“I agree with Dutch,” he began, as a titter greeted the idea that these two might agree on anything.
“You expect us to give you a war plan,” Glenn went on, “before you have answered the question; and furthermore, you expect us to give you something worthwhile at no cost. According to my estimate,” Glenn continued, “it would cost at least ten thousand dollars for us to get up anything useful, and you apparently expect us to advance it out of profits. It can’t be done.” As Glenn finished, Hap glanced my way.
My experience with Army was more limited than that of the others. In Hamilton-Standard, Ray Walsh had handled Army business. In Sikorsky and Vought, the dealings had been mostly with Navy. In Pratt and Whitney, “Tilly” Tillinghast, himself a former Army pilot and a favorite with all, had handled Army contacts. However, there were some fundamentals that seemed to apply to both.
“I agree with Dutch and Glenn,” I began, adding to the unusual flurry of interindustry agreement, “and I’ll go a step farther. For a real test of your war plan, I suggest that you start a staff exercise on mobilization and watch what happens.” Hap Arnold flashed me that quizzical Army expression that wonders how any good could come out of the Navy. I went on to explain.
My own experience in naval operations had shown me that in a dress rehearsal it is seldom the high private in the rear rank who falls down. More likely, it’s the green second lieutenant in the file closers who gets tangled up in his sword. He’s been so busy drilling others, he’s forgotten to read his own book. You have to put machinery into operation to find out where it creaks the loudest. In this case, if the Secretaries of War and Navy would order mobilization for drill purposes by designating a certain day as M Day, Headquarters could then announce the types of airplanes it wanted to put into production and the number of each it required, and then procurement officers could go ahead with drill purchase orders, and the contractors could place orders to suppliers, and so on. About here I noticed a flicker in Hap’s steely eye.
“I guess Dutch and Glenn are right,” he said with a wry grin. “Hell,” he went on, “I can’t begin to tell you today what airplanes we would want to buy, let alone how many. I don’t even know who we expect to fight, nor when, nor where.”
From here on the conference moved rapidly to the crystallization of an idea. Since time is of the essence in mobilization, one way to save time was to build the mobilization plan into current purchasing. When the government placed an order for a certain type of equipment, it could include in the original contract an item calling out a detailed war plan to be paid for under the contract. Such a war plan would include options for war quantities and the contractor would place stand-by orders with his own suppliers for the amounts of materials of all kinds required to fill the options. He and his suppliers would go ahead with architects’ plans, drawings, and all other paper work incident to creating the expanded facilities required by the options, the idea being to get all contract paper work done, even to the determination of critical materials and priorities. Then, upon a signal of execution designating an option, the machine could start operating, without all the preliminary delays, and still leave the procurement agency free to make its decisions at the last minute.
Hap Arnold listened to the discussion. “Well,” he remarked, “I see we won’t need that second day for this conference.” With that he called in General Westover and Colonel Burns, to whom the general plan was explained. General Westover closed the conference with the statement that he intended to get some such plan in operation, if it was the last thing he did.
But of course, with things as they were, neither he nor anyone else could put such an idea into operation. With the outbreak of the war, responsibility for mobilization was shifted out of the Assistant Secretary’s office and into a new and independent agency, which started as the National Defense Advisory Committee and changed its name, at intervals, to the end of the emergency.
Meanwhile, when I got back to Hartford and reported the experience to Don Brown, Don sat a long while looking out the window, across acres that had once been peaceful tobacco fields.