All the Dead Generals

All the dead generals were not sleeping under statues last week. Suddenly, shockingly apparent was the fact that responsible officers of the U. S. Army had been dozing at their posts, or--what was worse --fumbling with deadly effect. The official who had most to say about this state of affairs was Henry L. Stimson, Mr. Roosevelt's Republican Secretary of War. Undertaking to explain why the draft and National Guard mobilization had fallen behind schedule (TiME, Nov. 25), he was as blackly frank as William S. Knudsen was on industrial defense. With other dark bits in the news. Mr. Stimson's statement made a sorry record, sinisterly remindful of the British in Norway, the French in lost France.

More or less under arms, when the Army last totted up (Nov. 21), were 106,833 mobilized National Guardsmen, 387,811 three-year Regulars, only 18,000 of an expected 90,000 one-year draftees and volunteers. Call of 96.000 additional Guardsmen must be delayed (anywhere from one week to two and a half months) ; so must further drafts. Only heartening item in this list was the rapid increase in Regulars (up from 242,000 since last June). Putting Regular enlistments ahead of Guard mobilization and the draft made sense, because the Regulars must bear the burden of training the new Army.

Of 40 camps for National Guardsmen, only 15 were on construction schedule. Two were two and a half months behind, one was 60 days behind. Lags in 22 others ranged from one to five weeks. Even sadder than the delays were some of Mr. Stimson's excuses. The Quartermaster Corps (which handles most Army construction) located a big camp in southern Iowa. Building was under way before the corps discovered what the Department of Agriculture must have known all the time: that the arid area did not have enough water to supply the camp. So the bumbling quartermasters had to start all over at Rolla, Mo., while Guardsmen who should have been transferred to the new camp languished in temporary quarters at Fort Francis E. Warren, Wyo.

At Indiantown Gap. Pa. a camp for 20.000 men was pitched on rock and shale, where well-digging was slow and inordinately expensive. Result: a month's delay. In New England, where an abundance of lumber could be salvaged from hurricane-felled trees, camp constructions waited for lumber from the Pacific Coast (where lumbermen last week settled a ten-week strike, averting further delays). Contractors working for cost-plus-fixed-fees could afford to snatch labor from nearby rivals who had lump-sum contracts, thus delaying construction at other camps and highlighting the lack of a planned labor supply.

"Great Expectations." Secretary Stimson first quoted an official report (by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) that labor troubles had caused only 1% of the construction delays. Next day, after the War Department had had a night to ponder his aspersions on the Army, he issued a '"transcript" which included some new observations. Chief change: less blame on military bumblers, more on labor.

Last week, in the thick of these revelations, the Quartermaster Corps's Brigadier General Charles D. Hartman was relieved from duty. He was no scapegoat, said the War Department, but a man who was sick from overwork. Assigned to plug the holes in Army construction was the Corps of Engineers' Lieut. Colonel Brehon B. Somervell, who had done a standout job as New York City's WPA Administrator. Air Corps construction was snatched bodily away from the dusty, tape-bound Quartermaster Corps and handed over to the Engineers.

The record spoke for itself. Mr. Stimson's explanation: that the Army, having in the first place overestimated its ability to absorb recruits, could be accused of nothing more than undue optimism. Many of those estimates were cooked up during debate on the conscription bill; many more during the Presidential campaign, when Wendell Willkie was huffing & puffing at unmade Army housing. Said Henry Stimson, with twinkling reassurance: "Estimates beforehand are only estimates. Anybody who has built a house knows that. I think that on the whole the defense work is coming along as well as could be expected."

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