Pros and Non-Pros

As long as World War II is fought, the few professionals among U.S. Army officers are likely to marvel at the administrative proficiency and combat leadership of a far larger class: the emergency officers* who are the bulk of Army command. Last week the Army, now rising above 5,000,000 men, told where its officers came from:

> About one-third are former enlisted men --graduates of the war-spawned Officer Candidate Schools.

> One-half came from the peacetime National Guard and organized reserves.

> One-sixth still consists of the thin sprinkling of pros from the Regular Army (14,659 officers in 1938) and a wartime addition of specialists appointed from civilian life to Engineers, Ordnance, Signal Corps, and other technical branches.

Of all these the Army is proud. But it is proudest of its OCS graduates. It was on its enlisted soldiers, volunteers and draftees that the growing Army had to lean for its supply of younger officers. The success of the taut training they absorbed can be proved to old soldiers by their progress. One is already a lieutenant colonel, seven are majors, 397 are captains.

* Ranking non-pro: onetime General Motors Executive Vice President Wiliam S. Knudsen, now a lieutenant general. Other high-ranking emergency combat officers: Major General James Doolittle, Brigadier Generals Theodore Roosevelt and Hanford MacNider.

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