transport and
serenade the men.2

Their sailing for the Philippines was a less joyous

occasion.

 

20NewYork Times, June 17, 19A5, Section 1, p. l.

Chapter 5

GETTING THEM OUT OF THE ARMY AND
GETTING THEM INTO THE ECONOMY

The summer of 19A5, which was characterized with
enough disputes over redeployment to unsettle the nerves
of some military leaders, was also one in which civilian
authority was determined to assert itself. There had been
previous clashes, and that summer they clashed again, the
specific occasion being the shortage of men to work in the
coal mines. The only place that a sufficient number of
miners could be found to work in them was in the Army, or
so it was claimed by a number of people, the most important
of whom was the Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes who
argued this point consistently. He also sought the support
of the newspapers and repeated these charges in an
appearance before the Senate Committee to Investigate the
National Defense Program.1

There had been a running argument over the release

of the coal miners for over two months before Ickes appeared

 

1United States, Senate, Special Committee Investi-
gating the National Defense Program, Hearings Pursuant to
enate Resolutiongjj, 79th Cong., lst sess., July 31, 1945,
part 31, p. 1A983.

80

81

before the Senate Committee. The position of the war
Department was that the special release of coal miners would
only encourage other industrial groups to apply for the
release of personnel in their industries. Also, the
discharge of groups such as these would destroy the morale
of those who would be subsequently discharged through the
point system. And if an unusually large group of men were
discharged as favors to special groups, it would mean the
ultimate destruction of the point system. Nevertheless,
there was considerable pressure placed on the war Department
to release or furlough coal miners; for example, the
Director of the OWMR requested the furlough of 5000 in May
of 19A5, but Patterson refused the request.2

The request, though, came up again in a cabinet
meeting in early July. Ickes pushed the matter, repeating
his assertion that the only place a sufficient number of
miners could be found was in the Army. Once again,
Patterson stated that he could not discharge or furlough
them and repeated his fears of what it would do to the
smooth functioning of the method of discharging personnel.
At this meeting, Truman apparently supported Patterson, for

he made a strong statement in praise of the point system.3

 

2Robert P. Patterson, Undersecretary of war to
Fred M; Vinson, Director, OWMR, May 23, 19A5, General
Correspondence, Robert P. Patterson (classified), Library
of Congress.

3Notes on Cabinet Meeting, Robert P. Patterson,
JUlY 5, 19A5, Stimson Papepp, Sterling Library, Yale
University.

 

82

But the Secretary of the Interior was a persistent man and
the result of his activities was a heightened interest by
the public in the coal mines and a greater degree of pressure
against Acting Secretary of War Patterson. Despite all of
this, Patterson refused to be swayed from his position. On
July 13, he renewed his refusal to furlough miners in a
letter to Ickes; on July 21, he wrote to Sam Rayburn in the
House and Kenneth MeKellar in the Senate, objecting to
proposed legislation to furlough 10,000 coal miners and
discharge 20,000 others.A And there matters stood until the
argument finally found its way into the committee room for
the Senate Committee to Investigate the National Defense
Program, now under the leadership of a new chairman, Senator
James Mead of New York.

In July 19A5, as a result of its investigations, the
Read Committee supported the position of Harold Ickes and
others that "the release to industry of a relatively few men
could make possible the employment of great numbers in the
future." The Committee was also of the opinion that the
Anny was wasting manpower: "setting up huge reserves of
troops which it cannot hOpe to employ in the Pacific war,

except in the event of an almost disastrous military

 

kLetters, Robert P. Patterson, Acting Secretary of
war to Sam Rayburn, House of Representatives, July 21, 19A5;
to Kenneth McKellar, United States Senate, July 21, 19A5,
General Correspondence, Robert P. Patterson (classified),
Library of Congress, washington, D.C.

83

set-back."5 Clearly, public Opinion was beginning to run
against the Army, and even the Washington Post, a paper that
was usually sympathetic to military problems, urged it "to
pay attention" to the Mead Committee claim that there were
10,000 miners who were eligible for discharge.6

Fortunately for the public and the Army, the coal
crisis passed-~a number of factors contributed to this.
First, the Army agreed to expedite the discharges of coal
miners who were eligible for discharge. Of more importance,
though, was the fact that within a couple of weeks of the
time that the Mead Committee had made its report, the war
ended. The Army then further liberalized its qualifications
for discharge. All indications were now that there would be
more than a sufficient number of men to work in the mines.

The matter Of the coal mines had not been settled
when it became apparent that there was a lack of labor in
another area as well, the railroads. The problem became
particularly acute in early July when transportation
authorities found it necessary to move the thousands of
redeployed veterans from Europe to the United States.
Several things became quickly apparent. Either the rail-
roads were not sufficient to handle the vast number of

servicemen or there were some monumental mistakes in

 

5United States, Congress, Senate, Special Committee
Investigating the National Defense Program, Senate Report
110, part A, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 19A5, p. 16.

6washingpon Post, July 31, 19A5, p. 8.

81»

scheduling, as members Of the armed forces found it necessary
to wait an inordinate amount of time before they were loaded
on board a train. Adding to an already unpleasant situation,
too, was the general crowding on the trains: extremely long
lines to the dining cars, and in the mornings and evenings,
lines to the restrooms. Equipment was poor: lights did not
always work; coach seats were sometimes torn. And particu-
larly irksome to servicemen was the discomfort of traveling
great distances without Pullman cars. The hot July weather
did not help matters, either.

During this hot month of July a series of incidents
happened that dramatized some of the problems of redeployment
--incidents that were publicized by the newspapers. In
Memphis, for example, an irate railroad worker Carl Cannon
spotted a group of German prisoners of war traveling in
Pullman coaches. This was a newsworthy item, for there were
literally thousands of GI's home by now who had ridden miles
and miles in French box cars (the notorious A0 and 8) and
who could not understand why enemy prisoners of war in this
country did not travel in the same fashion. Unknown to
Cannon perhaps was that these were hospital cases and psycho-
neurotics. At any rate, he chose to call the local newspaper,
and one Of the supervisors of the railroad sought to stop
him, which spoke better of the supervisor's courage than it
did Of his wisdom, for Cannon was a 300 pound former athlete
and one time boxing coach of Mississippi State. Cannon said

it was necessary for him to "slap down" the supervisor

85

before he could make the call.7

Within about a week's time from the incident that
happened concerning the German prisoners of war, a rather
voluble Colonel in the Transportation Corps spoke out on
some Of his ideas concerning the transportation of GI's.
It was far from adequate, according to him, and he was
particularly condemnatory of the railway equipment which
he classified as strictly "toonerville." The Colonel's
statement which was picked up and spread by the newspapers
aroused national attention, and many peOple thought that
they recognized the Colonel's name, which may have been the
case, for Lieutenant Colonel Peter de Paolo was a former
auto racing champion, good enough at one time to win the
Indianapolis 500. The Army definitely did not appreciate
the Colonel's remark and quickly sped him down the road to
a rapid retirement. The Official explanation was that the
Colonel had more than the sufficient number of points to
be discharged. NO explanation was given as to the actual
number of points that he possessed; however many, they
were more than enough.8

Much less spectacular than any Of these incidents,
but cumulatively more important perhaps were the letters
to Congressmen, phone calls and letters to neWSpapers, and

the private gripes of GI's that railway transportation was

 

7Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 8, 19A5, p. A.

8Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), July 15, 19A5,
p. 3.

-4

(U

+.

ut

‘-

‘I
V.

p_‘

86

inferior. Some blamed the railroads for the situation;
some, the Army, and some, the Office of Defense Transpor-
tation. The Mead Committee Opened hearings to determine
just what the situation was with the railways, with the
hope Of making some meaningful and constructive suggestions.

The Committee found, as had been maintained by the
ODT, that there was a shortage of labor on the railways and
tried to secure from the Army a pledge to furlough or
discharge men to work on them. The Army was reluctant to
do this; they needed railway workers themselves during this
period of redeployment. They had already furloughed some
during the month of June, and, most of all, they did not
want to interfere with the point system. The Committee
stressed that there were many former railway workers who
were not working on the Army's railroads and asked that
these be released. To stress the wisdom and practicality
of furloughing these men, the Committee repeated the
observation of the Director of the CDT that one good railway
worker at work on the railroads was worth a hundred railway
workers in the Army. But the Army was still reluctant to
release them. This particularly angered the Chairman of the
Committee who stated that there were a number Of areas Of
which he was aware (Iran for one) where railway labor
battalions were being phased out. Nor could the Chairman
‘understand, as he later told the newspapers, why American

SOldiers were used on the French railroads at a time when

87

there was wide-spread unemployment throughout France.9

The other area in which the Committee probed hard
was the matter of scheduling of troops. Initially, it
seemed as if the onus of responsibility lay with the
Director of the ODT, as the shortage of cars appeared to
be his fault. The Director maintained that a major reason
for the shortage was the incorrect information that he had
been furnished by the Army. Though he was told, for
example, that the Army would redeploy 150,000 troops during
the month of June, they actually redeployed more than
200,000; and for the month of July, the figures that were
released showed an error of over 100,000 troops. Further-
more, the Director found Out "accidentally" that the figures
of August were more than 100,000 greater than the figures
that had been furnished to the ODT. Clearly, this was an
impossible state of affairs.10

That state of affairs arose because the Army did not
coordinate its planning with the Office of Defense Transpor-
tation. True enough, it did give monthly figures on the

number of men who would be shipped, but not weekly or daily

 

9U.S., Congress, Senate, Special Committee
Investigating the National Defense Program, Hearin 3
Pursuant to 3. Res. 55, 79th Cong., lst sess., July 2A,
19A5, p. 1A881, p. 1A89A; p. 1A912; Stars and Stripes,
JuJ-Y 30 1945. P- 8-

10U. 8., Congress, Senate, Special Committee

Investigating the National Defense Program, Hearings
Pursuant to S. Res. 55, Part XXXI, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
July 21+, 1916: PP. 1491+8- 9.

88

figures. It consistently and deliberately exceeded the
figures supplied in monthly quotas by the overloading of
ships and did not tell the ODT that ships would be over-
loaded. Army explanation for this was that scheduling was
made with the Association Of American Railroads. All of
this was very well, but the AAR did not provide the railway
cars; that is, they did not establish the priorities; did
not provide for the physical inventory. That was the
responsibility Of the ODT, either by transferring them from
other lines, where the demand was not great, or of
manufacturing them.11

There was to be sure, a shortage of all railway
cars, but the shortage of Pullman cars was particularly
acute. Undoubtedly, the wear and tear involved in
transporting hundreds of thousands of troops was probably
the most significant reason for this, but apparently there
had not been a sufficient number of them manufactured during
the war. Burton K. Wheeler said on the floor of the Senate
that many of those that had been manufactured during the
war had been sent to South America. Senator Scott Lucas of
Illinois reminded the Senate that the Committee to
Investigate the National Defense Program had in the past
opposed the manufacture of additional Pullman cars as a

luxury that was not in the spirit Of the war. At any rate,

 

llU.S., Senate, Spec. Comm. Investigating the Natl.
Defense . . . , Hearings Pursuant to S. Res. 55, Part XXXI,
79th Cong., lst sess., July 2A, 19h5; PP. lA930-9.

89

the ODT did its part, and called for the transfer of 895
Pullmans that had been used for civilian service and ordered
the manufacture of an additional 1000 cars.12

Meanwhile, back at the war Department, pressure was
mounting. For a period of several weeks, the Army had been
taking a beating in the newspapers. Thoughtful articles
such as that which appeared in the New Orleans Times
Picayppe tried to be fair and understand the Army's position
but at the same time stressed the importance of having the
nation's railways Operate as efficiently as possible, which
the Army could help with the release of railway workers.13
The last day of July the Army finally relented and announced
that it would release 2,063 men engaged in work in railway
shop battalions, and 1,362 men involved in active railway
service in Europe would be released to work on the railroads
in the United States.lh A few days later with the hOpe of
scurrying up more workers, Patterson wrote the Deputy
Commanding General of the Army Air Force and reminded him
that the previous June the war Department had asked for the
furlough of A000 railway workers of which the Air Force was

expected to furnish 1,755, but as of the date of the writing

 

12U.S., Congress, Senate, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
July 21, 19A5, Cong. Rec., XCI, p. 7900; Stars and Stripes
(Paris), July 15, l9h5, p. 3.

13New Orleans Times Picayune, July 25, p. 9.

ll"NeW'Orleans Times Picayune, August 1, 19A5, p. 1.

 

90
of the letter (Aug. 2) had only furnished 81A.15 In view
of that, Patterson asked the Air Force to speed up its
efforts. Within two weeks of the time that the Army began
the acceleration Of its efforts to discharge some men and
furlough others, the war ended. There were no further
demands on the Armed Forces to release men to work on the
nation's railways.

The debates that were conducted over the nation's
coal mines and railroads, and where to get men to work them,
were indeed acrimonious at times. Unfortunately the Army
alienated a number Of the members of the Mead Committee and
much of the general public, as well as drawing the ire of
prominent Senators as well. Edwin Johnson of Colorado
accused it of hoarding manpower; Robert Taft said that Army
policy was blind, stupid, and stubborn. Kenneth Wherry of
Nebraska said that the Army was deliberately keeping men
in the military in order to influence Congressional policy
toward the Armed Forces. There was also criticism in the
House. Andrew May, Chairman of the House Committee on the
Armed Forces, said that the Army did not understand the
needs of the public.16 In short, the Armed Forces,

particularly the Army could look forward to a long, hot

 

15Robert P. Patterson, Undersecretary of war to Ira
C. Baker, Deputy Commanding General, United States Army Air
Force, August 2, 19h5, Patterson Papers General Correspond-
ence (classified), Vol. 5, Library of Congress.

16washington Post, August A, 19A5, pp. 1-2.

91
summer, one in which patience would be strained and tempers
short.

The summer Of 19A5 then was marked with a number of
incidents and two minor crises, if there can be such things
as mipp; crises. At least, they did not become major, but
they very well might have if the war had not ended when it
did. The ending of the war, for example, reduced the amount
of coal that was needed, and it also substantially reduced
the amount of traffic on the railroads in freight if not in
passenger cars. A shortage of cars remained for a number
of months, but the shortage never reached the critical
proportions predicted at one time. In addition, the war's
end meant a greatly increased number of men were now
available to work in the mines and on the railroads.

Not crises perhaps but serious incidents that same
summer were the series of protests made by the men who were
being redeployed to Japan. Plainly, they did not want to
go, and it did not matter too much that others had done
more, for they only answered that there were many who had
done less, and some had done nothing at all. No one knew
how to answer these men, or if, indeed, there was an answer.
The tritest thing that could be said, "the fortunes of war"
was probably the truest. Someone had to go, and even when
the war ended, someone still had to go. But the incidents
Opened the eyes Of a number of people, and probably some of
them for the first time saw the serviceman as a human being,

for better or worse, no larger than the dimensions of any

92

other human being, who rather than acting nobly as human
beings sometimes do, acted selfishly as human beings usually
do. It was the good fortune Of the United States, though,
that he did not react even more selfishly. If he went
unwillingly, at least he went, and thereby prevented what
might have become another crisis.

These crises, near crises, incidents that took place
during the summer reflected what seemed to have been a
number of changes in the attitudes and thought patterns of
the nation's Congressmen and Senators as well as those of
the people. The end of a war drawing near seemed to evoke
deep civil yearnings of the people, and to stimulate the
desire to return to normal, everyday things. It awoke at
the same time the darker side of their natures; they became
less trusting; more inclined to doubt. Particularly did
they now suspect the purity Of motive of the military.
Reasons advanced for a position, or Offered in way of an
explanation, accepted without qualm in former times, were
more likely to be questioned now. It was, after all, the
temper of the times. Congressmen realized this, and to an
extent they were even responsible for it, but they welcomed
the Opportunity it gave them to reassert the civil power
Over the military; to curb the ambitious officer; to demand
economy in expenditures; to question the need of personnel;
to set limits on the numbers of Officers and men.

Civil control over the military in the minds Of many

Congressmen had not disappeared, but it had been dangerously

93
eroded, and they now wanted an opportunity to do something
about it. That Opportunity would soon be presented. The
summer Of 19A5 was a troubled one for many. Men with
sufficient points to be discharged were sitting in camp
awaiting the final discharge procedure; some were waiting
to be transferred to other camps; some to be redeployed to
Japan. At the time of Japan's formal surrender, there were
millions of idle men sitting around camps. This angered
the men in the camps; it angered wives and parents; and,
most assuredly,it angered Congress. It was an intolerable
state of affairs, and Congress took it upon itself to
determine why in the old Army phrase there were men who

were "busy doing nothing."

Chapter 6
TOO MANY MEN, ALL BUSY DOING NOTHING

Early on a Sunday morning, September 2, 19A5, the
representatives Of the United Nations met on the deck Of
the battleship, Missouri to accept the surrender Of the
Japanese Empire. In quiet, grave proceedings that began
and ended within a period of 25 minutes, the war that they
had conducted against Japan for over 3 1/2 years came to
an end.1

There was surprisingly little in the way Of
celebrations to greet the news of the surrender ceremony,
so different from the reaction of August 1A, the day that
Japan stopped fighting and announced that she would
surrender. On that day the newspapers spoke Of frenzied
activities, jubilance, even bedlam at times. On this quiet
Sunday, celebrations would have been anti-climactic, for
actual fighting had ceased two weeks before; and advanced
units had already landed in Japan to begin the occupation,

even before the formal surrender Of Japan took place.2

 

lNewYork Times, September 3, 19A5, p. 1.
2Chicago Sun, August 25, 19A5, p. l.
94

95
Americans could not bring themselves tO celebrate the end
of a war that in their own minds had already ended.

In New York City, Mayor Laguardia cancelled a
proposed celebration in Central Park with the explanation
that the people had already had their "big time." The city
seemed quiet. The New York Times stated that this Sunday
was hardly any different from any other Labor Day weekend
with traffic at the Holland Tunnel actually below the level
of that of most Sundays. In washington, D.C., hundreds of
Offices were closed and the State Department Building so
busy during the war was all but empty, "tenanted by a
yawning skeleton force." There is little reason to believe
that the experience of New York and washington was much
different from that of other cities, with the possible
exception of Detroit where the Tigers were making a
determined drive for the American League championship,
helped to a very great extent by a couple of recently
discharged veterans: the pitcher Tommy Bridges and the
long-ball-hitting outfielder Hank Greenberg.3

NOt surprisingly, a rash of speeches greeted the end
of the war. Truman spoke on September 1 and announced that
September 2 was to be considered V-J day (Victory against
Japan). On the following evening, he spoke over the Armed

Forces Radio Network to assure the American servicemen that

 

3New York Times, September 2, 19A5, I, p. 1;
September 3, 19A5, p. I; September 2, l9h5, I, p. 1; New
York Times, September 2, 19A5, V, p. 7.

96

they would be brought home as rapidly as possible, and that
they would return to a "good life."h

The servicemen were being brought home, Of course.
This had begun with Germany's surrender and continued
throughout the summer of 19A5. One could read everyday of
trOOp ships that had landed as well as the names of the
units on board. The Minneapolis Star Journel, for example,
in the "GI Gangplank" carried the names of all Minneapolis
boys who had returned, the name of the ship on which they
had returned, and where the ship had docked. Papers as
small as the washington Democrat (washington, Indiana) and
as large as the washington Po§p_had sections specifically
devoted to servicemen. In addition, the major newspapers
and the wire services tried to enliven the news of a unit's
homecoming with colorful anecdotes and accounts. The men on
the‘Queen Mary, for example, were greeted by a golden-haired
nurse waving a pair of black lace panties.5 Sometimes WAC
bands drew alongside the troopships and serenaded the men
into the harbor with "America the Beautiful" and "Sidewalks
of New York," the lyrical waltz-like sounds Of which must
have sounded good even to boys from the Dakotas. The
following account was written of the landing of the Qppgp

Eligebeth: "With name bands playing hot jive on the pier

 

hNeW'York Times, September 2, 19A5, p. 1; September
3, 1945, p. .

sNgw York Times, June 21, 191.5. p. 5.

97

and deep-throated horns bellowing signals to the Lilliputian
tugs, the giant Queen Elizabeth docked at west Fifteenth
Street early yesterday afternoon amidst the noisiest welcome
since V-E Day. She brought 1A,86O passengers. . . ."6

Most of the men did not come home on the Qpeens, of
course, but on merchant ships of every size and description
with accommodations that were adequate at best, but, never-
theless, they came home. Sometimes they came home only to
be given a new assignment in the United States, or to be
redeployed to the Pacific, or to be discharged. By late
summer of 19A5, Army camps were crowded with men, most of
them not engaged in any particularly constructive activity,
and many of them not doing anything at all. Then the war
against Japan ended. Now there were not only idle men in
the Army, but in the other branches of the service as well.
Throughout the summer, wives and parents of servicemen and
newspaper editors fretted over this large number Of idle
men, all Of which did not help the serviceman but made him
even more discontented and probably only added to the
maddening frustration which he was experiencing.

It added to the frustration of Congress as well.
Senator Edwin Johnson of Colorado spoke for many of the
other members of the Senate and the House as well when he
expressed his discontent with the practices and policies of

the armed forces. Speaking of some Of the charts used by

 

6New York Times, September 1, 19A5, p. 6.

Or

V0.

it

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at. ......\..§\...__...V

! Urn

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98

the Army to explain the operation of the separation centers,
Johnson said this:

The chart that I should like to see and the chart

that has caused Congress so much trouble, and is

causing the soldiers themselves so much concern at

the present time is a chart Of the pipeline before

they get to the separation center--the boys that

are mowing lawns with bayonets, the boys that are

picking up cigarette butts around the barracks 30

days at a stretch, the boys who are sitting there

folding their hands for months upon months, the

boys that are taking basic training once more afper

they have had 3 or A years of combat experience.

Johnson's accusation of men engaged in unnecessary

and useless tasks was no idle charge. There were a number
of complaints made to Congressmen in the summer of 19A5 Of
the men not having anything to do or of having to perform
senseless tasks. Many of these complaints came from nearby
Fort Belvoir, Virginia. On one occasion, a sergeant from
the fort called Edwin Johnson from the Chamber Of the Senate
to discuss with him the employment of the men at Belvoir.
In a list which the sergeant presented to Johnson it was
stated that the men were being used to cut grass and pick up
cigarette butts and mop floors, clean the rifles of officer
candidates, and pick up leaves in one place and put them in

another.8 The sergeant's complaint was made more than a

 

7U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Militarg
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings on 81355: A ill
to Provide for the Speedy Return of’Veterans to Civilian
Life for the Immediate Nfilitary Needs of'the‘United States
and for Other‘Purposes,ISeptember713,'19A5, p. 49}

_

8U.S., Congress, Senate, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
August 1, 1945. Congressional Record, XCI, p. 8293.

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99
month before the hearings by the Senate Committee on
Military Affairs. A month and a half later, shortly before
the Senate began its hearings on demobilization, a private
George L. Mark from Fort Belvoir told a newspaper man that
he and nine other men had been forced to cut grass with
bayonets. A short time after that happened, the private
was transferred to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, a move which
he interpreted, possibly correctly, as being a "railroad."

Obviously not easily intimidated, however, the
private repeated those charges in an appearance before the
Senate Committee on Military Affairs, at which time he was
given the assurance Of Elbert Thomas, Committee Chairman,
that if any further recriminations were taken against him,
the Army would have to answer to the Senate.9 These
assurances were somewhat belated though in view Of the fact
that the soldier was being sent to a camp that had a reputa-
tion of being something less than a paradise.

Mbst experiences of discontent were not so
dramatically stated, though, as that of the private from
Fort Belvoir. Mest servicemen and parents of servicemen
were content to write their Congressmen rather than appear
before them in person and increasing numbers Of them were
writing. An overworked farmer from MOntana told Senator
Burton K. Wheeler that his boy was lying around doing

nothing, and Wheeler said that he had received a number of

 

9Chicago Daily Tribune, September 21, 1945, I, p. 6.

100
such complaints. Congressman Daniel Reed of New York
said that he had received a letter from a man who was a
production engineer before the war, and that the engineer
felt qualified to say that the Army wasted manpower, and
that he had seen the Army put six men on a job that would
not keep one man busy. A young Army man from Lincoln,
Nebraska wrote of being kept busy by working in the
officer's mess, sweeping the officer's barracks, and clean-
ing their latrines. One Congressman said that a serviceman
mentioned in a letter that the men were told to keep busy
when inspection teams came by, even if it meant that they
were to keep doing the same thing over and over.

Though most of these complaints were from the Army,
the Navy, too, had large numbers of idle men. Charles
Plumley, a Congressman from Vermont, referred to an excess
Of specialists in the Navy whose specialty was no longer
required and stated that these men should be discharged if
they had nothing to do, and should not be kept in service
simply to adhere to a "theoretical formula."ll

Although these letters were helpful in alerting

Congress to some of the problems faced by the men in the

 

loU.S., Congress, Senate, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
September 25, 19A5, Cong, Rec., p. 8975; U.S., Congress,
House, 79th Cong., lst sess., Oct. 1, 1945, Cong. Rec.,
p. 9209; Oct. 30, 1945. Cong. Rec., Appendix, p. AA588;
U.S., Congress, Senate, 79th Cong., lst sess., October 9,
1945, P. 9477-

llU.S., Congress, House, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
September 13, 19A5, Cong. Rec., Appendix, p. A3872.

101

service, they were not always necessary, for many Congress-
men knew about these problems first hand as a result of
inspection trips that they had made. Congressman John Taber
of New York spoke of his visit to Army camps in the United
States which he made presumably sometime in September. In
one camp, he found that over AOOO men had been kept busy for
over four months doing nothing; in another, that men were
given repeated furloughs.12

Idle men were not confined to the United States.
Earl Wilson, Congressman from Indiana, reported that in the
inspection trips that he made through Europe and Asia 90
percent of the men were idle. Wilson said with Obvious
exaggeration that it was a well-known practice that the Army
used twelve men to do the job of one, and that he personally
knew Of a utility that the Army operated which was eleven
times more expensive than the utility of a city near his
hometown. Wilson deplored the expense of all of this to the
taxpayer and said that the Army should not be allowed to use
even six.men to do the job of one.13

Possibly the most interesting comment concerning
idleness was made by Frank Chelf, Congressman from Kentucky.
He, too, spoke of men being used to pick up cigarette butts.

In a discussion that he had with a sergeant, the sergeant

 

12U.S., Congress, House, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
October 17, 1945, Cong, Rec., Appendix, p. AA356.

13U.S., Congress, House, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
September 18, 1945, Cong, Rec., Appendix, pp. A3930-1.

102
told him that if he (Chelf) remained for any length Of time
that they could play golf every day. By no means did Chelf
think that idleness was any worse overseas than it was in
the United States or worse in one branch of the service than
another. He spoke of Army post Offices in the United States
deliberately letting mail pile up so that the clerks would
have something to do when inspection teams came by. He also
thought that the Navy shamefully wasted manpower and
equipment and spoke of transports flying from coast to coast
carrying sandbags.14
The Kentucky Congressman thought that if the armed

forces could not bring home all of the men immediately, and
he was not convinced that they were in any hurry to do so,
then the men should be given furloughs. He summed up his
Observations on demobilization with a short poem. Two
stanzas of which are as follows:

The war is over, Congress

That I shall repeat

Grab the reins from the brass

Climb in the driver's seat

Ship the millions home, judge

Ship the millions home

Order the chairborne divisions

To ship the millions home.15

In his speech, although he discussed a number of

areas Of inefficiency in the Army, Frank Chelf mentioned one

 

l"U.S., Congress, House, 79th CO ., lst sess.,
September 19, 1945, Cong. Rec., pp. 8793- 797.

15U.S., Congress, House, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
September 19, 1945, Cong!.Rec., p. 8797.

103
in particular that had already aroused considerable comment
and would be the cause of still greater comment in the
future: that was the subject of doctors. Specifically, he
said that while he was in England, he visited one hospital
in which there were no patients, but a full complement of
doctors and nurses.16 This type of comment had become
rather common by the early fall of 19A5, but never so common
that it would not arouse an intense reaction from the public
every time that it was made. The shortage of doctors, the
public was convinced, was genuine.

That concern of the shortage of physicians was soon
reflected in the newspapers, which gave the subject exten-
sive coverage. Quite possibly the most effective of all was
by the syndicated columnist Drew Pearson. writing from
washington, he tailored his column to activity in that city,
fulfilling the name of the "washington Merry-GO-Round" quite
well. The matter Of demObilization was made to order for
the columnist, and he took it up in the manner Of an
unreconstructed muckraker, which was his style, of course,
in everything else. Quite early, he began attacking the
armed forces for their manpower policy and their use of
physicians as a part of that policy. In his column of
September 6, he wrote that although the number of personnel

had actually declined on some Army bases, the Army had

 

l6U.S., Congress, House, 79th Cong., lst sess.,

September 19, 1945, Cong. Rec., pp. 8794-5.

.F‘

T»,

10A
increased the number of physicians that were on duty. About
a week later, he wanted to know why in view of the fact that
the war had ended, it was necessary to have doctors learn
the nomenclature of the M1 rifle, the machine gun, the
carbine, and the hand grenade.17 The type of charges made
by him had been made many times in the past, but their
incidence grew rapidly with the end of the war.

Undoubtedly, there was great pressure exerted by the
extremely well organized medical profession to secure the
release of physicians fromthe service, but there was an
equal perhaps greater amount of pressure from individual
doctors and specific communities which had few if any
doctors available to them. Rural communities in particular
seemed in bad shape. Poucher Coleman in an article in the
Louisville Courier Journal said that in Dawson Springs,
Kentucky the doctors were not sufficient in number to give
adequate medical care to the public. And in Gallatin County
in the same state, there was not a single physician to serve

18

an area with a population of A,330. This situation was
not at all unusual by the end of the war. At one Of the
hearings conducted by the House Committee on Military Affairs,

Congressman Leslie Arends of Illinois spoke Of one doctor

 

l7Louisville Courier Journal, Sept. 6, 19A5,
sect. 2, p. 8; Sept. 1A, 19A5, sect. 2, p. 12.

18Louisville Courier Journal, August 12, 19A5,
sect. 3, p. A.

1
6A

~>Mu

" I

b.

c?

‘IU

AC

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.‘lU.

was 1.3 n

~t

105

having to serve eight towns.19
There was no way that the armed services could have

guaranteed that small communities would receive adequate

medical care, even if they had discharged all of the

physicians. And even if they had, it still would not have

changed the fact that the services themselves did not use :3

their physicians effectively. In the late summer of 19A5,

a special subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Military

 

Affairs looked into the matter of physicians in the armed If
forces. Among their conclusions were that there was an 5’
inexcusable duplication of services; that on some of the
islands in the Pacific the various branches of the Army
would each have medical units, i.e., Army Service Forces,
the Army Air Force, etc., and medical units for the Navy as
well, all within a stone's throw Of each other. MOreover,
the services had too many physicians, the Army having more
than 17,000 too many. In addition, 50 percent Of the
physicians in the service did not see combat service or
deal with casualties but did purely administrative work.20
The findings of the sub-committee were devastating,
but did not surprise many of the members of Congress. For a

considerable length of time, they had received letters from

 

19U.S., House Of Representatives, Committee on
Nfilitary Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings,
.Demobilization of the U.S. Army . . . , August 28, 19A5,

p.3-

20St. Louis Post Qispatch, September 1A, 1945,

p. 10A.

 

106

medical men in the service who insisted that they did not
have anything to do, or what they did did not require the
services of a physician. Congressman Clarence J. Brown of
Ohio had a letter placed in the Record of September 11, a
letter which he stated was typical of hundreds that he
received. The writer began by saying 'Medically speaking,
I haven't earned a dollar of my salary since I've been in
the Army.' He then said that he had given instruction in
close order drill, compass reading, map reading, first aid
and sanitation; that he had inspected latrines, kitchens,
and fly traps; that he had been 'shot at, shelled, and
strafed' and that he had forgotten all of the medicine that
he ever knew. How could there be such a shameful waste of
manpower and the Army get by with such practices. The
doctor explained. Speaking Of inspectors, he said this:

They fly in from washington and have a few drinks

with the commanding officer Of a general hospital

who has been previously warned of the inspectors's

arrival. Then the inspector if he is really daring,

straps on a pistol and makes a flying trip into what

he considers no man's land--a field hospital which

is probably forty miles behind the lines. Then he

goes back to the states with a theater ribbon and

a Legion of Merit and reports that all is well;

everyone is working at top speed and all doctors

are essential.2

In the Senate there was an attempt on the part of

one of the Senators,Clyde Reed of Kansas,to find out just

jhow many doctors were essential. In time, he was able to

 

21U.S., Congress, House, Co . Rec., Appendix,

7$nfll Cong., lst sess., Oct. 2, 194 , P. 4 35.

 

 

‘5‘

,—
no,

0 '1'

.(4'

107

equal Congressman Brown's statement of having received
hundreds of letters; as a matter Of fact, he said that he
had received thousands Of them. Much more dramatic, though,
was an earlier statement that there were more doctors in the
Army on September 1, 19A5, at a time when there was no
fighting, than there were on January 1, 19A5 at the very
height Of the war.22

Somehow or the other, the pressures of the public,
the news media, and Congress must have worked, for the Armed
forces did expedite the release Of physicians. In late
September, the Army newspaper the Stars and Stripes spoke of
their being shipped home by plane.23 By the middle of the
following month, according to the Army, their rate Of
release surpassed that Of all other personnel. In support
Of this statement, it was stated that since V-E Day, 7,213
doctors had been released, 16 percent of the total force,
and during the same time, the army had reduced its total
strength by only 15 percent.24 This news, however, did not
completely quiet the Congress, and in the Senate, a
resolution was introduced that requested the Secretary of

‘War to appoint a board of inquiry, which, among other things,

 

22U.S., Congress, Senate, Cong. Rec., 79th Cong.,
lst sess., Nov. 6, 19A5, p. lOA20; Oct. 11, 19A5, p. 9567.

23Stars and Stripeg (Paris edition), Sept. 19, 19A5,
p. 10

2“U.S., Senate, Committee on Military Affairs,
Hearings on 31355, Demobilization Of the Armed Forces . . . ,
Oct. 17 and 18, 19A5, Washington, D.C., p. 189.

U I

On.

“I
V.

’1

L
to.

'(I

(‘9

-(_'

108
"would locate responsibility for the blundering and
incompetence plainly exhibited since heavy fighting ceased
on all fronts."25 A short time later, the Navy in a public
hearing stated that doctors were being released faster than
other personnel, and in way of illustrations said that AC
percent of them would be released by the first of the year.26
By January 1, 19A6, the crisis seemed to have passed, and
the pressure by that time to demobilize doctors was no
greater than the pressure to demobilize any other group of
men.

The clamor to release doctors added much to general
demobilization pressures. The hearings had discussed the
problem on several occasions. There was mail that Congress-
men had to answer; there were telephone calls; there were
personal requests made in person; there were articles in
newspapers. Possibly the most important result of all of
this, however, was the somewhat intensified reflection it
precipitated, for the problem of doctors was tied up with
all of the other problems of demobilization: the point
system, the use of personnel, the size of the armed forces,
both present and projected. It was, in fact, only one facet

of the much larger issue of what was to be done with the

 

25U.S., Congress, Cong. Rec., 79th Cong., lst sess.,
.Nov. 6, 19A5, p. 10Al7.

26U.S., Senate, Committee on Naval Affairs, Hearings
cui $188, Demobilipgtion and Transportation of Military
Ihersonnel, Nov. 13-15, 19A5, washington, D.C., p. 57.

109
armed forces in terms of their size and employment; yet it
loomed large in the public's eye for a time far over-
shadowing the concern over any other professional or
occupational group.

That there were too many doctors in the service and
that they were not effectively employed seems to have been
a clear and incontrovertible fact. It seemed equally clear
that there was a shortage of them to serve the civilian
population, and that their release from the service would
have helped alleviate this shortage. Yet the medical
profession itself was partly responsible for the shortage
that existed. It is true, of course, that the armed forces
established quotas for physicians. These quotas were
subscribed to by each state's Procurement and Assignment
Division, it being the responsibility Of these divisions to
decide how many doctors could be released from a community;
in short, they themselves established quotas of their own.
In many areas, those quotas were not only filled but
sometimes oversubscribed. Unfortunately, perhaps even
tragically at times, the very communities that met their
quotas were communities that already had a shortage of
doctors. Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina spoke of a
community oversubscribing its quota by 160 percent; yet this

'very same community was in a state where the ratio of

(doctors to patients was below the national average.27

 

27U.S., Senate, cong‘ Rec., 79th corlgo’ lSt sess.,
Sept” 11H 19A5: Po 8602.

110

It seems clear that the shortage of doctors to some
extent was a magnification of a problem that had existed
before the war, a problem which the medical profession had
never settled. And it also seems clear that the problem
was as much Of a matter of poor distribution, as it was a
shortage of numbers. By and large, the Congressmen who
complained about this shortage were the representatives
where agriculture was the chief source Of income in their
state; yet no one thought to blame the medical profession or
medical societies for the poor distribution of physicians.
It was the armed forces and the Army in particular that was
blamed. Those who pointed the accusing finger sometimes
implied and sometimes insisted that this was all part Of an
overall design on the part of the services to retain
personnel. Feelings that were already strained were further
exacerbated as a result of this furor over doctors; doubt
became overt suspicion as Congressmen, the public, and the
servicemen themselves offered interesting suggestions as to
why the armed forces seemed slow in demobilizing the troops.

The men were not being discharged in the Opinion of
one Congressman because the New Deal had been influenced by
radical labor leaders who did not want competition from the
returning veteran. Frederick Smith, Congressman from Ohio,
said that the Administration was afraid of massive unemploy-
Inent and recalled the statement of Lewis Hershey that it was

cheaper to keep them in the Army than it was to create an

111

28

agency to take care Of them. The Indianapolis News in an

 

editorial wondered whether the Administration was thinking

Of a national WPA.29

Congressman George Gillie of Indiana
questioned whether some kind of national regimentation was
planned for the young people in the armed services on the

30 Senator Edward

order Of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Robertson thought that the government was motivated by
simple expediency: they wanted the displaced war workers to
secure jobs before bringing home the veterans.31 And so it
went. The most popular reason of all, though, was that the
armed forces wanted to remain large because the number of
Officers and the availability Of promotion were dependent
on the size of the armed services.

The idea Of the armed forces deliberately wanting
to retain its members was not news in many areas. On board
ships and in hundreds Of barracks this had been a popular
subject of conversation. It was also discussed in liberal

journals such as the New Republic, and Drew Pearson in his

column questioned the sincerity of the Army particularly

 

28U.S., Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XCI, 79th

Cong., lst sess., Sept. 18, 19A5, p. 8722; Cong. Rec.,
;XBI, 79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 19, 1945, p. 8797.
29Indianapolis News, sect. 1, Sept. 3, 1945, P. 10.

O
3 U.S., Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XCI, 79th
Cong., lst sess., p. 8720.

310hicago DailygTribune, Sept. 11, 1945, p. 1.

112
32

to demobilize all of its men. But for every time the
subject appeared in the papers it must have appeared in the
letters written by the servicemen a thousand times.
Substantially the charges were the same, although the list
of particulars might have varied somewhat. The letters
usually said that the men did not have anything to do; yet
they were being kept in the Army. As to why they were being
kept in service, the men said it had nothing to do with
world responsibilities; really, the answer was quite simple:
the brass wanted to hang onto their jobs, which if one were
to believe the letter writers, were better than anything
they ever had in civilian life.‘ "It will tickle me and all
the rest of us GI's when they all get back to their filling
stations," a soldier wrote to Congressman Frank Chelf in a
letter that was not at all atypical.33
Many of these letters were read on the floors of
Congress, and Congressmen such as A. L. Miller of Nebraska
and Daniel Reed Of New York seemed to take delight in
reading those that showed the Army's waste of manpower or
exposed its inefficiency. Reed particularly enjoyed taking

gibes at the "New Deal mess" being made of demobilization.

There were others who had no particular quarrel with the

 

32Arthur Eaton, "Getting Out of the Army," The New
Re ublic, Vol. 113, no. 110, Sept. 3, 1945, P. 28A;
.Louisville Courier Journal, Sept. 9, 19A5, sect. 3, p. 3;
Louisville Courier Journal, Sept. 15, 1945, P. 1A.

33United States Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XCI,
‘79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 19, 1945, p. 8795.

113

armed forces, but who were beginning to feel the pressure
put on them by constituents. Sometimes tempers became
strained. The Chairman Of the Senate Committee on Naval
Affairs David walsh snapped at a young Officer who asked
about pay raises for naval Officers: "DO not mention that.
Do not talk about increasing the pay of Officers at this
time."3’+

Congressional vexation with the armed forces over
large numbers of men being idle did not begin with V-J Day,
Of course. Early in the summer, the Army and the Mead
Committee had clashed over the number Of men in the Army,
and individual Congressmen had requested the discharge of
certain groups Of men. By and large, the Army stood its
ground, though, and refused to discharge them. Then the
atomic bomb was drOpped. It now appeared as if a large
group of men could be discharged immediately. The Secretary
of war Henry Stimson said that this was not possible.

This statement of the Secretary angered Army critics.
Senator Edwin Johnson in a letter to Stimson said that the
statement that the Army would need 7,000,000 men was most
disheartening. It would mean, the Senator said, "a
transportation crisis . . . a serious manpower shortage.
. . . It means that reconversion is stymied. . . . that we

are to have mass demobilization at the very moment when

 

3l’U’nited States, Congress, Senate, Cong, Rec., XCI,
79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 26, 19A5, p. 9025.

 

11A

unemployment in the United States is at its peak."35

Johnson's letter brought forth an equally angry
response from Stimson. Quite obviously with Johnson, and
others in mind as well, Stimson said that charges that the
Army was deliberately retaining men "contributed no little
to the understandable discontent of men who have been
anxious for many months to return home." Stimson said that
he wanted to state "categorically" that the Army was not
retaining "millions Of men" that it could not use.36

The situation grew worse during the summer. The
sudden capitulation of Japan removed the last of the reasons
for maintaining a large Army, and complaints from suspicious,
discontented members of Congress over the next few months

increased considerably. This suspicion, sometimes even

hostility, can be seen in the remarks Of the Conggessional

 

Record, but an even better picture of their attitudes can

be gathered from reading the hearings of the armed forces
committees. Edwin Johnson of Colorado, Chapman Revercomb of
west Virginia, Joseph C. Mahoney of wyoming, David walsh of
Massachusetts, and wayne Morse could be insistent and
demanding questioners at times. In the House, Charles
Clason Of Massachusetts, W. Sterling Cole of New York,
Charles Elston of Ohio, Forrest Harness of Indiana, Franck

Havenner Of California, Chet Holifield Of California, and

 

35

36Chicago Sun, August 10, 19A5, p. 3.

Chicagp Sun, August 5, 19A5, p. 6.

In

(‘1

‘4

[I

70
N:

115

James MOtt of Oregon all could be sharp critics of Army
practices. Harness particularly would even show hostility
on occasion: "I have been wanting to ask you some questions
for the last two hours around here."37

At the same hearings in which Harness displayed such
hostility, Congressman Charles Clason of Massachusetts had a
pointed question concerning the size of the Army, and
although he was not as hostile as Harness, he was every bit
as direct. Specifically, he wanted to know if the number of
Officers was dependent on the size of the Army. Major
General Stephen Henry, the Deputy Chief Of Staff, insisted
that the number of Officers did not depend on having a
definite number of men to command and in way Of explanation
stated that he did not command any men. Henry's answer was
not altogether convincing, and although Clason did not press
him hard on the subject, he did ask that Henry furnish the
committee with a table of organization Of the General Staff
and stated at the time that he wanted this to be a part of
the record.3

Clason had touched on a subject that was in the
minds of many people; and shortly after the hearings, Franck

Havenner introduced a resolution (H.R.AO86) that would have

 

37United States, Congress, House, Committee on
Military Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearin s,
Demo%ilization . . . U.S. Army . . . , August 2 , 19A5,
p.A.

 

38

United States, Congress, House, Committee on
Military Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings,
Demobilization . . . U.S. Army . . . , August 2‘, 19A5,
pp. AO-Al.

116

required all General Officers to revert back to their prewar
rank.39 A week or so later, he presented a list of questions
to the Chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs.
Those questions concerned the status of these Officers.
Specifically, Havenner wanted to know such things as how
many General Officers were on duty as of June 1, 1945, and
then how many as of September 25, 19A5, he also wanted to
know how many were in the various staff divisions: the
Pentagon, the Army Air Forces, and the Army Service Forces.
Stated somewhat simply, Congressman Havenner wanted some
answers."0

Undoubtedly, Congressmen such as Havenner, Clason,
and Harness were effective in the pressure they brought
against the armed services in the House, but the most
effective gadfly Of them all was in the Senate. There
Edwin Johnson had been conducting a running battle with the
Army all during the late spring and early summer of 1945.
Irascible to an extreme, his temper did not seem to improve
over the course of time. In August of 1945, he told a
newspaper reporter that the Army was stupid. Six months
later, the war Council devoted part of its meeting to a
discussion of whether the war Department should prepare an

answer to a letter in which he accused them of "congenital

 

39United States, Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XLI,
79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 17, 1945, p. 8659.

hoUnited States, Congress, House, Cong. Rec.,
Appendix, Sept. 25, 1945, p. AAOA5.

 

117

stupidity.“+1

The concern of Senator Johnson over the seemingly
large numbers of men in the service was shared by many of
his colleagues in Congress, although they worried more
quietly and less publicly than the Senator. Over in the
House, for example, another Johnson, Lyndon Baines Of Texas,
a good friend of the war Department by the Secretary Of
war's own admission, as early as August 19A5 wrote to the
Secretary of war that the time had come for a "searching
reexamination of Army needs."42

There must have been a sufficient number of people
who agreed with the Congressman, for in late August Of 19A5,
approximately two weeks after Japan ceased fighting and
announced that she would surrender, the House Opened
hearings on demobilization, a significant aspect of which
was concerned with the number Of men that would be needed
by the armed forces. SO very much depended on the answer
to this particular question, regardless of where one stood
on the matter of demobilization, for plainly plans could
not be made for the use Of men without knowing the number

of men that would be needed.

 

Al"Minutes of war Council Meeting," April 18, 19A6,
The Papers of Robert Patterson, General Correspondence,
Box 23, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress,
washington, D.C.

thobert Patterson, Memorandum, Deputy Chief of
Staff, August 10, 1945, The Papers of Robert Patterson,
General Correspondence (classified), Box 26, Vol. V,
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, washington, D.C.

118

At these hearings, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the
U.S. Army said that the Army had 8,050,000 men and that it
was its intention to reduce to 2,500,000 by July 1, 1946.“3
Three days later, the Navy announced that its membership
totaled over 3,300,000 and that it intended to reduce down
to 550,000 by September 1, 19A6--officers to account for
roughly 10 percent of this t0ta1.#4 On the same day, the
Marine Corps stated at the hearings that its male enlisted
strength was 421,370 men, and although the Corps did not
give figures for its officer strength, a fair assumption
would be 10 percent.’+5 Their intention, they said, was to
reduce these figures to 100,000 enlisted men, with, once
again, an officer strength of 10 percent of this total. The
Coast Guard anticipated reducing its forces from a wartime
strength of 170,A8O men to 34,500.“6

By prewar standards, these were large numbers of
men. There were in the Army, for example, as of the summer

of 1939 only 174,000 men; the Navy at the same time had

 

43United States, Congress, House, Comm. on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings, Demobilization
. . . U.S. Army . . . , August 28,1945, p. 21.

thnited States, Congress, House, Comm. on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings, Demobilization
. . . , August 31,1945, pp. 60— 62.

45United States, House, Comm. on Military Affairs,
79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings, Demobiligation . . . ,
August 31, 1945, pp. 89-91.

héThe war Re orts of General of the Arm George C.
Marshall, GeneraI H. H. ArnoId, AdmiraI Ernest E. King,

J. B. Lippincott (Philadelphia and New'York: 1947), p. 712.

‘

§

\ J\, M

119

126,418; the Marine Corps, 19,701; and there were 10,079 in
the Coast Guard.h7

In view of this, it is hardly surprising that
Congressman Forrest Harness thought that some of the figures
were staggering, for if the armed forces had achieved them,
it would have meant an Army almost fifteen times larger than
was in existence in the summer of 1939; a Navy that had more
than quadrupled in size; a Marine Corps that would have been
five times larger; and even the Coast Guard would have
tripled in size.‘*8

These figures, however, were subject to change, for
with the Army particularly there would be a diminution of
responsibilities as time passed and the occupied countries
were pacified. All of this was not understood too clearly,
however, by the average citizen. Equally unclear, too, even
after the hearings, was what future manpower policy would be
in the government and the armed forces. The government had
hoped, and certainly this was true of Congress as well, that
manpower needs could be filled by voluntary recruitment.
Yet the hearings revealed considerable doubt by the Army

that this was possible, and there was also a definite lack

of enthusiasm shown by some of the members of the committee

‘7Ibid., p. 16, p. h9h.

. hBUnited States, Congress, House, Committee on
Nhlitary Affairs. 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings,

DemObilization o o o U.S. AIZEE o o o , AugUSt Bl, lghS,
Washington, D.C.

120
on a continuation of selective service.

The hearings did reveal this much; a concern on the
part of Congressmen to have the services demobilized as
rapidly as possible, and at the same time, a desire on the
part of the armed forces (at least they said as much) to see
that the men were returned home just as soon as conditions
would permit. Facts and figures were given as to how
quickly the men would be demobilized and how many of them.
Other than that, there were still questions that remained
unsettled. It was not long before the members of Congress
displayed considerable anxiety concerning the future size of
the armed forces, with the Army, once again, receiving most
of the criticism.

In a letter to the war Department, which was released
by his office, Senator Pat MCCarran of Nevada asked for
answers concerning the Army and its manpower policy. There
was, he explained, a widespread lack of understanding and
state of confusion among the general public. Underscoring
almost every question with the use of the words "specific"
or "specifically," McCarran wanted to know how many men
would be needed for occupation armies, how many would be
willing to volunteer, and if men were being rotated on
overseas assignment. The Senator referred to a bombardment
of letters and telegrams from parents of servicemen and

asked if they were being kept informed of military policies.49

#9New'York Times, September 3, 1945: P. 25.

121

There did seem to be considerable confusion about
military policy, particularly concerning the number of men
who would be released. On August 14, l9h5, President Truman
stated that within a year or eighteen months the Army would
release 5,000,000 to 5,500,000 men. At the House hearings
in late August Major General Stephen Henry, on the other
hand, spoke of releasing 6,500,000 within a period of a
year. It was at that time that he made the statement that
the Army would need 900,000 men to occupy the entire Pacific
area, which included Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and
assorted islands throughout the Pacific.50 0n the other
hand, Al Miller, Congressman from Nebraska, said that George
Marshall had made the statement that when the world was
settled, 500,000 men would be sufficient to meet the
occupation needs of the United States.51 Referring to this
confusion, Miller said that he had a bill on his desk to
limit the size of the Army to 1,000,000 men.52

Suddenly and dramatically, the confusion grew worse,
for on September 18 General Douglas MacArthur stated that

53

200,000 men would be adequate to occupy Japan. The

 

50New York Times, August 15, 1945, p.1

51United States, Congress, House, Committee on
Nfllitary Affairs, Hearings on the Demobilization . .
U. S. Armyg. . . , 79th Cong., lst sess., August 28,19h5,

p. 22.
52United States, Congress, House, Cong, Rec., XLI,
September 17, l9h5. PP. 8618- 8619.

 

53Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), September 19,
1945: p. A.

122
statement caught everyone by surprise, including the Army,
the office of the President, and the State Department. Each
of these had operated on the assumption that 500,000 men
would be needed to occupy Japan, for this was the figure
that MacArthur himself had previously submitted. Truman,
who remained calm in public but privately boiled, intimated
to the Director of the Budget Harold Smith that MacArthur's
5#

move was political. In the State Department, Dean Acheson
said that the purpose of the Army was to "implement" policy
not "determine" it.55 This in turn angered the MacArthur
supporters in the Senate who were soon engaged in a tedious
debate, the gist of which was that the general had kicked the
props out from under the social revolution that was being
planned by the State Department. Acrimonious at times, the
debate probably reached its nastiest level when it was
suggested that the proposed confirmation of Acheson as
Undersecretary of State be put in "cold storage" while the
Senate examined his qualifications for the position.56
In the Navy Department, things seemed quiet, but
perhaps this was because it did not begin its demobilization

program until after the defeat of Japan. As an example of

how quiet things were, James Forrestal wrote to one of his

 

54The Diary of Harold Smith, Conference with
President Truman, Sept. 18, l9h5, Roosevelt Papers, FDRL.

55gey York Times, Sept. 20, 1945. p. 1.

56United States, Congress, House, CongggRec., XLI,
79th Cong., lst sess., September 20, 19A5, p. 8833.

123

officers on September 16, 1945 that he wanted to make a tour
of the demobilization centers when they had enough activity
to make a tour worthwhile.57 Within a period of just four
days, though, the pressure for demobilization had increased
to such an extent that the Secretary of the Navy was
canvassing the Department for someone who could go on the
air, as well as for someone who could get the facts of
demobilization to the newspapers.58 On September 25, 1945,
he wrote to the Chairman of the Naval Committee in the
Senate explaining the Navy's demobilization program in
depth. Stating that one man out of every three would be
home by mid February, one out of every three by the middle
of June, five out of six by August 15, and by September 1,
19A6, Forrestal stated that it was the hope of the Navy to
have completed its demobilization program, at which time it
would have 500,000 men and 58,000 officers.59

This was 8000 more officers than the Navy had said
that it needed approximately one month earlier, but the
variation was a slight one, and did not remotely approach
the discrepancies in the Army's figures, which was fortunate,

for it was these great variations in the figures released by

 

57The Papers of James V. Forrestal, Memorandum,
Sept. 20, 1945, Correspondence, Box 123, The Firestone
Library, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.

58United States, Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XLI,
79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 28, 19A5, p. 9113.

59United States, Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XLI,
79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 28, 19h5, p. 9113.

 

124
the Army that confused and angered many peOple.

Convinced that there was sufficient justification
for this anger, a number of verbally energetic Congressmen
reiterated the popular GI charge that the armed forces
were deliberately retaining men. "The suspicion that many
men are being kept in military service so that there can be
justification for unnecessary personnel in the higher ranks
runs through hundreds of letters coming to my office," said
Congressman George H. Bender of Ohio. He was not alone in
his views. There was a small but noisy minority who made
similar comments--Congressman Berkely Bunker from Nevada,
Clare Hoffman and Paul Shafer from Michigan, and Fred Smith
from Ohio, as well as others.60

The armed forces, of course, insisted vehemently
that they were not deliberately retaining men. On
September 6, the War Department issued a news release
that it intended to separate 600,000 of its 800,000 officers
by July 1, 191,6.61 Later, the Public Relations branch of
the war Department stated that of its General officers,
70 had left active duty; 100 were in the process of being

reduced in grade, and of the 136 General officers who had

been recalled from retirement into active duty, only a few

 

60

United States, Congress, House, Cong. Rec.,
lst sess., Sept. 11, 1945, p. 8A92.

61

 

Louisville Courier Journal, Sept. 6, 1945: P. l.

125

remained.62 On September 19, the position of the war
Department was reaffirmed by a statement from the President
that there would be no padding of the armed services and
that no one would be retained even a single day longer than
was necessary.63

The statement of the President was reassuring. It
did not answer, however, the equally pressing question of
whgn the men would no longer be needed. M0re simply stated,
perhaps, the size of the armed forces depended on what the
United States government wanted to do with those forces.
First of all, the defeated countries would have to be
occupied. This required troops. No discussion of the size
of the armed forces or the number of officers or budgets
or anything else could get away from that fundamental fact.
It was also a fact that the American people were a notori-
ously impatient people, and that there were a significant
number of them who, when faced with the prospect of an
extensive occupation in scope and time, were not willing,
or at best reluctant to see the United States assume such
a responsibility, but if the responsibility had to be

assumed, they would have preferred having it done with

 

62war Department Release, "Reduction of General
Officers," war Department Bureau of Public Relations, The
Papers of Robert P. Patterson, General Correspondence
Box 26, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.

63Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), September 20,
19#5, p0 1°

126
volunteers.

Congressman Philip Philbin of Massachusetts thought
that the regular army and volunteers could take care of
occupation responsibilities. John Byrnes, Congressman from
Wisconsin, wanted Germany and Japan kept down, but also
thought that the job could be done with volunteers. John
C. Kunkel, Congressman from Pennsylvania, would have
preferred that Japan be occupied by China, the Philippine
Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, France, and
Holland, and A. L. Miller, one of Nebraska's Congressmen,
would have occupied Japan with the Philippines and the
Chinese. Several resolutions were introduced asking that
the former enemy countries be occupied by volunteers of one
variety or another.61+ walter C. Ploeser, a member of
Congress from Missouri, in an extension of his remarks in
the Congressional Record introduced a resolution from the
Twelfth ward Republican Precinct Organization asking that
the occupation be conducted by volunteers and that drafted
soldiers" be returned home for the well-being of the
country."65 The National Board of Directors of Irish war
Veterans stated that volunteers should be given the assign-

ment of occupying these countries, and that if enough

 

éhUnited States, Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XLI,
79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 12, 1945, p. 8539; Sept. 11,
19h§élg. 8514; Sept- 12, l9h5. p- 8539; Sept. 1?. l9h5,
p. .

65United States, Congress, House, Cong. Rec.,
Appendix, XLI, 79th Cong., lst sess., p. A2597.

 

 

127
volunteers could not be found then Germany should be occupied
by the Poles, the Dutch, the Norwegians, and the French.66

There was also considerable sentiment for a volunteer
army expressed in the hearings as well as some highly
interesting suggestions, such as that of Chet Holifield who
wondered whether anything was being done about using German
volunteers as laborers in the Pacific. Quite obviously, the
subject had been discussed in high circles, for a question-
naire had been submitted to German prisoners of war about
the possibility of their doing such work and 60 percent said
67

that they would be willing to serve. This was not the
only time that the use of a former enemy was contemplated,
for George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, in
October of 1945 at a war Council meeting discussed the
possibility of using German civilians to do the police
duties of the occupation. Marshall's reasoning was that
occupation was primarily police work, and he questioned how
well trained the Army was to do it. It would be one
alternative, as far as Marshall was concerned, to the
pressure that would undoubtedly come for reducing the size

68

of the occupation forces.

 

66United States, Congress, Senate, Petitions and
Mamorials, Senate Committee on Military Affairs, 79th Cong.,
lst sess., 1945, National Archives, washington, D.C.

67United States, Congress, House, Committee on
Military Affairs, Hearings on the Demobilization . . . U.S.
Army_, . . , 79th Cong., lst sess., August 28, 1945, p. 13.

68War Council Meeting, Oct. 3, 1945, The Papers
of Robert P. Patterson, General Correspondence, Box 23,
Fanuscript Division, Library of Congress, washington, D.C.

128

The interest in finding alternatives to the use of
American troops as occupation forces diminished as war
veterans came home, but it did not die completely. Such
alternatives as were proposed from time to time were not
particularly original, but now and then someone would suggest
a means of securing occupation forces that was different.
Congressman John Lesinski, for example, in a letter to Harry
Truman suggested that the United States maintain a foreign
legion. Truman's answer was brief and in the best tradition
of his economy of style: "I read your letter of the seven-
teenth with a lot of interest, and I am glad to have your
views on a foreign legion for the United States. Personally,
I am not very much impressed with the idea."69

The idea of a foreign legion was a radical extreme,
as alien to American thought as about any idea one could
possibly propose; nor could anyone say that it was an
accurate reflection of a substantial segment of the American
public or Congress. But at a time when innovative policies
were sought, it was about the most original of them all.
Nbst assuredly, most Congressmen would not have wanted a
legion, and it would also seem correct to say that despite
the protestations of a number of them that the majority of

members of Congress were willing to accept occupation

 

69Letter, Harry S. Truman to Honorable John
Lesinski, House of Representatives, Amy 21, washington,
D.C., "Occupation Forces," l9OY Harry S. Truman Library,
Independence, Missouri.

129
responsibilities, although quite reluctantly and then for
a limited amount of time.

It would be, though, an even greater misrepresenta-
tion of fact to suggest that there was much enthusiasm for
the occupation of any of the defeated countries. A cursory
examination of the Congressional Record during 1945 and 1946
will reveal that the golden voices of internationalism, the
Fulbrights, the Balls, the Hatches were quiet. It was a
time to ponder not to talk; it was an indecisive time--
Selective Service, UMT, the budget for the armed forces had
not been agreed upon, even the size of the armed forces was
not a hard and fast fact. It was a time when issues should
have been discussed dispassionately, weighed carefully, and
decisions made deliberately. It was becoming increasingly
difficult, though, for Congress to do anything deliberately
in the face of mounting pressure to bring the servicemen
home. Congressmen think in terms of constituencies, and it
is a rare breed of legislator who can or will put the
national interest above "what the pe0p1e back home want."
And it seemed clear to Congressmen as they read mail and
answered phones that regardless of occupation policies or
postwar responsibilities, or anything else for that matter,
that those who had loved ones in the service wanted them

returned home.

Chapter 7

THE POINT SYSTEM: OPERATION AND COMPLAINTS

That there would be complaints at the thought of
large numbers of idle men in Army camps was undoubtedly
anticipated by some of the officers in the armed services.
In general, the older ones must have realized it, but no
one realized that there would be so very many of them. But
then very few people anticipated that the war against Japan
would end as quickly as it did, with the inevitable result
of huge numbers of surplus personnel, many of them in the
United States--a phone call away, as events developed, from
the nearest newspaper or Congressman's office. And as if
the orderly discharge of these men did not present sufficient
problems, the whole matter was complicated by still another
consideration: the point system. How could the armed
services discharge huge numbers of men (many of whom were
low point men) and, still preserve the "integrity" of the
system, a somewhat radical system of discharge, the
outstanding characteristic of which, according to its
proponents, was its fairness. To all of this, many members
of Congress answered "yes but." Willing to accept the
system, they also proposed alternative methods of discharge

130

131
as well.

Hearings on the point system (the Army's) began
even before the war against Germany ended; they were held
by the House Committee on Military Affairs in June 1945.

At that time, they revealed that the Committee was already
quite familiar with the system and that its main interest
was how rapidly men could be discharged under it. Almost
all of the hearings began with a statement of how many men
the services expected to discharge, and, after demobili-
zation was underway, of how many had been discharged. In
June of 1945, for example, General Stephen Henry said that
the implementation of the demobilization plan began on

Ray 12, and that by the end of that day, 1,981 soldiers had
been released. By the end of May, it was 30,000, according
to Henry, and the plan called for the discharge of 70,000
in June, and by the end of December, the Army contemplated
releasing a million, and by June of 1946, two million.1

Figures such as these were given at every hearing.
Obviously the armed services believed that figures in
themselves were impressive, and indeed they were, and were
Sufficient proof that progress was being made, but at every

luearing, too, means were advanced for furthering the numbers
01' men being discharged, and of increasing the speed at

\

lU.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military

‘é%?1321irs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings on the Operation
£Z—___I;he Armnyersonnel Readjustment Plan, washington, D.C.,

June 19, 1945. pp. 2-3.

 

 

132

which they were being released, and it logically follows
that one of the means of advancing numbers and speed was by
increasing the number of men eligible. Congressman R. Ewing
Thomason of Texas at the hearings conducted by the House
Committee on Military Affairs in June wanted to know why
the Army could not discharge older men and suggested that
the age for discharge should be dropped to 38.2 Paul Kilday,
another Texas Congressman, also wanted the age for discharge
dropped, and stated as his reason that it was much more
difficult for older men to get jobs.3

The same numbers game was played in successive
hearings. In August, General Henry stated that between
V-E Day and August 24, 326,000 men had been separated from
the service under the Army's discharge formula, and that
it was contemplated that 156,800 men a week would be leaving
the Army in January. The Navy had little to say at the
August hearings, not having begun its demobilization until
after the defeat of Japan, but said that it envisioned
discharging 121,000 men in September and in January would
reach a peak of over a quarter of a million men a month and
would continue at that pace until they reached the figure

of 500,000 enlisted men, the projected figure of the postwar

 

2U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military

Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings, Operation Army
. . . Readjustment Plan, June 19, 1945, p. 10.

 

31bid., p. 12.

 

 

 

133

Navy.A

That the Committees were impressed seems likely, but
they still had many questions. If volunteers were needed to
replace veterans, why did the Army need three-year enlist-
ments? Why was it not possible to have two-year enlistments?
And Congressman Kilday wanted to know why combat veterans
could not be given a one-year enlistment, since there would
be no need of a training period for them. Why, too, had
the Army not lowered its points, "recomputed" them after
the defeat of Japan as the Army had promised to do as early
as June of 1945? Why was there not a point system for
officers? Why could not all of the sons be returned home
to families where one of the sons had been killed in
action?5 Clare Booth Luce mentioned that she had received
a number of letters wanting to know why extra points were
not given to men who had been prisoners of war.6 And so the
questions went. Upon examination, a rough pattern becomes

clear: they were directed toward the possibility of

 

hU.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings on the
Demobilization of the U.S. Army, washington, D.C.,
August 28F31, pp. 16917, pp. 59-60.

5U.S.,Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . .
Demobilization . . . U.S. Army, washington, D.C.,

AuguSt 23: 19h59 PP. 28: 33: 379 41: #5-

6U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . .
Demobilization . . . U.S. Army, washington, D.C., August

28: 1945: P0 45-

 

 

 

fl—l.

El

134
increasing the number of men eligible for discharge.

It was probably of little solace to them, but the
members of the armed services committees could take some
comfort in knowing that the members of the general body of
Congress were also being subjected to heavy pressure by
their constituents. William Lemke of North Dakota said
that "it was getting warm, in fact, it was getting hot for
members of Congress." Lemke was right, for within a month
of the time that he spoke, a considerable number of the
House spoke of demobilization pressures and complained of
the demobilization program of the armed forces: John M.
Rebsion of Kentucky, the New Deal Congressman from Ohio,
Frederick Smith, Daniel Reed of New York, John H. Folger of
North Carolina, Robert J. Corbett of Pennsylvania, James G.
Fulton, another Congressman from Pennsylvania, J. Harry
McGregor of Ohio, Joseph P. O'Hara from the cold north
country of Minnesota, Homer Angell of Oregon, H. Carl
Andersen, another Congressman from Minnesota, waard Buffett
of Nebraska, Raymond Springer of Indiana, Paul Shafer from
the cereal capital, Battle Creek, Michigan, and John C.
Kunkel of Pennsylvania.7

Keeping things lively in the Senate on different

 

7United States, Congress, House, Congressional
Record, XII, 79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 18,“I945, p. 8723;
Sept. 19, 1945. Pa 8797; Sept. 24: p. 8942; Sept. 27. 1945:
p. 9100, p. 9106, p. 9107; Oct. 9, 1945, p. 9506; Oct. 15,
1945, p. 9665, p. 9669; Oct. 19, 1945, p. 9823; Nov. 14,
1945: p. 10676.

.523

- I-w‘
pv-

 

135

occasions were C. Wayland Brooks of Illinois, David walsh
of Massachusetts, Robert Taft of Ohio, Clyde Reed of Kansas,
Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Homer Ferguson of Michigan,
Edward Robertson of wyoming, a veteran of the Boer war and
still a fighter, and Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska.8 And there
were those such as Tom Connolly who also did not mind
telling the newspapers what they thought. Connolly probably
spoke for many of the members of the Senate when he advised
them to "keep after the Army and Navy until they show some
disposition to relax their present rigid demobilization
regulations."9

If, as Lemke said, things were hot for the members
of Congress, the temperature was also on the way up in the
Office of the Secretary of war. It had been rising since
early summer. That summer there were a number of Congress-
men who were unhappy because the War Department would not
release men to work in the coal mines. At the time, Acting
Secretary of war Patterson refused to release them because
he thought that it would be a bad precedent and would
destroy the integrity of the point system. Despite
considerable pressure, Patterson stuck to his guns and

consistently defended the system to its critics. Many of

 

8United States, Congress, Senate, Cong, Rec., XII,
79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 19, 1945, p. 8727; Oct. 9,
1945. p. 9475; pp. 9474-75. p- 9476. pp- 9477—78, p- 9479;
Nov. 9, 1945, pp. 10595-97; Nov. 14, 1945, p. 10638.

9Louisville Courier Journal, Sept. 15, 1945, p. l.

 

 

136
the Congressmen who were critical, men such as Miller of
Nebraska, Daniel Reed of New York, and Philip Philbin of
Massachusetts, as well as a number of others considered the
point system a poor means of selecting men for discharge and
wanted it replaced with some other method.

Although small in number, they were a considerable
embarrassment to the war Department as they read letters on
the floor of the House that questioned the essential fair-
ness of the Army's formula for discharge and called attention
to its inadequacies. A serviceman, said Daniel Reed, had
missed three Christmases from home. He read another letter
which complained about points being given for the bronze
star. It seemed, the letter writer complained, that they
‘were given to cooks. A. L. Miller read a letter from a
farmer in Broken Bow, Nebraska, who wanted the men who drew
up the point system "drawn and quartered" for he had two
boys who had been in the whole mess for three years and four
months. Philip Philbin of Massachusetts spoke of basic
inequities and confusions in the system.10

There may have been inequities in the system, apart
from whatever confusions there may have been, but it would
have been difficult, if not impossible, to have created one
in which they would not have existed. Both services, the

Army and Navy, were each convinced that they had created a

 

10United States, Congress, House, Cong, Rec., XLI,
79th Cong., lst sess., Oct. 1, 1945, P. 9208, p. 9209;
Sept. 25, 1945, p. 8997; Sept. 12, 1945, p. 8539.

 

 

 

 

137
method for assigning priority for discharge which the men
considered to be fair, although the Navy did admit that it
was necessary to institute a major change in its own plan
and give credit for overseas experience-~a change it might
be added parenthetically that came as a result of public
demand.

Inequities, though, were not the principal complaint
of the members of Congress. Obviously, they understood that
absolute fairness to everybody would have been impossible to
achieve in any system, but they did become disturbed when
their constituents complained that the system was not being
followed. And certainly it did not take long for the
complaints to begin. By July, servicemen were taking
complaints to Congress and to the newspapers in considerable
numbers. The Hoosier Senator Homer Capehart in a United
Press article quoted servicemen as saying that there was
considerable dissatisfaction; that men were unable to get
out of the service even though they had the necessary number
of points. In the same article, Capehart called attention
to the practice of commanding officers being equally
reluctant to discharge men on the basis of non-essentiality
--a legitimate reason for discharge, and a method that was

meant to augment the point system.11

The question of who was essential, of "essentiality,"

was, of course, frequently abused. Though a violation of

 

llIndianapolis News, July 24, 1945, Po 5-

 

 

 

138

regulations, there were a number of instances where local
commanders tried to create their own categories. The War
and Navy Departments tried to handle the matter by keeping
lists of categories, reducing them as demobilization
progressed. In way of illustration, the Army at one time
had eighteen categories where enlisted men were considered
essential. By August 28, there were only three: orthopedic
mechanic (manufactured braces, artificial limbs), transmitter
attendant (set up radio transmitting facilities), and
electroencephalographic specialist (measured brain waves).12

The Navy, which had begun demobilization several
months later than the Army, reduced its list of essential
personnel a little more slowly than the Army, but by
November, 1945, had reduced the number of categories of
essential personnel to certain types of hospital technicians
and personnel specialists such as key punch operators.13
Both services tried to keep the classification of "essential"
or of "military necessity" from being violated. The Army,
for example, found it necessary to maintain boards of
inspectors who visited camps throughout the country, doing

nothing other than checking out supposed essential

 

12 . .
United States Congress, House, Committee on

Military Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . .
Demobilization . . . Armygof the U.S. . . . , Aug. 28,
19A5, Po 520

13All Hands: Bureau of Naval Information Bulletin,
Nov. 19456 No. 344 U.S. Govt. Printing Office, WaShington,
D.C., p. A.

 

 

 

139
14 . . .
personnel. Still Violations occurred, some of them
perhaps by design, others from the commanding officers not
reading or perhaps misreading the fine print of directives.
In most cases, though, the instances of men being
retained in the service though eligible for discharge were

not the result of design or mistake, but simply the result

 

of transportation not having caught up with them. There

were a number of complaints addressed to Congress in the

 

fall of 1945 of men not being able to obtain discharges :91
though they possessed sufficient points. In November of J
1945, Lawrence Smith, Congressman from Wisconsin, extended
his remarks in the Congressional Record to include a letter
from a serviceman who claimed that he had 89 points (60
would have made him eligible) but that he still had not been
discharged, even though he was doing nothing at all. The
same writer said that there were over a thousand men on the
island of Luzon who also were not doing anything. Melvin
Price of Illinois introduced two letters into the Record,
both.of them from soldiers who claimed that they had not
been discharged, though they possessed the requisite number
01? points.15 Karl Mundt, rotund Congressman from South
Ikal:ota, spoke of mail coming from all over the world from

h

,LF° . l("United States, Congress, House, Committee on
J-:l-.:L‘:Ltary Affairs, 79th Cong., Hearings on the Operation of
.123252_Oߤmy_Personnel Readjustment Plan, p. 14.

15v 3 Co '

. . ngress House Con . Rec. Appendix

liq-I, 79th Cong:, lst sess., p. MW ; ov. ’, 1945, ’
P - Anna-Aww.

 

 

140
high point men, and the day after he made his remarks a
Congressman from Pennsylvania, Chester Gross, said that he
had received a letter in which the writer claimed that he
had seen an official document which stated that there were
in the Okinawa area over 3,000 men who had a sufficient

number of points to be discharged.

 

Still the complaints came pouring into the offices
of Congressmen. Charles Clason, Massachusetts' Congressman,

said that he had received letters in which it was stated

 

that there were over 20,000 men on the island of Guam who E
were eligible for discharge. Apparently, Guam had been a

hot spot for a considerable length of time, even for the

Navy. About a month and a half earlier Congressman James

Nbrrison in an extension of his remarks for the Congressional

 

Record introduced a letter that he had received from a group
of sailors on that island who claimed that there were over
125 men in a communications group who had been eligible for
discharge for over a month and a half.16
There certainly seemed to be a backlog of men in the
Phicific area. As the complaints of "high-point men" not
being discharged continued to mount (they had been rising
1?€xr several months), the House passed a resolution for the

IDIIrpose of investigating the matter of transportation, the

:Léiczk of which seemed to be impeding the discharge of

_¥

 

77 16U°S-: Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XLI, Appendix,
09th Cong., lst sess., Nov. 29, 1945; Dec. 3, 1945, p. A5310;
Ct - 22. 1945, p. 12137.

   

141

qualified personnel. House resolution 422 was the occasion
for hearings held by the subcommittee of the House Committee
on Naval Affairs. George Bates, Republican Congressman from
Massachusetts and a member of the Committee, stated during
the course of the hearings why the investigation was taking
place. It was an eloquent statement of the frustrations of
Congressmen.

Let me ask you this question, Admiral. Members

of Congress are perhaps the recipients of more

protests about this discharge system than any

other group of men in the country. We are the

representatives of the folks back home, and we

hear their kicks and their complaints, and their

feelings, and we know, and I know, and every member

of this committee knows that we have a large number

of boys in the European and Pacific areas who

aren't getting home. we know that . . .

The House hearings were almost anti-climactic, for
they came at a time when the incidence of complaints had
begun to fall off. In that respect, the hearings held by
the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs were better timed.

But neither one was as productive as might have been wished.
They did serve the purpose, though, of allowing the
Congressmen to let off steam concerning some of the aspects
of the demobilization program. To the Navy, the hearings
Inust have been much less satisfactory, particularly so

because so many of the areas of complaint, such as the point

 

 

(3 l7U.S., Co ress, House, Subcommittee of the

c>1Hmmittee on Naval ffairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings
é - . House Resolution 422 Reguesting Information from the
iifiéSizetary of the NavyOabout Transportation to Return Troops
~—1£233 Overseas P01nts, DecII13, 1945, p. 2475.

 

142
system of the Army, were areas over which the Navy had
no control. One thing was certain: the hearings did not
stop complaints about transportation. The subject would
certainly be mentioned again; nor did they stOp the
complaints about the discharge formula used by the armed
services.

Almost from the time that the point system was
created, there were people who insisted that they did not
want to abolish it, but that they did want to institute some
changes in it, or seek in some cases exceptions to it--
exceptions, for example, such as the discharge of special
groups, perhaps of men over a certain age, or the discharge
of members of a profession, or of those who had dependents.
These exceptions, unimportant singly, if they became
numerous enough, could well have resulted in the erosion
of the system. Both Patterson and Forrestal found it
necessary on many occasions to take positions against
pe0p1e who requested these exceptions. Only a week after
Japan announced its intention to surrender, Patterson found
it necessary to remind the President of the United States
‘that the discharge of men "because of a desire to enter into

Ixrofessional training would do violence to the Army's merit

S'lhstem of discharge."]‘8 Harry Vaughn, the President's Aide,

\

18Robert Patterson, Undersec. of war to Harry S.
tPI‘LIman, the President of the United States, R.G. 107,

" obilization" 370.01, Box 473, Records of the Undersec.
()1? ‘War, National Archives, washington, D.C.

143

answered that Truman agreed that the point system "should
be preserved at all costs," but that the President thought
that anyone who would become eligible for discharge in
October or November should be discharged in September in
order to avoid missing a semester of school.19

That a concession such as that would only have
stimulated others to ask for similar privileges did not seem
to occur to Truman, but such practices were well-known to
Patterson. Only a few days after he wrote to the President
stating his objections to discharging men in order to allow
them to enroll in school, the Undersecretary of war wrote to
Senator Byrd of Virginia and stated why he did not wish to
make special arrangements for the early discharge of miners
and farmers.20

But the requests came, nevertheless. Gordon L.
McDonough, a Congressman from the Los Angeles district of
California, wanted the discharge of all policemen. Quite
worried about what seemed to him like a fairly large number

of unemployed in the Los Angeles area, and fearful of future

consequences, McDonough mentioned that there had already

‘

19Harry Vaughn, Military Aide to the President of
the United States, to Robert Patterson, Undersec. of War,
August 21, 1945, R.G. 107 "Demobilization" 370.01, Box 473,
Records of the Undersec. of War, National Archives,
Washington, D.C.

E3 20Robert Patterson, Undersec. of war, to Harry F.

113‘I‘d, United States Senate, August 23, 1945, the Papers of

I)(?]:>ert Patterson, General Correspondence, Box 26, Manuscript
lVision, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

144
been a number of crime waves in the Los Angeles area. Jed
Johnson, an Oklahoma Congressman, wanted the release of
teachers. Robert Taft on one instance wanted the release
of anyone who was not usefully employed by the Army, and on
another, wanted the discharge of the entire 37th Division,
an Ohio division, needless to say. Brooks Hays, Congressman
from Arkansas, wanted medical students released.21

Earlier in the summer, Patterson had estimated that
if all of the men for whom someone had sought a discharge
(and the requests were much more numerous than indicated
here and the groups equally numerous) had actually been
discharged, then their total number would have exceeded
1,000,000.22 If that particular number was accurate in the
summer of 1945, then the total number in the army in the
fall of 1945 for whom special discharges had been requested
must have been at least 2,000,000.

The Army was not the only branch of the service that
was besieged with special requests. In a letter to the
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, James
Forrestal told of some of the problems faced by the Navy.

fphe Secretary of the Navy said that there were requests to

‘

21U.S., Congress, House, Cong, Rec., XLI, 79th Cong.,
1431: sess., Sept. 24, 1945, p. 8922;‘Senate, Congressional
Reczord, XLI, 79th Cong., Oct. 9, 1945, p. 9476; Nov. 9,
1: 94'5',"p. 10594; Cong. Rec., XLI, Appendix, 79th Cong.,
531: sess., Sept. 24,91945, PP. A4060-A406l.

 

C 22U.S., Congress, Senate, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th
(Drlgp, lst sess., July 21, 1945: Po 7919.

145
release married men and at the same time to release men so
that they could get married. There were requests to release
combat veterans because of the hardships they had suffered,
and to release men who had not seen combat if the Navy had
no further use for them. Furthermore, he continued, the
Navy had been asked to release young men in order that they
might prepare for their careers, and to release older men
so that they could resume theirs. In short, for every
reason advanced to justify special consideration for a
specific group, there were just as many reasons advanced
by some other group to justify the same favored treatment
for themselves. To have tried to fulfill all of these
requests would have been quite impossible and would have
meant that demobilization would have broken down, in the
words of the Secretary, in "a chaos of cross purposes."23
The requests for the release of special groups of
personnel were a matter of constant concern to the Congress-
men who had to make those requests, usually at the prompting
of a constituent, as well as to the armed forces who had to
refuse them. An equally serious concern was the matter of
.granting discharges to individuals who were not eligible,
either as a personal favor to someone or as the result of
PKDJitical pressure. This was a particularly galling practice
t“? the Congressmen who had refused to make such requests on

\

C2 23U.S., Congress, Senate, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th
01.180, lSt 8855., Sept. 28, 19155, Pp. 9113-91114.

146
behalf of their own constituents or perhaps who had made
such a demand and had been refused. At any rate, the war
and Navy Departments sent out thousands of letters which
commented upon the importance of preserving the integrity
of the point system, all of which must have sounded rather
shallow when one could read in the morning's paper from time
to time of the discharge of an individual who was patently
ineligible for discharge.

The matter of the preferential discharge was
frequently attacked in Congress. During the time that
demobilization was in its most hectic stages, that is, the
fall and early winter of 1945 and 1946, there were a number
of people who were discharged who were not eligible. Now
and then, due to the resourcefulness of some reporter, the
facts of these cases would become known. There were three
that attracted an unusual amount of attention. One of these
involved the son of Tom Stewart, United States Senator from
Tennessee, a member, incidentally of the Senate Committee on
Military Affairs. In this case, young Stewart was being
returned to the United States to be discharged when the
.facts of the case became known. The Tennessee Senator, who
Cilaimed originally that he knew nothing about all of this,

thenintervened (the case had become an embarrassment to
him) and requested that his son not be returned to the

IJIIfiLted States and that he not be discharged.2h
\

2"U.S., Congress, House, Cong. Rec., Appendix, XLI,
igltt;. remarks, Hon. B. Carrol Reece, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
ec . 4, 1945, p. A5256.

 

147

The second case involved Lewis MacNider, the son of
a Marine general. MacNider's son was discharged, although
he was twelve points short of the required number of fifty,
as a result of the direct intervention of the Commandant of
the United States Marine Corps. When the facts became known
on this, there was a strong reaction on the part of the
public, and, in turn, in Congress. Criticizing the handling
of the Stewart and AacNider cases, Raymond Springer,
Congressman from Indiana, asked: "Is there any wonder that
the morale of our veterans with high points is low and that
they are disgusted over this very unfair treatment?"
Perennial Army critic Paul Shafer said that a "mockery" was
being made of the point system through the "discharge of
sons of generals, movie actors, football players, and other
low point favorites." Paul Kilday, normally a strong
supporter of the armed forces and a very infrequent
contributor to the Congressional Record, stated that despite
the fine combat record of General Hanfield MacNider he was
decidedly at fault in requesting preferential treatment for
his son.25 Neither of these two cases, though, aroused as
much response as did the discharge ofafootball player by the
imame of Charles Trippi.

Trippi, a young Italian-American, was originally

25U.S., House, Cong. Rec., Appendix, XLI, extension
Of‘ remarks, Hon. Raymond—Springer, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
Nov. 30, 1945, p. 15207; Nov. 27, 1945, p. A5184; Nov. 27,
1945. 10. A5173.

148
from Pennsylvania. Football scouts, though, convinced him
of the virtues of a Southern education, and he enrolled at
the University of Georgia, where he quickly established
himself as a "star." But the glory did not last for long,
for he soon entered the Army. There his experience was
something less than harrowing, though, for he spent most of
it playing football. While tank divisions broke through
enemy lines, Trippi broke through right guard; while
infantrymen. adjusted packs, Trippi adjusted shoulder
pads; while men sweated in the Pacific, Trippi sweated at
such hardship ports as Tampa, Florida. In the middle of
October, the newspapers announced that Trippi (a low point
man) was being discharged on a "surplus and hardship

basis."26

The Army did not need him; therefore, he was
surplus--good logic; that he could earn.more as an "amateur"
athlete and thereby support his wife, child, and mother
seemed like poor logic. But like Horatio's philosophy,
there are things in this world that the amateur codes never
dreamed of, and among these is the very professional status
of athletes in amateur standing.

Regardless of all of this, the discharge of Charles
Trippi might have gone unnoticed if it had not been for the

:hiitiative of a reporter for a Tampa paper who uncovered

Some interesting facts about the "Fighting Rebel" from

K

p 1 26Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), Oct. 14: 1945:

149
Pittston, Pennsylvania. Among these were that both Georgia
Senators Richard Russell and Walter George had been involved
in the activity to get Trippi discharged.27 Other than
Georgia football fans, there were not very many people who
were happy about the situation; certainly there were none in
Congress.

Over the period of the next month or so, there was a
good deal of grumbling among Congressmen of the favoritism
being shown. George Bender, Congressman from Ohio, said
that he had received "hundreds of letters denouncing the
failure of the war Department to recognize its own point
system of discharge." And there were also complaints from
a number of other Congressmen.28

The strongest statement on the Trippi case, though,
did not appear in the Congressional Record at all; as a
matter of fact, the particular Congressman involved, Charles
LaFollette of Indiana, usually went to great length to keep
his personal feelings out of the Record. LaFollette in a
letter reminded the Army (Patterson) that he was not one of
those who were consistently needling the Army; that he did
not ask for special favors; that he did not deliberately
(unbarrass the Army as many did. Stating that the Trippi

‘

27Starggand Stripes (Paris edition), Oct. 15, 1945,
p- 1.

28U.S., Cong, Rec., Appendix, XLI, ext. remarks of

Gecarge Benders, 79th Cong., lst sess., Oct. 17, 1945,
p. A4359-

 

150

decision was the poorest ever made by the Army, he also
maintained that the lack of an investigation was a serious
matter. In LaFollette's Opinion, Trippi should not have
been discharged at all, and if he actually was surplus to
the needs of the Air Force, then he should have been sent
overseas to take the place of someone who could have been
sent home. Indeed, LaFollette saw no reason why Trippi
could not have been transferred to the Infantry.29

Patterson's answer was that Trippi had too many
points to be shipped overseas; that he was surplus to the
needs of the Air Force; and that he had been discharged on
the same basis as had many others. In time, of course, the
Trippi matter was forgotten, but it was one more incident
that served to worsen relations between the military and the
public, at a time when relations were already quite
strained.30

That incidents such as those that involved Trippi
and other "personalities" could have been avoided cannot be
denied. Particularly regretful, too, was the fact that
attention was focused on the worm and not the apple.
Disgruntled servicemen quickly complained; Congressmen
echoed their complaints loudly enough to be heard back home.

_¥

29Charles M, LaFollette, House of Representatives, to
Rcfbert P. Patterson, Secretary of war, November 1, 1945,
R-G. 319, Records of the Adjutant General, Demobilization
37N3.0l, National Archives, washington, D.C.-

30Interview, Charles LaFollette, Sept. 3, 1970,
Evéansville, Indiana.

151

Basic to the system, of course, was its fairness. The Under-
secretary of war--later the Secretary--worked hard to
preserve it, and also worked hard to see that in the Army
that it was impartially administered. The papers of Robert
Patterson are replete with examples of instances where he
took courageous positions to make the system workable.
Unfortunately, the Trippi case was an exception, for there
his courage broke when he was faced with the prospect of
alienating the two powerful Georgia Senators, walter George
and Richard Russell, the latter of whom was a member of the
Senate Committee on Military Affairs. Perhaps he is entitled
to some divine forgiveness for this human error, for these
were men who could have exerted an inordinate influence on
the future of the war Department and perhaps on Robert
Patterson himself who nourished a strong desire for an
appointment to the Supreme Court.

In conclusion, the priority of discharge formula,
the point system created by the armed forces, was a
complicated method of discharge that had as its greatest
virtue its fairness, or at least its fairness to most
servicemen. But the priorities created led to thousands of
complaints, as did the administration of the system itself.
Efliortly after the end of the war, it was the greatest source
01? complaint, as the Congress soon observed. But in the
atitempt to "keep up" with it, that is, discharge all of the
men who had the requisite number of points, the armed forces

Creeated another problem, for the separation centers in which

152
men congregated to be discharged were now overcrowded. Many
of these men did not suffer in silence. And Congressmen who
saw some diminution of complaints about the point system
were soon aware of an increased number of "gripes" about the
separation centers.
You can't please some of the people any of the time.

But Congress was willing to try. And try it did.

Chapter 8

BRINGING THEM HOME: FULL SCALE DEMOBILIZATION
AND FULL SCALE PROBLElvB

In late August of 1945, the armed services began
full scale demobilization. Facts and figures on the number
of men released were widely publicized, and every few days
or so one could read in the newspaper of the number of men
who would be discharged as well as the number that had
already been returned to civilian life. Figures for the
Army were particularly impressive, for that branch of the
service had the advantage of beginning its demobilization
earlier than the others. At the end of August it stated
that it had already discharged over 500,000 men since V-E
Day.1 Three days later the Navy, which did not have any
particularly impressive figures to offer (they had
discharged only 2,300 since V-E Day), spoke of the plans
for the Navy of the future, a Navy of 500,000 men and 50,000

lU.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military
[AJTfairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings on the
Pkemobilization of the Army of the United States and for
vblunta Recruitin for the United States Army (washington,
g-»Cig U.S. Govt. Printing Office, August 28 and 31, 1945),

 

153

151+
officers.2 Somewhat later than three weeks, an article in

the New York Times stated that the Army had discharged

 

800,000 men and the Navy 72,000; and although Army
discharges were averaging 17,000 a day, the Navy average
was only 4000.3
This apparent slowness in demobilization on the part
of the Navy had concerned many people for some time. The
washington Post spoke for some of them early in the month
of September when it commented critically on the Navy's lack
of speed, while pointedly praising the Army.A The President
of the United States was also concerned, for in a conversa-
tion with Harold Smith, Director of the Budget, on September
13 he seemed quite concerned about the proposed Navy budget,
"knitting his brows and shaking his head" at the figures.
The following day at a cabinet meeting he effectively ducked
making any commitment on the proposed budget although the
Secretary of the Navy pressed him on the matter. About
three weeks later, Truman stated that he intended to have
the Director of the OWMR look into the Navy's demobilization

program, for he seemed to agree with Smith that the program

¥

2U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . .
Demobilization . . . Army . . . , August 28 and 31, 1945,

pp. 60‘62, p. 63.
3New’York Times, September 23, 1945, p. 10E.

kwashington Post, September 4, 1945, p. 12.

155

was too slow.5 Of some interest as well is the fact that an
unidentified spokesman of the OWMR had already stated in a
news release that too many men in the Navy were sitting
around doing nothing and that the OWMR had tried to get it
to release more men.6 Surprisingly enough, though, the Navy
still seemed to enjoy some temporary immunity from Congress.

Throughout the fall of 1945, the war and Navy
Departments continued to inform the public dutifully through
news releases of the number of servicemen being returned
home, and the newspapers with just as great a sense of duty
reported the exact figures. Now and then the papers would
personalize an article on demobilization by telling of the
release of a prominent personality. On September 1, the
gimg§,devoted several paragraphs to the movie actor, James
Stewart, who, as an air force officer, participated in
twenty combat missions over Germany.7 .Li§g_magazine,
incidentally, followed Stewart home and featured a story
on him with pictures of the former air force officer talking
to neighbors on the street in his hometown of Indiana,

Pennsylvania, fishing from a rowboat and reading in bed.

L

5The Diary of Harold Smith, Conference with
iPresident Truman, September 13; Cabinet Meeting, September
.14; Conference with President Truman, October 5, Roosevelt
Pa ers , FDRL .

6Louisville Courier_Joprnal, September 24, 1945,

E

I). 1.
7New York Times, September 1, 1945: P. 6.

8"Life Comes Home with Jimmy Stewart," Life,
V01. XIX, No. 13, New York, pp. 126-131.

156

The Minneapolis Tribun§_gave front page coverage to the
discharge of radio and movie comedian Red Skelton who was
discharged after a relatively brief eighteen months of
service, some of which was spent in North Africa.9

Late in September, the President in a letter to
Congress had some figures of his own to release. The Army
said the President would have a maximum size of 1,950,000,
and the Army budget would be reduced by 28,692,722,000,
approximately half of the original budget.10 Obviously
prepared for the news in the President's letter, the war
Department announced two days later that it would reduce
the Army to 1,630,000 by July 1, 1946, a figure that was

11 The

320,000 less than the President had requested.
following day, the Marine Corps released the first figures
since it had begun demobilization, and according to them,
6,286 men had been released from the Marines since V-J Day;
a modest figure but in time the Marines would equal the
other services in speed of demobilization.12
By October 6, the Army was prepared to say that it
had returned over half of the total of combat divisions that

were in Europe at the end of the war, 32 of 62, and of the

9Minneapolis Tribune, September 30, 1945: P. 1.

10Louisville Courier Journal, September 26, 1945,
sect. 1, p. 3.

11Louisville Courier Journal, September 28, 1945,
Seeto l, p. 130

12NewYork Times, September 29, 1945, p. 11.

157
3,000,000 men who were there on V-E Day, 1,500,000 had been
returned to the United States.13 October appeared to have
been a good month for the Army. Helped by calm oceans, they

brought men home in massive numbers. The New York Times of

 

October 30 said that the war Department had announced that
since V-E Day, 2,225,000 men had been discharged from the
Army, 1,047,000 from October 1 to October 26.1h The Army
had surpassed by an impressive margin, incidentally, its
projected goal of a month earlier of an average of 24,000
men a day, for they had discharged during the month of
October more than 40,000 men a day.

With such large numbers of men coming home, bottle-
necks soon appeared. Primarily, there were two: the
separation centers and transportation. Logically enough,
the centers proved to be the first stumbling block to an
orderly demobilization as the surprisingly quick end of the
war left a large surplus of men in the United States, many
of whom were originally meant to be redeployed to the
Pacific. At the same time, men were being returned every
day from Europe and the Pacific to be discharged, the result
of which was a temporary glut of the separation facilities
and an unhappy situation as far as the men were concerned.

The separation centers were established as

processing centers for men who would be discharged from

 

13New York Time_§, October 6, 1945, p. 3.
ll"NewYork Times, October 30, 1945, P. 11.

158
the service. It was here that they had their records
checked, were given medical examinations, submitted pension
claims, were counseled as to economic Opportunities and
veterans benefits, paid in full, and then discharged. These
centers were established throughout the United States with
as much regional diversity as possible.

At the time of the defeat of Germany, the Army
separation centers were established to handle 15,000 men a
week. By the middle of August, these facilities had been
expanded to handle 40,000, and the Army expected that a peak
capacity would be reached in January of 156,800 men per
week.15 Within two months of the time that the Army made
this statement, it was separating from the service almost
twice that number. Two conclusions follow quite logically.
First of all, public opinion was forcing the Army to move
faster than it had originally planned; and as a result of
this accelerated discharge program, the separation
facilities were severely taxed.

Congress soon heard of the crowded facilities at the
separation centers. At Sioux Falls, South Dakota, irate air
force men complained bitterly to the newspapers and to their

16

Congressional representatives. The problem was not

confined to the Army either, for at the Great Lakes Naval

15U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings, Demobilization
. . . Army . . . , August 28 and 31, 1945, pp. 16-17.

 

 

16New York Times, September 1, 1945, P. 4.

159
Training Center, men complained to the newspapers of having
to wait around for 10 to 20 days before the discharge
process even began.l7 Having nothing to do at camp, they
were dismissed every day, but only after they appeared for
the eight o'clock roll call, the early hour of which
probably did not improve their disposition. In Camp
Atterbury, Indiana, there was a backlog of men, but the
situation had improved by the time that Congressman Harness

18

of Indiana visited it. At Fort Dix, New Jersey, men
sometimes had to wait for three days before they could even
begin the discharge process, a situation that existed
according to Dix authorities because of the lack of help.19
These reports soon spurred Congress into activity, and the
newspapers were full of the comings and goings of Congress-
men and reports of inspection trips pr0posed as well as

completed. Twelve members of a subcommittee would visit

twenty-five separation centers said the Minneapolis Morning

 

Tribune of September 20, 1945, in a press release, and so
they did.20

The personal reports of some of these members of

17Chicago Daily Tribune, September 21, 1945,
sect. 1, p. 7.

18Indianapolis News, September 24, 1945, pt. 1,

p. 10

19New York Times, September 30, 1945, p. 7.

20Minneapolis Morning Tribune, September 20, 1945,

160
Congress were extremely interesting as well as informative,
and among their findings were some of the following. There
were, as many had contended, large backlogs of men. At Fort
Devens, Massachusetts, for example, there was a backlog of
over 5,000 men, but there was a reason for it. Originally,
Devens was supposed to handle 350 separations daily. In
September, the program was stepped up to handle 535 daily,
but this did not last for long, for Devens processed 788 men
on September 20. At Devens, they had devised an ingenious
method of handling their surplus of potential dischargees,
though: they simply furloughed the men until such time as
they could be processed.21 The AAF separation base at
Patterson Field, Ohio was set up to handle 100 separations
daily, but nine days later, it separated 194 men from the
service.22 Fort Dix was listed as having a capacity of 3000
on August 31; September 20, they separated 3,390 men and it
was thought that the number would eventually reach 4000.23
At Dix, many men were slowed down in the discharge process
because of discrepancies in their records or because of

missing information. At Fort Devens they also ran into

 

21U.S., Congress, House, Cong. Rec., Appendix, 79th
Cong., lst sess., XCI, pt. 13, September 24, 1945,
pp. A4015-16.

22U.S., Congress, House, Co . Rec., Appendix, 79th
Cong., lst sess., XCI, pt. 13, October 2, 945, p. A4141.

23U.S., Congress, House, Cong. Rec., Appendix, 79th
Cong., lst sess., XCI, pt. 13, September 24, 1945,

161

problems with records, but the Devens procedure was to have
the soldier supply whatever information was missing and
correct whatever information was wrong and then sign an
affidavit that the information that he supplied was true.
One of the suggestions made by one of the subcommittee
members was that the Devens procedure be used instead of
the method at Dix.

There were other findings on the part of the
subcommittee. That facilities were inadequate it found
to be true and specified that work conditions seemed to be
extremely crowded, with workers almost falling over each
other. In addition, there was a lack of trained personnel,
and the subcommittee stated that low-point soldiers should
be trained to do separation work.24

The question of the separation centers and their
operation was discussed at great length in the hearings held
by the House. Conscious of criticism on the part of the
public and of Congress, the Army strove hard to acquaint the
Committee with the difficulty of the task that faced it and
of what had been accomplished. In terms of numbers at the
time of the hearing, the Army pointed out that the rate of
discharge at the separation centers had increased from 6000
men a day to 25,000. This did not include men being

discharged at camps and stations, for in addition to the

 

2l’U.S., Congress, House, Opng. Rec., Appendix, ext.
remarks of Hon. Leroy A. Johnson of California, 79th Cong.,
lst sess., XCI, pt. 13, September 24, 1945, pp. A4015-16.

 

162

men being discharged at the huge separation centers, men
were also discharged every day at some 600 separation
points. Usually it was on some basis other than points
--medical reasons, age, hardship, or surplus to the needs
of the service.25

The separation centers were often short of trained
personnel as their own men became eligible for separation.
To secure the necessary personnel, the Army Opened training
schools for them, and at one school, for example, they
turned out over 1000 finance clerks a month. Evidently,
there was a serious shortage of them, for the Army stated
that it had flown over 1,200 of them back from EurOpe.26

The shortage of trained personnel at the separation
centers was certainly not alleviated either by the decision
of the United States government to cut back on its civil
service personnel-~a general order for a cut-back of 25
percent. This meant a general reduction of 50,000 workers
who had been assigned to the war Department; and in addition
to these, General Benjamin Caffey of the office of the Chief
of Staff said that there was another 50,000 out contemplated

for December or January, the exact date of which he was not

certain. At the hearings held in October, Congressman Chet

 

25U. 3., Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings . .
Demobilization of Material and Personnel, pp. 79-80.

26U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . .
Demobilization, p. 78.

163
Holifield of California stated that he would try to get the
government to exempt the demobilization centers from this
decision.2

The chairman of the Senate Special Committee to
Investigate the National Defense was of the opinion that the
armed services had themselves to blame for a shortage of
personnel. The chairman, James Mead, presided over hearings
that were held at both Army and Navy separation centers
(Fort Meade, Bainbridge, Maryland, Fort Dix, New Jersey,
Lido Beach, Long Island, and Camp Shanks, New York). In a
speech delivered on the floor of the Senate, he said that
demobilization was a "welter of confusion" and that among
the specific findings of the committee were that there had
not been adequate planning.

Meade may have been too harsh, though, for by the
time that he spoke to the Senate on October 26, the problems
of the separation centers seemed to have pretty well
straightened themselves out. In one of the camps that had
been swamped at one time, Camp Atterbury, they had actually
run out of troops to discharge.28 Another problem, however,

arose: transportation, or it was certainly a problem to the

 

27U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Nfilitary
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . .
Demobilization . . . , p. 83.

28U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . . 31355, A Bill
p9 Provide for the Speedy Return of Veterans to Civilian
Life, p. 210.

 

164
men who were depending on ships to bring them home.

Almost from the beginning of the time that the
services began full scale demobilization, there was a serious
concern on the part of the officers of the armed services
about transportation. On September 17, the Undersecretary
of the Navy, Artemus Gates, said that shipping was the most
important factor in the entire demobilization program.29
Some two weeks later, General RObert Berry said in answer
to a question that the Army discharge program was closely
tied to shipping and seemed to indicate in his answer that
this was the reason why more men from the Pacific theaters

30 In the middle of October,

were not being discharged.
officials of the OWMR were stating in their correspondence
that the program of demobilization would be governed by the
available shipping.31
In a sense it was regrettable that transportation
had become a factor, for all indications were that the
demobilization programs of all of the services had begun

to pick up speed. The Secretary of the Navy, for example,

 

29U.S., Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, 79th
Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . . $1355, A Bill to Provide
for the Spgedy Return of Veterans to Civilian Life . . . ,

p. 88.

3OU.S., House, Committee on Military Affairs, 79th
Cong., lst sess., Hearings . . . Demobilization of Material
and Personnel, p. 50.

31J. Donald Kinglsey, Office of war MObilization
and Reconversion, to Honorable A. A. Bryan, Mayor, Paola,
Kansas, October 25, 1945, R.G. 250, D42, Box 107, National
Archives, washington, D.C.

165
announced that as of October 27, 381,077 men had been
discharged from the Navy.32 The figures of a few days later
were more explicit and, at the same time, considerably more
impressive: 505,006 naval personnel had been discharged. Of
these, 441,000 were male enlisted men, 47,900 male officers,
and 16,500 waves. At the time of the release of these
figures, the Navy also announced that it hoped to discharge
1,200,000 men by January 1.33 In the middle of November,
there was an article in the New York Times that said that
the total of men separated from all of the services was
almost 3,500,000.37 This was more than one-fourth of the
men who were in the armed services at the time of the
defeat of Japan.

Yet if one-fourth of the members of the armed
services were home and happy with their new life, three-
fourths were not and were decidedly unhappy about it; and
it must have seemed to Congress at times as if all of them
were writing their Congressmen and, indeed, many of them
were. 80 many of them wrote as a matter of fact that one
could almost piece together a composite picture of the
average letter writer. He was in his late teens or early
twenties; more than likely, he was in the Army, although the

Navy certainly had critics of its own; he was "stuck on some

 

32New York Times, November 3, 1945, p. 10.
33New-York Times, November 7, 1945, p. 8.
3“New York Times, November 14, 1945, p. 15.

166
God-forsaken island"; he was not doing anything; he had
sufficient points to be discharged, yet he was not being
discharged.

In one form or the other, Congressmen became
acquainted with thousands of such correspondents, and
although each letter was different, many of them made
common observations: (1) ships were leaving the islands
in the Pacific completely empty (2) ships were leaving the
islands with empty passenger space (3) ships were carrying
Japanese prisoners (4) large numbers of ships were simply
lying idle in a port (5) Victory and Liberty ships were not
being converted to carry servicemen home (6) Where were all
of the ships with which the Army and Navy had transported
men overseas, and with which the war was won.

All Congressmen received letters asking just such
questions, but most of them did not complain. By and large,
many of these, indeed, most of them were familiar names by
now, but that of William Knowland, Senator from California,
was a new name. The new senator from California was appointed
to fill the large shoes of Hiram Johnson who died in the
summer of 1945. The son of an Oakland publisher, and a
former Army officer himself, Knowland quickly came to the
defense of the servicemen as he interested himself with
problems of demobilization, the most pressing of which was
transportation, or so it seemed to Knowland from reading his
mail. As early as September 29, for example, he wrote to

the Secretary of war, Robert Patterson, and asked him some

167

very specific questions. Knowland wanted to know 1) the
number of men home from the EurOpean and Pacific theaters,
with separate breakdowns of figures; 2) the number of men
being sent home by weeks; 3) the number of ships being used
for redeployment and whether there was an increase or
decrease in the number of such ships being used; 4) the
number of Navy warships being used to bring men home from
both theaters; 5) the number of men brought home by plane
and the number of planes being used for that purpose; 6) the
provision made with the British government for continued use
of the Queens; 7) the number of men in the two theaters with
points ranging from 70 to 100; 8) the number of doctors
still in both theaters and the United States, and the number
released since V-E Day.35

The Secretary of war responded to each of the
questions and gave the specific facts that were requested.
During May 12 through.Ney 31, 50,000 men were shipped home
from Europe and the Mediterranean theaters; June, 290,000;
July, 341,000; August, 309,000, September, preliminary
estimate of 383,000. The total of men who had been shipped
home from Europe and the Mediterranean theaters was a total
of 1,473,000. From the Pacific theaters from May 12 through
May 31, 6,000 were returned: 32,000 in June; 46,000 in July;
August 45,000; September, preliminary estimate, 79,000. A

 

35U.S., Senate, Cong. Rec;, XLI, 79th Cong.,
lst sess., U.S. Govt. Printing Office, November 1, 1945,
pp 0 10267-8 o

168
total of 208,000 men were shipped home from the Pacific.36
At first glance, the figures seem out of balance,
which, indeed, they were, as seven times as many men were
shipped home from Europe as had been shipped home from the
Pacific. The Secretary offered no explanation for this,
except to say that the amount of time used in tranSporting
troops from the Pacific was twice as great as the time used
to transport them from Europe. Undoubtedly the need for the
redeployment of trOOps to fight in the war against Japan
accounted for the large shipments of trOOps from Europe in
the summer of 1945, yet one is perplexed about the limited
number of men, 79,000 who were shipped home from the Pacific
in September (the war having ended), compared to the
European and Mediterranean theater totals of 383,000. It
seems a fair inference to say that the transport of trOOps
from Europe was given priority over the transport of those
from the Pacific, but it is possible that this may have been
the result of circumstance rather than deliberate intention.
Knowland, at any rate, was not completely satisfied
with the progress of demobilization as pictured in the
Secretary's letter, for he thought that men could be brought
home even faster than they were being brought home by the
armed services. What seemed to distress him was the lack of

coordination between the armed services and agencies which

 

36U.S., Senate, Cong, Rec., XLI, 79th Cong.,
lst sess. (washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office,
November 1, 1945), p. 10267.

169

served them such as the WSA. To correct what he believed to
be a serious flaw in planning, he proposed that a coordinator
of transportation be named.37

The findings of the California senator may have made
an impression upon the Army and perhaps upon some members of
the Senate, but it is doubtful whether his findings were as
impressive as those of the prestigious Mead Committee
(Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense
Program). This committee, made famous by its original
chairman, Harry Truman, had spent much of the month of
October and part of September investigating several aspects
of demobilization-~the point system, the separation centers,
and transportation. In its report to the Senate, the
Chairman of the Committee stated that sufficient planning
had not been devoted to transportation, and he thought that
this was particularly true of the Air Transport Command,
many of whose personnel had been discharged through the
point system.38

The speech of Senator Mead setting forth the
findings of his committee was not greeted with the thunderous
applause of a crowded Senate. A few members of that body

offered supporting remarks-~Knowland and Ferguson, for

 

37U.S., Senate, Cong, Rec., XLI, 79th Cong.,

lst sess., November 1, 1945, p. 1026.

38U.S., Senate, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th Cong.,
lst sess. (washington, D.C.: United States Govt. Printing
Office, October 20, 1945), p. 10076.

 

170
example, as well as the obviously sympathetic Chairman of
the Committee of Naval Affairs, David walsh.39 But this did
not mean that the senators were not concerned, as there were
apparently enough of them to gather support for a resolution
to investigate the problem--if, indeed it was a problem.
Senate resolution 188, submitted by Senator Robertson of
wyoming, authorized the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs
". . . to make a full and complete study and investigation
of the general overall plan or plans for demobilization and
transportation of military personnel to the United States

0
from overseas ."h

Without objection, the resolution
was referred to the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs. On
November 13, 1945 that committee began hearings on trans-
portation, and held hearings through the 15th of November.
These hearings did not yield any great surprises,
and were not productive of any magic solutions either.
Admiral Denfeld of the Bureau of Naval Personnel answered
most of the questions for the Navy, questions which did not
seem to follow any organized pattern and were prompted by
the whim of whatever Senator had the floor at the time.
This much the hearings did do, though: they clarified the
position of the Navy on Liberty and Victory ships the great

use of which was being widely advocated. There was

 

39U.S., Senate, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th Cong.,
lst sess., October 26, 1945, Pp. 10076-83.

#OU.S., Senate, Cong, Rec., 79th Cong., lst sess.,
November 9, 1945, pp. 10598-9.

 

171
considerable criticism of the armed services because more of
these ships had not been converted. To properly convert
them, according to Capt. Granville Conway, Deputy
Administrator of the war Shipping Administration, would
take three to four months, and before they were ready, the
crisis would be over. Captain Conway submitted a written
statement of answers to questions which were most frequently
asked, and to which the WSA could furnish answers. These
answers merit some attention as they were a good exposition
of the WSA position, as well as a fairly good picture of the
troop ship situation in general. The answers give the
impression that the Army was not overly concerned about
transportation. Take note, for example, that they had not
requested any additional conversion of ships (conversion of
cargo carriers to passenger) since the previous April.“1
The WSA statement follows:

1. WSA Operated 396 troop carriers in the Atlantic,
155 in the Pacific.

2. Operating matters on WSA vessels under authority
of WSA.

3. Total troop lift from Atlantic 350,000; Pacific,
235,000 (previous month).

4. Army scheduled the vessels it used.

 

#lThe precise situation concerning the conversion
of Victory and Liberty ships (normally cargo carriers) is
unclear. Army testimony at subsequent hearings was in
conflict with that offered by the NBA. It is possible that
the Army on its own may have converted some ships, and
perhaps that would answer some of the discrepancies in
testimony.

172
5. Number of trOOp vessels determined by the Army;
troop ships converted at request of Army; last
request for conversion of a ship, April 11.
6. No trOOp vessels inactive.

7. No passenger vessels capable of bringing back
troops that were not bringing back troops.

8. All cargo vessels Operated by government
account, not by private companies for private
gain.

9. Troop lift in November estimated at 1,042,000.

10. In less than a month, there would be a surplus
of troop ships in the Atlantic and then they
would be diverted to the Pacific.

11. Many Victory vessels no longer carried any
cargo in order to increase the turn-around time
of the vessels.

12. Two hundred-fifty Victory and Liberty ships would
sail to Europe to return troops in November.42

The written statement of the WSA that was presented at the
hearings was simply a collation of much of what it had been
saying for several months and of what it said at the hearings.
One senses a certain confidence in the statement, which
seemed to be characteristic, incidentally, of Naval and war
Shipping personnel who testified before the Committee. This
sense of confidence seemed to communicate itself to the
Senators who seemed well pleased with Naval testimony,
although it did not prevent them from implementing one phase
of the resolution's directive: the creation of a committee

to investigate transportation. It was to be a committee

 

th.S., Senate, Hearings . . . Sen. Res. 188,
Demobiligation and Transportation of Military Personnel,

p. 74.

173
that represented both the Senate and the House and one in
which there would be both civil and military members.43 The
resolution was prOposed and seemingly accepted without
rancor by both sides.

The Senate was not the only legislative body to
conduct hearings on transportation; the House, too,
conducted hearings of its own. As in the Senate, the
members received a considerable volume of mail that
complained about transportation, particularly in the
Pacific. There were complaints about ships lying idle,
ships leaving port empty, ships carrying cargo when they
could have carried passengers. Also, as was the case in
the Senate, it was a small number of Congressmen who made
their complaints public, but there must have been a great
deal of private complaint. The situation was aggravated,
too, by the publicity emanating from service newspapers and
national magazines. "Where is the vast armada that will
bring us home?" the Daily Pacificap asked.M rig; magazine
in an article entitled "Ship Graveyard" spoke of unused
ships and featured a picture of 28 Liberty ships lying at

anchor in the James River, with the obvious inference that

 

hBU.S., Senate, Hearings . . . Sen. Res. 188,
Ogmobilization and Transportation of Military Personnel,

p. 74.

MtU.S., House, Cong. Rec., Appendix, XLI, ext. of
remirkg of Hon. Edward O.‘MbCowen, October 30, 1945,
p. 45 9.

174

all ships were not being used.‘*5

It was to answer just such questions as why all
ships were not being used that the House began its hearings
in December. The opening sentence of House Resolution 422
"Requesting Information from the Secretary of the Navy about
Transportation to Return Troops from Overseas Points" spoke
of "widespread protests" being received by members of
Congress and then spelled out the reasons for the committee
hearing: rumors of troop ships being converted to commercial
cargo runs, of ships lying idle, of the premature retirement
of ships, of the use of American ships by foreign powers.
The latter part of the resolution in five specific
paragraphs called for an inventory of just about everything
that would float, in the words of a Congressman, "every dory
in Chesapeake Bay."1+6

The Navy was represented at these hearings by Rear
Admiral Felix Johnson, Director, Planning and Control,
Bureau of Personnel and Rear Admiral W..M. Callaghan, Asst.
Chief of Naval Operations for Transportation. The gist of
their testimony was that all available satisfactory trans-

portation was being used, including 87 Victory ships and 216

 

45"Ship Graveyards," Life, XIX, no. 22, November
26, 1945, p. 75.

46

U.S., House, Subcommittee of the Committee on
Naval Affairs, Hearings . . . House Resolution_422
quuesting Information from the‘Secretaryflof the Navy
about Transportation to Return Troops from Overseas Points,
pp. 2463 -4.

175

Liberty type ships. As for the additional conversion of
Victory and Liberty type ships, there were a number of
compelling reasons for not converting them, the most
important of which was that there was no longer any need
for them, for there was now more than sufficient shipping.
In addition, the cost and time required for conversion were
excessive: $430,000 and 72 days for example, to convert one
Victory ship. Moreover, there would not be sufficient crews
to operate them, even if they were converted."7

In way of illustration of their argument that there
was now more than sufficient shipping available, the Navy
pointed out that there would be 799,200 Naval and Marine
personnel eligible for transportation from some overseas
point in the Pacific in the months of December, January, and
February, and there would be 862,000 spaces, an excess of
almost a hundred thousand. At the same time, it was stated
that there would be more than enough space to bring home all
eligible Army personnel during the same three months.
Specifically, the Army would need 228,414 spaces for
December and there would be 325,000 spaces available; in
January it would require 220,000 and there would be 406,000
spaces; in February the requirement would be 183,000, and

 

47U.S., House, Subcomm. of the Committee on Naval
Affairs, Hearings . . . H. Res. 422 Requesting Information
from the Secretary of the Navy about Transportation . . . ,
PP- 2493-4-

 

176

there would be space for 301,000 men.)+8

The situation looked equally promising in the
Atlantic. Admiral Callaghan said that by the end of
December there would be no transportation problem there,
and that the Navy alone (apart from WSA activity) intended
to remove 13 of the 15 Navy combatant ships from the
Atlantic, and that 31 ships with a capacity of 76,000 spaces
would be transferred to the Pacific."9

The availability of shipping as appraised by the
Navy was confirmed by the Army, for Major General R. H.
Wiley, Asst. Chief of Transportation, war Department said
that even if the Navy decommissioned a number of its ships
and transferred others to the Pacific that there would still
be sufficient transportation to bring the men home from
Europe. There would also be no problem in the Pacific, and
the General estimated that every man in the Pacific who was
eligible for transportation back to the United States would
probably receive it within 5 to 7 days from the time that
he became eligible and that the gap between eligibility and

transportation would never exceed a month.50

 

h8U.S., House, Subcomm. of the Committee on Naval
Affairs, Hearings . . . H. Res. 422 Requestions Information
from the Secretarypof the Navy about Transportation . . . ,

PP- 2473-4-

49U.S., House, Subcomm. on Naval Affairs, Hearings,
Ho Res. 422 o o o ’ p. 214730

5OU.S., House, Subcomm. on Naval Affairs, Hearings,
Ho Res. [L22 0 o o ’ p. 2501.

177

Quite satisfied with the testimony of Army and Navy
transportation authorities, the Congressional members of the
Committee did not press for the comprehensive inventory of
all ships being used in transportation, as well as a state-
ment of their use which the resolution had requested. The
feeling among a sufficient number of members of the
subcommittee was that such a resolution was no longer

51

necessary. The transportation crisis, insofar as trans-
oceanic travel was concerned, had come to an end by the
middle of December, but it was just beginning to reach its
peak in the United States. Rapid transport of men from
overseas had glutted stateside ports, and rail facilities
simply were not sufficient to handle all of the returning
trOOps. It was sad news to a nation that oversentimentalized
Christmas, but the regrettable fact was that many of the
returned servicemen would not spend their holidays at home.
It was unfortunate that more men would not be home
for Christmas, but the activities of the armed forces during
the latter part of October, November, and December in
transporting men from the European theater at least had
been heroic, particularly when it is remembered that this
was accomplished in the face of many frustrations: shortages

of crews on ships, walkouts, strikes, protests, and hundreds

of vexations, major and minor. In the early part of

 

51U.S., House, Subcomm. on Naval Affairs, Hearings,
H. Res. 422 . . . , p. 2494, p. 2502.

178

October, for example, there was a strike among the New York
longshoremen, the International Longshoremen's Association,
an affiliate of the A.F.L. Their principal grievance was
that they had been asked to load more weight than their
contract specified, but as the strike spread, grievances
seemed to multiply as well, and among these was a lack of
confidence in the Union President.52

While the strike was in progress, both sides yelled
foul. Secretary of war Robert Patterson and Vice Admiral
Emory 3. Land, administrator of the war Shipping Administra-
tion tried to intercede and appealed to the President of the
Longshoremen's Union. In their appeal, they stressed the
seriousness of the strike and stated that in the harbor of
New York there were 16 Liberty and Victory ships that were
tied up. The President of the Union, though, was powerless;
it was a wildcat strike that did not have Union sanction.
The longshoremen contended that they had never refused to
unload troop ships, only cargo ships, but unfortunately some
ships carried both cargo and passengers. At any rate, the
Army began using its own personnel to unload ships; two
platoons of soldiers unloaded the Queen Elizabeth. The
strike was not a major setback in the transportation of
troops, but there is no question but what it did slow down,

temporarily at least, the Army's transportation program. In

 

2
5 New York Times, October 2, 1945, p. 12; October
13, lghS’ p. 20

179
one instance it was stated that a contingent of some 12 to
13 thousand troops in Europe would have to wait a week to
ten days longer than had originally been anticipated before
they could be shipped home.53 Fortunately the strike did
not last long and was settled through the intercession of
New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

Close on the heels of the strike of the longshoremen
was the strike of 12,000 machinists in the San Francisco
area. This strike, according to Lieutenant Commander W. C.
Peet, had delayed work on twelve troop ships. And then
proof that troubles come in battalions was the announcement
of the National Maritime Union on November 4 that if the
government did not provide more ships for the return of
troops by December 1 that it would stage a nationwide
walkout. This walkout would be confined to commercial
vessels, not tr00p ships. The Union told the WSA that it
was confident that "seamen will refuse to help promote the
private gains of a few while hundreds of thousands of our
heroic fighting men remain stranded in EurOpe and the
Pacific."5h

The announcement of the N.M.U. was popular with
servicemen. A group of enlisted men and officers in LeHavre

in a letter congratulated the union. Many excuses, the

 

53New York Times, October 13, 1945, p. 2; October 4,
1945, p. 13; October 10, 1945, p. 1.

5("Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), November 5,
1945. p- 1-

180

letter said, had been given such as "lack of ships, weather,
British trade unions reconversion, and even officers' pets"
but perhaps the N.M.U. would bring to light the real reason
for the delay in shipping; at least the men hoped so: "we
greet with considerable satisfaction and appreciation your
promise to expose the real snafu by providing crews for only
troop ships."55

In less than two weeks, after the N.M.U. statement,
a protest was staged by 150 delegates of the Greater New
York Council of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Carrying placards and distributing handbills, the delegates
reminded passers-by that veterans were still overseas, and
that all of them should be brought home except those needed
56

for occupational duties. The day after this protest,
Congressman weichel of Ohio suggested that public hearings
should be held by the members of the Committee on Merchant
Marine, the State Department, the Maritime Commission, the
war Shipping Administration, and the Army and Navy to find
out what was the real situation with our shipping. Shortly

after this, Congressman John Byrnes of Wisconsin wanted an

investigation of not only shipping facilities, but air

 

SSStars and Stripes (Paris edition), November 5,
1945, p. 1.

56U.S., Con . Rec., XCI, 79th Cong., lst sess.
(Washington, D.C.: %.S. Govt. Printing Office, November 16,

1945), p. 10780.

181

facilities as well.57

Both sides of the dispute tried to capture public
support for its position. With what may have been an
attempt at psychological warfare, an appeal was issued
through the New York Port of Embarkation for 3000 men who
were needed to man 34 army transports. The National Maritime
Union disputed the need for these seamen, and on a national
radio program its President Joseph Curran asked why Admiral
Land and General Hershey in view of this alleged shortage
had agreed that seamen after November 15 could leave the
Merchant Marine if they had 32 months of service and not
be subject to the draft and the Union President accused the
War Shipping Administration of more than just inconsistency.
He took issue particularly with its statement that American
ships were not being turned over to private companies.
There were he said 14 Victory or C type ships that had
indeed been turned over to commercial Operators,
specifically: the water Witch, Billings Victory, Baylgr.
Victo , Argher Victory, Pom ero, Sioux Falls Victory, Ames
Victo , Ocala, Pass Christian, Beavgr_Victory, Maiden

Victor , Lynchburg, Parkersburg Victory, and Atlantic

 

Victory. All Of these ships, moreover, had made initial
commercial voyages. The Billings had left Seattle November

7; the Baylor, San Francisco, the 8th; Archer, Seattle, 8th;

 

57U.S., Cong. Rec., 79th Cong., lst sess., XCI,
Appendix, ext. remarks of Senator wayne Morse, December 3,

1945: P0 A5255-

182
Pom ero, Seattle, 10th; Sioux Falls, Seattle, 14th; Ames,
San Francisco, 15th. From eastern ports the Ocala left

Philadelphia on November 6; the Pass Christian, Baltimore,

 

7th; the Maiden, New York, 7th; Lynchburg, Philadelphia,

7th; the Beaver sailed from Baltimore and the Parkersburg

 

left Philadelphia on the 8th; the Atlantic City, New York,
the 9th.58

Curran stated that it was the efforts of the
National Maritime Union that had goaded the war Shipping
Administration into making more ships available for troops.
As a specific illustration of this he stated that the
Menterey, Lurline, Matsonia, President Johnson, and the
Brazil had been reassigned as troop carriers.59

In addition, the total number of ships, according to
the NMU's President had increased appreciably: 450 to 551,
but this was only a fraction, according to him, of the
number of ships that were available, for at war's end, the
United States had 4,500 ocean going vessels, many of which,
Curran argued, could be converted into troop carriers,
despite the protestations of the armed services and the war
Shipping Administration. In way of adding strength to his

assertion, he stated that shipyards had converted cargo

 

58U.S., Cong. Rec., 79th Cong., lst sess., XCI,
Appendix, ext. of remarks of Sen. wayne Morse, December 3,
19452 P- 45255-

59U.S., Senate, Cong. ngy, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
XCI, Appendix, ext. of remarks of Hon. wayne Mbrse,
Po A5255. '

183

ships to troop ships in a day's time and that a group of
GI's in the Pacific had converted the Otto Mears into a
comfortable vessel in two days.60

It was there that the issue was joined. The Navy
particularly did not think that rapidly converted cargo
ships were comfortable. In the holds the men would have no
heat or ventilation or proper sanitation facilities, but
much more important, the ships would not be safe, as there

would not be adequate life-saving facilities.61

Adding some
support to what it was saying (rapidly converted cargo ships
could be unsafe) was an experience undergone by one of these
"jiffy" transports. In a storm, a few hundred miles outside
of San Francisco on a voyage from the Pacific, the spot
welded stoves on the deck of a transport were swept over-
board as were the rest of the mess facilities, the sanitation
facilities that had been built on deck, and soldiers'

personal belongings.62

Fortunately, no lives were lost, but
it did prove that makeshift arrangements were no match for
an angry sea.

The N.M.U. remained unconvinced. A nationwide

 

60U.S., Senate, Cong..Rec1, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
XCI, Appendix, p. A5255.

61

U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Naval
Affairs, Hearings . . . Sen. Res. 188, Demobilization and
Transportation of Military_Personnol, November 13-15, 1945,
p. 57; 72.

éznon Bringing 'Em Home," Newsweek, December 3’
191,5, XXVI, no. 56. p. 26.

 

184

strike of all maritime workers, a 24-hour work stoppage was
planned for December 3; and it was expected that it would
involve a total of over 83,000 workers.63 The strike
fizzled; not everyone walked out. Members were told to
write or phone the President but few of them actually did.64
The President of the United States, nevertheless, got the
message of the N.M.U. At a cabinet meeting that took place
on December 3, he instructed the Secretary of war that he
wanted a statement released on the progress of demobiliza-
tion, and the statement was to include a message to the
effect that the United States was making use of all
available shipping.65

Other crises appeared to bedevil the armed forces in
their transportation program. On a trip from Europe, a
transport suddenly discovered that it had no food for the
troops. From the man who sent the message, through a
battery of clerks, and, finally, to the decision makers
panic moved like current through a live wire. Plans were
made for the transport General Patrick to transfer food to

the ship, but the General Paprick could not find the ship

that was in distress. Meanwhile, the ship's course was

 

63New York Times, December 3, 1945, p. 11.

64New York Times, December 4, 1945, p. 1.

65"War Council Meeting Minutes," 3rd December
1945, The Papers of Robert P. Patterson, Box 23, General
Correspondence, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress,
washington, D.C.

185
changed and it headed for Halifax. Finally, everyone
breathed easily when the ship cabled in that the food had
been found; somehow it was misplaced.

Other ships experienced other troubles, although
predictable ones. December was a stormy month in the
Atlantic, and some of the transports suffered heavily. The
Henry ward Beecher lost a propeller on the way from
Marseilles to Norfolk, and the ship with a considerable
number of troops on board (three companies, at least, were
identified by unit) had to be towed into Bermuda. The
NhCrory's starboard boilers blew out and her port tubes
leaked badly, but she struggled valiantly and made it in to
67

Bermuda. Another ship, the Navarchos Koundouriotis, lost
a propeller and also had to be towed into Bermuda. The
cruiser Aogusta was severely buffeted in a storm and cabled
that it would be necessary for her to put in at Portsmouth
or Southhampton for repairs. The was , an aircraft carrier,
put into Plymouth to have its superstructure and bulkheads

68

repaired. What seemed to have been the worst storm of all

hit the Portland, a cruiser. Parts of the superstructure

were crumpled with lOO-foot waves; two soldiers were killed,

69

more than 60 soldiers and sailors were injured. Despite

 

66New‘York Times, November 18, 1945, P. 34.
67Now York Times, December 7, 191.5, p. 10.
68New York Times, December 19, 1945: p. l.

égflgyylork Times, December 29, 1945, p. 8.

186
the storms and the discomfort, the servicemen were glad to
be home. In a phrase that became popular, they would have
come home lashed to the mast if that had been the only means
available to them.

Home from the war, it was now the responsibility Of
the railroads to get them to the separation centers and from
the separation centers to their homes. The railroad crisis,
if such it can be called, soon replaced the shipping crisis,
as the most urgent of transportation problems.

Transportation authorities had predicted for some
time that the railroads would soon be overcrowded, and the
railroads themselves had complained that they were consist-
ently hauling more trOOps than had been arranged for in
preliminary estimates.7O Military authorities, on the other
hand, sometimes complained that the railroads did not make
adequate preparations, and that they hauled too many
civilians. Early in December Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll
made both of these complaints. Particularly distressed
about civilian travel, he stated that they sometimes
traveled luxuriously, while military personnel were assigned
to day coaches. Ingersoll was also concerned that the
railroads were not delivering more rolling stock and said

71

that "chaos" was in prospect if things did not change.

g

7OU.S., House, Subcomm. on Naval Affairs, Hearings,
11, Res. 422 . . . , p. 2497.

71New York Times, December 2, 1945, p. 2.

187

The railroads, of course, denied the allegations of
civilian favoritism, and, indeed, a census conducted by the
Office of Defense Transportation seemed to contradict the
statement that was made by Ingersoll. According to the ODT,
military personnel occupied 89.1 percent of all beds and
berths, 90.4 percent of all seats. The ODT was critical,
though, of railroad maintenance and said that of 1,200 new
troop sleeper cars that were scheduled to be completed only
350 had actually been completed. This being so, the ODT
warned that holiday traffic would be particularly heavy, and
that servicemen would be given priority on all rail travel.72

Despite the fact that they were given priority, many
servicemen were not able to travel home during the holidays.
And at ports on the Nest Coast, many of them were stranded
and spent their holidays on board troop ships. Local
communities tried to make things pleasant for them,
delivered gifts, decorated ships, and furnished entertain-
ment. Some servicemen were determined to spend Christmas
at home, though, such as the four sailors who hired a taxi-
cab at a cost of $55 each to drive them from the West Coast
to Atlanta. Others traveled less comfortably. A group of
sailors (who did not make it home for Christmas) refused to
reboard their troop train. They had ridden all the way from
the Nest Coast in a dilapidated car. There was no water in

the coaches, and there had not been any for over 25 hours.

72New York Times, December 16, 1945, p. 20.

188

Some of the coaches did not have lights; and the windows
in some of the others were broken.73

Without question, the railroads were using just
about anything that would roll; apparently though some were
more discriminating than others. The Pennsylvania, for
example, refused to haul one sleeper that had made the trip
from the West Coast because it considered the car too old
--too old to be safe probably. Troops who had been riding
in it were forced to wait for more than twenty hours before
another car arrived.74 But it was a time of discomfort for
many. Trains from the west Coast were frequently 20 to 40
hours late. Frantic wives paced the floors of railroad
stations, sometimes with a child in their arms, until they
reached the point of exhaustion. Complicating the matter
of transport from the west Coast was the small number of
rail lines; there were only eight of them, and some of these
were single track.75 Another frustrating factor for men who
were anxious to come home.

But come home they did, though not always in style
and quite frequently not even in comfort, but by the early

part of the new year, what was known as the railroad snafu

73New York Timeo, December 23, 1945, p. 2; December
29’ lghS’ p. 28.

74"Oolossal Rail Snafu Holds Up GI's in Christmas
Rush Toward Home," Newsweek, XXVI, no. 26, December 24,
19h59 p0 27-

75Ibid.

189

had apparently straightened out. Apart from the figures in
newspapers that told the public of the number of men who
had been returned one could see it in other ways. There
was, for example, a marked increase in the number of young
men on the streets, in trolley cars and buses, in restaurants
and bars. On college campuses one could see groups of former
servicemen strolling across campus or sitting in the student
unions, sometimes dressed in mottlied fashion: civilian
trousers and Army khaki shirts, gabardine trousers, and Army
paratroop boots, a Navy pea jacket worn over any number of
combinations of other types of clothing. Pawn shops soon
became glutted with Japanese swords, German helmets, and
Nazi flags. Army surplus stores abounded and featured
raincoats, shovels, the Army entrenching tool, cots, and
blankets, and the olive drab five gallon gasoline can, a
popular item on dairies and farms. In the few sections of
the country where it was warm enough, one could see young
couples quietly walking; the woman was frequently pregnant.
A housing shortage soon developed, one that would grow much
worse as the birth rate rose, but already plaintive adver-
tisements were appearing in papers of "desperate" or
"frantic" couples who needed housing. Colleges housed
students in quonset huts, converted Army barracks, and in
trailers.

There were other signs that the men were returning
home. The men who made signs their business, the great

advertising companies, cashed in on the sentiment over

190
demobilization. The Texas company had an advertisement
showing the children of a Texaco dealer playing with his

discarded Army clothing.76 An advertisement in the Saturday

 

Evening Post told its readers that when old Army clothing
would no longer fit, Camel cigarettes would fit any size
pocket.77 Maxwell House Coffee had an advertisement showing
a benevolent, middle-aged mother pouring coffee for her
returned son; the advertisement told the reader that Maxwell
House Coffee was the coffee for "home again" dinners.78
Oxford paper showed a G1 at home reading in bed and reminded
the reader that Oxford paper produced paper for books.79
American Standard Plumbing showed a GI lolling in a bathtub
--discarded Army clothing strewn over the floor.80 Listerine
reminded its female readers that if they wanted to be "so
sweet to come home to" that they had better freshen their
breath with Listerine.81 And there was an advertisement for
those who did not care how their breath smelled: Carstairs

Distilling, too, was waiting for the CI to come home.82

 

79Look, IX, November 27, 1945, p. 14.

77Saturday EveningPost, CCXVIII, October 27, 1945,
p. 970

78Saturday EWening Post, CCXVIII, November 10, 1945,
Po 45.
”firings. m1. October. 1945. p. 25.

80Saturday Evening Post, CCXVIII, p. 128.

81
82

Saturday Evening Post, CCXVIII, November 17, 1945.
Boston Daily_Globe, August 30, 1945, p. 7.

191

And they would be coming home, of course; as the
new year began, many young Americans were already home, and
the worst part of demobilization seemed to have passed. The
separation centers that posed such problems in September
and early October were running smoothly by the beginning of
November. The shipping situation, according to transporta-
tion authorities, was in good shape, and during 1946, there
would be actually a surplus of shipping. And the railroads
with the frenetic Christmas rush behind them appeared capable
of doing a better job of transporting troops in 1946. Many
people wondered what all of the shouting had been about a
few months earlier. Everyone seemed confident on the
surface, although not all of them were. The press did not
seem worried; Congress seemed quieted by the hearings of
the few previous months. And then in the Pacific, the whole

situation blew sky high.

Chapter 9

TROUBLE IN THE RANKS: GI PROTESTS
AND DEMONSTRATIONS

In the Hawaiian Islands and in Guam, in dozens of
small islands in the Pacific, and particularly in the
Philippine Islands, the first weekend of the new year was
filled with protest. Men met in tents and barracks, in
the day rooms and mess halls. Numeograph machines thumped
out COpies of form letters; mimeographed statements of
protest were posted on bulletin boards and handed out to
GI's wherever they could be found. As individuals and as
groups, soldiers sent cables to the President and to their
Congressmen--cab1es that protested the slowing down of
demobilization. It all started when several days before
the Ooily Pacifican, the Army newspaper in Manila, carried
a war Department announcement that the rate of demobiliza-
tion would be reduced from 800,000 men a month to 300,000.

Following closely this discouraging news was the
statement of General Lawton Collins that men with two
years service might not be discharged by March 20, as had
been previously stated, and that the discharge dates of

some might be postponed two to three months. Finally,

192

193
there was one last event that was blown completely out of
proportion. At a press conference in Guam, Secretary of
war Robert Patterson made the statement that men in the
service were still accumulating points. That statement
was in error as points had been frozen since September 2,
1945. Upon being corrected, Patterson realized that he
was indeed in error, and apologized. The statement,
however, was picked up by a reporter, and the Secretary
of war was soon being flailed as an incompetent who did
not know what the score was, and who literally did not
know how the score was computed. Patterson, a dedicated
executive, was far from incompetent, but GI's who were in
a head-rolling mood wanted him removed from office, and
their mimeographed letters demanded it.

Protest was particularly serious in the
Philippines, where a group was turned back at the Manuel
Quezon Bridge at the point of a bayonet. Later that day
2,500 men in columns of four paraded down the dusty
streets of Manila, cheering and shouting, and marched
menacingly on the University of the Philippines, the
headquarters of Lt. Gen. Styer, Commander Of Army Forces
in the Western Pacific. There they were turned away.
That evening, though, the General addressed them by radio
in an attempt to allay their suspicions of Army

intentions, but his speech was hooted and jeered

194
derisively.

That night downtown Manila was crowded with
thousands of GI's who jammed the City's main plaza and
rocked the area with noise. At this rally, a group of the
men went on record as being opposed to any type of police
activity or interference of any kind in Philippine
internal affairs. They also protested the proposed combat
training of the 86th Division, castigated Patterson, and
asked for a Congressional investigation into demobiliza-
tion.2 In other areas the protests took extreme forms,
such as at Guam where 3,500 men embarked upon a hunger
strike.3 There were countless mass meetings where
speeches were made, money collected for telegrams,
resolutions drawn up, petitions circulated and signed.

The discontent spread rapidly. The military
police broke up an attempt to hold a meeting in Yokohama}+
Two mass meetings held in Calcutta were attended by over

five thousand clamorous GI's. Angry charges were made

 

lClipping, New York Times, January 7, 1946, The
Papers of Robert P. Patterson, Box 23, General Correspond-
ence, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, washington,
D.C., Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), p. 1; Diary,
Robt. Patterson Papers . . . Box 23, Genl. Corresp.,
Library of Congress, washington, D.C.

2Clipping, New York Times, January 7, 1946, Papers
. . . Robt. Patterson, Box 23, Genl. Corresp.; Opars and
Stripes (Paris edition), January 8, 1945, p. l.

 

3Stars and Stripes, January 10, 1945, p. 1.
hStars ang;Stripes, January 8, 1945, p. 1.

195

that the war Department used valuable space to ship
nonessential materials home--space that could have been
used by servicemen.5

The GI's in Yokohama did not give up easily.
Their first attempt at a protest was broken up by M.P.'s.
Their second one was successful enough to be called a near
mutiny and had some very ugly aspects to it. According to
a mimeographed throwaway entitled "Discharge," the GI's at
the meeting were supposed to have been severely abused by
Colonel Charles P. Mahoney who was reported to have told
the men that they should have been dressed in lace panties,
and that he would take all of them to YOkohama prison.
Mahoney denied that he has abused the men, but he did
admit that he had reprimanded them severely. At any rate,
"Discharge" announced that another meeting would be held
the next day, and Army authorities made no attempt to
prevent it.6

There were apparently some differences in attitudes
on the part of the authorities toward these meetings. In
Honolulu, the Mid Pacific Naval Commander issued orders
that there was to be no further agitation for demobiliza-

tion, and he specifically directed that his commanders

make that known to some of the "leaders" of previous

 

5Clipping, New York Times, January 14, 1945,
Papers of Robert Patterson, Box 23, Genl. Corresp.

6Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), January 10,
1946, p. l, 8.

196
meetings.7 The Marine Commander in the Honolulu area took
an equally hard line. There were to be no meetings on
demobilization "today or any other day."8 Apparently
other Marine commands and Naval commands as well took the
same position. It was pretty much an Army show, and the
Officers, at least, of the other branches were obviously
quite happy that it was.

When the mania for demobilization hit the China
area, Albert C. wedemeyer considered the issue so important
that he let a Vice Admiral cool his heels in his office
while he discussed the subject with a group of GI's. A
protest meeting had been held the day before (a meeting of
which Wedemeyer did not approve) and out of that grew the
decision on the part of the GI's to meet with Secretary of
war Patterson. wedemeyer acceded to the GI request, but
plainly let it be known that he thought that the men
should have consulted him first.9

The widespread discontent in the South Pacific,
China, Burma, and India, and Japan was, in the words of
the Supreme Commander of the United Nations forces in the
Pacific, Douglas MacArthur, the result of the war

Department's announcement concerning the slowing down of

 

7Wire Service Bulletin, The Papers of Robt.
Patterson, Genl. Corresp., Box 23.

8Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), January 12,
1973, p. I.

9NewYork Times, January 13, 1946, p. 20.

 

197
demobilization and the work of Communists and discontents
in the service newspapers. MacArthur told Secretary of
War Patterson that he would have chosen newspapermen from
combat divisions, and with his usual self-assurance said

that there would have been no problems.10

These words,
spoken in private to Patterson, were the almost exact
Opposite of what the Commander had said in public.
MacArthur's public version was that the protests were the
work of homesick men "who are not inherently challenging
authority." These latter words were addressed to General
Eisenhower, the United States Chief of Staff, who incorpo-
rated them into a memorandum which he sent to President
Truman and which was released to the papers.11
The version of Robert Patterson who met with the
men in the Philippines was that these were "serious, sober
men with no disposition to be insubordinate." The
Secretary visited the Manila area and talked with a
grievance committee that had been selected by the men
themselves in an Open election. In what must have been
as grueling an encounter as any press conference the
Secretary ever faced, the men pressed him with questions:

was the State Department attempting to influence military
policy or political policy in the Philippines? Wes the

 

1
0Diary, Robt. Patterson, Tokyo, January 10, 1946,

The Papers of Robt. Patterson, Box 23, Genl. Corresp.

llwashington Post, January 10, 1946, p. 3.

198

86th Division meant to police the Philippines? How many
men would be needed in the Philippines, and what were the
intentions of the war Department in this regard? Why were
men being given combat training? The Secretary said that
he had a long "talk" with the men, but he was more of a
witness than a conversationalist. The meeting, however,
may have done some good, for the Philippines grew quiet;
and one of the members of the committee who met with him
said that it was the most complete description of war
Department policy that he had heard since he had been in
the Army.12 Patterson had gone the last mile to maintain
communications with the men.

The protests were not confined to the Pacific and
CBI area, but took place in Europe (France and Germany) as
well and undoubtedly they were influenced by the demon-
strations in the Pacific. Their causes were both general
and specific, universal and local. The first of them grew
out of purely localized causes. At Camp Boston, a
redeployment tent area in northern France, a group of GI's
found their sailing dates postponed four different times;
and before a fifth was given, they marched in ranks, two
thousand strong, on the headquarters of the camp and
presented a letter of protest to the commander who received

it and agreed to forward it to the theater commander, Lt.

 

12Wire Service Bulletin, Analysis Branch, war
Department, January 17, 1946, The Papers of Robt. Patterson,
Box 23, Genl. Corresp.

199

Gen. Joseph MoNarney. The demonstration was an orderly
one; the men were controlled by their non coms; the camp
commander Spoke to them; and no incidents grew out of the
demonstration.13

The GI's at Camp Boston had more than ample cause
for complaint. Their first sailing date was December 13,
which was postponed, and then they were given successive

1h Even

dates of December 20, December 27, and January 2.
this, though, might have been endurable under more
pleasant surroundings. Camp Boston was only one of a
number of tent cities that were built in northern France
to handle most of the redeployment chores, records, and
such other things as were necessary to speed the men on
their way home. From one of these "cities," they then
were sent to LeHavre where they were herded together for a
few days before being put aboard ships.

In late Fall of 1945, there was a fuel shortage in
the camps, and even the members of the garrisons suffered
from the cold. Though the weather of France was not
severe, it was too cold to face without fuel. At Camp
Pittsburgh, for example, GI's scrounged and even stole
anything that would burn. "Hit it with an ax. If it

doesn't bleed, burn it." They stole clothes line poles

 

l3Sta;§ and Stripes (Paris edition), January 7,
1946, p. 1. ,

1("Stars and Stripes (Paris edition), January 7,
1946. p. l-

200

from the "other" company; they stole furniture from
Officers; and even the sign that said Camp Pittsburgh went
up in smoke. Such fuel didn't help too much in a drafty
tent, though; and if one were a sufficient distance from
a stove, only mountains of blankets would keep him warm.
Transient troops, such as those who protested at Camp
Boston probably had two blankets each, the standard GI
issue. There was, of course, no running water in the
tents. Showers and toilets were in large buildings,
usually within 50 yards or so, but an awfully cold walk
if one had to get up in the middle of the night. Despite
all of this, most troops managed to endure it with a
minimum of complaint as the stay was usually from five to
seven days. But the men at Boston at the time of the
protest had spent close to a month in two different camps
and were due to be transferred to a third. For them, it
was a lonely Christmas and New Years as transient trOOps
usually were restricted to the camps, though their boredom
might have been leavened somewhat by visits from
prostitutes that no one worked very hard to exclude.15

Other demonstrations seemed somewhat more closely
related to general causes and were influenced by the
demonstrations in the South Pacific as well. "we are

joining our buddies in Manila," said a GI at a

 

15These camps were garrisoned by the 75th Division.
I was a member of that division and worked in two of the
redeployment camps for some eight months or so.

201

demonstration that took place in Paris, and although one
is hard pressed to understand why anyone engaged in
housekeeping and clerical chores in Paris would be
dissatisfied, particularly when he could sell a fifty cent
carton of cigarettes for twenty dollars in good times and
for ten dollars in bad, and bars of five cent laundry soap
for a dollar, they protested, nevertheless. It all bears
out everything that is said about relativity, as a combi-
nation of the profit motive and 1a dolce vita was not
enough to keep a group of a thousand GI's from marching
down the Champs Elysee, where they assembled before the
American Embassy. It was also not enough to keep them
from demanding at a meeting at the Trocadero that relations
between officers and men be put on a more egalitarian
basis. The Enlisted Men's Magna Charta wanted the
abolition of officers' quarters, the opening of officers'
clubs to enlisted men, and the abolition of the officers'
mess. Though not part of their Magna Charta, they also
wanted Secretary of war Patterson fired.16

Of the demonstrations in other Cities, the most
serious took place in Frankfurt. At the headquarters of
General McNarney, it was necessary to call out a contingent
of armed paratroopers to break up a demonstration of five

thousand men. Undaunted, though, the men held a second

 

16St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 9, 1946, p. 2A;
New York Timoo, January 14, 1946, p. 9.

202

meeting, in which 1000 men were present and asked MbNarney
to speak to them, and said that they would continue to
demonstrate until such time as he did.17 At their third
demonstration, McNarney spoke to the men stressing postwar
responsibilities, the care of surplus prOperty, and
personnel policy. The General also said that whether the
men came home would be the decision of the government, not
of the Army, and that if the men wanted replacements sent
over faster that the pressure would have to come from the
people back home on the draft boards. And, finally, he
said that it was time to end the demonstrations and that
he did not want to see any more Of them.18

Protests also took place in London and Vienna,
although not on the scale of those in Frankfurt and Paris,
but servicemen collected money and sent telegrams to
Congressmen by the hundreds. There were even a few
protests in the United States, but somehow or the other
they never aroused the interest as did those overseas, but
they were never on the scale of them either. An interest-
ing situation developed at an Air Force Replacement
Training Center in Utah where a photographer from a Salt
Lake newspaper took pictures of a demonstration, and was

detained by the military police who tried to confiscate

 

17PM, January 10, 1946, p. 8; January 11, 1946,

p. 10. q
18 .
New York Times, January 13, 1946, p. 13.

203

the photographs.19

Some two weeks or so after the demonstrations had
begun, they subsided, although vestiges of them could be
seen in the letters and telegrams that were still coming
into offices of the Congressmen and the President as well.
What caused them: a combination of things apparently. The
immediate cause of the outbreak in the South Pacific seems
clear enough: the change in war Department policy that
said that demobilization would be delayed; and except in
instances such as took place in Camp Boston, this was a
cause in other areas as well. But this does not go quite
far enough in way of explanation. There must have been
other causes; indeed there were. In assessing them,
perhaps it would be wise to look at the situation that
existed where the protests first started, the Philippines.

The Philippines was not a verdant paradise but
more of a slough of despond to the men who were stationed
there. They complained about the climate, the food,
recreational facilities, and their officers; but most of
all, they complained about not coming home. In these
complaints, they were abetted by the editorial policy of
the Daily Pacifican which published hundreds of their
letters, and had a few choice words of its own to say,
most of them in scathing terms. Of all service newspapers,

it seemed to be the one most often quoted by Congressmen.

 

192M, January 11, 1946, p. 10.

204

Much of the news published by the paper concerned shipping.
Since Manila was a harbor, and one of the busiest ports in
the Pacific, it was a common sight to see ships docked
from all over the world. And it was an infuriating sight
to see any of them leave empty, although there may have
been compelling causes as to just to why they did leave
the port empty. In addition, the Philippine area was one
that abounded with headquarters and service personnel, a
natural development since it was meant to be a staging
area for the great invasion of Japan. Nest of the men who
were stationed there were low point men who had not had
the opportunity to accumulate points for such things as
combat decorations. This area of discontent grew even
more discontented with the arrival of the 86th Division, a
redeployed division from Europe, and one that had protested
bitterly before it was shipped to the Pacific.

As early as October 1945, there were reports that
the men in the Philippines were in a highly disgruntled

state. Robert Trumbull in an article in the New York Times

 

said that they constituted "one of the most discontented
bodies of troops under the American flag." In support of
his statement, he mentioned that oral comments were
plentiful, as one can well imagine, and that throughout

the area the men had erected signs that said "Get us home."
He also mentioned that the Daily Pacifican published three
columns of letters daily in its gripe section, and that

most of these were concerned with demObilization. That

 

205

some of the gripes were justified Trumbull was in full
agreement. There were 77,000 men, for example, who were
supposed to be shipped from the area, but only 37,000
actually were shipped, and of these, many had not qualified
under the point system, but were men who were over age.20

Some six weeks later, and three weeks or so before
the protests began, Trumbull followed up with another
article that illustrated the seriousness of the situation.
He stated that mimeographed petitions tersely titled "No
Boats, No Votes" were sent to all Congressmen, and that
the we want to Get Home Now Union was also distributing
petitions that were sent to Congress. Of some interest
too, he said, was a mimeographed pledge that the Daily;
Pacifican had received, which pledged the signer not to
vote for anyone who would not within twenty-five days take
affirmative action to help remedy demobilization problems.
There were apparently plenty of problems, as the Ogily
Pacifican estimated that as many as 17,000 men had signed
one petition or another. The writer for the Timo§_also
thought that the increased volume of mail to the "Mail
Bag," the GI gripe column, was significant, for it was
averaging over 200 letters a day, most of which according
to the Mail Bag editor, were concerned with some phase of

demobilization.21

 

20NewYork Timeo, December 11, 1945: p. 4.

21New York Times, December 11, 1945, p. 4.

 

206

What was known to Robert Trumbull was also known
to the Congressmen. More than a month before the demon-
strations, Forrest Harness, Representative from Indiana,
in a letter to Eisenhower stated that "every possible
means should be taken immediately to relieve the deplorable
situation in the southern Philippines." And there were,
of course, the usual waspish critics who called for action;
some of their names have appeared earlier in the narrative
in different places, but for the sake of the record, here
they are: Edward O. McCowen of Ohio, Clare HOffman of
Michigan, Robert Rich of Pennsylvania, John C. Kunkel of
Pennsylvania, Clyde Doyle of California, Lawrence Smith of
Wisconsin, and Charles Clason of Massachusetts.22 Of some
interest is the fact that each of these men included
clippings from the Daily Pacifican along with the letters
from the servicemen. Not every Congressman who disapproved
of the Army's actions made his feelings public. People
such as the fair-minded Margaret Chase Smith in the House
and a frank Army supporter Scott Lucas did not like the
situation in the Pacific, but they wrote to Patterson

rather than joining in the attack against the

 

220.S., House, Cong. Rec., Appendix, 79th Cong.,
lst sess., XLI, ext. remarks Of Hon. Edward O. McCowen,
October 30, 1945; pp. A4588; ext. remarks of Hon. Clare
E. Hoffman, November 7, 1945, p. A4841; ext. remarks of
Hon. Robert Rich, p. A4883; ext. remarks of Hon. John C.
Kumkel, November 15, 1945, p. A4916; ext. remarks of Hon.
Clyde Doyle, November 21, 1945, p. A5050; ext. remarks of
Hon. Lawrence Smith, November 30, 1945, p. A4741; ext.
remarks of Hon. Charles Clason, December 3, 1945, P. A5310.

207
Army.23

But the protests developed, though not always out
of purpose or design. In large measure they arose because
the Army became caught up in cross currents of its own
promises and could not deliver on all of them. It wanted
to discharge men on points; it wanted to discharge those
who were over age; it wanted to bring home divisions that
had seen extensive combat; it wanted to discharge
nonessential men; and it said at one time that it would
begin discharging all men with two years of service after
March 20. With the exception of the point system, all of
the promises that the Army made were in large measure the
result of public pressure. But what the public wanted was
not always to the public good.

It would have been difficult to have said what the
public good was. The GI's who took part in the protests
claimed that they were aCting in the best interests of the
nation: nonintervention in the domestic affairs of other
nations, a democratic armed forces, the right to petition
for redress. The group of GI's in Manila were concerned
about policing the Philippines; those in Paris wanted the

abolition and democratization of the armed forces. A

 

23Letter, Secretary of war Robert Patterson to
Honorable Scott Lucas, United States Senate, December 28,
1945; Letter, Margaret Chase Smith to Secretary of war
Robert Patterson, December 12, 1945; "Demobilization,"
370.01, R.G. 407, Records of the Adjutant General,
National Archives, washington, D.C.

208

group of GI's in Oahu petitioned the Senate to appear
before them.24 Another group from Bremen, in a petition
addressed to the Senate said this of its actions:

whereas there are some people who may attempt to

discredit these resolutions . . . We resolve that

all men take notice that we are proud members of

a Citizen's army that fought a peoples' war and

that we'intend 5o strive to win and maintain a

peoples peace.
Though the resolution had a fine ring to it, the
intellectual distillation perhaps of one who at some time
of his life had done the assigned reading of documents in
his government class, it suffered somewhat when we remember
that those who voted on the resolution wanted someone else
to maintain the peace. In the somewhat more evanescent
vernacular of our own time: that was where it was at.

There were many resolutions, pledges, petitions,

and letters that were less eloquent than the resolution
from the GI's in Bremen, but they were just as definite.
Addressed to the President and Congress, they were

numerous in number and sometimes even angry in tone. A

group of GI's in Okinawa wired the President that they

 

21"Te1egram, Oahu Servicemen's Committee for
Speedier Demobilization to Senator Harvey Kilgore,
"Demobilization," The President's Official File, OF19OR,
Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.

25Telegram, Cpl. Allen, Chairman, Committee
Bremen, to the President of the Senate of the United
States, January 12, 1946, R.G. 46, Senate Records,
Petitions, and Memorials, Senate Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., National Archives, washington, D.C.

209
26

would like to be given a presidential pardon. A form

letter addressed to the President, rubber stamped "no
boats, no votes" and "Don't betray us. Get us home now,"
stated: "we are . . . tired of being cheated . . . and
robbed of the fruits of our sacrifice by a government that
treats us not as free citizens, but like subjects of the
countries we just defeated." And yet another form letter:
"we feel that the war Department has broken faith with the
GI's . . . Are you all so woefully uninformed? Are you all

so painfully unaware of the actual situation here." The

last letter did a masterful job of marshalling facts:27

we were told:

1) There will be no empty berths returning
U.S. (war Dept.).

2) we need only 200,000 men for occupation
(MacArthur).

3) NO men will be held after they become
eligible (war Dept.).

4) Men not needed for occupation or surplus
property disposal will be home by Mar. 1
(Sec'ty Patterson).

5) By March 1946, all men with two years
service will be eligible (war Dept.).

6) When shipping is available, men will go
home (Sec'ty Patterson).

7) 68,000 more berths assigned to AFWESPAC.

 

26Thomas C. Houlihan to Harry Truman, President of
the United States, January 12, 1946, "Demobilization,"
370.01, Records, Adj. Gen. Office, R.G. 407, National
Archives, washington, D.C.

27T. Rutherford to Harry S. Truman, Pres. of the U.
8., "Demobilization," the President's Official File,
OF19OR, Truman Library, Independence, MO.

210
Facts:

1) Navy takes 103 ships off Pacific run
(Daily_Pacifican, Jan. 4).

2) Ships leave Manila partly empty
(Daily Pacifican).

3) "Ifdidn't know men overseas had stopped
accumulating points" (Sec'ty Patterson).

4) Sec'ty Patterson in Guam said he didn't
know two-year men were to become eligible
in March 1946.

5) Discharges cut in half; a man may be kept
in the Pacific three months Sgter becoming
eligible (Lt. Gen. Collins).

 

 

There were form letters that protested the waste
of manpower and money, particularly in the Pacific: "waste
of men and money must cease or our desire for peace and
home will be mired down in corruption." A rather
professional effort, all of the 5's in the letter were
dollar signs.29

Many groups and individuals sent telegrams. There
were telegrams and telegrams; they came in by the hundreds.
Some stated their case simply and with respect: "Sir,
please do something about redeployment."30 Others were

more demanding and more involved: "your Obligation to us

is to pass immediate legislation guaranteeing an occupation

 

28Sgt. Terry E. Rempel (form letter) to Pres.
H. S. Truman, Jan. 19, 1946, "Redeployment," the
President's Official File, OF19OR, Truman Library,
Independence, Mo.

29Form letter (no signature) to Pres. H. S. Truman,
Jan. 14, 1946, "Redeployment," the President's Official
File, OF19OR, Truman Library, Independence, Mo.

30Telegram, Infantryman Jones to Pres. H. S.
Truman, Jan. 10, 1946, "Redeployment," the President's
Official File, OF19OR, Truman Library, Independence, Mo.

211

force composed of those who have sacrificed and endured
least. . ."31

It was a troubled public and a troubled Congress,
that reacted to the protests in the Philippines. The
Timgs said they were "indefensible" and that they were
"damaging us in the eyes of other countries."32 The
St. Louis Post Dispatch in an editorial called for an
"adult recognition of world affairs," but at the same time
found fault with the draft boards for only providing
37,000 out of a 50,000 quota; a few days later, though,
Marquis Childs in a column featured in the same paper said
that the seriousness of the responsibilities of the GI had
never been fully explained to him. And this was the
position that a number of newspapers took.33 The public
relations effort of the Army in regard to occupation had
failed said the Louisville Courig§_Journal: and the Egg
Orleans Times Picayune took almost the same position the

3k

next day. walter Lippman, featured in the washington

 

Post, stated that the problem was that we had never really

planned for an occupation Army, and that political planning

 

31Telegram, 125 Engineer Combat Batallion to Pres.
H. S. Truman, Jan. 12, 194 , "Redeployment," the
President's Official File, OFl9OR, Truman Library,
Independence, Mo.

32New York Times, January 8, l9h6, p. 22L.

333t. Louis Post Dispatch, January 7, 1946, p. 2B;
St. Louis Post Dispatgh, January 10, 1946, p. 30.

3"Louisville Courier Journal, Jan. 8, 19A6, p. 6;
New Orleans Times Picayune, Jan. 9, 1946, p. 8.

 

212
and military planning had never been coordinated and in
his phrase, "took place in separate water-tight

compartments."35 The Minneapolis Mbrning Tribune was

 

concerned with what the protests would do to the military
planning that was then in progress and called attention to
the postponement of hearings on the draft by the House
Committee on Military Affairs, and a week later a
correspondent of the Minneapolis paper spoke of the
confusion of military policy and said that the demonstra-
tions might at least teach the Army brass the dangers that
existed in thinking out loud, particularly in such things
as the statement made by George Marshall that it would be
possible to discharge all men with two years service by
March 20, l9h6.36

Some of the nation's magazines had their versions
of the protests. The New Republic and the Nation took as
expected a somewhat similar view, with almost identical
titles, distinguished only by the article Egg. One title
was Why GI's Demonstrate; the other was Why the GI's
Demonstrate. There was some difference in the articles

themselves, though, for the article of the New Republic

 

was a good deal more shallow than that of the Nation. The

New Republic thought that such things as shipping snafus

 

35Washington Post, Jan. 8, 1946, p. 9.

36Minneapolis Mornipg_Tribune, Jan. 13, 19h6,
p. 13; Minneapolis MorninguTribune, Jan. 20, 1946, p. 10.

213
had been a factor in GI discontent but thought that the
major reason was the Officer caste system, anathema to a
citizen's army.37 The Nation stressed the importance of
maintaining an occupation force and blamed the government
for not recruiting such a force. Trouble arose, the
Nation thought, from having men trained for combat doing
police work, and would only be settled when proper
replacements trained in new techniques were sent abroad.
The magazine agreed with the New Republic that inequality
between officers and men was also a factor.38 Timg_lumped
the whole problem under the heading of morale and thought
that the Army had done a poor job of explaining to the
GI's the importance of postwar policy, specifically, the
necessity for maintaining occupation forces, and the
magazine thought, too, that the Army officers themselves
had done an equally poor job of taking care of the men
under them and were more interested in their own selfish
pleasure.39 The U.S. News thought that some of the
trouble lay with a reluctant Congress and said that the
draft would either have to be extended or GI's would have

to wait overseas longer, for voluntary recruiting was not

 

37"Why the GI's Demonstrate," New Republic, CXIV,
no. 3, Jan. 21, l9h6, New York, p. 73.

38"Why GI's Demonstrate," Nation, CLII, no. 3,
Jan. 19, 1946, New York, pp. 60-61.

39nmy Son, John," Time, Jan. 21, l9h6, Chicago,
pp 0 20-21 0

214
supplying the proper number of replacements.

The reaction of newspaper editorial writers was
shared to a large extent by the radio commentators of the
day, in some instances they repeated the same ideas in
different language. The liberal commentator Martin
Agronsky of ABC thought that the fault lay with the Army
for not convincing our tr00ps of the necessity for occupa-
tional chores. Morgan Beatty of NBC was of the same
opinion."0 John W. Vandercook, also of NBC, echoed
Agronsky's and Beatty's thoughts and said that the problem
might very well have arisen from the Army's penchant for
issuing orders but of "never deigning to give any reasons
for them." Cecil Brown of MBS (thual Broadcasting System)
said that everyone could be brought home if we wanted to
Shirk our responsibilities. Cedric Foster of NBC spoke of
the anomalous position of the U.S. public: on one hand
they wanted to work with the United Nations, but on the
other hand, they wanted to divest the United States of the
very means by which such a policy could be implemented.

In a cogent sentence, Foster stated his opinion: "Impartial
analysis can only bring the statement that the country

must make up its mind; it can't be fish and fowl at one

 

“O"Radio Digest," war. Dept. Bureau of Public
Relations, the Papers of Robert P. Patterson, Box 23,
Genl. Corresp.

Since all of the information on radio broadcasts
is from the same source, I will not add any more documen-
tation until I reach the end of the section dealing with
radio commentators.

215
and the same time." Harry Marble of CBS seemed to think
that the Army was just as confused as the public about
military policy. The most critical statement of the GI
protests was made by Leif Eid of NBC who called them a
"mild form of rebellion," and warned the radio public that
we needed an armed forces to implement policy. Eid was
critical of a Congress that he thought spent too much time
yelling "bring Daddy back." Major George Fielding Eliot,
military analyst for CBS, also thought that the problem
lay with Congress and said that a Congressman thought in
terms of his 10,000 dollar a year job and votes and that
the Congressional reaction to demobilization and the
"brass hats" were "election day kickbacks."

There were columnists, though, who thought that it
would take Congressional action to straighten the matter
out. Possibly the most vehement of these was Fulton Lewis
Jr. who suggested that the armed forces wanted to hold on
to every establishment that they could. He predicted that
there would be a Congressional inquiry into the whole
problem of demobilization and two days later, he quoted
Senator wayne Morse as stating that the military had to be
eliminated from any traces of influence in the administra-
tion of civilian affairs. Richard Harkness of NBC said
that obviously what the protesters wanted was a complete

Congressional investigation of demobilization and there

216
were indications that they would get it.‘*1
If it was the hope of the GI's who took part in
the demonstrations to have the topic of demobilization
brought into public and Congressional scrutiny, they
succeeded admirably. On January 15, 1946, General Dwight
Eisenhower, Chief of Staff of the United States Army,
addressed the members of Congress assembled in the
auditorium of the Library of Congress. The Army, said
Eisenhower, had no "hidden ball plays." Men were kept in
service to police occupied territories, to rid them of the
vestiges of fascism, programs such as denazification; to
guard and maintain surplus property; to maintain lines of
supply and communication; to service Army installations;
to maintain a PX and postal service system, as well as
countless other tasks. Demobilization, according to the
Chief of Staff, had been.far more successful in execution
than anyone had ever hOped. During the fall months, he
stated the Army had exceeded its original estimates by
more than 1,500,000 men. The time had come, though, the
General stated, when there was a danger that if demobiliza-
tion schedules were maintained that the United States
would "run out of Army." To a degree, the trouble was a
lack of replacements, and this shortage of replacements

developed because the Army had not recruited a sufficient

 

"lnnadio Digest," Jan. 7, 10, 1946, war Dept.
Bureau of Public Relations, the Papers of Robt. P.
Patterson, Box 23; Genl. Corresp.

217

number of men, even though all previous recruiting records
had been broken and because of the failure of Selective
Service to provide the 50,000 men a month that the Army
had requested and assumed that they would receive.
Instead the Army had received 41,000 in September, 37,000
in October, 35,000 in November, and 21,000 in December.

Eisenhower said that he realized that there would
be a clamor to bring men home at the end of the war, but
that he had not anticipated the near hysteria that had
developed. Regardless of the homesickness of the men, he
thought that they would have to accept their responsi-
bilities as he knew American soldiers would. As to the
protests, he had wired his theater commanders that they
would serve no further purpose. The General said nothing
about what was euphemistically referred to in some places
as "the changing international situation." In the entire
speech, Russia was not mentioned once."2

The day after the General's speech, a subcommittee
of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs began hearings.
There were several things that interested the subcommittee
and on which they pushed Acting Secretary of war Kenneth
Royall on one day and Chief of Staff Eisenhower on the

next. Foremost of these perhaps was the problem of

 

A2Statement of General Eisenhower on Demobiliza-
tion, ext. of remarks of Hon. Michael A. Feighan of Ohio,
Jan. 17, 1946, House of Representatives, U.S. Cong. Rec.,
Appendix, V01. XCII, p. 496.

 

218
replacements. Speaking to Eisenhower, Edwin Johnson, the
chairman of the subcommittee, told him that it was the
Army's fault that they did not get sufficient replacements
and not that of the Congress, for the Army not only
conducted the recruiting campaign but was responsible for
the number of men called by Selective Service, for General
Hershey was under the command of Eisenhower. With a faint
touch of testiness, the mild-mannered Eisenhower disagreed
and stated that he was not aware that he had any control
over General Hershey or Selective Service.

Johnson was tenacious about this, and on the
following day he called up General Lewis Hershey to
testify. Hershey said that he took his orders from the
President, not anyone else. Hershey admitted that
Selective Service had fallen woefully short of the number
of men that had been requested by the Army, but he stated
that there were a number of reasons for this. The Army,
for example, had raised its standards in medical examina-
tions. It was no longer accepting illiterates, either,
which meant that 6,000 men who would have entered the
service were now exempted from induction. High school
students who had not been drafted unless they were in the
last half of the school year were now totally exempt from
service. Some medical students and graduate students were
exempted from induction. But possibly the most important
reason Selective Service was having difficulty drafting

men was that Selective Service on the order of the

219
President was not drafting men between the ages of l8-26,
and local draft boards were extremely reluctant to draft
fathers, which meant that Selective Service was pushed
even harder to get men from the young age groups. This in
turn was made more difficult by the Army's new authority
to enlist seventeen year olds; in other words, potential
draftees were joining some branch of the service before
they were inducted and were lost to Selective Service. As
for suggestions as to what should be done, Hershey thought
that many psychiatric rejects should be drafted and that
men who had served less than six months should be
reinducted into the service. Hershey also told Congress
that one of the most constructive things that it could do
was to take some kind of stand on Selective Service before
the Selective Service Act expired on May 15. Local Draft
Boards, according to the Selective Service Director, would
be reluctant to draft anyone if they thought the draft
would end within a few months. The subcommittee did not
react with much enthusiasm to this proposal."3 Obviously
the subcommittee built a fire under someone, though, for
the war Department in February reminded Selective Service
that quotas were not only not being filled, but that they

had fallen 75,000 men behind. Headquarters of the office

 

#BU.S., Senate, Comm. on Military Affairs, 79th
Cong., 2nd sess., Hearings on 81355, pt. 3, A Bill to
Provide for the Speedy_Return of“Veterans to Civilian
Leia. pp. 363-36L, 403-u09. 421—423.

 

 

220
in Washington told the local Draft Boards to comb through
past rejects.4h
The subcommittee was equally concerned with the
matter of surplus property and surprisingly enough, they
favored dumping it into the sea rather than having it
brought home, if having it brought home meant that
servicemen had to guard and maintain it. This was also
the opinion of some of the members of the House Committee
on Military Affairs. Congressman Dewey Short of Missouri,
speaking in reference to India, had this to say:
The overall picture seems quite clear to us,
the difference between the cost of maintaining
tr00ps and the income to be expected from sale
of this property does not seem to warrant keeping
ggnmfigy men iESIndia for a period of even six
The hearings were important to the Army and the
members of Congress insofar as they clarified some points.
The members of Congress wanted to know why there was a
replacement lag and Eisenhower told them why. Hershey
managed to apprise the subcommittee of the Senate of some
of the difficulties involved in the drafting of men. No
basic changes in the demobilization plan came out of the

hearings, though, but neither the committee of the House

nor the Senate requested any.

 

M'New York Times, Feb. 16, 191.6, p. 17.

h5U.S., House, Comm. on Military Affairs, 79th
Cong., 2nd sess., Hearings Before the Committee on
Efilitary Affairs, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., On Demobilization

 

 

of the Army, Jan. 22, l9h6, p. 9.

221

In less than two and a half weeks, the largest
demonstrations against authority in the history of the
United States Army had brought one theater commander and
one area commander to address a group of assembled GI's;
precipitated a meeting between the Secretary of war and a
GI committee; was the occasion for an informal address by
the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army to the members of
Congress; had forced hearings in both Houses of Congress.
Did the results equal all of this attention; in large
measure they did not. What they did do, though, was to
elicit a statement from the Chief of Staff as to what
priorities would govern demobilization in the coming
months. On January 15, 1946, Eisenhower issued a directive
on demobilization. One suspects that personnel worked
late in offices to get it ready before he appeared before
the members of Congress that same day.

The directive stated that beginning April 30,
19A6, all enlisted men, except volunteers, with 45 Points
as of September 2, 1945 or 30 months service were to be
returned home or on board ship returning home, and by the
same date the same stipulations were to apply to officers,
except regular Army, with 67 points or 45 months service.
By June 30, 1946, all enlisted men, except volunteers,
with 40 points or two years service and male officers with

65 points and #2 months of service were to have been

222

returned home or on board ship returning home.

Undoubtedly, the directive was a disappointment to
the men who had been given hope by George Marshall's
statement of the previous September that a possibility
existed that in late winter the point system could be
scrapped and all men with two years service could be
released. But at least they now knew definitely what the
conditions for discharge were and when they could be
expected to be released. That seemed to quiet things down
considerably, but the mail did not stop completely from
coming into the offices of Congressmen; but after January,
most of them seemed content to let demobilization run its
course. Since May of 1945, many of them had worked
diligently with the armed services to expedite the return
of servicemen, both under heavy pressure from the public.
The nature of this pressure and the reaction of the
Congress and the services to it is a subject all by itself

and will require an examination in some detail.

 

46Statement of General Eisenhower on Demobiliza-
tion, ext. remarks of Hon. Michael A. Feighan of Ohio,
Jan. 17, 1946, House, Cong. Rec., Appendix, Vbl. XCII,
p. A97.

Chapter 10

CONGRESS AND DEMOBILIZATION: CORRESPONDENCE,
HEARINGS, AND LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY

The protests and demonstrations during the early
winter of 1946 that had shaken the confidence of Congress
and the public in the armed forces had almost ended by
early spring. Now and then the newspapers would carry a
story of some group of discontented men, such as the #00
marines in Hawaii who sent a petition of protest to Truman,
but it was a small paragraph near the end of the paper.
Quite obviously, the demonstrations had lost their effec-
tiveness and the public had lost interest. The furor over
demobilization was pretty much at an end.

Congress seemed satisfied. Members of a subcommittee
of the House who had just returned from an eighteen thousand
mile trip through the Pacific area reported that the Army
and Navy were doing a fine job of returning tr00ps to the
United States.2 And throughout the winter, impressive

figures were released to support such statements. On the

 

1

New York Times, Feb. l7, l9h6, p. 25.

2New York Times, Feb. A, 1946, p. 5.
223

22h

26th of February, for example, President Truman said that
the Army had discharged 6,300,000 men, an impressive number
--75 percent of its strength at the time that Germany had
surrendered.3

News from the Navy and the United States Marine
Corps was equally sanguine. Some three weeks after Truman's
announcement concerning the Army, the Secretary of the Navy
stated that the Navy had demobilized 2,132,741 men and women
and that 303,123 Marines had returned to civilian life.“
Though the figures were not as impressive as those of the
Army, the Navy and marines had demobilized approximately
60 percent of their armed forces. Though both services
were running behind the Army, they caught up by the late
summer of 1946, for the Army by the end of August was
running almost two months behind and did not meet its
original demobilization schedule of June 30, 1946. It
stated that this was because of the large number of men
who were still in the hospitals, but that an additional
175,000 men would be cleared through the demobilization
pipelines by September 1.5

The Navy on September I made the rather unusual
statement that it had met its demobilization deadline,

although it still had over 60,000 enlisted men and 22,000

 

3New ng Times, Feb. 27, 191.6, p. 5.
"New York Times, April 17, 1946, p. 25.
5New York Times, August 20, l9h6, p. 17.

225
officers more than the projected postwar strength of 500,000
enlisted men and 58,000 officers. The Marine Corps stated
that it would finish its demobilization no later than
October 1, 1946, at which time it would reduce its forces
to the authorized postwar strength of 108,000 men and
officers. The Coast Guard had the best record of the
services, for it had cut its strength from 170,830 to a
total of 19,000, 11,000 less than the projected postwar
total of 30,000.6

Though none of the services except the Coast Guard
was able to maintain its original demobilization schedule,
all of them were within a few weeks or, at the most, a few
months of doing so. No one seemed particularly concerned
about these slight delays, and this was the case with
Congress as well. There was little Congressional concern
with demobilization after the spring of 1946; there were no
hearings after March; comments in Congress were insignif-
icant. Apparently content that the services were handling
the problem well, Congress was willing to let them handle
it. The most rabid critics grew quiet.

Undoubtedly the armed services enjoyed this new
period of quiet, for during the previous six months they
had received more criticism than they had received in the
previous six years. It is no great source of wonder that

much of this came from Congress, but it is of interest to

 

6Ibid.

226
note that most of it came from relatively few people, and
that these were "predictable" critics, Congressmen who had
been critical of Administration issues in the past. But
perhaps specific comment should follow a more general
discussion of Congressional activity.

Congressional activity has been discussed, but
usually in terms of Congressional response as specific
events and incidents arose, sometimes of particular
Congressmen and, to a large extent, in a chronological
fashion. That having been done, the focus now can be
placed on members of Congress as a whole rather than seeing
them as a part of the picture. Apart from activity on the
floor, Congress was involved in the answering of voluminous
mail, in hearings, and in the handling of the large number
of bills concerning demobilization. we shall deal with the
correspondence first.

It has been said that when demobilization was at its
peak Congress received as many as 80,000 letters a week.7
Congressmen answered specific requests from constituents;
they gave advice on how to secure discharges in hardship
cases; they looked into unusual situations. But to answer
even this mail required an inordinate amount of time.
Fortunately the armed services set up correspondence

sections, and members of the House and the Senate began

 

7Samuel Huntington, The Common Defense (Columbia
University Press: New York, 1961), pp. 38F39.

 

227
referring much of their mail to them. The armed services
knew about the problem that faced Congress, for they, too,
were trying to stand up under the pressure of mail written
by thousands of correspondents-~possibly the greatest
letter-writing campaign in the history of the United States,
at least until that time.

From every section of the United States the letters
poured in. One Congressman, upon being asked how many men
were in the Army, and upon being told that there were eight
million, humorously replied that there had to be more than
that for he had already received more than eight million
letters.8 Senator Elbert Thomas said that every day
Congressmen received in the aggregate thousands of letters.9

It must have seemed at times as if everyone wrote.
Everyone did not, of course, but those who did furnished a
good cross-section of American life. Housewives wrote;
farmers wrote; the servicemen themselves wrote. There were
letters bearing rural addresses written on gray tablets (the
kind on which children practice ABC's) and letters written
on expensive stationery that had the writer's name embossed

at the top. With constant, unremitting repetition, the

 

8U.S., Congress, Senate, Hearings before the
Committee on Military Affairs, Demobilization of the Armed
Forces, 31355J A Bill to Provide for the Speedy Return of
Veterans to Civilian Life for the Immediate Lfilitary Needs
9f_the United States and for Other Purposes, 79th Cong.,
lst sess., 1945: p. 6.

9Ibid.

 

228
letters made the same demand: send him home.

The services closed ranks and fought the battle
with electric typewriters and sophisticated printing
equipment. Most of the complaints were somewhat standard
--complaints about points, transportation, fathers not being
returned to their families, and requests for preferential
or special discharge. The volume of mail was such, of
course, that it was impossible to prepare individual replies
to all of the letters, and "form" replies became necessary.
The following, for example, was a typical form paragraph
that must have been included in thousands of letters:

The present policies for the discharge of

military personnel were formulated only after
mature consideration. While the war Department
is fully aware of the desire of many men in the
above category to return to civilian life, it
also recognizes its obligation to those who have
seen long and arduous service. The discharge of
all fathers would result in the retention of an
equal number of single men who have earned 8he
right to discharge under the point system.1

This particular form paragraph, one of several
blended into a form letter that Senator Donnell used, dealt
with a rather important tOpic: the subject of fathers. Not
surprisingly, the form letters that were sent out in answer
to questions concerning fathers did not satisfy everyone,

as may be judged by this response to a letter from the

Adjutant General's office.

 

10Records of the Adjutant General, Demobilization
370.01, Record Group 319, National Archives, Washington,
D.C.

229

Just why the Secretary of war did not himself

reply to my letter of September 2lst, but asked you
to do so, and why it took 17 days even to receive

a reply from you probably never will be known. The
rank and file of soldiers are young unmarried men.
They haven't the vaguest conception, most of them,
of the responsibilities and feelings of parenthood.
To permit them to fix the policy on this important
issue seems as stupid as it would be to permit
children to govern their parents.

The writer of this letter, a member of the New York
State Legislature, had put his finger on a very important
point, and judging from the volume of mail that the services
and Congress received on this issue, there were obviously
thousands who agreed with him.

One can only conjecture, incidentally, at the uproar
that would have ensued if the Army had not given any points
for parenthood as it had originally planned on doing;
indeed, such a plan would not have been entirely unjust,
for prior recognition of parenthood had already been
provided for by draft boards throughout the country in the
form of deferments. Many fathers were not drafted until
late in the war and not then until after all of the eligible
men had been called. Yet this meant very little to the
women who fought the battle of diapers and running noses.
Selective service metaphysics was for others to worry about;

the war was over and fathers should come home.

The women, of course, only echoed the thoughts of

 

llLowell H. Brown to Edward Witsell, Acting Adjutant
General, Oct. 15, 1945. Records of the Adjutant General,
Demobilization, 370.01, Record Group 319, National Archives,
washington, D.C.

230
their husbands. In thousands of letters they must have
asked the question "When are you coming home?" And although
it must have been discouraging to hear that her husband was
not coming home tomorrow, it must have been absolutely
enraging to hear that he wasn't doing anything, or that the
base commander was not following the demobilization program.
The result of all this was that Congress and the war
Department were soon bombarded with letters, the tone of
which was invariably critical and sometimes even insulting.
we have written back and forth several times,
Mr. Anderson, and you always say you are sorry.
I feel that you haven't answered my questions, and
then follows a new line of double talk that is
supposedly answering my questions and in reality
is saying nothing whatsoever. Shall we try it
again--this time without the double talk?
I've asked you twice before and I'll ask you
again, why is Congress allowing the brass hats to
keep a married man who fought in combat for
fourteen months overseas . . . ?12
Intemperate many of these women were--yes--but it
does seem that much of this can be understood. There were
the normal strains of running a family complicated by the
abnormal pressures of wartime--a husband away from home,
possibly new living arrangements with an in-law or otherwise,
an allotment that was considerably below the husband's

previous earnings, perhaps forcing the wife to work. There

were many emotional letters that mentioned either one or all

 

12Margaret Grim to Jack Anderson, House of
Representatives, The Files of the Adjutant General,
Demobilization, 370.01, Record Group 319, National
Archives, washington, D.C.

231
of the above, as well as letters from women who wanted
families but had postponed having them. Although wives had
no monopoly on vituperative correspondence, they were in
this area certainly the equal of anyone, many years before
the equal rights amendment. Their feelings, of course,
stemmed from what was undoubtedly a mistake in the Army's
point system, not giving points for a dependent spouse. In
this respect, the Army's policy differed from that of the
Navy, for the Navy gave points for any dependent-~a wife, a
child, or a mother; in short, anyone whose livelihood was
dependent upon someone in the United States Navy.

There was a group of women who have not been
discussed as letter writers: the mothers. As a correspond-
ent, "Mom" was not above castigating the brass, as indeed,
no one seemed to be, but she never reached the heights of
invective of the irate housewives. She also seemed to be a
great deal more patient and, other than an infrequent
maternal lapse, such as voicing concern over the boys who
were living in unheated quarters, she manifested consider-
able fortitude. Her letters could on occasion be poignant,
though, as may be witnessed by the following, the likes of
which must have driven deep shafts into those with
Lincolnian hearts.

He went into the army at eighteen years of age.

He did the job of a grown man well. Now he is past
twenty-one, a young man now, and I would like to
see him. I lost my little ten year old boy Sept.

28, l9h5, and I am very sad and lonely. I know
that I'll feel much better as soon as my son T/A

 

232

Louis Polite comes home again. He's in the HI
Battery, 35th F.A. Group, APO 103, N.Y., N.Y. 3

There were many letters written by the GI's
themselves; indeed they were prolific correspondents. Some
general characteristics of their letters may be quickly
mentioned. First of all, they were frequently suspicious
of Army sincerity about bringing the men home. Many
servicemen thought quite frankly that the services were
interested in retaining as much in the way of power and
prestige as they could possibly retain. Secondly, state-
ments by the servicemen, particularly GI's, questioned the
reliability of Army statements, calling attention to
discrepancies and contradictions when they happened. Last
of all, attention was frequently called to a specific
situation: someone with ninety points not being sent home
for discharge when he was eligible; or a transport leaving
a port without taking men on the ship who were eligible for
separation from the service. These letters that made
references to specific situations were letters incidentally
that Congressmen acted on quickly. AGO files abound with
no-nonsense communications from Congressmen.who wanted an
immediate investigation and a prompt reply.

Before commenting on the suspicion evident in some

of the servicemen's correspondence, it should be mentioned

 

13Lucy Barrett to U.S. Senate (no further address,
no date), Senate Records, Petitions, and Memorials, Senate
Committee on Military Affairs, 79th Cong., Record Group 46,
National Archives, washington, D.C.

233
that their letters differed importantly from those written
by parents and wives in that they were frequently joint
efforts including the signatures of dozens of men.
Apparently there were advantages to participation such as
this, not the least of which was the comfort of knowing that
the services could not proceed against one individual with-
out proceeding against the group. There were incidents of
serious pressure being applied against servicemen. As a
matter of fact, Congressmen when forwarding letters
frequently resorted to the device of quoting extensively
from the letter, then simply giving the name of the unit,
omitting the names of the servicemen involved. That there
was some wisdom in this practice may be gathered from
reading this paragraph from a letter of the Secretary of
the Navy:
In connection with the case of Lt. (j.g.) H.A.

Pressman, USNR, I have the honor to advise you that

I prOpose to ask the Chief of the Bureau of Naval

Personnel not to take any disciplinary action for

his violation of the Navy regulations in writing

directly to a member of the national legislature

in a manner derogatory to the naval services

rather thin forwarding such letters through

channels. #

The first generalization made about the servicemen's

correspondence was that it diSplayed a great deal of

suspicion. The following portion of a letter was taken

 

l("James V. Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, to
James E..Murray, U.S. Senate, the Forrestal Papers,
Firestone Library, Princeton University, Princeton, New
Jersey.

 

234
from one that was forwarded by a member of Congress to the
Army with a request as to the best means of answering it.

The Army states that we are needed. we may be
needed to maintain the size of the Army, to provide
a reason for continued high rank, but there is
certainly no need for anything we do. Because we
have tr00ps out here, we must feed, clothe, and
house them; we must maintain records and shipping
and a thousand other maintenance duties. And
because we have the maintenance duties to perform,
we must have troops. It is an endless circle.

There was this letter, too, forwarded by Margaret

Chase Smith:

When in God's name will Congress wise up to the
many sided double cross that the war Department is
handing the men over here who have no way to
protest. . . . What kind of a God Egmned country
are we supposed to be fighting for!

And this letter was from a service woman--supposedly

a servicewoman, at any rate. It was a mimeographed effort
sent undoubtedly to every Congressman. It was not as
profane as the letter quoted previously, but it surrendered
nothing in the way of emphasis. Signed Mamie MbGee it might
have been someone's invention. There were also names
included under "we the undersigned," but these were omitted
when the Congressman forwarded a copy of the letter.

Judging from the caution of the Congressman, at least he

 

15Joseph Zorn to Ralph H. Gamble, House of
Representatives, The Files of the Adjutant General,
Demobilization, 370.01, Record Group 319, National
Archives, washington, D.C.

6Margaret Chase Smith, House of Representatives,
to Robert P. Patterson, Secretary of war, Dec. 12, 1945.
the Files of the Adjutant General, Demobilization 370.01,
Record Group 319, National Archives, washington, D.C.

235
thought that the names were genuine. Genuine or not, it
was written by someone with a fair degree of literary skill.

We the undersigned respectfully but vehemently

protest against this palpable breach of all the
promises made by the war Department. we state that
we have sacrificed much willingly and have rigeived
in return only this: THEY SHALL NOT GO HOME.

Letters could be quoted, too, voicing the suspicion
of the man in the services concerning the desire of the
services to retain men and high ranking officers, but they
would add little to the argument. The most conclusive proof
that can be offered as to the frequency of this particular
charge is that the Army prepared a form paragraph in way of
an answer:

You may be assured that we will not keep men in

the Army in order to maintain rank for high officers
or because we want a large army. In this connection,
the Army is proceeding with haste to retire, reduce,
or relievi from active duty, its temporary general
officers. 8

What are some of the conclusions that can be drawn
from the letter writing campaign conducted by the public?
First of all, it was the most effective pressure of all.
Special groups did write: labor unions, do~good organizations

of various types, and the veterans' organizations themselves.

However, the volume of all of these was insignificant

 

17Edward A. Kelly, House of Representatives, to
Robert P. Patterson, Secretary of War, June 30, 1946, the
Files of the Adjutant General, Demobilization 370.01,
Record Group 319, National Archives, washington, D.C.

l8The Files of the Adjutant General, Demobilization
370.01, Record Group 319, National Archives, washington,
D.C.

 

236
compared to that from the servicemen and the public. Almost
all of the letters indicated either a complete ignorance of
postwar responsibilities or a complete indifference to them.
To some extent, this was the fault of the executive branch
of the government. To the argument that Germany had to be
denazified, and that surplus property had to be cared for,
wives of servicemen, if they mentioned the matter at all,
wondered why civilians couldn't do it. As for trouble with
Russia, the public seemed completely unaware of it; nor did
Congress show much awareness of it.

This is particularly interesting in view of the fact
that there was acute awareness of such trouble by the
President and his Cabinet. But Congress chose not to
discuss it, at least not on the floor of the House or Senate.
Wisely or not, members of Congress chose not to involve
themselves with this issue and concentrated instead on
expediting the return of servicemen. It would seem that the
unusually heavy volume of mail which they received helped
them to arrive at such a decision. Apparently, children who
had been taught in civics classes twenty years before to
write their Congressmen had learned their lessons well.

The letter-writing campaign conducted by the public
and the servicemen had an unquestionable effect on Congress
other than the immediately apparent one of enormously
increasing the amount of mail that they had to answer. A
number of hearings were conducted through the summer and

fall of 1945 and into the winter of 1946. Theoretically,

 

 

237
hearings are held for the purpose of enacting legislation,
but most of these were colloquies for the gathering of
information, a means of determining the efficiency with
which demobilization was proceeding and to make further
suggestions as to the means and areas in which such
efficiency might be improved. They made no basic changes
in the demobilization program.

They did do this much, though: they impressed upon
the armed services the pressure which was being placed upon
Congress for an ever speedier demobilization. The House
Committee on Military Affairs held hearings in June of 19A5,
some six weeks after the surrender of Germany, and at the
end of August, September, and October, and again in January,
1946. The House Committee on Naval Affairs held hearings
on the construction of the postwar Navy in September of
1945, much of which pertained to the return and discharge
of servicemen, and in February of 1946 on the effects of
budget cuts on the Navy's program of demobilization. A
subcommittee of the Naval Affairs Committee held hearings
on the transportation of men abroad in November of l9h5.
The Senate Committee on Military Affairs held hearings in
September, October, and January, and the Senate Committee
on Naval Affairs held hearings in November and December of
1945, dealing respectively with transportation and the
discharge of doctors from the naval service. Aside from
the hearings held by the armed forces' committees, there

were also hearings held by the Senate, Special Committee to

 

238
Investigate the National Defense Program, on the operation
of the separation centers.l9
That the hearings were an important means for the
communication of Congressional views and that the armed
forces were responsive to the wish of Congress can be seen

in a number of instances. In the hearings held on the point

system in June of 1945, for example, there was some

 

19U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military

Affairs, Administration of the Point System, Hearings before
the Committee on Military Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
June 19, 1945.(washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
19h5); U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military Affairs,
Demobilizatipn of the Armr of the United States, Hearings
before the Committee on iIitary Affairs, 79th Cong., lst
sess., Aug. 28 and 31, l9h5; U.S., House, Committee on
Military Affairs, Hearings before Committee on Military
Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 18 and 19 and Oct. h
and 8, l9h5; U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, Demobilizatipn of the Aggy of the United States,
Hearings before the House Committee on Military Affairs,
79th Cong., 2nd sess., Jan. 22, l9h6 (washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office); U.S., Congress, House, Hearings
before the House Committee on Naval Affairs, 79th Cong.,

lst sess., Sept. 19, 1945, Composition of the Postwa§_Navy;
U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Naval Affairs, Hearings
before a House Subcommittee on Naval Affairs on H. Res. A22:
Requesting Information from the Secretary of the Navy about
rans ortation . . . ; U.S., Congress, House, Committee on
Naval Affairs, Sundry_Legislation Affecting the Navy
ggtablishment: Item No. 201 Effect on Navy of Demobilization
and PrOposed Budget 0gp, March 19, 1946(Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office); U.S., Congress, Senate,
Committee on Rfilitary Affairs, Hearings . . . Demobilization
of the United StategrArmed Forces, parts 1, 2, and 3, on
S1355, 79th Cong., lst and 2nd sessions, Sept. 12-19, Oct.
l7-l8, 1945, and Jan. 16-18, 1946 (washington, D.C.: Govern-
ment Printing Office, 1945 and 1946); U.S., Congress, Senate,
Committee on Naval Affairs, Hearings before the Committee on
Naval Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess., on Sen. Res. 188,
DemObilization and Trangportation of Military Personnel;
U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Military Affairs,
Hearing on Senate Reg; 188 and Senate Res. 200, 79th Cong.,
lst sess., December 13,‘1945AIwashington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1915) .

 

 

 

 

239
dissatisfaction on the part of the House Committee on
Military Affairs that older men were being kept in the armed
services. Pressed upon this matter, Major General Stephen
Henry said "we want to separate men because of long and hard
service not because of age alone."20 Yet at the hearings
that were held in August with the same General testifying
before the same committee, he stated that all men of 38
years of age or older were being released upon request, and
that within a brief time the age level for automatic dis-
charge would be dropped even lower.21 The release of men
thought to be essential to the nation's welfare, particularly
doctors, was also expedited by the hearings. In August the
position of General Henry was that the release of doctors
might not be as fast as that of some other personnel, but by
early October, the general's position had changed remarkably,
and he offered the following account of a discussion with a
high ranking medical officer: "General Kirk was in my office
at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon. I told him I don't care

what the technique is or about anything else; just get that

 

20U.S., Congress, Committee on Military Affairs,
Administration of the Point System, Hearings before the
House Committee on Military Affairs, 79th Cong., lst sess.,
(washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, June 19,
19A5), p. 11.

21U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Military
Affairs, Demobilization of the United States Army, Hearings
before the House Committee on Military Affairs, 79th Cong.,
lst sess. (washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
August 28, l9h5), P. 19.

 

240
doctor and the nurse back home."22

Another instance in which Congressional pressure
was effective was in expediting the release of surplus
officers who did not qualify under the point system. On
September 22, 1945, the war Department issued a circular
which made them eligible, Circular No. 290.23 The decision
to release it may not have been immediately determined by
recent hearings that hit hard on men not having anything to
do, for most of the hearings had concerned enlisted men, but
the timing suggests that the Army had become sensitive in
this area. The circular also specified that men were to be
released if it were not economical to keep them in the
service, or if they were hardship cases, or essential to the
nation's national health, safety, or interest.

The Navy was also pressed on the possibility of such
releases; and although they did not have a policy concerning
national health, safety, or interest, Admiral Denfeld, Chief
of Naval Personnel, made it clear that any such request
would be liberally construed. And as for hardship cases

(for which the Navy did make provision), the Admiral

 

22U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Military
Affairs, Hearings before Committee on Military Affairs on
81355,,A Bill to Provide for the Speedy Return of Veterans
. . . (Washington: Government Printing Office, 19A5),
p. 55.

23U.S., Senate, Committee on Military Affairs,
Hearings before the Committee on Nfllitary Affairs on 31355,
A Bill to Provide for the Speedy Return of Veterans . . .
IWashington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, l9A5T,
P- 55-

 

241

indicated to Senator MbClellan at hearings of the Senate
Committee on Naval Affairs that these cases too would be
sympathetically received by the Secretary of the Navy
--possibly a hint as to whom the Senator should address
his request.24

There were in addition to these specific areas more
general ones in which the Congress whittled away at the size
of the Army. Somewhere in all of the hearings there was
discussion concerning the number of troops needed to
accomplish particular objectives, the need for men in the
United States, the use to which men were being put. State-
ments by witnesses at the committee hearings frequently
began with the number of men in the particular service being
discussed, the numbers demobilized, the numbers that would
be demobilized, the numbers of men with two years service,
with three years, or with four. Questions were answered as
to the number of fathers, pre-Pearl Harbor fathers, and so
it went.

Invariably the hearings were critical, though
usually not hostile, and sometimes they were dominated by

just a few men. This was particularly true in the Senate

 

2I"'U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Military
Affairs, Hearings . . . on Sl355,gA Bill to Provide for the
Return of Veterans . . . , 79th Cong., lst sess.,—Sept. 13,
l9h5, pp. 77-82; U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Naval
Affairs, Demobilization and Transportation of the Armed
Forces, Hearin s before the Committee on Naval Affairs on
Sen. Res. 188 Iwashington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
Nov. 15, 19A5), p. 67.

 

 

242
where Edwin Johnson of Colorado and Chapman Revercomb of
west Virginia of the Committee on Military Affairs probably
used as much time as the remainder of the Committee put
together. Revercomb was relatively new to the Senate, but
Johnson was an old hand whose seniority dated back to the
middle 1930's, and like many of the critics of postwar
military policy, he had been a prewar critic of policy as
well. He voted against compulsory selective service in 1940
and against the extension of it in 1941, in addition to
voting against the amendment of the Neutrality Act in 1941
and against lendiease.25 The ranking majority member of the
Committee, next to Chairman Elbert Thomas, Johnson sometimes
chaired meetings during the extensive absence of Thomas in
the fall of 1945 and was chairman of the subcommittee that
investigated demobilization in January of 1946. Candid to
the point of rudeness sometimes, he was equally frank with
the newspapers as he questioned Army policies at every turn.
There is little doubt that he was the dominant personality
of the committee; and although he apparently never succeeded
in swaying the other members to share the intensity of his
concern, his direct and sometimes sarcastic barbs, many of

which were picked up by the newspapers, undoubtedly

 

25U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Record,
76th Cong., 3rd sess., LXXXVI, Aug. 28, 1940, p. 11142;
U.S., Congressional Recgrg, LXXXVII, 77th Cong., lst sess.,
August 7, 1941, p. 6881; U.S., Congressional Record,
LXXXVII, 77th Cong., lst sess., p. 2097; U.S., Congressional
Record, 77th Cong., lst sess., p. 8680.

 

243
stimulated the Army particularly to work for speedier
release of its personnel.

The chairman of the sister committee in the Senate,
the Committee on Naval Affairs, was David Walsh of
bkssachusetts. Like Johnson, he was a critic of demobili-
zation policies, and like him, too, he had been opposed to
many of the Administration's prewar military policies and
had voted against selective service in 1940, also the
extension of it in 1941, as well as the lend-lease act and
the amendment of the neutrality act in the same year.26
Unlike Johnson in forcefulness of personality, walsh
seemingly never dominated his committee. Committee hearings
were few, brief, and low key in tone. Although walsh could
be a persistent questioner, he was always courteous. And,
most assuredly, he never subscribed to the theory that
members of committees should refrain from criticizing the
armed forces in public, although his comments did lack the
acerbity and color of those of Edwin Johnson.

The most active of the committees was the House
Committee on Military Affairs. Its chairman was Andrew May,
and it seemed to be the best balanced in terms of member
participation. Paul Kilday of Texas, Robert Sikes of
Florida, John Sparkman of Alabama, and R. Ewing Thomason of
Texas all seemed sympathetic to the problems of the Army,

although they, too, pressed it for speedier demobilization.

 

26Ibid.

244

The committee had its share of outspoken critics--Forrest
Harness of Indiana, usually fair; Dewey Short of Missouri,
always fair; and Paul Shafer of Michigan, usually fair in
the committee, but prone to ascribe motives when speaking
on the floor of the House. Harness was not always quiet in
the House either and was usually critical when he was not;
Short would even defend the Army if he thought that the
defense was justified. All of these critics (Harness,
Short, and Shafer) were Republicans who had Opposed prewar
policies: selective service in 1940, the extension of it in
1941, lend-lease, and the amendment of the Neutrality Act.27

Easily the strongest chairman was Carl Vinson of the
House Committee on Naval Affairs, although Vinson's strength
mainfested itself in the control that he exercised over the
committee's activities rather than in domination of the
committee's time. A committee that was rather well-balanced,
it appeared committed to rapid demobilization; but it was
never on the point of panic and no one representative
dominated its time.

There are a number of additional observations that
can be made about the committees of the House and Senate.
Apart from the fact that none of them in the hearings made

any major changes in the basic demobilization plan, it is

 

27U.S., Congressional Record, House, LXXXVII, 76th
Cong., 3rd sess., Sept. 7, 1940, pp. 11754-11755; U.S.,
Cong. Rec., House, LXXXVII, 77th Cong., lst sess., August
12, 1941, pp. 7074-7075; 77th Cong., lst sess., Oct. 17,
1941, p. 8042.

245

more important to note that none questioned the principle of
speedy separation of men from the armed services; far from
it, all of them wanted to see the wartime personnel returned
home as rapidly as possible, and other than comments directed
toward keeping enough men to perform the tasks allotted to
the services, there was no overweaning concern with the
postwar role of the United States.

On the whole, the armed services (particularly the
Army) did a poor job of justifying the retention of men that
they said was necessary for postwar security. There were,
to be sure, elaborate statistics quoted on numbers of men in
various theaters, with breakdowns of what the men were
doing, and of how many men would be needed to perform tasks,
but all of these figures were simply the estimates of
theater commanders, the result, one suspects, of the
haphazard mathematics in turn of thousands of unit commanders.
Lacking in the evidence presented by most of the services
was any thorough study of the nature of the assignment of
personnel; and equally lacking was any convincing evidence
that these assignments could not be performed with fewer
men. The armed forces' committees did question witnesses
on this, but the question was never pursued with the vigor
with which it should have been pursued, with the possible
exception of the number of physicians in the service.

Possibly the most effective of the services in
justifying the retention of men and of material was the

United States Navy. Within a few weeks after V-E Day, the

246

Navy had figures on what it wanted in numbers of ships and
men.28 Pushed ably by Chairman Vinson, the appropriate
legislation passed both houses, securing the necessary
appropriations for this Navy.

The last generalization to be made about the
hearings is that they are the best available evidence of
the generally defensive posture assumed by the armed
services in the immediate postwar period. There was a
pervasive, tacit, almost palpable understanding that ran
through all of them and that was that the armed forces would
be demobilized rapidly and the witnesses and the testimony
were heard to assure the committees that this was being
done. And despite random suggestions that a rapid demobi-
lization might be an inefficient one and perhaps even a
dangerous one, this was somehow lost sight of in the rush to
bring men home. Clearly, the services got the message; and
with prepared statements, answers to questions, mimeOgraphed
handouts, charts, and statistics, they sought to convince
Congress that everything was being done to bring home and
discharge all eligible men. Whether they would have acted
this expeditiously in the absence of pressure is open to
question. Quite possibly, if they had not been pushed, they

might have sought to restrict the number of eligible men.

 

28U.S., Congress, House Committee on Naval Affairs,

Hearings . . . Committee on Naval Affairs on House
Concurrent Resolution 80: Composition of the Postwar Navy,
79th Cong., lst sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1945).

 

247
But once men were declared eligible, there was little to be
gained by not returning them, and, of course, much to be
lost, not the least of which was the good will of Congress,
the body which would not only determine the size of the
armed forces but their appropriations as well. In summary,
then, the outstanding accomplishment of the hearings was the
communication of the consensus of Congress that the size of
the armed services should be reduced and all eligible men
returned to their homes.

This pressure so evident at the hearings was far
greater than any that was applied on the floor of the House
or Senate and more effective. Understandably so, for there
was, of course, the immediate advantage of confronting some-
one across the table in an eyeball to eyeball atmosphere, to
use a later, popular phrase: an atmosphere that not only
heightened responsibility but brought it into a sharp and
public focus; and for the individual being questioned, it
must have seemed an intensely personal focus as well. And
in these hearings, too, where reasonableness in both manner
and method usually prevailed, one senses a collective desire
to arrive at a solution to the common problem. Questions,
generally, were meaningful, and there was an absence of
rhetoric, of criticism for the sake of criticism, or a
grinding of axes, all in all best expressed perhaps as a
lack of partisanship.

There was no such lack of activity on the floor of

the House and Senate, though, where a far different

248

atmosphere prevailed. And since the partisanship exhibited
there has drawn the attention of scholars who have labeled
it as being the work of a group that was not very large, but
who have had no reason to make a detailed listing of who
these men were and what motivated them. Perhaps it would
add something to an understanding of demobilization to know
who these critics were; that is, those who were opposed to
the method, manner, or speed of demobilization or to a
combination of these or all of these. Possibly the most
singular characteristic of most of them was that they were
not only critical of demobilization, but that they had been
highly critical of preparedness measures before the war.

Nbst of them were Republicans--in the House 55 of
the 88-—and the majority of these were from the Midwest.
(See the table at the end of the chapter.) Democrats, on
the other hand, came from a fairly broad section of the
United States: California, washington, Mississippi,
Fhssachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Arizona, and Illinois.
Although the Democrats who had been in the 76th and 77th
Congresses supported the Administration's preparedness
program, with a few notable exceptions (John M. Coffee of
washington, Louis Ludlow of Indiana, and Jerry Voorhis of
California), the Republicans did not. In the 79th Congress,
there were 48 members--Republicans and Democrats--who had
served in the 76th Congress and had voted on the Selective
Service Act of 1940. Of these 48, 36 voted against it--75

percent. Now of these 36, 32 were members of the Republican

249

party--approximately 89 percent. Of these 32 Republicans,
26 were from the following states--rough1y what one might
call the Midwest, the states of the old Northwest Territory
--Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and, in
addition, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Nebraska, and Kansas. Every single member from these states
voted against the Selective Service Act of 1940.29

In the 79th Congress, there were 46 critics,
Democrats and Republicans, who had served in the 77th
Congress and had voted on the extension of the Selective
Service Act in 1941. Thirty-six voted against the Act--78
percent. Of these 36, 32 were Republicans, the same number
as before, and the same percentage--89 percent. Of the 32,
25 were from the Nfidwest (as previously defined). One did
not vote; one, William Pittenger of Minnesota, voted in
favor of the Act; the remaining 23 voted against it--92
percent.

In the United States Senate, the majority of the
critics in the 79th Congress were Republicans--l4 out of 22,
approximately 64 percent. There was this difference in the
Senate, though: some of the most powerful voices of
demobilization were members of the Democratic Party--Burton
K. Wheeler of Montana, Edwin Johnson of Colorado, David

walsh of Massachusetts, and Pat McCarran of Nevada. 0f

 

29U.S., Cong. Rec;, LXXXVII, 76th Cong., 3rd sess.,
Sept. 7, l9h0, PP- 11754-55.

250

interest is the fact that all four of these had opposed
Administration measures in the past. There were altogether
eleven members of the 79th Congress (proponents of a more
rapid demobilization) who had served in the 76th Congress
and had voted on the Selective Service Act of 1940. Seven
of them had opposed the Act: the four Democrats previously
mentioned (Wheeler, Johnson, walsh, and MbCarran) and three
midwestern Republicans (Capper of Kansas, Shipstead of
Minnesota, and Taft of Ohio). In the 77th Congress, the
same type of situation prevailed, involving most of the same
peOple, except that there were two additional Republicans
votes-~Langer of North Dakota and Willis of Indiana, neither
of whom served in the 76th Congress. Otherwise the
statistics were almost identical and there would seem little
need for repeating them, particularly since there is a table
available at the end of the chapter.30

In summary, most of the criticism from the 79th
Congress in the House and Senate came from Republicans. In
the House, there existed a bloc of Midwestern Republicans
such as did not exist in the Senate. In both the House and
Senate, many of those who were critical about how the boys
were being brought home never wanted to see the boys leave
home in the first place. Now, how much of this was well

reasoned conviction and how much of it simply the

 

3OU.S., Cong;_Rec., House, 77th Congress, lst sess.,
August 12, 1941, pp. 7074-75.

 

251
institutionalized rhetoric of a particular party at a
particular time and place is anyone's guess. It would seem
reasonable to assume, though, that much of it was campaign
rhetoric, particularly since the Republican Party was
looking for issues for 1946 and had sought to make
demobilization one as early as September 1944. There was
no one to demobilize then, as the war had not ended, but the
Republican candidate for President, Thomas Dewey, was
asserting that there would be no rush when the war did end
as the Administration would keep men in the service until
they had jobs to which they could return.

This assertion of Dewey's was ridiculous and untrue,
according to John McCormack, House Majority Leader, and
"conveyed to the American people and the officers and men
of the United States Army a completely false impression."
The Army had no intention of keeping anyone in the service
who was not needed, McCormack insisted; and, furthermore,
Dewey knew this, or he should have known it, as the war
Department had already issued a comprehensive statement
that men who were not needed would be speedily discharged.
Dewey's statement was politically motivated, McCormack
claimed, and was based upon information drawn from a comment
by the Director of Selective Service, Lewis Hershey, that it
might be cheaper to keep men in the Army than to provide an
agency to care for them. No such agency was contemplated,
argued the House Majority Leader, and Lewis Hershey had no

authority over demobilization, as this would be the

 

252
responsibility of the armed services. McCormack introduced
into the Congressional Record the correspondence of Robert
Patterson to the House Committee on Military Affairs in
which he "strongly favored" the enactment of legislation
that would prevent the retention of men in the Armed

Services "for the purpose of preventing employment or

 

awaiting opportunities for employment."31

The means of employing millions of men returned from
the service was potentially a lively political issue as it L},
was the conviction of a sizable number of Congressmen that
the Administration had not solved and could not solve the
problem of full employment without a war or quasi-war

economy. This thinking was not confined to the Republican

 

members of Congress, but they, more so than the Democrats,
particularly those from the Nfidwest, had sought to strike
the Administration in its soft political underbelly.
However, their attempts were sporadic and ineffective,
amounting to no more than harassment, as they themselves
were vulnerable to the charge of hindering the war effort

or of damaging the morale. So a political dilemma presented
itself to the Republicans: how and where to attack the
Democrats without losing more in the opposition party's
subsequent counterattack. Obviously, the floor of Congress

was not an ideal place, and as events developed, the

 

31U.S., Cong, Rec., House, 78th Congress, 2nd sess.,
Sept. 12, 1945’ pp. 7702-09.

253
Presidential election was not much better. Complicating
matters, too, was the Administration's successful conduct
of the war and the previous passage of the GI bill, a
measure that provided for subsidized education, loans, and
unemployment insurance, possible anti-depression measures
in themselves. There was nothing for the Republicans to do
but bide their time until the end of the war and hope for
issues to develop or to develop issues, which they did
--demobilization.

With the end of the war, the Republican party, freed
of the onus of handicapping the war effort with its criticism,
could attack the Administration for hindering the development
of the civilian economy and of retarding the return to
normal peacetime pursuits, all of which, of course, were
tied up with the return of the nation's servicemen. So the
reading of the servicemen's mail on both floors of Congress
was frequently accompanied with remarks voicing suspicion
that the armed services (often the Army) were to be used as
giant WPA's or C.C.C.'s; to effect a social revolution in
Japan; to uphold colonialism or imperialism or both; to
carry out international boondoggling now that the nation
had become disgusted with domestic boondoggling. Roosevelt
was dead, but the New Deal was not, and what was really
wrong with demobilization was what was wrong with the New
Deal. And with their war of words, they (and some Democrats
as well) complemented it with a legislative attack by

introducing a large number of bills to change the

 

254
demobilization program.

In the Senate, the first bill introduced which
requested the discharge of personnel was that of Senator
Ellender of Louisiana. 3637 called for the discharge of
certain personnel "to aid in making possible the education
and training of physicians and dentists to meet essential
needs." This bill was introduced two months before the war
against Germany ended. Seven weeks later, Edwin Johnson of
Colorado requested in Senate Concurrent Resolution 16 the
discharge of service personnel on a "first in, first out
basis." In September of 1945, Senator Henrik Shipstead of
Minnesota asked that all men under 20 years of age who
desired to resume their education be discharged. In
November Senator Chapman Revercomb of west Virginia (S.J.
Res. 116) wanted inductions stopped and the release of
"certain members" of the armed forces. Later, Senator Hugh
Butler of Nebraska also wanted the release of "certain
members."32

The activities of the Senate were minor, though,
compared to the activities of the House. In July, 1945,
Congressman James H. Morrison of Louisiana introduced H.R.
3838 which would have provided for the discharge of anyone

who had lost two or more brothers or sisters in the war.

 

32U.S., Senate, Cong. Rec., 79th Cong., lst sess.,
XLI, Feb. 21, 1945, p. 1410; hhy'3, 1945, p. 2101; Sept. 26,
lghiéQEL 9005; NOV. 89 19459 P0 10A87; NOV. 2 9 1945,
p. .

255

In September there was a flood of bills. H.R. 4010
introduced by Daniel Reed of New York provided for the
discharge of all members of the armed forces who had served
at least 18 months. Paul Shafer of Michigan requested the
discharge of anyone who had served at least two years (H.R.
4013). John Jennings of Tennessee (H.R. 4088) specified 18
months. Overton Brooks of Louisiana asked that men be
discharged after two years of service (H.R. 4604). Herbert
McGlinchey of Pennsylvania wanted men discharged who had
served three years in the service or eighteen months
overseas.33

And while some Congressmen thought that time should
be the basis for discharge of personnel, others thought that
marriage and family responsibility should take precedence.
H.R. 4062 introduced by George Schwabe of Oklahoma would
have discharged married men; as would the bills of Joseph
Talbot of Connecticut and George Sadowski of Michigan (H.R.
4668 and H.R. 5425). Other bills provided for the discharge
of married men if they were fathers. In September this was
requested by Herbert MbGlinchey of Pennsylvania (H.R. 4146),

and Edwin Arthur Hall of New York (H.R. 4434) repeated the
3#

request within a month's time.

 

33U.S., House, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th Cong., lst

sess.. July 18. 1945. p. 7743; Sept. 12. 1945. p. 8575;
Sept. 17, 19‘5, p0 8659; NOV. 6, 19145, p. 10469.

3"U.S., House, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th Cong., lst
sess., Sept. 14, 1945, P. 8616, Nbv. 13, 1945, P. 10628;
ConggRec., KLII, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., Feb. 8, 1946;
House, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th Cong., lst sess., Sept. 20,
1945, p. 8879, Oct. 18, 1945, p. 9821.

 

 

 

256

Phny members of Congress were concerned about the
interruption of the education of the young. The bill of
Henry Larcade of Louisiana would have discharged anyone who
"desired to continue his education or training," and that of
George Schwabe of Oklahoma was identical with that of
Larcade (H.R. 4376), introduced something like a month
later.35

There were also bills that provided for the discharge
of "certain physicians, dentists, and veterinarians" (H.R.
4425) introduced by Philip Traynor of Delaware. A bill to
provide for the immediate discharge of anyone who was
awarded the Purple Heart (H.R. 4275) was introduced by
Thomas Lane of Massachusetts. The bill of Frank Chelf of
Kentucky, would have discharged anyone who had amassed a
total of 35 Points (H.R. 4729). Members of the Normandy
invasion would have been awarded five extra points to
accelerate their discharge from the service by House
Concurrent Resolution 110: Daniel Flood of Pennsylvania.36

There were also a number of bills with omnibus
proposals. The provisions of H.R. 4585 introduced by
Representative Noble Johnson of Indiana provided for the

discharge of anyone who had served eighteen months or who

 

35U.S., House, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th Cong., lst
sess., Sept. 19, 1945, p. 8799, Oct. 15, 1945, p. 9673.

36U.S., House, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th Cong., lst
sess., Oct. 18, 1945, g. 9821; Oct. 4, 1945, p. 9372;
Nov. 19, 1945, p. 1082 ; Dec. 11, 1945, p. 11855.

 

257

had a wife or family, or who was under eighteen, but not
over 25, and who had had his education interrupted. Similar
were the educational provisions of H.R. 4471 that stated
that anyone who entered the service before he was 25 was
presumed to have had his education interrupted. The
provisions of H.R. 4467 contained many of the other bills
but would have also discharged anyone who had dependents
and would also have stopped selective service: a familiar
stipulation in many of them.37

These three bills just mentioned (H.R. 4585, H.R.
4471, and H.R. 4467) were all opposed by the Army. Of H.R.
4471 the Legislative and Liaison division stated that it
would destroy the morale of the men who did not want to
pursue their education. As for H.R. 4581, the division
thought that it was fraught with loopholes and weak, elastic
terminology. There were similar objections to H.R. 4467.38

The Navy also made reports upon proposed legislation.
In response to a question from the House Committee on
Military Affairs to H.R. 4515 and H.R. 4518, the Navy stated
that the bills were similar in their requests: provisions

for discharge to pursue one's profession, to further

education, to care for a wife or dependent. The Navy took

 

37Robert P. Patterson, Secretary of war, to Andrew
J. May, Chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs,
Feb. 22, 1946; Kenneth C. Royall, Acting Secretary of war,
to Andrew J. May (no date)--House Records, Accompanying
Papers, R.G. 233, National Archives, washington, D.C.

38Ibid.

258
note that H.R. 4515 would release an individual upon request
after 18 months' service, whereas H.R. 4518 specified 12
months. There was this difference, too: H.R. 4515 provided
for the discharge of anyone over 35 years of age, as well as
the end of inductions.39

There were a number of bills that did not relate
specifically to the discharge of personnel, but would have
accelerated their discharge. There were also a number of
resolutions requesting the withdrawal of trOOps from China:
(H. Res. 408) by Hugh DeLacy; (H. Res. 409) by John Coffee;
and (H. Res. 411) by Helen Gahagan Douglas.

There were other resolutions making identical
requests. That of Ned Healy, Congressman from California
(H. Res. 412) wanted the withdrawal of U.S. troops in order
"to permit and encourage free democratic determination of
their form of government." The resolution of Ellis E.
Patterson repeated the request in almost identical language
(H. Res. 413). Congressman Adam C. Powell also requested
the withdrawal of troops from China, with his resolution
(H. Res. 425). Congressman Franck Havenner's resolution was
more comprehensive than that of any of the others in that it

called for the return of Army tr00ps from overseas points

 

390. S. Colclough, U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General,
to Honorable Andrew May, Chairman, House Committee on
Nfilitary Affairs, Jan. 31, 1946, House Records, Committee
on.Military Affairs, Accompanying Papers, 79th Cong., R.G.
233, National Archives, washington, D.C.

 

259
(H. Res. 421) and also those of the Navy (H. Res. 422).l’O
Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, with the
exception of H. Res. 421 and H. Res. 422, they were never
reported from the committee.

Though the bills and resolutions discussed thus far
seem extensive, there were any number of others; some of
them were almost a restatement of previous bills; some of
them sought to restrict the jurisdiction of commanding
officers to declare trOOps essential; and others sought to
discharge men who had reached a specified age. So crowded
for time did the Navy become that they developed the
practice of objecting to bills collectively. The Navy, for
example, said that it was Opposed to H.R. 4498; that it
would interfere with the Navy's program of demobilization,
and that for much the same reason the Navy also objected to
the following: H.R. 4662, H.R. 4791, H.R. 4604, H.R. 4668,
H.R. 4677, H.R. 4729, H.R. 4849, H.R. 4894, and H.R. 5019,
as well as House Joint Resolution 281 and House Joint
Resolution 282.‘{'1

There were, in summary, 44 bills that provided for

the demobilization of certain groups and categories of men

 

kOU.S., Congress, House, Cong. Rec., XLI, 79th Cong.,
lst ses§., Nov. 26, 1945, p. 1107; Nov. 28, 1945, p. 11156;
p. 1107 .

 

410.3. Colclough, U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General,
to Honorable Andrew May, Chairman of the House Committee on
Military Affairs, Feb. 12, 1946; House Records, Committee on
Military Affairs, Accompanying Papers, 79th Cong., R.G. 233,
National Archives, washington, D.C.

260
from the armed services and seven that would have ended
selective service; and this does not include House Joint
Resolutions, one of which also pertained to selective
service, nor does it include the eight House Resolutions,
most of which were concerned with China, and one House
Concurrent Resolution. In addition, there were seven Senate
bills, three Senate Joint Resolutions, and one Senate
Concurrent Resolution.

This was prodigious and yet futile legislative
activity. There were hearings that were held on the few
that were legislative in nature, but those that called for
basic changes in the demobilization program were never
reported from the committee to which they were assigned.
This was fortunate, for the adoption of almost any of these
would have meant chaos to the discharge program. There
were, however, no laws passed by Congress that changed any
of the plans for demobilization. The program was designed
and implemented by the armed forces--the point system, the
transportation system, and the separation centers. All
changes that were made in the program were made by the
services themselves, or, more accurately, by the war and
Navy Departments.

In summary, then, Congress in the period 1945-46 was
under tremendous pressure to bring servicemen home, the
overwhelming preponderance of which came from close
relatives (wives, mothers, and fathers) and the servicemen

themselves. A group of unregenerate Republicans and a

261
smaller group of Democrats sought to make radical changes
in the program. Yet sanity prevailed. Demobilization was
expedited but continued under the control of the armed
services. Congress has been criticized for the part that
it played in the disbandment of the nation's forces at the
end of the war, the usual interpretation being that the
national interest was ignored in the survival game of
politics, leaving the United States powerless to influence
its policies in Europe and unable to help its friend, China,
in the Far East. The President as well has been criticized
for not doing more than he did. Both Congress and the
President have answered these charges by saying that there
was nothing that they could have done, that it was the will
of the people. And whether it was indeed the will of the
people or the majority of the peOple has also been
questioned, all of which can probably be most suitably
answered in a chapter that deals with demobilization and

United States foreign policy.

 

262

 

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263

 

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264

 

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265

 

 

 

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Chapter 11

A RETROSPECTIVE LOOK AT DEMOBILIZATION: FOREIGN
POLICY AND SOME OTHER AFTERTHOUGHTS

On October 1, 1945, Harry Truman sat at his desk.
Enter at this time, Harold Smith, Director of the Budget.
Smith was something of a gossip with a fine penchant for a
funny line, a good ear for popular quips: the State
Department fiddles while Byrnes roams, he said on one
occasion. But Harry Truman was in no mood for humor that
day. He had heard only recently of MOlotov's tactics and
attitude at the London Conference, the tactics of which,
according to Byrnes, helped account for the fact that the
Conference accomplished nothing, and an attitude of which
suggested that even less might be accomplished in the
future. Byrnes report obviously disturbed the President,
for he wanted to know how many men would be in the Army
as of June 1946.

Smith told the President that there would be
2,000,000. Truman said that there were some people in the
world who were only impressed with the number of divisions
that a country possessed. Smith reminded Truman that he
had an atomic bomb up his sleeve. The President answered

267

268
that he knew that but he doubted that he could even use

it.1 In that conversation was the essential ambivalence
that Harry Truman felt: how to use military strength as an
instrument of policy when that strength consisted of a
super weapon that he could not or would not brandish and
of an army that was being disbanded rapidly. It was a
dilemma that he was not able to resolve over the course of
the next six or seven months either.

Recalling the frustration that he felt during that
time, particularly concerning the disbandment of the armed
forces, Truman said a few years after he left the
Presidency, that it was not a demobilization of the army
but a "disintegration" of it. And in the early 1960's, he
told Merle Muller that ". . . nobody gave a damn anymore
. . . the Mommies wanted to get their little boys home."2

Truman's concern with the rapid disbandment of the
United States Armed Forces can also be seen in some of his
correspondence with members of Congress. Answering a
letter from Congressman John Folger of North Carolina
(November 1945), the former President said that if we did
not have the necessary manpower to support our demands

then we were "heading for a third world war." Four months

 

1Diary of Harold Smith, Oct. 5, 1945, Roosevelt

Pa ers, FDRL.

 

2‘ . . .

Harry S. Truman, Mem01rs, I, Year of Dec151ons
(New York: Doubleday and Sons, Inc., 1955), p. 509; Merle
Miller, Plain Speaking (New York: Berkely Publishing
Corporation, l974)1

 

 

269

later, Truman told Congressman Jerry Voorhis of California,

who had requested information concerning the presence of
American troops in India, that he wished that everyone
could come home immediately. Then stating that this was
not possible, the President added: "there are certain
peOple in the world whose only understanding of a treaty
is the ability of the other party to support it with
force."3

These thoughts communicated to his Director of the
Budget and to two of the members of Congress privately
were somewhat different from what the President was saying
publicly--or more accurately perhaps from what he was not
saying. Though Truman years later liked to create the
impression that he registered strong and forthright

Opposition to demobilization there is no proof that he

did. Indeed, a review of the President's press conferences

from September 1945 to April 1946 reveal that the President

supported the program of demobilization. It was not until
April 17, 1946 that he spoke of the "disintegration" of
the armed forces. And this was at a time when two-thirds
of all of the forces and three-fourths of the Army had
already been demobilized. And his use of the word

"disintegration" was in itself interesting. It was not

 

3Harry S. Truman to John Folger, House of
Representatives, November 16, 1945, 0Fl90R, Harry S.
Truman Library, Independence, Missouri; Harry S. Truman
to Jerry Voorhis, House of Representatives, March 2, 1946,
0Fl90R, Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.

 

‘1',

 

270
one of a long train of blistering adjectives condemning a
rapid disbandment of the armed forces, but a somewhat
humorous aside, uttered by him during a routine discussion
of demobilization, although his use of the word was
undoubtedly meant to be sardonic.

The nearest thing to criticism of the demobiliza-
tion program by the President until the April 17th Speech
incidentally was a statement in his State of the Union
message that it was the need for troops overseas that
would govern the return of men. This was certainly mild
criticism, if it was criticism at all. In summary, then,
the memory of Truman that he took a bold position on
demobilization was simply not so. His position was a
careful one, calculated not to upset the public, and it
was just as political probably as the position of any
other elected office holder. The President simply had a
larger constituency.

There were men, however, some of these were the
President's men (cabinet officers, high ranking military
officials) who thought that the public should be given the
hard facts about our demobilization program whether it
upset them or not. The Chief of Staff of the United
States Army on October 29, 1945 spoke of the need to carry
out our international responsibilities and of the pell-mell
rush to discharge men as contributing to the "disintegra-
tion" of the armed forces. It would in time, as noted

earlier, become a very popular word. A few days later,

271
the Undersecretary of war spoke to this same point. On
November 9, 1945, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy said
that "we were embracing weakness . . . that we were likely
to become a punctured balloon." A week later Admiral King
said that the Navy "could not fight a major battle as the
result of a too rapid demobilization." In December of

1945, Anthony Leviero, writing in the New York Times, said

 

that there had been a rash of statements concerning the
rapid disbandment of our armed forces and that Marshall,
King, and Spaatz had all deplored the "loss of efficiency"
in military units and all had used the word "disintegration"
to describe it.“ Nevertheless demobilization went forward.

There were, however, plans underway to slow it
down. On November 1, 1945, Patterson wrote to the
Secretary of State that the war Department was in the
midst of a "drastic demobilization"; and that if the rate
continued, every man overseas could be discharged by
September 1, 1946. If there were an adjustment in this
rate (a slowing down), then there would have to be a
planning period of four months, referred to as a "planning
lag," in short, decisions as to numbers of troops overseas
in May of 1946 would have to be decided in January. To

help war implement State's policy, Patterson attached a

 

hNew Yo k_Times, October 30, 1945, p. 1; November
4, 1945, p. 25; November 10, 1945; p. 7, November 17,
1945, p. 11; December 2, 1945: P. 10E.

 

272
carefully phrased questionnaire to his letter.5
Secretary of war Patterson did not receive an
answer to his letter and questionnaire of November 1, 1945
until almost a month later, and there was nothing in the
answer of any specific nature. Strewn throughout in his
answers to questions were phrases such as "depends on
developments," "as long as required," "cannot predict with
any certainty." Two questions loomed large. Stating that
the amount of trOOps in Germany would be sufficient for
occupation responsibilities but inadequate "should a firm
stand against a militant power prove desirable," Patterson
asked somewhat euphemistically if this were in "consonance"
with the present thinking in the State Department. Byrnes'
answer was that he doubted whether twice the projected
strength of mid-summer 1946 would be a sufficient force.
More important, said the Secretary, was adequate force "to
give evidence of a determination to back up the policies
of our government. . . ."6 He mentioned, however, no
particular number of men that would furnish such evidence.

The second important question concerned "the minimum

interests from which the United States will not retreat

 

5United States, Department of State, Forei n
Relations, I, 1946, 811.20/11-145, Memorandum y the
Secretary of War (Patterson) to the Secretary of State,
November 1, 1945, pp. 1111-1112.

6U.S., Dept. of State, For. Relations, 1, 1946,
811.20/11-45, The Secretary of State (Byrnes) to the
Secretary of war (Patterson), November 29, 1945,
pp. 1128-1135.

 

 

273
in the event of a clash of interests in the Far East."
Byrnes said that it was not possible to make a statement
of "minimum interests" and thought that this particular
matter and others could best be handled by "consistent and
close cooperation between the Departments concerned."7

Apparently convinced that he would get no support
from the State Department, Patterson stated his convictions
in a letter to the President. In this letter, November
30, 1945, the day after he had received Byrnes' rather
noncommittal reply, he stated that the shortage of troops
in Europe was becoming critical and that the rate of
return of men from Europe in the first quarter of 1946
should be sharply curtailed. This would mean a retention
of men eligible for separation (230,000) for a period from
one to six months.

Whether the position of Patterson resulted from a
sincere conviction that occupation responsibilities could
not be carried out if troops were further reduced or
whether he desired to have them on hand in the eventuality
Of an attack by a militant power is anyone's guess. There
is little question, however, of what the Joint Chiefs
thought or the members of the State war Navy Coordinating
Committee; their thought was directed toward United States
security in the event of another war. In a memorandum

prepared by the Joint Chiefs in September 1945, and

 

7Ibid.

 

274

republished in March 1946, the statement was made that
the greatest danger to the United States consisted in the
breakdown in relations between Britain, the United States,
and Russia.8 In such an eventuality, the United States
must be prepared to stand alone. The degree to which
we should be prepared may be gauged by the following
statement:

When it becomes evident that forces of aggression

are being arrayed against us by a potential enemy,

we cannot afford through any misguided and perilous

idea of avoiding an aggressive attitude to permit

the first blow to be struck against us. Our

government under such conditions, should press the

issue to a prompt political decision while making

all prgparations to strike the first blow if
necessary.9 [fltalics mine_/

 

 

The study was general and did not specify an enemy
against whom we would make the first strike, if necessary,
but given a prostrate Germany and Japan, and the
unlikelihood of a manic Britain out to avenge Cornwallis,
it seems likely that the Joint Chiefs had the Soviet Union
in mind. In late March 1946, they specifically stated
that this was indeed the case: ". . . the consolidation

and the development of the power of Russia is the greatest

 

8United States; Department of State,
For. Relations, 1946, 1, SWN CC282, Memorandum Prepared
by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, March 27, 1946, p. 1161.

 

_ 9U.S., Dept. of State, For. Relations, 1946,
l, SWN CC282, Memo. Prepared by the JOint Chiefs of Staff,
March 27, 1946, p. 1163.

 

275

threat to the United States in the foreseeable future."10
In a paper read to the State war Navy Committee several
days later, the Acting Department of State member (Matthews)
in his memorandum argued for the reconstitution of our
military strength in the "immediate future." Diplomatic
and non-military action would have to be used against
Russia, Matthews maintained, until such time as an
extension of Russian power put her in a vulnerable

position: ". . . until such extension involves the seizure
of regions in which the powers of the Soviet armies can

be countered defensively by the Naval, amphibious, and

air power of the United States."11

In using United States
armed forces, the memorandum stressed the necessity of
securing the support of the United Nations. An interesting
omission in these realistic studies was an absence of
reference to the atomic bomb, but this was at a time, of
course, when we still sought some control of atomic
weapons. And since the study was written in 1946, early
1946, we may not have possessed them in such numbers as

to be considered a sufficient deterrent.

That there was concern then on the part of the war

 

loU.S., Dept. of State, For. Relations, 1946, I,
SWN, 4096, March 29, 1946, the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
the Secretary of State, March 29, 1946, p. 1165.

llU.S., Dept. of State, For. Relations, 1946, I,
Memorandum, by the Acting Dept. of State Member (Matthews)
to the State War Navy Coordinating Committee, April 1,
1946, p. 1169, p. 1171.

 

 

276
and State Departments particularly that Russia could
conceivably dominate most of Europe with her military is
an incontrovertible fact. There was also fear that she
might dominate the Far East, and there were a number of
serious studies on this, but the thinking was that it
would be through subversion and through influence exerted
on the Chinese Communists rather than through any naked
display of military power. Her military power, in the Far
East, to be sure, was not what it was in Europe, but our
own military power in China particularly was not great
either.

It was in Europe, though, that the Russians were
particularly feared, and perhaps with some reason. Firmly
situated in the countries contiguous to her and possessed
of an Army greater in numbers than our own, but not as
great as some had imagined, she seemed formidable indeed.
This essentially formidable picture was enhanced by our
recent memories of how she had clawed the living guts out
of an army that was once thought to have been invincible,
and in doing so, demonstrated that she could be as
ruthless as her enemy. Now in possession of Eastern
Europe, the question in the minds of many peOple was
whether she would work to subvert other European countries,
even worse than this, would she make war against them.
Some thirty years after the event our fears at that time
seemed to have been so terribly exaggerated. The Russian

juggernaut did not, after all, roll all the way to the

 

277

sea. And, though, there seems to be no definitive way to
answer whether it ever intended doing so, there are some
common sense observations apparent to us then and now, and
some facts that became apparent some fifteen years or so
after the end of the war that are quite material to this
question.

The first observation, apparent then, and now was
that Russia had been so seriously crippled by the war,
twenty million dead and countless villages and thousands
of homes destroyed, not to speak of the unnamed and
unnumbered horrors of the war. About Leningrad we know,
but there is much that we don't know; indeed there is
probably much that even the Russian people will never
know.

The next Observation concerns an area of fact
and--an important one. In 1960 in a message to the
Supreme Soviet, Nikita Khruschev stated that at the end
of the war Soviet strength was 11,365,000 men but by 1948
it had been reduced to 2,874,000.12 Since his speech was
an argument for modernizing the army, taking the "fat" out
of it, it does not seem that he would deliberately under-
state the figures and that he should be believed. The

Soviet army then at the end of the war was considerably

 

12Discussion of this can be found in Marshall D.
Shulman, Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 27 and Adam
Ulamzogxpansion and Coexistence (New York: Praeger, 1968),
PP- ~4-

278
smaller than many people thought, and though it was a
fourth larger than the United States army was at that
time, it was undoubtedly smaller than the combined United
Nations army, and was also smaller than the combined
figures of the American armed forces. Quite important,
too, was the degree of reduction of the forces in the Red
Army. Originally, the Russians stated that they would
reduce their forces by about two-thirds; this reduction
was considerably more than that.

There are estimates available today, incidentally,
that the Russians demobilized eleven million men from the
army in the year following the war.13 These figures make
one gasp and are from a source that seems to have over-
estimated the size of the Soviet Army. Yet the timetable
of the Russian government was to demobilize 6,000,000 men
by January 1, 1946.14 If these figures are reliable, or
anywhere near reliable, then this was an absolutely
prodigious demobilization, and must have occasioned some
of the same chaotic situations in transportation that
occurred in the United States--if they were not infinitely
worse, as the Russian railways were heavily damaged by war
and by excessive use.

And the Russian demobilization must have been

 

13Area Handbook for the Soviet Union (washington,
D o C o 2 USGPO , 1973:) , pp 0 573-9 0

ll’New York Times, Sept. 27, 1945, Po 23.

279
similar to the American in one other way, and that is that
they, too, must have had hundreds of units that had been
stripped of its experienced personnel, leaving them
ineffective or certainly reduced in efficiency. Russia
also did not demobilize by unit but by age and occupation.
The first group was from 55 to 42 and also all teachers,
all high school students, and farm related occupations,
such as tractor mechanics and tractor drivers.15

In short, then, upon reflection it seems accurate
to say that the rapid demobilization of the United States
which saw millions of men released from the service and
which resulted in inexperienced, understaffed, and
inefficient units was matched by a Russian demobilization
which also released millions of men from the service with
resultant inefficient units. The Soviet experience, in
brief, was similar to our own.

Yet many people apparently did not believe any of
this and maintained that the Russians never demobilized.
In a speech made in 1961, Clare Booth Luce said: "Russia
did not disband her armies. The Russian divisions which
were affronting Germany at wars' end were maintained still

16

facing west."

 

15Ibid.

l6Clare Booth Luce, "American MOrality and
Nuclear Diplomacy" (speech delivered at Wilson College,
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Oct. 27, 1961), Vital
Speeches, XXVIII, no. 9, Feb. 15, 1962.

 

280

Mrs. Luce's statement was the classic Cold War
statement of the classic Cold Warrior. Just as interesting
was what she said earlier in her speech that our demobili-
zation had destroyed the "credibility" of our intention of
remaining in Europe. One wonders at this point, what
price credibility? At the time of her speech, the United
States had already been in Europe for sixteen years. Mrs.
Luce had a point, but not a good one. The credibility
factor was important, but it should have been measured by
our determination to stay, not by any specific numbers of
men. Our committment in Europe was a substantial one, of
such size that any major Russian move against it would
have been at the risk of war or a serious police action,
that is a limited protection of our own area.

And in following along in this particular vein of
thought (numbers of U.S. trOOps in EurOpe) there would
have been little advantage in slowing down our demobiliza-
tion except, and this is an important exception, that
there might have been some collateral benefit to our
bargaining position. Such a move would have had minimal
effect insofar as changing the balance of power was
concerned. Russia, if she had felt challenged by it would
probably have just slowed down her own demobilization. A
doubling of our trOOps might very well have resulted in a
doubling of her own. we would in short have begun playing
a game with trOOps that we are now playing with missiles.

To conclude this chapter, our foreign policy thought

281
to have been adversely affected by our rapid
demobilization, and our national security weakened,
appears not to have been; or certainly not to the extent
that was thought at that time. On the whole, our policy
seems to have been cautious; and even national security
studies, with the exception of the one recommending first
strike, if necessary, seemed to reflect this. No
adventurous courses were recommended. And probably to a
much greater extent than usual our policy seemed to

reflect the will of the people.

CONCLUSION

Having discussed demobilization, its actual
progress, and the public's reaction to it in other
chapters, this seems the place for some afterthoughts
concerning influences on it, consequences of it, as well
as some comments that did not seem appropriate earlier but
do seem to fit in with the winding down of a study. First
of all, some facts and figures: in a little better than
ten months, the Army reduced its manpower from a high of
8,300,000 men to 1,500,000; the Navy in a little better
than a year's time from 3,300,000 to 500,000; the U.S.
Marines from 475,000 to 108,000; the Coast Guard from
170,000 to 34,500. In a little better than a year's time,
the total number of men discharged from the armed services
was over 10,000,000.

That this was a fantastic accomplishment of
logistics and organizational skill seems readily apparent.
Looking at it in retrospect, how well things went. Things
went equally well with the blending of these men into
civilian life. A complex of veterans' benefits made the
transition easy: education at the expense of the govern-
ment, a transitional allowance, mustering out pay,
unemployment benefits, job guaranties for servicemen who

282

283

left jobs to enter the service-~all of these were
instrumental in effecting a smooth return to civilian
life. The fear of former servicemen selling apples on
street corners, the nightmare of some Congressmen, never
materialized, and, in large measure, it was the Congress-
men themselves who had prevented this. In short, if
demobilization is thought of in terms of the discharge
of personnel and the skillful re-entry of that personnel
into civilian life, then it was an overwhelming success.

That this success was accomplished at some cost
has been the principal complaint of the critics. One of
these complaints was the point system. Admittedly a
democratic method of discharging men, it allowed the
Older, more experienced personnel to be discharged first,
lessening in efficiency those units with young unseasoned
personnel. This was particularly dangerous in view of the
speed of modern war. The Air Force particularly complained
about this. But if much of Congress was dissatisfied with
the point system, and much of Congress was, and with other
aspects of the discharge procedure as well, the fault to a
large extent was its own. In Congress, before the end of
the war, demobilization was thought of primarily in terms
of a readjustment to a peacetime economy, with thousands
of hours spent in a number of committees on such things as
unemployment insurance and contract cancellations.
Although sage men said from time to time that the

government could expect a tremendous outpouring of

 

284
sentiment with the conclusion of the war, they obviously
did not make a sufficient impression, for the Congress,
and the armed forces as well, greatly underestimated the
response of the public. Congress might have been better
equipped to have met that response, and might have
precluded much of it, if it had taken a more active part
in the design of the mechanics to be used in demobilization,
and, of course, the method to be used in determining
eligibility for discharge. The prOper place to have done
this would have been in the subcommittees Of the armed
forces's committees, and their role should have been one
of liaison, for they would not have had the time or the
facilities to design the actual discharge program. But
the program, once having been designed, could have been
given the Congressional stamp of approval, that is,
adopted into law. This might have preempted much of the
criticism, and it certainly would have reduced the deluge
of legislation after the war to change discharge
procedures.

The United States demobilized rapidly after WOrld
war II for a number of reasons. Although in the final
analysis, political considerations were the determining
factors, within these factors there were both idealistic
and practical motives. In the minds of a number of
Congressmen, the military had become a little too lordly,
possessed of too many privileges for too long a time, and

they wanted to reduce it to more human proportions. To

285

some Congressmen, a large military establishment always
carried with it the possibility that civilian primacy
might somehow be lost in the process, an argument as old
as the United States. But for those less idealistically
concerned, there was the hard fact of the dollar to
consider. The United States was eager to return to prewar
taxes. Both the President and the Congress wanted smaller
budgets. we could not do other than bring the boys home
if we wanted to return to prewar taxes and prewar
expenditures.

The boys came home in the final analysis, though,
because the people wanted them home. It was an attitude
that had grown out of one of the most understandable
conditions of the human heart: the desire to have a loved
one return. This condition is most assuredly not unique
to the American, but in most societies, there is not the
glut of communication that exists in this country. From
billboards, magazine illustrations, popular songs, and
particularly the movies the message was conveyed that the
sunburned kid from next door would one day return home.
This message, sometimes implied, but more often shouted,
continually played upon the earnest anticipation of the
war's end. A skillful war message must convey two things:
a statement that the war is worth fighting for and that
someday it will end.

Demobilization was sold to us as the war was sold

to us. The sale was less strident, less intense, but the

286
American people believed as an article of faith that their
sons and daughters would be returned home. And the
politicians and after dinner speakers did nothing to
dispel this belief. Their message, of course, was more
abstract and usually delivered in conjunction with
platitudes about tomorrow's better world, but it was
persistent and pervasive and added to the reservoir of
sentiment for bringing the boys home. And if proof is
needed that this reservoir burst with the end of the war,
then ask the Congressmen who once received as many as

80,000 letters a week.

 

BIBLIOGRAP HIC AL ESSAY

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY

This study of demobilization is based primarily on
documents, personal papers, and newspapers. Possibly the
first debt that should be acknowledged is to the Congres-
sional Record, an invaluable source for someone interested
in what the public and Congress was thinking and how
intensely they were thinking about it. Specific citations
appear throughout the text. The Hearings conducted by the
House Committee on Military Affairs, Committee on Naval
Affairs, and those of the Senate Committee on Military
Affairs and Committee on Naval Affairs, and those of the
Senate Special Committee Investigating the National Defense
Program are all excellent sources for information on
demobilization. Here one can gain not only an appreciation
of the issues, but the intensity of reaction to those
issues. They are helpful, too, in that statistics and
progress charts are part of the published hearings. Where
conclusions are more important than the substance of the
subject, the Reports of the committees are a fine source of
information. Particularly helpful to me were the Reports
of the Senate Special Committee on Postwar Economic Policy
and Planning and the House committee of the same name.

287

288
ARCHIVAL SOURCES

The National Archives contains the most varied and
helpful information on demobilization. Of greatest value
to me were the Records of the Adjutant General's Office.
Much of the section on correspondence in the dissertation
was derived from letters that are a part of the records.
The Records of the Senate Petitions and Memorials furnished
some of the material in the chapter concerning the demon-
strations in the Philippines and Europe during the winter
of 1946. The records of the Army's Legislative and Liaison
division are also at the Archives and contain the division's
specific written response to all proposed legislation
affecting the Army. The Records of the Office of the Judge
Advocate General are also at the National Archives and
contain correspondence from Congressmen to that office.

There is a considerable amount of information on
demobilization in the archives of the United States Air
Force, Air Institute, Maxwell Field, Alabama. The Air
Force is still convinced that the rapid demobilization
after World war II was a tragic mistake and there are
studies with specific facts and figures concerning the
degree to which the Air Force was reduced in power and
efficiency. Much of this material is not classified; how-
ever, gaining access to Air Force materials, classified
through secret, involves the least red tape of all of the
services. The Air Force has projected its thinking on

demobilization and exploratory studies exist of what might

289

be necessary in a future demobilization.

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park,
New York, contains some interesting correspondence of the
Director of the Office of war Mobilization and Reconversion
Byrnes, and a considerable amount of correspondence that is
pertinent to the National Resources Planning Board. NMch
of this correspondence is relative to the legislative
fortunes of the Agency. The Diary of Harold Smith, Director
of the Budget under Roosevelt, and for a brief time under
Truman, is also at the library. Smith was a good diarist
with a penchant for gossip that is reminiscent of Ickes.
There are several entries in the diary concerning the armed
services and the budget in September and October of 1945,
and some rather revealing comments from Truman on his
distrust of the Russians.

At the Truman Library in Independence, the
President's Official Files contain a considerable amount
Of correspondence on demobilization--some of it from
Congressmen, but most of it is from the servicemen them-
selves. .Much of the servicemen's correspondence, though,
is in the form of mimeographed letters, many of which were
joint efforts. There are a few letters from Truman to the
chairmen of the armed forces' committees-~UMT, the
possibility of continuing the draft.

The papers of the two Secretaries of War and one
Secretary of the Navy were also consulted. The papers of

Henry Stimson at the Sterling Library, Yale University, are

290
not very extensive concerning demobilization. There are a
few items from Stimson's good friend Grenville Clark,
written in early 1944, warning of the dangers of over
optimism concerning an early end to the war, and a few
letters from Stimson's Undersecretary Patterson concerning
the same subject. In the summer of 1945, Patterson also
wrote the Secretary of his misgivings concerning the
possible demobilization of occupational groups.

The papers of Robert Patterson, Undersecretary of
war under Stimson, and, upon Stimson's resignation September,
1945, the Secretary of war, are an excellent source.
Patterson conducted a voluminous correspondence, and much
of it was saved. At the time of my visit to the Library,
summer of 1969, some of this correspondence was classified,
and it was necessary to secure clearance to read it. There
are letters from Patterson to Congressmen concerning
demobilization to cabinet officials, and the President.
There are also digests of radio broadcasts that were
recorded by the Army's Office of Public Relations. Patter-
son was a diarist, and there are diary-like notes scattered
at random throughout the various boxes of correspondence.

James Forrestal's papers at the Firestone Library,
Princeton University, contain his personal correspondence,
inter—office memoranda, and monitored telephone calls. Not
too helpful insofar as day-to-day coverage of demobilization
was concerned, they do show, though, the Secretary's

obsessive concern with the Soviet Union. Forrestal kept

291
studies Of the USSR and frequently made memoranda that
certain studies were to be read by officials of the Navy
Department. As might be surmised, George Kennan was one of
his favorites.

0f other officials of the Roosevelt and Truman
Presidencies, possibly the most important, not yet named,
was James Byrnes, Director of the OWMR under Roosevelt and
Truman, and Secretary of State under Truman. At the time
of my visit to the Cooper Library, Clemson University,
several years ago, the papers of Byrnes had not been
catalogued beyond 1931 and the little information gleaned
from my visit there was not significant. One would assume
that everything has been catalogued by now.

The papers of Byrnes' good friend and fellow South
Carolinian, Bernard Baruch, are at the Firestone Library,
Princeton University. Before the end of the war, and
possibly until a year before its end, Baruch had been rather
active with demobilization issues. He was, of course,
co-author of the Baruch~Hancock Report. There is very
little information concerning this report in the papers.
There is, surprisingly, copies of all of the Special
Planning Reports issued by the Army's Special Policy and
Planning Division containing strategic assumptions and, one
would assume, sensitive information, justifiably labeled
Secret (proposed date for the invasion of Japan, for
example). There are also a few studies included in the

Baruch papers concerning future plans for Army personnel,

292
culled from information obtained by the Army's Information
and Education Division.

Not mentioned thus far are the papers of the
President's Chief of Staff. These are at the Library of
Congress. The Diary of William Leahy concerns information,
though somewhat limited, of political ambitions of some of
the younger naval Officers, that is, those who wanted to
use politics to further the naval reserve program. Leahy
kept a close watch on visitors and usually included a short
summary of subjects under discussion, visits of Ambassadors
and Congressmen. Included too are short statements of some
of the subjects discussed at cabinet meetings. Typical
diary information and quite candid.

The papers of Congressmen are quite scattered. I
read the papers of Senator Elbert Thomas, Chairman, Senate
Committee on Military Affairs, at the Roosevelt Library,
Hyde Park, New York. All of the papers concern his
correspondence with constituents, and the majority of his
correspondence dealt with requests concerning servicemen,
which was also the case with the correspondence of RObert
Taft, Library of Congress, and Tom Connolly, also at the
Library of Congress. I read the papers of David walsh,
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs at Holy
Cross University; walsh's papers include a few drafts of
speeches and some newspaper clippings concerning some of
his activities as a member Of Congress.

The papers of two conservative bulwarks are to be

293
found in Indiana. Those of Charles Halleck are at the
Lilly Library, Indiana University, and those of Homer
Capehart at the State Library, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Most of the correspondence of these two Congressmen
was with the wives and parents of servicemen, concerning
the release of someone from the service. In the Halleck
papers, though, there is some correspondence with Arthur
Summerfield concerning demobilization as a political issue.
Another Indiana Congressman, Raymond Springer, member of
the House of Representatives, has his papers on deposit
with the State Library, Indianapolis, Indiana. But other
than a few letters to constituents on demobilization, the
remainder of his correspondence is concerned with his work
with veterans, particularly pension and welfare measures.
NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, AND PERIODICALS

In discussing newspapers, I would like to devote a
considerable amount of time with those of the services
themselves, particularly the Army. The most prestigious
service newspaper, with enormous circulation, was the Sgggg
and Stripes. The EurOpean edition, for example, maintained
its own reporters as well as its own news service (ANS) and
correspondents in washington. Its coverage of demobiliza-
tion was excellent; its shortcoming, perhaps, being a
decidedly pro enlisted man's viewpoint and a somewhat
restricted view of an enlisted man's responsibilities in
peacetime. This paper broke stories of corruption in the

Army, and sometimes of brutality, before civilian newspapers

294

picked them up. It can be read in the Library of Congress,
where I read it; it can also be secured on interlibrary
loan from a number of places, the University of Wisconsin,
for example, and it can be purchased on microfilm.

The Stars and Stripes also possessed one of the

greatest war correspondents of all time, a cartoonist, Bill

 

Mauldin. The essence of a Mauldin cartoon was that it could n
say with a picture what could not be said with thousands of IV
words. Mauldin's early brilliant career (famous before he

was 21) was the result of a mystical confluence of time and '

 

talent--and experience. A former infantry soldier, a, .. EJ
rifleman in the 45th Division, Mauldin's cartoons hit one
in the pit of the stomach with an immediate and emotional
appeal, like the kick of a mule, like raw uncut whiskey in
the gut. Others wrote about the infantry, Mauldin Egg the
infantry. In addition to this, he had a talent for humor,
intellectual and sardonic, and perfect for the times, that
amounted to genius. Officers patronizing enlisted men with
transient and insincere efforts at equality, he once
deflated in a cartoon. Two high ranking officers were
perched at the precipice Of a cliff, looking down into a
beautiful French valley. One officer said to the other,

"Beautiful view, is there one for the enlisted man?"

 

This talent for pricking balloons seemed typical of
the Stars and Stripes, which possessed an elan, a bird-dog
instinct for a good story, and a devil-take-the-hindmost

attitude that was sadly lacking in the older, more

295

conservative state-side newspaper establishments of the
time. Judging from the comments of Congressmen, the same
spirit could be seen in the Daily Pacifican, and the

Marines' First Division News Letter.

 

Congregated in these newspapers (and I speak
primarily of the Army) were men who were recruited by the
Information and Education division. Though some in the
I and E, and some of its recruits, were later vilified as
Communists, there has been no proof that they were, but
their prose was such as to lead one to believe that their
political and economic thinking had been well shaped in
college classes in the late thirties and early forties:
anti imperialistic, anti colonial, suspicious of big
business and the power of monopolies, righteous about the
evils of cartels and their power to create war, opposed to
fascist dictatorships, suspicious of the power of news-
papers, and the curbing of a free press, fond of quoting

PM, the Christian Science Monitor, and the New Republic.

 

All of this spilled over into the newspapers, and what they
could not print, one suspects that they put into mimeo-
graphed letters for Congressmen and the President. Many of
these letters were simply too well written to have been the
product of the average clerk or supply sergeant.

They sought out the dark corners, apparently copied,
stole, or at least gained access to documents, and were
closed down from time to time, but their successful howling

about Cromwellian tactics quickly brought them back into

 

 

 

296
business. They brought out into the Open that the right
hand of our government did not always know what the left
hand was doing, or that the people, at least, did not know
what either hand was doing. They claimed that we were
shipping some supplies to Indonesia, surplus or otherwise,
it was using valuable shipping; that the French troops were
being shipped from Marseilles on Liberty boats; that it was
a logical inference to assume that the 86th Division was
being trained to put down a potential uprising from the
Huks; all of which later proved to be true. And, most
important of all, of course, they drummed away at the theme
that servicemen should return home. Paradoxically, it was
the service newspapers, created among other reasons to
sustain the morale of men fighting a war, that may have
been the most influential factor of them all in bringing
these men home once the war had ended.

The following newspapers were helpful, most of
which were secured through interlibrary loan to Indiana
State University, and will be identified as such. The
Boston Daily Globe (interlibrary), Chicago Tribune,

university of Illinois and Indiana University, Chicggo Sun,

 

Indiana University, Christian Science Mbnitor, Indiana
University, Dallas MQpning News, (interlibrary), Detroit
Epee Press, University of Illinois, Indianapolis News,
Indiana State University, Kansas City Star, (interlibrary),
Knoxville Journal, (interlibrary), Los Angeles Times,

(interlibrary), Louisville Courier Journal, Indiana

 

 

297
University, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Indiana University,
Nfinneapolis MOrninngribune, University of Illinois, New

York Times, Indiana State University, New Orleans Picayune,

 

Indiana University, PM, Indiana University, Pittsburgg

 

Courier, (interlibrary), Seattle Post Intelligencer,
(interlibrary), St. Louis Post Digpatch, (interlibrary),

Santa Fe New Mexican, (interlibrary), washington Post,

 

Indiana University.
Of these newspapers, possibly the most useful was

the New York Timgg. Its index is seductive in its avail-

 

“ 'i_$4-5_..
1

ability, and in terms of reportorial resources, it has the
finest in the country. The washington Post_was good but

not as thorough as the Iimgg, For sheer reader interest

one of the best was the Chicago Sun, as there were few
important facts that it did not report and with a liveliness
of style that made it a joy to read. A valuable part of
that paper, too, was the column "Inside washington" by

Bascom Timmons. The coverage of the Louisville Courier

 

Journal was also good, and the regionalism reflected in the
paper did not detract from it, as many times it carried
interesting information reported by Kentucky Congressmen.

The same thing could be said about the St. Louis Post

 

Dispatch, somewhat regional at times but first class
coverage. Both papers had reporters assigned to washington.

Small town newspapers were a disappointment, yield-
ing little information, and much of this was from wire

service reports and syndicated columnists. There is some

 

298
advantage, though, in reading them if they are papers
covering a Congressman's home town. It was for this reason

that I read the washingpon Democrat, washington, Indiana,

 

Senator Capehart's hometown.

Nbst of the articles in the periodicals were brief.
The service magazines contained more information on
discharge procedures and the problems involved in them than
any other sources. The publication of the Bureau of Naval
Personnel All Hands was quite informative, offering
information on locations of separation centers, explana-
tions of discharge procedures and naval policies relating
to them. The Army publication 1g k was less useful in its
coverage of demobilization, far below the level of the Army

newspaper, Stars and Stripes, for example. Leatherneck,

 

the U.S. Marine magazine, seemed to have trouble in forget-
ting the war but did contain information on discharge
procedures and always announced point changes as well as
facts and figures on the number discharged. A curious

lack in all of the magazines was life on a trOOp ship.

Other magazines, such as American, Colliers,

 

Fortune, Ladies Home Journal, and the Satupday Evening

 

‘Eggp, contain a number of articles dealing with the
adjustment of the veteran and the necessity for finding
future jobs. A typical product was that which appeared in
the Saturday EveningpPost of August 7, 1943, "we Can Train
Soldiers for Postwar Jobs," written by Carl Gray. For week

to week coverage of demobilization, Newsweek was the best,

 

 

 

299

surpassing Timg in securing interesting and original
material. U.S. News delved deeply into specific issues,
particularly the question of United States military
strength. Of the pictorial magazines, Lifg and Lppg,
the better by far was gig; with pictorial essays on
transportation, United States intervention in China, and
popular material concerning the return to civilian life
of prominent personalities.

Two magazines that discussed issues likely to

arise with the returning veteran, and with the serviceman

 

before he became a veteran, were the Nation and the fig!
Republic, although with a somewhat definite editorial
slant: "authoritarian officers," "essentially undemocratic
structure of the Army," and a host of similar phrases.

Not to be missed by anyone is the article of John Fischer,
"The Army Takes Over" in the May 1945 issue of Harpers.
Fischer was convinced that the Army had become the lords
and masters of washington, and a little too lordly and a
little too masterly. The essence of Fischer's article was
that the Army was taking a much larger share of essential
raw materials than was necessary, as well as food stuffs.
written before the war against Germany ended, the article
is illustrative of an anti-Army sentiment that had already

begun to grow.

300
BOOKS
REFERENCE
The only general bibliography of Demobilization is
that of Grace Hadley Fuller, Demobilization: A Selected

List of References, United States Government Printing

 

Office, (washington, D.C., 1945). Unfortunately it deals
with the period before the end of the war. It is an
exhaustive compilation of all sources. Just about anything
of enough significance to be put into writing, including
minutes of meetings, is there. The New York Times Index,

of course, and no elaboration seems necessary. The Public

 

Papers of the Presidents, United States Government Printing

 

Office, containing as the series does, press conferences,
releases from the Office of the President, messages to
Congress, and budget messages, is indispensable in
maintaining a running account of public positions and is a
valuable statistical guide as well. The Foreign Relations
Series of the United States, United States Government
Printing Office, covers the period of demobilization and
goes a few years beyond. There are studies in it of
position papers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
State Department that are not available in any other public
source. Emphasis is uneven, though; postwar strategic
considerations of our position in China, for example, are
discussed much more fully than they are with Europe. The
Annual Report of the war Department: Report of the Secretary

of War, Part I, Vol. 1, United States Government Printing

 

301

Office, (washington, 1920), and the Annual Report of the
Navy Department: Report of the Secretary of war discuss the
scope of demobilization of World war I with specifics as to
the mechanics of demobilization and detailed accountings of
numbers of men and units. Provided, too, are fairly good
narratives of the problems encountered. In addition, they

furnish the last word on where and when and what kind and

 

how many. In this category, too, are the war Reports of
General of the Army, George C. Marsha11,AGeneral of the

Army H. H. Arnold, and Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, J. B.

 

Lippincott (Philadelphia and New York, 1947). Demobilization
was not yet completed at the time the reports were made, but
they are an invaluable source in tracing the growth of the
services in the period before the war to its conclusion,
with specific facts and figures on men and units.
GENERAL

The best book on demobilization prior to World war
II is that of Dixon wecter, When Johnny Comes Marchinngome.
A survey, it concentrates on the problems faced by the
returning veteran and the government's response to them
from Yorktown through WOrld war I: bonuses, land bounties,
land resettlement programs. In writing his book, wecter
profited, as can any scholar, from reading the following:
Francis Greene, The Revolutionary war and the Military

Policy of the United States, Scribners, (New York, 1919),

 

Emory Upton, Nfilitary_Policy of the United States, United

 

States Government Printing Office, (washington, D.C.,

302

1917), especially good on the war of 1812 and the Mexican
American war, but does not go beyond the Civil war, also
William Ganoe, Historypof the United States Army, D.
Appleton Century, (New York, 1941), and Oliver Lyman
Spaulding, The United States Army in war and Peace, G. P.
Putnam and Sons, (New York, 1937), which do, and on through
World war I. John Sparrow also discusses WOrld war I very
briefly in his book History Of Personnel Demobilization in
the United States Army, Department of the Army, (washington,
1952). The best account of demobilization in WOrld War I

is that of James Mbck and Evangeline Thurber, A Report on

 

Demobilization, University of Oklahoma, University Press,
(Norman, 1944). This is a thoroughly well-researched book,
with the concentration on the demobilization planning on a
local, state, and federal level that took place before the
war's end, and at its conclusion. Library of Congress
peOple (Mbck and Thurber), their work undoubtedly added
much to the stature of their staff.

The most thorough treatment of the demobilization
of the United States Army after World war II is contained

in the book written by John C. Sparrow, History of Personnel

 

Demobiligetion: in the United States Army. written from
documents, it was extensively researched, and, though a
Department of the Army pamphlet, the coverage is fairly
objective, although conclusions may be argued with by some.
Demobilization of the Air Force at the conclusion of WOrld

war II is discussed in Chapter VI "Redeployment and

 

1
J

 

 

303

Demobilization" The Army Air Forces in WOrld war II,

 

University of Chicago Press, (Chicago, 1958). The actual
transportation of men from overseas is discussed in the
mammoth series The U.S. Army in World War II, Part VI

The Technical Services, The Tpensportation Corpe,
Responsibilities Organization, and Operation. Chapter III

"Redeployment and Repatriation" is quite informative and,

 

 

one might add, objective, with no hesitancy about admitting
when the transportation corps was wrong.

The Navy has an administrative history series of ?_,a

 

which demobilization is a part (unpublished manuscripts) L1
Narrative of the Bnreau of Naval Personnel, 1 September

1945 to 1 October 1946, I, Department of the Navy,

 

(washington, 1947) Administrative History of Offices and
Activities, II, Department of the Navy, (washington, 1947).
Further information can be found in the book of Vincent
Davis, Postwar_Defense Policypof the United States Navy,
University of North Carolina Press, (Chapel Hill, 1966).
This book contains information on how politics played a
part in the Navy's demobilization, different arms of the
Navy being reluctant to commit themselves to a program
before they knew what their strength in the postwar navy
would be. Samuel Eliot MOrison, Historypof United States
Naval Operations in WOrld war II, XV, Little Brown and Co.
(Boston, 1961) devotes some time to the discussion of
Magic Carpet, the program where Naval war vessels,

particularly carriers, were used to transport trOOps home.

304
MEMOIRS AND DIARIES
The memoirs of James Byrnes, Frankly Speaking,
Harpers, (New York, 1947) was an interesting account of
our (U.S.) experiences vis a vis the Russians and pertinent

to this period, as was William Leahy's I was There,

 

Whittlesey House, (New York, 1950). Both contain infor-
mation on Roosevelt's attempt to restrict the role of U.S.
occupation forces in Europe. walter Millis (ed.),‘2ne
Forrestal Diaries, Viking Press, (New York, 1951) contains
the observations of the man who was most concerned about
our difficulties with Russia, and also includes many
specific references to the problems posed by rapid
demobilization. Henry Stimson and McGeorge Bundy 9n
Active Service in Peace and war, Harpers,(New York, 1948)
discusses Yalta and, as was the case with the works of
Leahy and Byrnes, discusses Roosevelt's attempt to
restrict the role played by American forces and their
length of stay. Potsdam is discussed extensively in
Truman's memoirs, Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions, I,
The New American Library, (New York, 1955). Demobilization
is also discussed in Truman's book, as well as his ideas
on the results of it.

Other books that should be mentioned are works of
Congress, such as that of Bradley westerfield, Foreign

Policy and Party Politics, Yale University Press, (New

Haven, 1955), Jerry Voorhis, Confessions of a Congressman,

Doubleday (Garden City, 1948). The latter is an interesting

305
account of Voorhis' socially oriented philosophy and Of
how he became interested in postwar reconstruction. Volta
Torrey, You and Your Congress, William and Mbrrow, is a
series of fairly lengthy essays concerning Congressmen who
were, in the author's opinion, arch reactionaries.
Congressional positions are detailed, pinpointed with
appropriate quotations.

And finally, these comments concerning works on
the Presidency and the actions of that office in the
planning for demobilization. The best work is that of
Davis R. B. Ross, Preparing_for Ulysses, Columbia
University Press, (New York, 1969). Researched from a
number of archives, the book is a scholarly account of the
return of the veteran and of how the legislative work of
the government made his return a social and economic

success. Edward H. Hobbs, Behind the President, Public

 

Affairs Press, (washington, D.C., 1954), is an account of
the National Resources Planning Board and the reaction of
that agency to Congress; though brief, it is well done.

A much more thorough history of an agency is that of
Herman Miles Somers, finesigential Agency, OWMR: The Office
ggnwapphbbilization and Reconversion, Harvard University

Press, (Cambridge, 1950).

 

GLOSSARY

Intelligence and Education
(I and E)

Intelligence and Education (I and E) as would be
assumed this branch of the army was active in orientation
activities. It also conducted the polls for the army, on
the point system for example. In addition, it selected
the personnel for army newspapers.

Legislative annLiaison
(L annL)

Legislative and Liaison (L and L) this division
of the army was responsible for the thorough study of
legislation, and of course with all phases of liaison
with all agencies of the government. It advised on
legislation and wrote specific assessments of any
legislation affecting the army, which in turn were

forwarded to appropriate committees.

Magic Carpet
Magic Carpet usually referred to as the Magic
Carpet Operation. Naval ships, particularly aircraft
carriers that were used to return men from overseas made
up the Magic Carpet.
306

 

307

National Raritime Union

(NMU)

National haritime Union (NMU) the powerful union

 

of the merchant seamen.

National Resources
Planning BoardIINRPB)

 

National Resources Planning Board (NRPB) grew out
of the WOrks Progress Administration. In the 1930's it
conducted studies of natural resources-~water, for
example. Chosen to do "post defense" planning, it
continued this function after the outbreak of WOrld war
11. Much of the planning for demobilization originated
with this Board.

Office of Defense
Transportation (ODT)

Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) principal
function was to allocate and supervise transportation
priorities. was responsible for rail transportation
--movement of troops; also made locomotives and cars
available for rail transportation, whether by manufacture

or otherwise.

Office of war Mobilization
OWM

Office of war MObilization (OWM) executive agency
formed in 1943 with James Byrnes as the Director.
Coordinated the work of the various war agencies,

established priorities, referred disagreements between

 

 

 

 

308

agencies.

Office of war MObilization
and Regonversion (OWMR)

 

 

Office of war Mobilization and Reconversion (OWMR)
same agency, renamed in 1944; had all of the responsi-
bilities and functions as before but was now responsible
for reconversion. Established sponsorship or control of a .
number of agencies that had to do with such things as FBI

surplus property, employment and retraining.

 

Postwar Manpower
Conference (PMQ)

[rm—4.51"..." I. a
It:

Postwar Manpower Conference (PMC) Operated under
the sponsorship of the National Resources Planning Board
with members of the National Resources Board and repre-
sentatives from the Departments of Agriculture, Labor,
Navy, and war, also from the Veterans' Administration, and
Selective Service. From its suggestions, the point system
developed. Also the GI Bill was an enlargement but a vast
one of suggestions contained in the Committee's report

submitted to the Congress by the President in June of 1943.
war Shipping_Administratiqn
WSA

War Shipping Administration (WSA) formed in 1942
and managed ocean-going transportation, particularly troops
and cargo. Did not assume control of privately owned
shipping but managed it to a certain extent. Supervised
building of the 10 knot Victory ship and the 15 knot
Liberty.

 

      

    

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