GEN. PEYTON C. MARCH, Chief of Staff

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SIXTY-SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

H. R. 8287

A BILL TO REORGANIZE AND INCREASE THE EFFICIENCY OF
THE UNITED STATES ARMY, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

H. R. 8068

A BILL TO PROVIDE FOR UNIVERSAL MILITARY, NAVAL, AND
VOCATIONAL TRAINING, AND FOR MOBILIZATION OF
THE MANHOOD OF THE NATION IN A

NATIONAL EMERGENCY

H. R. 7925

A BILL TO ESTABLISH THE DEPARTMENT OF AERONAUTICS,
AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

H. R. 8870

A BILL TO AMEND AN ACT ENTITLED "AN ACT FOR MAKING
FURTHER AND MORE EFFECTUAL PROVISION FOR THE
NATIONAL DEFENSE, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES."

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

HBP 4Nov, 52

ARMY REORGANIZATION.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS,

Wednesday, September 3, 1919.

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Julius Kahn hairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. We have pending before us four different bills regarding the matter of the reorganization of the Army and universal training, which are H. R. 7925, introduced by Mr. Curry of California, a bill to establish the department of aeronautics, and for other purposes; H. R. 8068, introduced by Mr. Kahn, a bill to provide for universal military, naval, and vocational training, and for mobilization of the manhood of the Nation in a national emergency; H. R. 8287, which Mr. Kahn introduced, and which is the War Department bill, a bill to reorganize and increase the efficiency of the United States Army, and for other purposes; and H. R. 8870, introduced by Mr. Dent, a bill to amend an act entitled "An act for making further and more effectual provision for the national defense, and for other purposes.

I have asked Gen. March, the Chief of Staff, to come before the Committee this morning and explain to us the features of the bill H. R. 8287, the War Department bill, or any of the other bills he may desire to explain to the committee. Gen. March, we will be very glad to hear you.

STATEMENT OF GEN. PEYTON C. MARCH, CHIEF OF STAFF.

Gen. MARCH. Mr. Chairman, the bill H. R. 8287 is the bill for the reorganization of the Army suggested by the War Department, and I might say, preliminary to bringing out some of the features of that bill to which I wish to call your attention especially, that when the armistice was signed, on November 11, the War Department was confronted by the fact that the only legislation on the statute books which provided for a Military Establishment was the so-called HayChamberlain bill, which provided for a Regular Army of something like 175,000 men plus certain staff corps, which were not included in the strength of the Army, bringing the total available strength of the Army to something like 230,000 men. That bill prescribed in detail the strength of all the units of the Regular Army. It provided that the strength of a company of Infantry should consist of a certain number of officers and men, and it made a similar provision for the other units, so on throughout the entire line of the Army.

The experience of this war had shown that the organization of all these units had to be changed in order to be successful in war. In

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addition to that a number of new corps had been developed by the experiences of the war, which were not included in the organization prescribed by the national defense act or the Hay-Chamberlain bill.

In addition to that, also, the War Department organization itself had been compelled to be changed by the progress of events during the war.

So we were confronted with an actually existing organization both in the War Department and in the field which did not correspond in any particular to the organization prescribed by law. We then started this study of what we had learned during the war, because we believed that nobody would want to go back to the old order, to the old condition of defenselessness, or to the organization which existed before the war; and we attempted to put in the form of a recommendation to Congress an organization for the War Department and for the Army at large which would embody the result of our experience during the war.

In the consideration of this matter we found that there was a considerable group of officers in the Army who believed in compulsory military service in time of peace, and another considerable group who did not believe in it at all, who believed that it was Prussian in its origin and wholly un-American, but who did believe in universal military training for the youth of the country, of a more or less limited character.

The bill which was finally evolved was based upon having some system of limited training for the young men of the country included in its provisions, and there was also a provision that in time of war the selective service act which had been passed by Congress during the war should automatically go into effect without the necessity for any further legislation. Combined with that was a proposed strength of the Army which would allow us to incorporate into the military organization all the new corps which had been developed by the war, such as the Tank Corps, the Air Service as a separate unit, the Motor Transport Corps, etc. In determining the strength which we proposed to recommend to Congress for the Regular Army the problem was two-fold, first to have a proper strength for all the new units which had been authorized during the war, and second, to keep up an overhead which would permit the training of all young men who came into the universal military training scheme at the age of 19 years.

Those two being the foundation, the fundamental principles upon which we were working, we then proposed to organize this force which would be appropriate for the Regular Army into a complete unit, properly balanced, with an overhead for all organizations which had been developed by this war. For instance, in the old organizations we had no such thing as corps troops or a corps commander, or a corps staff; we had no such thing in the old organization as Army troops or an Army commander, or an Army staff. All those additional units, additional to the divisions, were incorporated into one complete unit, which corresponds to what we called a field Army, complete from the top to the bottom as far as the relation of the different organizations is concerned, and diminished in personnel as far as it was practical to diminish it and keep the organization intact. I instructed the committee of Army officers who were working on this matter to cut out from the proposed

organization every unit that could be improvised in time of war, and that did not need any special training in time of peace, such as labor battalions and stevedore battalions, all of the organizations belonging to the service of supply that can be simply gotten together and easily gotten together and utilized in time of war, and which may be put into a field Army in time of war, thus forming a complete field Army of war strength. Organizations of that kind were cut out of the proposed peace strength of the Army and the units themselves were skeletonized by diminishing the number of enlisted men per unit to a point where we would be safe, so that when it was necessary for us to expand in time of war, if it was necessary for us to have an abnormal expansion, we could have it with a smaller number of drilled men.

We determined in reference to the military training that the age where a man should be trained, which would interfere least with his work as a civilian, was 19; that when a boy became 19 years of age he was old enough and strong enough to take the training.

The CHAIRMAN. Your bill says in his 19th year; that would be between the time he becomes 18 years of age and the time he becomes 19 years, would it not?

Gen. MARCH. No; the idea was that after he comes to his 19th birthday he then becomes available for universal training.

The CHAIRMAN. After he passes his 19th year and goes into his 20th year?

Gen. MARCH. After he passes his 18th year and goes into his 19th year-when he reaches his 19th birthday-is the time when we take him into this training under this theory. The question of the training that would be necessary for this scheme was the subject of a very great deal of discussion between the officers of the Army working on it and the Secretary of War, who had to approve it finally. My own belief was something like this, that if it were possible we should evolve a scheme for universal training which should interfere as little as possible with a man's actual work or education at that period of his life. For instance, we thought we could take the college boys of 19 years of age during the period when they were on vacation from their colleges; we could take the people who worked on the cotton crops in the South at the time when they were not working on their crop; and that we could take the grain producers of the North at another time; and everyone would be registered on the basis of the time which was most fitting to give him. the military training and interfere as little as possible with his ordinary work in life.

The first report I had from the committee considering the matter recommended that the time be set at 11 months, which would take a man out of his occupation practically for a year. That was something which I could not approve, and nobody else approved it. The time finally recommended was three months, and it may be said from the start that the amount of time set forth in the bill, three months, does not represent maximum efficiency by any means. It represents the most desirable time, taking everything into consideration. If more time could be given the men would be better trained and they would attain greater proficiency. But we learned in the war that we could do a great deal with the men in three months.