The chief of the Corps, who is called The Provost Marshal General, is the principal law enforcement authority in the Department of the Army. He formulates military police policies for the Army under the direction of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, and supervises the technical training and functioning of the Corps.

The present strength of the Corps is about 30,000. Its responsibilities are global. Each army in the United States, each oversea command, each post, camp, or station, and each major subordinate unit of the field forces (division, corps,

31 Jul 1941-21 Jun 1944 21 Jun 1944-3 Dec 1945 3 Dec 1945-10 Apr 1948 10 Apr 1948-31 Jan 1953 3 Feb 1953-30 Sept 1957 19 Nov 1957

.Maj. Gen. Allen W. Gullion ..Maj. Gen. Archer L. Lerch .Brig. Gen. Blackshear M. Bryan Maj. Gen. Edwin P. Parker, Jr. .Maj. Gen. William H. Maglin .Maj. Gen. Haydon L. Boatner

and

The Ordnance Corps designs, develops, procures, stores, maintains, and issues a wide variety of equipment and supplies, including small arms artillery, ammunition of all types, tanks, gun motor carriages, armored personnel carriers, trucks for transporting men and materiel, aircraft bombs, land mines, free-flight rockets and launchers, guided missiles, and miscellaneous equipment. The principal supply is to the Army, but under the "single manager plan" the Corps procures small arms and ammunition, and certain motor vehicles, for the Navy and Marine Corps; aircraft guns and ammunition, bombs, small arms, and automotive equipment for the Air Force; and many items for foreign aid. To perform its mission it maintains and operates manufacturing arsenals; research laboratories; proving grounds; depots for storage and maintenance; district offices for procurement;

and government-owned, contractor-operated plants for loading ammunition and manufacturing explosives and propellants.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. The antecedents of the Ordnance Corps go back to the early days of the American Revolution, when the Continental Congress created a Board of War and Ordnance and assigned to it many of the duties now associated with

the Corps. From time to time the Congress also appointed committees to deal with specific problems such as the procurement of cannon, the manufacture of gunpowder, and the opening of lead mines. A Commissary General of Military Stores was appointed to keep records of supplies and be responsible for armories, foundries, and "laboratories" (workshops).

In the 80 years following the Revolution, various plans were adopted and modified for handling ordnance duties. The Ordnance Department as such was created in 1812. Armories or arsenals were established as follows: Springfield (Mass.) and Harper's Ferry (Va.) in 1794; Watervliet (N. Y.) in 1813; Frankford (Pa.) in 1815; Watertown (Mass.) in 1816; and Rock Island (Ill.) during the Civil War. Between the Civil War and World War I, breech-loading field and coast artillery were developed, and improved projectiles, propellants, and explosives were standardized. Picatinny Arsenal (N. J.) was created as a powder depot in 1879, and later became a manufacturing arsenal. The famous Springfield rifle was adopted in 1903.

Following World War I, there was established the decentralized Ordnance District system of procurement now in effect. A program was adopted which resulted in the standardization of new

arms

and improved items of artillery, small (including the Garand or M1 rifle), ammunition, and combat vehicles. Surveys of industry and production studies were made, and plans prepared for the prompt placing of large contracts if an emergency arose.

World War II brought to the Ordnance the greatest challenge in its history. Thanks to prewar planning, the Department got off to a fast start in its enormous procurement program. Vast new productive capacity was created; over $3,000,000,000 went into constructing and equipping some 60 plants for making smokeless powder, TNT, ammonium nitrate, and RDX, and for loading cartridge cases, powder bags, shells, bombs, and mines. During the war these government-owned, contractor-operated plants, together with commercial plants making cartridge cases and other ammunition components, produced nearly a billion rounds of artillery ammunition, ranging in size from 20mm aircraft gun cartridges to 240mm howitzer shells. Ordnance wartime procurement amounted to $34,000,000,000, roughly half the total of all Army procurement. Scores of new items were developed, including the lightweight carbine, the bazooka rocket launcher, light recoilless rifles with the fire power of artillery, improved tanks, and many new types of ammunition. Detroit Arsenal, built during the war, continued in the postwar years as the center of tank development and production. The Ordnance Training Center was established at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1941. Ordnance-trained officers and men went to every oversea theater to provide support for the troops in the field.

In the postwar years research and development continued, including highly important studies of German V-2 weapons and of new American designs of guided missiles, and many test firings were made at White Sands Proving Ground.

With the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, Ordnance was suddenly called upon to swing back into production, issue supplies from storage, and accelerate its research. The budget jumped from $600,000,000 in fiscal year 1950 to more than $11,000,000,000 in 1952. In 1953,

Ordnance announced three remarkable new developments-the 75mm radarcontrolled Skysweeper antiaircraft gun, the Nike antiaircraft guided missile, and the 280mm atomic cannon. Meanwhile, at Redstone Arsenal, a group of former German scientists worked with ordnance engineers on a spectacular array of rockets and guided missiles that gave promise of opening a new era in the history of warfare.

THE ORDNANCE CORPS TODAY. The Office of the Chief of Ordnance has nine staff offices, dealing with a wide variety of administrative, legislative, legal, financial, planning, coordination, liaison, publicity, and security problems and the like. It also has three main divisions, each with general supervision over a major operation of the Corps: the Research and Development Division, the Industrial Division, and the Field Service Division. They direct a sequence of operations which start with the design of a weapon or other item, and end with its final distribution and maintenance.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT DIVISION. This division is charged with developing new and improved Ordnance materiel, including guided missiles and rockets as well as timehonored weapons such as tanks, artillery, small arms, and transport vehicles. Actual research and development work is under the direction of arsenals and other Ordnance Corps installations, from which items are sent to a proving ground for testing. Guided missiles and rockets are tested at White Sands Proving Ground; most vehicles, artillery, small arms, and ammunition, at Aberdeen Proving Ground (Md.). The division maintains close technical liaison with the Navy, the Air Force, and other Federal agencies; with the using arms and services; and with numerous technological and scientific institutions and activities.

INDUSTRIAL DIVISION. This division supervises procurement, production, inspection, and acceptance of ordnance materiel, and the industrial engineering connected therewith; it is responsible for industrial mobilization planning. Its chief has a deputy and two special assistants-one for artillery, vehicles, and infantry weapons, and one

for guided missiles and aircraft armament. It has a Plans and Programs Branch, a District and Industrial Services Branch, and four commodity branches-Guided Missiles, Ammunition, Weapons and Fire Control, and Tank-Automotive. It provides the overall administration of government-owned plants, both active and stand-by; it cooperates closely with industry and with the manufacturing arsenals in production and mobilization planning. The arsenals supply small amounts of materiel in peacetime, and develop plans and methods for mass production in wartime. The division also supervises the 14 ordnance procurement districts, each of which procures all ordnance items manufactured in its area.

FIELD SERVICE DIVISION. This division deals with the storage, issue, repair, and maintenance of ordnance materiel and ammunition. It supervises and directs packaging activities; is responsible for determination of materiel requirements, including major items, spare parts, and tools; overseas the preparation of military and technical publications; and supervises ammunition renovation and demilitarization. It supervises the cataloging of ordnance items, maintenance engineering support, and management of the ordnance portion of the Army Stock Fund. It is responsible for the administration and operation of some 25 depots, several storage activities, and the Major Item Supply Management Agency.

TRAINING AND ASSIGNMENT OF PERSONNEL. The increasing complexity of modern weapons, including rockets, guided missiles, and special atomic weapons, places a heavy responsibility on the Ordnance Corps for training technical specialists for worldwide support of the using arms. These spe

cialists are either career ordnance officers whose technical education and experience fit them for command, staff, and technical advisory assignments, or specially trained enlisted men.

In an oversea theater, the ordnance officer who is directly under the theater commander is himself in command of the organization which supplies and maintains ordnance items for the theater. Within that organization, other ordnance officers command the various supply and maintenance bases. In the continental armies within the United States, the Army ordnance officer is primarily a technical advisor rather than a commander; but he exercises technical administration over ordnance supply and maintenance activities within his Army area.

Trained enlisted specialists are provided by the Corps for the various elements of the Army as required. Their tasks are supply and maintenance operations in connection with ammunition, combat and transport vehicles, artillery, fire control materiel, small arms, free-flight rockets, guided missiles, and other weapons and equipment.

The Ordnance Corps agency responsible for providing trained manpower is the U.S. Army Ordnance Training Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Major training programs are conducted at the U.S. Army Ordnance School (also at Aberdeen) and the U.S. Army Ordnance Guided Missile School at Redstone Arsenal (Huntsville, Ala.). Training with new equipment is carried on at the various commodity commands and arsenals.

For full information on the Army's weapons which the Ordnance Corps has designed and produced, see chapter

9.

2 Jul 1812-1 Jun 1821

1 Jun 1821-25 Mar 1848 20 Mar 1848-10 Jul 1851 10 July 1851-23 Apr 1861 23 Apr 1861-15 Sep 1863 15 Sep 1863-12 Sep 1864 12 Sep 1864-20 May 1874 23 Jun 1874-23 Jun 1891 23 Jun 1891-29 Mar 1899 5 Apr 1899-22 Nov 1901 22 Nov 1901-15 Jul 1918

16 Jul 1918-1 Apr 1930 2 Jun 1930-2 Jun 1934 2 Jun 1934-3 Jun 1938 3 Jun 1938-2 Jun 1942 2 Jun 1942-31 May 1946

.Col. Decius Wadsworth
...Col. George Bomford
Col. George Talcott
.Col. Henry K. Craig

. Brig. Gen. James W. Ripley . Brig. Gen. George D. Ramsay .Brig. Gen. Alexander B. Dyer .Brig. Gen. Stephen V. Benet ..Brig. Gen. Daniel W. Flagler Brig. Gen. Adelbert R. Buffington Maj. Gen. William Crozier .Maj. Gen. Clarence C. Williams .Maj. Gen. Samuel Hof

. Maj. Gen. William H. Tschappat .Maj. Gen. Charles M. Wesson .Lt. Gen. Levin H. Campbell

1 Jun 1946-1 Nov 1949 1 Nov 1949- 1 Nov 1953 1 Nov 1953-2 Apr 1958 2 Apr 1958—

.Maj. Gen. Everett S. Hughes ..Maj. Gen. Elbert L. Ford .Lt. Gen. Emerson L. Cummings ..Maj. Gen. John H. Hinrichs

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. The Corps traces its origin to 16 June 1775, when the second Continental Congress, following Washington's address accepting command of the Army, passed a resolution providing for "one quarter master general for the grand army, and a deputy, under him, for the separate army." On the same day Congress provided for a Commissary General of Stores and Purchases, in whom it vested responsibility for feeding the troops. In January, 1777, Washington, on authorization of Congress, appointed a Clothier General to supervise the supply of clothing to the Continental Army.

The organization set up in 1775 was known during the Revolutionary War as the Quartermaster General's Department, and more briefly, throughout the nineteenth century, as the Quartermaster's Department. Originally it was a field agency, and the Quartermaster General was the chief staff officer of the commanding general of the Army. He gathered intelligence data, assisted in planning marches, opened roads, laid out camps, assigned quarters, and transported men and supplies. In short, he took all measures to enable an Army to march with ease and to encamp with convenience and safety.

The position of Quartermaster General was abolished in 1785; but permanently revived in 1812. In 1818 the Quartermaster's Department was established as a supply bureau in Washington. Since Quartermaster General Thomas S. Jesup shaped and guided

the Department for forty-two years after his appointment in 1818, and Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs from 1861 to 1882, continuity of control permitted the development of policies and procedures that enabled the Department to carry out its duties with competency during the Mexican and Civil Wars.

Initially the Department depended upon the services of soldiers detailed from the line, and on civilians, to transport supplies to the front, to build and repair roads, and to erect barracks. During these years the Department repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, advocated a militarized corps. It took the deficiencies of supply, and the shortcomings of the War Department in general during the Spanish-American War, to generate a wave of reform that in 1912, among other changes, resulted in the organization of Quartermaster units on military lines. In that year Congress consolidated the former Subsistence, Pay, and Quartermaster's Departments to create the Quartermaster Corps that exists today, with its own officers and troops.

In World War I the Corps' functions were temporarily carried out by several agencies. Most of them reverted to QMC control in 1920; but in World War II, construction was transferred to the Corps of Engineers and transportation to the Transportation Corps. This left the QMC free to concentrate on its basic function of the procurement, storage, and issue of its characteristic supplies and equipment. The scale of its war effort may be judged by the fact that, at its peak in 1944, it had expanded to a strength of over 500,000 officers and men.

Immediately following the war there was of course a great reduction in activity. However, the Truman Doctrine of 1947, setting forth the national policy of containment of military aggression in the world, marked the start of a new phase of Quartermaster postwar history. In this period of intensified "cold war" between the United States

and the Soviet Union, lasting until 1950, our country began to solidify its farflung military outposts in order to resist Communist expansion. Quartermaster supply and service to American soldiers, stationed on distant military frontiers created a global mission for the Corps unprecedented in its peacetime history.

The chief characteristic of this mission was the “logistical flexibility” developed in Quartermaster organization, operations, and procedures for oversea supply. When the Korean conflict broke out, the QMC was in better shape to meet its unexpected demands than was much of the Army; partly because of this existing oversea supply organization, and partly because it had kept on hand large surpluses of World War II stocks. Serious shortages did develop in some items, in the early days of the Korean fighting; but in general, and especially in the supply of food and other perishables, the Corps did a remarkable job. By 1951 many frontline soldiers were actually eating two hot meals a day. This achievement was the result of techniques developed by the QMC food service program, including the daily delivery of fresh foods by air transport.

In addition to air-transported and landed supplies, the Quartermaster Corps parachuted and free-dropped thousands of tons of food, clothing, and medical, ordnance, and engineer supplies, through its airdrop program. "Supply by sky" was continuous throughout the conflict. Probably the most signficant drops were those made during the American retreat from the Changjin Reservoir to the Hungnam evacuation port in December 1950, and those near Wonju in the spring of 1951. On the route from the reservoir, the most spectacular single air drop took place when a 16-ton treadway bridge was floated down to rescue hundreds of Marines and infantrymen left isolated by a destroyed bridge.

These examples of Quartermaster supply and service were typical of the manner in which the entire resources and facilities of the Corps were directed to filling the needs of the individual fighting man in Korea. The extent of its success may best be gauged, per

haps, by the comment of General James A. Van Fleet, commander of the Eighth Army, that it was the "best equipped, best fed, best clothed, best housed and cared-for army we have ever produced."

During and since the Korean conflict the QMC, like the rest of the Army, has been evolving rapidly to meet the new concepts of war of the nuclear age. The chief developments in this recent period have been along the following lines.

PENTOMIC SUPPLY. The organization and tactics of the "pentomic" Army now in being have their counterpart in new QMC procedures of supply and service. These procedures are being worked out by various research and development projects, some of which, such as the use of irradiation to preserve food (see chapter 31) have revolutionary possibilities.

OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY. This has been improved by various management reforms. Among them are: reduction of operating stocks, in line with the "living-off-the-shelf" practice of private industry; use of the fiscal and accounting methods of commercial firms; integration of budgeting, programming, and the review and analysis of operational activities; new and expanded command-management concepts; central inventory control and automatic data processing. Along with this has gone a tendency to eliminate Government competition with private industry. Many important Quartermaster services have been affected, including commissary stores, meat-cutting plants, bakeries, laundries, dry-cleaning plants, coffee-roasting plants, typewriter repair shops, and officers' tailoring shops. Quartermaster manufacturing activities in the field also have been reduced drastically.

UNIFICATION. The QMC has been a chief protagonist in most of the major logistical developments of the movement for unification of the Armed Services, including "single-service procurement," "joint procurement," "coordinated procurement," "cross-servicing," and the "single manager plan." The Corps has two single manager assignments which it executes for the Secretary of the Army. One is for the supply of sub