- Chapter XII:
Somervell's Relationship With Patterson and Marshall
In the final analysis much of the
wartime role of the Army Service Forces depended upon personalities,
specifically upon the relations of its commanding general to the Under
Secretary of War and to the Chief of Staff. The existence of a satisfactory
personal relationship between these three men was a major factor in the
ability of the ASF to perform its responsibilities and to survive as the War
Department's command organization for supply and service activities.
Somervell's position in the top
organization of the War Department was, for such a high-ranking official,
unique. He had not one but two bosses: the Under Secretary and the Chief of
Staff. It was a peculiar kind of arrangement in the light of Army doctrine
pertaining to "unity of command," but one made necessary by War
Department organizational experience after 1920. On the whole, it turned out
to be a workable arrangement, at least insofar as relations between the three
individuals involved were concerned.
General Marshall respected the Under
Secretary's position; he was too good an Army officer imbued with the doctrine
of the subordination of military to civilian authority to behave otherwise. He
never encouraged Somervell to bring procurement problems to him. There is no
indication in the record of any instructions from Marshall to Somervell on
purchasing or production matters. He expected Somervell to obtain necessary
policy direction on these matters from the Under Secretary. In turn the Under
Secretary seemed to have great respect for the military judgment of General
Marshall, and accepted as proper the fact that on strategic matters Marshall
dealt with Secretary Stimson and the President. Patterson had no apparent
disposition to enlarge his authority unduly.
Somervell for his part, conscientious
in his observation of organizational arrangements, encountered no difficulty
in working for two masters. Nor did he yield to the temptation, inherent in
all such situations, of trying to play one superior against the other. He
realized General Marshall was not interested in any excuse such as "the
Under Secretary wants it this way." It was Somervell's duty to present
the professional military judgment to the Under Secretary and then follow such
civilian modification as might be expressed.
Perhaps no top individual in the War
Department had more reason to be con-[173]
cerned about the creation of the Army
Service Forces than the Under Secretary of War. He lost a large supervisory
organization which had previously enabled him to fulfill the responsibility,
delegated to him by the Secretary of War, of directing the Department's
procurement and related business activities. All the staff units which had
been a part of the Office of the Under Secretary of War became, on 9 March
1942, staff units of the commanding general of the ASF. But while the Under
Secretary lost an organization, he gained an executive officer of high rank
and great drive. It was up to Somervell to demonstrate that in the
reorganization the Under Secretary had gained in personal influence and that
civilian control had not been weakened by the change.
Mr. Goldthwaite H. Dorr suggested one
arrangement to demonstrate the close relationship which was expected to exist
in fact between the commanding general of the ASF and the Under Secretary of
War. One factor creating a gulf between the Supply Division of the War
Department General Staff and the OUSW after June 1941 had been the physical
separation of the two offices. The Under Secretary of War and his staff had
moved into the so-called New War Department Building which had just been
finished at 21st Street and Virginia Avenue, two blocks away from the old
Munitions Building. This modern, air-conditioned, government office building
had been intended as the headquarters for the War Department to replace the
old Munitions Building which had been constructed during World War I. By the
time the new building was completed, however, the War Department had expanded
so greatly that it was adequate to house only the Office of the Under
Secretary and the Office of the Chief of Engineers.
All of the War Department General Staff remained in the Munitions Building.
Recalling that the offices for Assistant Secretary Benedict Crowell and
General Goethals during World War I were adjacent, Mr. Dorr proposed that
Patterson and Somervell should likewise have adjoining offices with no
secretaries or assistants between them.
After 9 March 1942, General Somervell
insisted upon moving most of the units in the Office of the Under Secretary of
War into the Munitions Building. The Under Secretary then gave up his new,
modern office in order to return to the old building. There he and the
commanding general of the ASF occupied adjoining offices immediately above
those of the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff. By the end of 1942 it
was possible to move both offices into the new Pentagon Building. Here,
General Somervell had a specially designed section on the third floor over the
Mall entrance to the building which gave the Under Secretary and the
commanding general of the ASF adjoining offices with a connecting door. The
Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff had a similar arrangement on another
side of the building.
Undoubtedly the proximity of these
offices had much to do with promoting close-working relationships between Mr.
Patterson and General Somervell. Temperamentally, the two men were very
different. Mr. Patterson was usually calm, cautious, and inclined to look at
all sides of most issues. General Somervell was impatient, tense, and
decisive. Both men probably went through a somewhat trying period of mutual
adjustment. It was a tribute to the integrity and determination of both men
that they rose above personal differences and that they should[174]
have found a way to work together.
Indeed, before the end of the war each had come to have real respect for the
other. On the one hand, Mr. Patterson realized that Somervell's energy and
willingness to make decisions were vital to the procurement and supply support
of military operations. On the other hand, General Somervell appreciated that
civilian control of military operations was a vital part of the American
political tradition and that many decisions had to be approved by a
politically responsible official of the War Department.
After 9 March 1942, the Under
Secretary's immediate office was quite small. In March 1943, for example, the
office consisted of Mr. Patterson, Lt. Gen. W: S. Knudsen as director of
production, an executive officer, an administrative officer, an executive
assistant, and seven special assistants. In addition, there were one or two
personal assistants to some of these individuals and the usual secretarial and
clerical personnel. A few more personal assistants were appointed during the
course of the war, but the OUSW remained a small group at all times. When any
continuing administrative duty was to be started in which the Under Secretary
was interested, General Somervell insisted that the unit should be located in
the Army Service Forces although the director of the work then might have such
personal relations with the Under Secretary as Mr. Patterson desired.
When Congress in 1942 authorized the
renegotiation of contracts, for instance, General Somervell established a
Renegotiations Division as a staff unit under the director of mat6riel in
headquarters of the ASE At the same time, the director of the Renegotiations
Division became the chairman of the War Department Price Adjustment Board.
Renegotiation of contract prices was an activity in which the Under Secretary
took very much interest. At one time, indeed, without consulting General
Somervell, he directed that the War Department Price Adjustment Board should
be a part of his own office rather than attached to the ASF. After General
Somervell protested, both men agreed that the Renegotiations Division should
be located within the ASF but that the director of the division should be
appointed only with the approval of the Under Secretary. They also agreed that
when the board gave final official approval to a renegotiation agreement, it
should act in the name of the Under Secretary.
In 1944 General Somervell established
a Correction Division in the Office of The Adjutant General to supervise
rehabilitation centers and disciplinary barracks where military prisoners were
held. The Under Secretary exercised the power of clemency, delegated to him by
the Secretary of War, over military prisoners convicted by courts martial. As
a result of his review of such cases, the Under Secretary became more and more
interested in the whole penology program of the Department. The actual penal
institutions of the Army were under the ASE When the number of prisoners
confined in these institutions became sizable-the number of men in
disciplinary barracks increased from 5,300 to 8,600 between July and December
1944-the Under Secretary was more concerned than ever that the penal practices
of the Department should be above reproach.1
A solution was sought in the creation of the Correction Division in the ASF.
headquarters under the direction of an officer in the Under Secretary's[175]
office who had previously assisted
the Under Secretary in clemency matters. In addition, the Under Secretary
created a Board of Consultants composed of the country's leading penologists
and prison administrators to advise him. The chairman of the board, Mr. Austin
McCormick, became a personal assistant to the Under Secretary. This
administrative arrangement proved entirely workable in practice.
From the very beginning of the Army
Service Forces, General Somervell always invited the Under Secretary to attend
ASF staff conferences. These conferences were held regularly twice a month.
Attending whenever he was in town, the Under Secretary sat at the right of the
commanding general. In his absence, his executive officer usually was present.
This gave the Under Secretary an opportunity to participate in the discussion
and to express his opinion regarding any matter which might arise. On both
purchasing and production matters General Somervell always requested the Under
Secretary's opinion. In addition, the Under Secretary or his executive officer
usually attended the semiannual conferences of the commanders of the service
commands which were begun in June 1942 as a means of maintaining close
personal contact between the headquarters of the ASF and the headquarters of
the nine service commands. Here again, the Under Secretary had an opportunity
to learn exactly what was happening in the ASF, the problems which were
arising, and the policies and programs which were being followed. The regular
monthly reports prepared within the ASF for the guidance of the commanding
general and his staff divisions were also given to the Under Secretary for
such use as he might wish to make of them.
In one respect, the Under Secretary
necessarily developed a peculiar relationship to the ASK As mentioned earlier,
the commanding general of the Army Air Forces exercised important procurement
responsibilities. Like the commanding general of the ASF, he operated under
the supervision of the Under Secretary of War. The ASF staff became the Under
Secretary's staff when dealing with the AAF. This arrangement applied
primarily to two and later three staff divisions of the ASF: the Purchases
Division, the Renegotiations Division, and, after November 1943, the
Readjustment Division (particularly concerned with contract terminations).
Actually, the Under Secretary was probably more interested in the work of
these three staff divisions of the ASF than in any other. In any event,
General Somervell was only too glad to defer to judge Patterson's judgment on
all legal and price policy matters affecting procurement.
The directors of these staff
divisions saw the Under Secretary frequently. For example, they consulted him
often with regard to contract termination policies, the development of which
he followed very closely. While General Somervell was likewise deeply
interested in these developments, War Department points of view were
determined by discussions held in the Under Secretary's office. The director
of materiel of the ASF, first General Clay and later Mr. Howard Bruce, also
saw the Under Secretary frequently, as did the legal adviser on procurement
matters, Mr. William C. Marbury. General Somervell encouraged these
individuals to consult freely with the Under Secretary, and the Under
Secretary in turn called upon them directly whenever some matter arose in
which he was interested.
The wide range of the Under
Secretary's interests and activities was well in-[176]
dicated in a report to the Secretary
of War which was prepared in the Under Secretary's office in the autumn of
1944. This was the first such report prepared in the Under Secretary's office
after the reorganization of 1942.
The Under Secretary was the official
representative of the War Department on the War Production Board, the War
Manpower Commission, and the Committee for Congested Production Areas. In
addition, the Under Secretary took an active role in labor relations, in
public relations involving procurement matters (including the award of the
Army-Navy "E" for outstanding industrial achievement in war
production), and in industrial safety and protection. In September 1943, he
sponsored a meeting in Washington of two hundred industrialists and labor
leaders to hear confidential information about the status of war production. A
similar meeting was held at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, in October 1943 and at Los
Angeles in January 1944. The basic work for this conference was prepared
jointly by personnel from the ASF and from the Industrial Services Division of
the Bureau of Public Relations.
The Under Secretary was also much
interested in so-called economic warfare, and matters involving relations with
the Foreign Economic Administration were usually taken up with him. For
example, on 19 September 1944, General Somervell sent a memorandum to the
Under Secretary on the disposal of surplus property overseas.
Somervell was
opposed to the performance of this work by the FEA on the grounds that that
administration would be unlikely to push rapid liquidation of military
property overseas, which would in turn require the continued presence of
thousands of troops overseas to guard and care for such property. The War Department, in General
Somervell's eyes, should seek "prompt, clean-cut and definitive
settlements" for the disposition of overseas property.2
Earlier in the year, when the Army Industrial College was reopened under the
nominal supervision of the Under Secretary of War, one of its immediate
purposes was to train officer and civilian personnel in contract termination
and property disposal procedure. Thus the college became an important part of
the War Department's preparations for procurement demobilization after V-E and
V -J Days. Its instructors were drawn almost entirely from the Readjustment
Division of the ASF.
Under Secretary Patterson was a
loyal, consistent supporter of the Army Service Forces throughout the war..
His satisfaction with the organizational arrangement was evidenced by his
failure to make, any effort to reconstitute the OUSW along prewar lines
in the reorganization of the War Department in 1946. If he had been even
slightly dissatisfied, he would probably have followed a different course. In
turn, General Somervell found the Under Secretary's counsel and assistance
constantly helpful and reassuring. The Under Secretary had learned that he
could control activities in which he was interested by working through the
commanding general of the ASF. General Somervell, on the other hand, had
learned that an Under Secretary of War sympathetic to Army needs and of
unquestioned integrity was a real asset in guiding procurement operations.
Somervell's personal relations with
General Marshall were direct but formal.[177]
Although he saw the Chief of Staff
almost daily, it was invariably on matters of business. The Chief of Staff had
a rigorous code of what he regarded as appropriate conduct in officers. In
turn, General Somervell never presumed on his relationship to the Chief of
Staff. He always acted with the understanding that he was Marshall's
subordinate whose responsibility was to carry out the Chief of Staff's desires
to the very fullest extent possible.
Indeed, it was this latter attitude
which explained Somervell's continuance in the position of commanding general
of the Army Service Forces throughout the war. Had Somervell ever failed in
either loyalty or performance of duty, he would probably have been relieved.
No matter how much controversy might rage around General Somervell, the Chief
of Staff gave no evidence of being displeased as long as he felt that
essential work for the Army was being performed with maximum possible vigor.
At times there were efforts to stir the Chief of Staff to dissatisfaction with
his commanding general of the ASR These efforts failed. In this connection,
there is a revealing comment about General Marshall's attitude in an account
written by his wife. Without indicating either the individual or issues
involved, Mrs. Marshall records:
A group of Congressmen were much
perturbed over rumors that were afloat in Washington concerning one of
George's most trusted Staff officers who was carrying a tremendous load and
doing it magnificently. In fact, he was handling his job with such authority
and skill that the rumor-mongers said he had his eye on the job of the Chief
of Staff. This rumor was fanned into a flame by those who had fallen afoul of
him because of their failure to live up to his high standards of efficiency.
The group of Congressmen came to warn George. He listened to what they had to
say, then smiled and said,
"Thank you, gentlemen. I have
heard these rumors. You do not have to worry about me. If I can't control my
own Staff, I would not be here." 3
It seems most likely that this
comment was occasioned by the controversy involving General Somervell in the
autumn of 1943.4
But whether Somervell was the officer whom the Chief of Staff had in mind upon
this particular occasion is not important. The attitude expressed did
characterize the relationship between the Chief of Staff of the War Department
and the commanding general of the Army Service Forces.
Somervell always looked upon the ASF
as peculiarly the creation of the Chief of Staff. What it was and what it did
was primarily the result of General Marshall's desire. It has already been
noted that, had Somervell been the architect of the ASF, the command might
well have been solely a procurement and supply command without the
administrative service work which was included in it. He never questioned the
addition of the administrative services simply because it was the arrangement
which General Marshall had put into effect. In explaining the Army Service
Forces on one occasion, General Somervell revealed his attitude in these
words. He said that the ASF "handles logistics and administration. Its
purpose was to take these loads as far as possible off the mind of the Chief
of Staff." 5
Somervell made it a regular practice
to keep the Chief of Staff fully informed[178]
about what he was doing. He
constantly sent papers to Marshall intended to indicate what was being
accomplished. Somervell asked the Chief of Staff to attend the ceremonies
observing the first anniversary of the Army Service Forces on 9 March 1943.
General Marshall did so, and subsequently requested a copy of the talk
Somervell made reviewing the accomplishments of the ASF in its first year. He
sent the talk to the editor of the Reader's Digest with the suggestion
that the publication might be interested in preparing an article on this
subject. The result was the first of two or three articles about the ASF which
appeared in that magazine during the war.
On another occasion, General
Somervell, taking note of the fact that both the Navy and the Air Forces had
gone to considerable effort to provide popular reading matter about their
operations, arranged, with the Chief of Staff's approval, for one of his
officers to prepare a booklet which would deal with the Army as a whole. This
was published in early 1945 as The
Mightiest Army.6
Communications which Somervell
received from either subordinates or from overseas commands, summarizing
problems or accomplishments, were frequently sent to the Chief of Staff's
desk. Most of these the Chief of Staff personally reviewed. For example,
General Somervell received a letter from the director of the Military Railway
Service in the China, Burma-India theater, shortly after the Transportation
Corps took over the operation of the Bengal-Assam railway on 1 March 1944. The
director reported that in the first eighteen days of American operation, the
military tonnage hauled had increased 36.4 percent over the same period in the
preceding month.
The improvement had been realized without any increase in
yard expansion or track age. Somervell forwarded the letter to General
Marshall with the hand-written comment: "You will note our organization
has done a lot in a few days. Have urged the British to do this for
over a year." The letter was returned with the notation: "Fine
business-GCM."
On his overseas inspection trips,
General Somervell invariably wrote fairly long accounts of his observations in
personal letters to the Chief of Staff. Some of these comments have already
been quoted. No replies were expected and none were received. Indeed there is
almost no indication in the files of the commanding general of the ASF that
General Marshall ever communicated instructions to Somervell in writing. As a
general rule, the Chief of Staff issued orders and communications orally.
Written communications from his office came from the Deputy Chief of Staff or
the assistant chiefs of staff.7
On the subject of organization and
management, Somervell never succeeded in obtaining an expression of marked
interest from the Chief of Staff. Deeply concerned with this matter himself,
Somervell was proud of the achievements of the ASF in building an integrated
organization with some degree of unity and common purpose out of the many
diverse elements inherited on 9 March 1942. In addition,[179]
the ASF placed constant emphasis upon
improved methods of performance which would reduce the cost of operations. On
one occasion, General Somervell did persuade the Chief of Staff to come to his
own office and look over the record of management improvements achieved by the
ASR General Marshall gave no indication that he was particularly impressed.
Marshall usually referred Somervell's
various protests about the changing status of the Army Service Forces to
General McNarney, the deputy chief of staff. The most serious protest, that of
27 September 1944, resulted in a memorandum from the Chief of Staff to the
commanding generals of the three commands, already described. While General
Marshall asked for a clear-cut statement of the differences, the whole problem
was then turned over to the Deputy Chief of Staff.8
The Chief of Staff generally allowed
his subordinate commanders the greatest latitude in working out their
problems. He was not one to interfere with minor details or to attempt to
follow every development. His practice was to provide general instructions and
then to expect intelligent, prompt action in fulfilling them. There seems
little doubt but that the Chief of Staff wanted and appreciated the kind of
subordinate commander General Somervell proved to be. The Chief of Staff
wanted action, and vigorously. He was not tolerant of failures or of constant
requests for additional instructions.
Although General Somervell indicated
on two or three occasions that he would be happy to have a different
assignment, General Marshall showed no disposition to make a change. Once in
an extemporaneous talk to some three hundred key officers of the Army Service
Forces, including the chiefs of technical services, the Chief
of Staff indicated that he had been dissatisfied with the supply organization
of the War Department as it existed before 9 March 1942, principally because
responsibility had been too diffused. He emphasized that he wanted only one
man reporting to him on supply and transportation matters. He had insisted
upon such an arrangement, and he made it clear that he would not tolerate any
different arrangement for the conduct of the war. He then went farther and
voiced his approval of the manner in which the ASF had been functioning under
the leadership of its commanding general.9
In his work for the joint and
Combined Chiefs of Staff, General Somervell was at all times the agent of the
Chief of Staff. His role was one of defining the Chief of Staff's desires and
putting them into execution. As a subordinate of the Chief of Staff, General
Somervell had almost no relations with the President. ASF matters of concern
to the Chief Executive were handled through General Marshall. But on one or
two occasions Somervell saw the President personally and, when he did so, it
was upon instructions from the Chief of Staff. Because of his past association
with him in the WPA, General Somervell occasionally had access to Harry
Hopkins. During the heated controversy with the WPB, Somervell kept Mr.
Hopkins informed of developments and the Army's point of view.10
Since Mr. Hopkins was the chairman of the Munitions Assign-[180]
ments Board, Somervell also had
considerable correspondence with him on the matter of supplies to the British
and to the Russians. Somervell wanted Mr. Hopkins to know about all lend-lease
matters involving the Army. Like General Marshall, Somervell enjoyed Mr.
Hopkins constant support.
General Somervell had little contact
with the Secretary of War, but there were some occasions when the latter
official turned to him for help. On the occasion when the President requested
the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to compose their
differences with Mr. Nelson over the duties of the Production Vice Chairman in
the WPB, General Somervell was necessarily called upon to provide Secretary
Stimson with full information about the origin of the difficulty and the
argument which had led to the existing impasse. On another occasion when a
strike threatened to halt all railroad operations within the United States,
the Secretary of War called upon General Somervell to prepare a plan for Army
operation of the nation's railways. Army control was actually ordered on 27
December 1943 by the Secretary in accordance with the terms of an executive
order of the President, and continued until 18 January 1944 when the railways
were returned to their owners after settlement of the dispute between
management and labor. The Secretary was deeply interested in this entire
activity. On Army operation of industrial establishments taken over in order
to insure uninterrupted production, the Under Secretary was the top War
Department official fixing policy and practice.
The importance which General Marshall
attached to Somervell's position was clearly indicated by his action in taking
Somervell to all the international conferences. When the Casablanca Conference
was held in January 1943, Somervell was one of the few officers accompanying
the Chief of Staff. He attended all subsequent conferences and remained
Marshall's logistics planner and commander to the very end of the war.
The Army Service Forces was set up to
meet a War Department organization need which General Marshall saw as a vital
factor in the conduct of the war. In order to overcome the fatal bifurcation
which had developed between procurement and distribution activities in the top
War Department organization, the Under Secretary consented to a single supply
command. The ASF was both logistics staff and command for the Chief of Staff.
On industrial relations matters, the Under Secretary initiated or approved
basic policies. General Marshall seemed to be less concerned with the work of
the ASF in the service field than he was with its work in the supply field.
Eventually the War Department General or Special Staff came to be the
policy-fixing echelon on service or administrative duties.
The role of the ASF in the War
Department in World War II was not determined simply by General Somervell's
conception of it. In the last analysis it depended primarily upon what judge
Patterson as Under Secretary and General Marshall as Chief of Staff wanted.
Theirs were the crucial attitudes in determining what the Army Service Forces
was and how it was to operate.[181]
Page Created June 13th 2001
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