The Pittsburgh Press (April 30, 1947)
Secret report reveals huge war waste
Army, Navy disunity cost over billion
By Robert S. Allen
WASHINGTON – A suppressed War Department report revealing that the Army and Navy needlessly wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on the procurement of war supplies, has been obtained by the Senate Armed Forces Committee.
Prepared in January by Lt. Gen. Leroy Lutes, procurement director (G-4) of the Army, the sensational document was pigeon-holed on White House orders.
Last week, the Senate committee demanded the report after sharp Navy and Marine Corps attacks on the pending armed services unification bill.
In his suppressed report, Gen. Lutes charges that “duplication and lack of coordination in supply activities of the Army and Navy during the years 1942 through 1945” cost the United States an estimated $1,150,000,000.
This huge sum does not include gasoline, oil and lubricant purchases.
Survival at stake
Titled “Unified Logistics Support of the United States Armed Services,” Gen. Lutes’ report is meticulously objective and impartial. It holds no brief for either the Army or Navy. It is a critical analysis of both services in the interest of combining procurement systems to increase efficiency and economy.
“We are certain,” Gen. Lutes declares, “that the materiel demands of any future war will not be less than those of the last. It may become, then, a simple matter of survival. Whether we use our resources efficiently or not may very well be the determining factor between victory and defeat.”
Gen. Lutes cites a number of instances of wasteful duplication that ran into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Wastage tabulated
Among those listed items are:
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$201 million if medical facilities and personnel had been consolidated;
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$81 million in duplicating port installations;
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$22 million in overlapping staging area operations;
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$18 million in Pacific storage facilities;
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$30 million in communication costs;
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$2 million per depot on numerous adjacent depots in the U.S. and abroad;
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$62 million if medical supplies procurement had been combined;
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$6 million annually by the consolidation of post exchange and ships’ store operations;
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$8 million if transport maintenance and repair had been unified.
Gen. Lutes’ report also details a large number of cases where the separate supply services resulted in operational difficulties.
“In some cases,” he declares, “differences in specifications were so minor as to be ridiculous. Both departments procured 10-ton bridge trestles from the Michaels Art Bronze Co., Covington, Ky. Separate drawings were furnished the contractor by the Army and Navy. The equipment differed only in the tolerance of drilled holes and their spaces, yet only a limited number of bridges were interchangeable.
“Refrigerator storage space was especially at a premium in the tropics. In one instance, 250,000 rations were lost on Guam because covered storage space was not available for use by one of the services, while at the same time large tonnages of nonperishable supplies were being stored under cover by the other service.
Surplus, shortage
“At Weondi Island, New Guinea, in November 1944, one service had stocks of creosoted timber piling in reserve for contingencies, while a dock construction job for the other service at Biak Island, a few miles away, was being delayed because of a shortage of such piling.
“Also on Biak Island, one service was salvaging lighterage pontoons to meet a critical shortage, while the other service was issuing considerable quantities from excess stocks at Finchafen, New Guinea, for use as water tanks.
“The seatrain Lakehurst, immediately following her conversion by the Army, was transferred to the Navy for operation. Extensive alterations were required to accommodate the Navy crew. On redelivery to the Army the vessel was reconverted to meet Army standards at a cost of $150,000. Throughout this period, the nature of the ship’s employment remained unchanged.
Morale damaged
“The Army’s Special Services Division is responsible for the building of morale. Time after time, in outfits side by side, the Army received one kind of treatment or service, and the Navy another. It is difficult to build high morale in the Army and the Navy when either feels it is being discriminated against in favor of the other.
“The story of what happened in the Pacific when men of one service were asked to unload beverages not available to them and destined for consumption of men in the other service, is almost legendary. And groups of men subsisting primarily on canned and dehydrated foods must be forgiven if they felt some rancor when men of the other service, literally alongside them, consumed goods brought in on refrigerator ships.”
Gen. Lutes made a brilliant record during the war as deputy to Gen. Brehon Somervell, chief of Army procurement. Following Gen. Somervell’s retirement, Gen. Lutes was named his successor. Quiet and self-effacing, he is widely regarded as one of the ablest men in the armed forces.