The Unfit

"Poor leadership is the major cause for the Army's weakness in morale, in training, in materiel and in tactics."

So wrote Commentator Hanson Baldwin this week in the New York Times. Solemn and well informed, Mr. Baldwin has taken some heavy swats in the past at both the Army's & Navy's conduct of the war. This blow hit as hard as any. Said Baldwin:

"The deficiencies in leadership are particularly evident in company and battalion officers, from lieutenants to majors. Too many officers in these ranks and also some of their superiors are too much contented with personal advancement.

"Promotions, decorations and service ribbons have played too large a part in the wartime Army."

Too many young officers, said Annapolisman Baldwin, are "yes men." Too many lack initiative. Too many, on the other hand, "exercise the prerogatives of rank without recognizing its responsibilities." They have become "puffed up with importance and false pride; too few of them comprehend the one absolutely indispensable requirement of leadership, care of their men."

One reason, Baldwin acknowledges, is the rapid expansion of our Army, which had to yank many young men from civilian life and thrust them into jobs for which they had no background. He lambastes enlisted men too--civilians put into uniform through no choice of their own, "too many of them with too little pride in that uniform, too many of them 'soft' and impatient of discipline and hardship "

Hanson Baldwin failed to point out that the Army on occasion has been ruthless in its weeding out of failures in the higher echelons--many generals (but no admirals) have been quietly broken. Lower echelons are harder to get at among the millions of men now in the services. But Critic Baldwin's statements did add up to a sound criticism of the Army personnel machine, and of a U.S. deficiency in martial spirit.

Poor leadership, which causes unnecessary casualties and "a weakness of the whole fabric of the fighting Army" will have to be eliminated, says Baldwin, before western Europe is invaded. According to Baldwin this major job must first be done: "the unfit, inept, 'stuffed-shirt' and inefficient leaders [must be replaced] with good leadership . . . to build up a pride of outfit in the country's many untested divisions, the divisions that on the war's greatest D-day will hold the future in their hands."

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