Senator AUSTIN. Or the rights under them. Mr. BELL. That is right, sir. Senator MAYBANK. I do not think any of the witnesses have criticized the record of labor. Senator AUSTIN. They have given them great praise. Mr. BELL. Labors accomplishments have been magnificent, but not enough. Senator AUSTIN. They do not represent the whole labor force of America and they probably will not be affected by this bill should it become a law. The people who will be affected by compulsion, if it is exercised in this bill, will not be members of any labor union. You will find your labor unions right up to the mark all of the time. Senator CHANDLER. Off the record. (Discussion was had outside the record.) Senator AUSTIN. Are there any other questions, gentlemen? (Whereupon, at 4:45 p. m., an adjournment was taken until 10:30 a. m., Thursday, February 15, 1945.) MOBILIZATION OF CIVILIAN MANPOWER THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1945 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:30 a. m., in the committee room of the Committee on Military Affairs, United States Capitol, Senator Elbert D. Thomas (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Thomas of Utah, Hill, Chandler, Maybank, Austin, Gurney, and Burton. The CHAIRMAN. We will proceed, if you are ready, General. The CHAIRMAN. General, will you state your name and what you want to have said about you in the record? STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. THOMAS T. HANDY, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, UNITED STATES ARMY General HANDY. My name is Thomas T. Handy, lieutenant general; Deputy Chief of Staff. I had these charts prepared, because I thought it would be easier to show these things on charts than in any other way. (Discussion was had outside the record.) The CHAIRMAN. General, is there any reason why we should keep this to ourselves; should this kind of information be made public? General HANDY. I would not think so, sir. It would be of real value to the Germans if they knew our distribution of troops. The CHAIRMAN. Probably this should be off the record. General HANDY. I would think so, sir, since it shows the over-all distribution. (Discussion was had outside the record.) Senator HILL. I would like to ask the general a question on the record. Those men here in the United States who are being trained for overseas, what will be the average time that a man will stay here if he is going over as an individual replacement, and what will be the average time he will stay here if he is going with a unit? General HANDY. On the individuals, for the ground forces, we count over-all that from the time we induct a man it will be at least 6 months before he is available on the front, actually in battle. Now, to answer your specific question, for the ground force replacement, the actual training period is 15 weeks. We recently cut it down from 17. We had 13 weeks originally and were able to work it up to 17, and then, due to the fact in January we had some heavy calls we had to meet, we reduced it to 15 weeks. The man must be inducted and go through processing and then he has 15 weeks training, and some take longer than that. Senator HILL. Those who do not show themselves proficient are turned back. General HANDY. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. This comes to us very often, General. Will you explain why the exceptions are made and how it happens that a man almost as soon as he is inducted is rushed over because he belongs to a certain unit and fills a place in it? General HANDY. Those cases that have gone over rather quickly are Infantry replacements. That has been the big difficulty, and 90 percent of our ground losses have beer in the Infantry, and they have had to be replaced quickly and by young men. These young men are the ones who are suitable and the only ones who can stand the gaff. I imagine some men have been gotten over there in less than 6 months, but the average time I would say would be at least 6 months before we get a man to the front. The CHAIRMAN. How does it happen we did not anticipate this need of Infantry a little better? Everybody knows, and I have read in the papers time and time again, that it is the lack of Infantry that is making these extraordinary difficulties on certain individuals. Why was there a lack of appreciation of that fact? General HANDY. That fact was appreciated. We were makingevery attempt to conserve manpower-not to have too many men in the Army. At the beginning of the war there was an idea we were going to I will not say win the war, but fight a good part of it with the air and armored units, and we are, of course, fighting a good part of it that way. The Infantry divisions, of course, we had coming right along. The theaters themselves estimated their losses a good deal less than they have been. To give you a specific exampleI wish you would not put this on the record. (Discussion was had outside the record.) General HANDY. But to go back to Senator Hill's question on the amount of time these individuals and units remain here, the time of the individual depends on what you are going to use him for. If he is a pilot, I think the minimum is a year, and most are taking 16 months. training now. If he is a highly skilled technician, it would be quite a while before he would be available for use because of the additional training he must take. Now, as to when the units go, that depends on the need. We thought we could train divisions in about a year on a divisional basis. Actually, it took a little longer than that. The ground forces wanted 16 months to do the kind of a job they wanted to do. But when a unit goes overseas, I would say, is based more on the strategic situation and the tactical need rather than the training in the United States. I would say certain types of units would need a 6 months" training period. When there are a lot of technicians and you already have men who have the technical skill, it takes less time. Senator HILL. Off the record. (Discussion was had outside the record.) The CHAIRMAN. General, in your operating personnel, will you explain what you are trying to do to reduce the personnel in that group? General HANDY. I would say a great effort and a continuous effort has been made to reduce this operating personnel figure. Pressure has been brought to bear continually through command channels to require commanders to cut down to the minimum necessary. Over 2 years ago, General Marshall, in early 1943, organized the Gasser Board, headed by General Gasser, with the mission of going through the installations in the United States from the standpoint of personnel. That board operates through about 10 regional boards, each headed by a general officer. They have been through 90 percent at least of the installations in the United States; some of them they have been through twice and some installations they have been through a third time. They are continually at work. They have developed, due to experience, certain techniques for determining personnel ceilings which have been very effective. They make quarterly allocations of ceilings on personnel. In other words, this is a continuous process and every effort is being made through that board and in other ways to cut personnel requirements down. In the last 18 months I think they have effected a saving of some 245,000 in military personnel alone in installations in the United States. There has been that much reduction, and this board, I think, has been one of the main instrumentalities for bringing that about. I emphasize this, because, as I say, I remember when General Marshall started this thing he was very much alive to this manpower problem right then, and that was 2 years ago, and we have really made an effort to cut down personnel all we can. The CHAIRMAN. General, before you leave that, correct me if I am wrong in this: In covering the strength of the forces presently held in the United States, the Army keeps track of that strength by dividing it into several branches, the sick in the hospitals, the replacement divisions, the training units, the persons ready to be shipped overseas, and then it has its regular defense installations themselves, which would be here in time of peace as well as in war. Then, the big group is made up of that branch of the Army service which is operating the reserve and taking care of the Army and taking care of all that the Army has to do both here and overseas. Is that a fair division of the strength at home? General HANDY. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. The average person who sees a soldier and then sees several of them in a group, and thinks they are loafing or not doing their part, should really and truly know what those soldiers were before they could criticize justly. They might be a group of men out of a hospital, or, as in peacetime, they may be attached to regular defense commands. In peacetime we have seen soldiers in groups playing on the street corners on holidays, and things of that kind. The young fellows who are being called are still soldiers in process of training and nobody objects to their being here. They cannot give 24 hours a day to training, and nobody objects to the recreation they get. My reason for summing this up is to see whether I have made a defense for the Army's arrangement and whether I have done a good job or not; am I right or wrong? General HANDY. You are absolutely right. Another thing about the men on the streets and those traveling. We brought 102,000 men back to the United States in the month of |