Trouble in WPB -- Again

"How do we stand in this war at 11 o'clock this morning of April 27, 1943?"

Lieut. General Brehon B. Somervell, Chief of the Army Services of Supply, asked this question of himself, of the upturned faces at the opening session in New York of the Chamber of Commerce convention, and of the nation. Then he gave part of the answer:

The U.S. Army will not be completely equipped until late in 1944—despite the "truly remarkable job American business and industry have done in 17 months." Essential cargo for the available shipping is still difficult to supply. On many occasions equipment has been withdrawn from troops in training to supply troops overseas. Rumors that the army is so flooded with equipment that plants have had to shut down are fifth-column rumors designed to slow production. Some cutbacks in schedules have occurred. But only in one field, ammunition, is there a reserve.

These forthright words of General Somervell shocked the gathered businessmen. If General Somervell knew what he was talking about, war production was not even approaching the crest of the hump.

Tank Surplus? After the shock wore off, businessmen wondered why, then, they had seen plants standing idle. So did civilians who have passed enormous army dumps jammed wheel to wheel with trucks, have seen massed fields of hundreds of tanks. Army Ordnance itself has even complained of a big tank surplus at Chester, Pa. Statisticians recalled further that the cutback of a "few facilities" totaled around $3,000,000,000.

It might be true, as General Somervell stated, that nearly all of the 90 "facilities" affected by recent matériel changes had been restored to production. But production-minded civilians still asked questions. Could a plant built to make tanks, for example, be easily converted to make plane parts? Why was equipment so short? Why was the arms program out of balance? Changing requirements based on battle experience and obsolescence of equipment could not be the whole answer.

Nathan to Army. Into the Army as a private last week went a man who carried many of the answers in his big, black-thatched head. He is huge, gorilla-shouldered Robert Nathan, 34, former chairman of WPB's planning committee. Nathan was one of the few New Dealers who demanded billions of dollars for the war effort when the services couldn't see how they could use millions. Profiting by the lessons of the war, he was one who fought vigorously to expand the nation's raw material supply when the services went hog-wild in building plants to produce munitions for which they couldn't get the raw materials. The services had overruled Nathan and the men who stood with him. They had had their way with each successive, fumbling war board, right down to the weak War Production Board.

And WPB was in bad trouble again—the same old story of a struggle for power from below because none was exercised from above. The point of General Somervell's speech actually was that WPB had failed and was still failing. This was the point of many Washington developments throughout the week. And every one of the developments was a direct blow to Donald Marr Nelson, the fumbling, ineffectual WPBoss who had more power than Bernard Baruch had in World War I but who either didn't use it or didn't know how.