ported directly to the President. They were responsible for strategic plans to guide the conduct of the war and for coordinating the operations of the armed services. Together with their British counterparts, the Joint Chiefs formed the Combined Chiefs of Staff. In July 1942, the President appointed Admiral Willam D. Leahy as his own Chief of Staff. Leahy also served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Unified commands were established to undertake joint Army-Navy campaigns. Based, in general, on whether the effort involved primarily the Army or the Navy, either the Chief of Staff of the Army or the Chief of Naval Operations was designated Executive of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for each unified command. As a result, the Joint Chiefs could focus collectively on strategy, policy, and coordination of critical matters, delegating the details. of planning and directing operations to one of the service chiefs."

In the spring of 1942, when the Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet also became Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas for United Nations forces, the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff were assigned jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to operational strategy in the Pacific. The implementing directive stated that the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet would act as the Joint Chiefs's "Executive Agency" for the Pacific Ocean Areas command. This decision provided the Allies with an efficient chain of command for the direction of the struggle against Japan for control of the Pacific.

As a result of actions such as these to meet the demands of World War II, the assignment of responsibility and authority over the operating forces and for their support were well tailored to meet the requirements for prompt and effective global naval operations with limited resources in response to widely scattered crises. Provision had been made also for the unified control of joint operations involving two or more of the military services.

World War II also produced major changes in the composition and capabilities of the Fleet. Having expanded in response to wartime needs, the United States Navy of 1945 was not only vastly larger than the prewar force, but it was far more diversified and had gained an unparalleled capacity of endurance for combat operations in remote waters. One specific result of the Navy's experience in World War II was the ascendancy of

5 Vernon E. Davis, "Origin of the Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff," Vol. I of "The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II: Organizational Development" (Historical Section, JCS, 1972).

* Ltr, SECNAV to distribution list, A16-328 of 20 Apr. 1942.

the aircraft carrier. Screened, supported, and supplied by other ships, this type supplanted the battleship as the primary striking arm of the Fleet. In addition to proving their value in the war at sea, carriers conclusively demonstrated their worth as mobile bases for the launching of air attacks against land targets. Concentrations of carrier air power proved capable of neutralizing enemy airfields. With the introduction of high-performance fighter aircraft, radar, the best antiaircraft fire-control systems in the world, automatically controlled gun mounts, and effective tactical dispositions, the Fleet had gained the capability to withstand enemy air attacks.

In carrying out the island-hopping campaigns of the Pacific war and landing millions of troops on the continents of Africa and Europe, the United States Fleet and its Marine Force had achieved unprecedented advances in amphibious warfare. The limited capabilities and imperfect techniques of the prewar days had been expanded and refined, not only with regard to the assault landings, but also for the softening of enemy defenses by air attack and naval gunfire, the removal of obstacles by underwater demolition teams, close air and gunfire support of forces ashore, and logistic support by sea of subsequent operations.

To sustain ships in combat in distant waters and to support a wide variety of naval forces, the concepts of the fleet train and Base Force had been broadened and developed into the Pacific Fleet Service Force with its extraordinarily effective naval operational logistic system. Significant advances had been achieved in underway replenishment of supplies, ammunition, and fuel. Dependence on fixed bases had been minimized by the extensive mobile capabilities of ships and craft devised to provide repairs, services, and other logistic support. New concepts, techniques, and systems had been developed for the prompt establishment of advanced bases tailored to meet varying requirements. Navy Mobile Construction Battalions (SEABEES) were organized for the construction and maintenance of bases and support of the Marines in combat."

Major progress had been achieved by the United States in submarine warfare and in mining and minesweeping. The serious threat posed by the German U-boat campaign in the Atlantic had forced the assignment of top priority there to antisubmarine warfare. New concepts, tactics, techniques,

7

Worrall R. Carter, Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil (Washington: Navy Department, GPO, 1952); Furer, Administration of the Navy Department; Hooper, Mobility, Support, Endurance, pp. 21-24.

detection devices, weapons, and ship and aircraft systems had been developed to cope with the undersea threat.

Many of the World War II ships and craft would see service in the Vietnam conflict, along with the SEABEES. Concepts such as the Advanced Base Functional Component Systems would prove ideally suited to the establishment of support facilities during the period of American combat involvement with Vietnam. The naval officers advancing to positions of high command responsibilities during the Vietnam era would benefit from their combat experiences in World War II. They would draw upon the knowledge gained from that war both for combat and logistical actions, such as the establishment and operation of mobile support forces and advance bases.

Uncertainties as to the Future

During World War II, one unsettling note, at least insofar as the Navy was concerned, was the advocacy of fundamental revisions in departmental organization and responsibilities and in the control and support of military forces. The proposals were motivated, in part, by advances made in aviation and concepts of "strategic" air power. They also stemmed from differences between the Army and the Navy concerning the direction of the armed forces and the management of their support. The concepts proposed were, in some respects, an outgrowth of a sweeping reorganization of the War Department, initiated by the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, shortly after America entered the war. Three commands were established: Army Ground Forces, Army Air Forces, and Services of Supply."

As early as 1916, 1917, and 1919, congressional bills had been introduced which would have established a Cabinet-level Department of Aviation to control both Army and Navy aviation and with civil air responsibilities as well. Other proposals were introduced in 1925; one would have abolished the Navy and reconstituted the War Department as a Department of Defense controlling a united Army-Navy Service; another would have placed civil and military aviation under a Department of Defense with undersecretaries for land, sea, and air; another bill would have established an Air Corps within the War Department, in a way similar to that of the Marine Corps in the Department of the Navy. Both the War and Navy Departments were opposed to the degree of autonomy being proposed for aviation under these plans. A summary of the legislative history of unification, beginning in 1921, is contained in Exhibit I of the report to Secretary Forrestal forwarded by Ferdinand Eberstadt on 25 September 1945, entitled Unification of the War and Navy Departments and Postwar Organization for National Security (79th Cong., 1st sess.) (Washington: GPO, 1945), pp. 241-51 (hereafter cited as Eberstadt Report).

Forrest C. Pogue, Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1942, Vol. II of George C. Marshall (New York: Viking Press, 1965), pp. 8, 81-86, 120, 289–301.

In November 1943, Marshall submitted, for consideration by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a recommendation that a single Department of War be created after the war. Marshall sought a prompt decision to facilitate planning for the postwar period. The justifications advanced for a single department were "real unity of command," centralization of "numerous functions" to eliminate "duplication and overlapping," and "centralized control of the supply of all Services in peacetime. . . ." The single department would be organized into "three major groups: the Ground Forces, the Air Forces, the Naval Forces, together with a general Supply Department." This proposal became the subject of study in the Navy Department and the Joint Staff."

10

On 24 April 1944 a House of Representatives select committee, chaired by Clifton A. Woodrum of Virginia, began hearings on postwar military policy. The committee made the third agenda item a "study of the development of unity of command," the first order of business. Six Army general officers, the Secretary of War, the Under Secretary of War, and the Assistant Secretary of War for Air, presented well organized and mutually supporting testimony. All the witnesses from the War Department criticized the current organization of the armed forces under the Departments of War and Navy. What the Army witnesses proposed was the establishment of a single Department of the Armed Forces. Under a Chief of Staff, the military would be regrouped into four subdivisions: ground forces, air forces, sea forces, and a common supply and service force."

One of the more significant aspects of the hearings was a recommendation for the consolidation, amalgamation, and centralization of authority of many functions for which each of the two departments were then responsible. If implemented, rather than being in control of all the means and activities essential to the readiness and effectiveness of the Fleet, the Navy would be dependent on others, in competition with the Army and the Air Force. A multitude of centers of functional authority and added complexities in the decision-making processes would result.

Later events would prove these recommendations to be forewarnings of changes during the Vietnam era when unity, elimination of duplication,

10

Memo, COMINCH to SECNAV, GB No. 446, ser 002416 of 4 Nov. 1943; ltr, Chairman, GB to SECNAV, GB No. 446, ser 269 of 17 May 1944.

"U.S., Congress, House, Select Committee on Post-War Military Policy, Hearings on a Proposal to Establish a Single Department of Armed Forces (78th Cong., 2nd sess.) (Washington: GPO, 1944), pp. 1-111 (hereafter cited as Single Department of Armed Forces).

and centralization would approach the status of primary objectives. Recommendations by the witnesses included consolidation of fiscal responsibilities, amalgamation of administrative services, and formation of a common legal service. Also included were unified control of research, development, and design; consolidation of research and development experimental establishments; consolidation of production and engineering supervision; combination of procurement organization under one head; and direct control of production. Other recommendations included a single organization for munitions loading, supplies, research and development, radar, guns, gasoline, textiles, raw materials and food, and auditing; consolidation of storage and issuance of parts and spares, and depot and warehousing functions; and a single petroleum agency. One agency for construction was suggested. Organizations to handle intelligence, weather, photographic work, air charts, and communications were proposed. Administration of medical matters, consolidation of hospitalization and evacuation, and real estate were recommended. A common personnel policy and procurement division, a unified personnel organization, consolidated training establishments, unified schools for intelligence, programming and control, aircraft engineering, and gunnery officers were included. The War Department witnesses proposed the restriction of naval aviation to carriers and ship-based aircraft, a single procurement agency for aircraft, and consolidation of ground organizations for the support of aircraft squadrons and groups.

12

Four days after the beginning of the congressional hearings in 1944, the first naval officer, Vice Admiral Richard S. Edwards, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, testified. He expressed opposition to opening the investigation on the assumption that the answers to efficiency could be found only in a single department of defense. Edwards stressed that "the immediate need is to get along with the war," "the present organization is producing effective results," experimental organization "could but interfere with the progress of operations," decisions should be based upon experience in a war "not yet in its final phase," that "no one yet knows what part the United States would play in the peace," and that the services should not leap into a reorganization that might, while correcting some faults, introduce others more serious.13

12

After three weeks of hearings, the committee concluded that it did

2 Ibid.,

pp. 15, 16, 19, 34. 48, 50–52, 56, 71, 81–85, 91, 94–95, 98, 100-11.

13 Ibid., pp. 137-38; see also Vincent Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy, 19431946 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1962).