Streamlined Army

The Army took a big piece of brass out of its hat last week. President Roosevelt ordered the most sweeping reorganization in the War Department's history. An organization hitherto as strangely assembled as Topsy's hair was streamlined to bullet-shape. Out the window went bottlenecks, bureaus and bric-a-brac --and the fusty old general staff setup. All old sections were packed into three new ones: Air Force, Ground Force and Supply. On top remains Chief of Staff George C. Marshall.

Under him three men will steer the Army of the future : Air Force -- Lieut. General Henry H. ("Hap" for happy) Arnold, white-thatched, genial, 55, veteran flyer, ex-juvenile fiction writer; Ground Force --slender, studious Lieut. General Lesley J. McNair, 58; Supply --soft-spoken, hard-driving Major General (likely soon to be Lieut. General) Brehon Somervell, 49.

Air Force. No longer will old-line generals, ignorant of air-force problems, interfere with air-force development. As head man, Hap Arnold will have equal voice with his two opposite numbers, will have his own general staff and administrative setup. Most air force officers practically trod on air.

Ground Force. In reshuffling ground forces, the Army lumped together in fantry, cavalry, armored force, artillery, eliminated the branch chiefs. General Marshall had been run ragged by the minor as well as major problems of ground force chiefs, all of whom dealt directly with him. Now he can give his time to more important business : planning the fight.

As ground chief, General McNair, formerly chief of GHQ staff, will have plenty of reason to exercise his habit of working 18 hours a day.

Supply. Most dramatic, most drastic change was the centralization, under one head, of the old, hydra-headed bureaus of Army supply. General Somervell, whose job has a lot in common with Admiral Robinson's (see p. 38), will see that the Army has what it needs when & where needed. Onetime New York City WPAd-ministrator, where he was a whopping success, Somervell is quietly hot-tempered, moves in on what he wants with a sophistication belying his contention that he is "just a country boy from Arkansas trying to get along in the big city." No. 2 man to Somervell in Supply will be Colonel Charles Duncanson Young, lately a vice president of the Pennsylvania R.R.

Training. Not even military instruction escaped the Army reorganization. The whole program of military instruction will be consolidated under the direction of Major General Courtney H. Hodges, graduate of the General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, and rated a brilliant organizer.

Not so many feelings will be hurt by the reorganization as might be expected. Already two of the affected chiefs have announced their retirement : Cavalry Chief Major General John K. Herr. Artillery Chief Major General Robert M. Danford. For others involved, the Army is getting other berths ready.

The Army was officially almost lyrical about its reorganization: "It provides practical autonomy for air and ground forces except where unity of effort is required as task forces in a theater of operations. It abolishes in one stroke stereotyped or crystallized procedure which has grown up in the process of time under conditions that did not even approach the tremendous task now facing the War Department."

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