Unity of Command

ARMY & NAVY

We must do anything and everything to break the attitude of mind that the main fighting forces of the United States are separate entities. This is not the Army-Navy football game; this is war.

Thus spoke an official of the War Department, which--like everybody else--had noted the Pearl Harbor Commission's report (TIME, Feb. 2) that the Army & Navy in Hawaii were as uncooperative as a pair of strange terriers. Eyes front, both branches of the armed forces vigorously endorsed Franklin Roosevelt's moves to coordinate Army & Navy commands.

The importance of a unified command has been demonstrated positively by the Germans, negatively by the British. While the Nazis have moved their forces into battle under one-man control with a minimum of departmental confusion, the Brit ish have been hindered by all kinds of wasted motion, brought on by lack of unity among top-ranking admirals, generals and R.A.F. commanders. At Crete and during the first battle of Libya, there was singularly little coordination of command be tween air, army and naval forces. More recently, in the Far East, the British lack of unified command was demonstrated when the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, cruising without air cover, were sunk with terrifying dispatch.

Only time in history before World War II that U.S. air, army and naval forces served under a unified command was on the North Carolina shore maneuvers last July, when Major General Holland McTyeire ("Howlin' Mad") Smith of the Marines commanded task forces of the Marines and the Army under the over-all supervision of Admiral Ernest Joseph King.

This arrangement saw its counterpart in at least three theaters of war last week, where U.S. armed forces were actually functioning under a single command. In the western Caribbean, Rear Admiral John H. Hoover was in supreme command. In the Canal Zone, Lieut. General Frank M. Andrews, Air Forces, was top man. In Hawaii, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz had been placed over Lieut. General Delos C. Emmons of the Air Forces, top Army man of the Islands.

Last week Admiral Nimitz--who shortly afterwards answered the question "Where is the U.S. Navy?"--doffed his gold-braided cap to the merits of the new system. Said he: "In my opinion and that of General Emmons it is functioning exceedingly well. It is a specific contribution to effective military and naval operations in the Pacific area."

The head man in an Army-Navy setup is required to decide what the military objectives of his united forces will be and to figure out how to attain them. Then it is up to individual Army & Navy commanders to put his orders into effect. Unity of over-all command gives neither the Army or the Navy the right to interfere with the internal problems of the other.

In the global struggle of World War II, it is likely that the Navy will take over more unified commands than the Army. But in the Far East, where the widest application of the scheme has been set up, British General Sir Archibald Wavell is in supreme command of the United Nations, outranking U.S. Admiral Tommy Hart, head of all Allied naval activities.

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