Chapter XVII
External Relations

Introduction

THE ADMINISTRATION of the Navy Department during World War II called for relations with practically all of the other departments of the Federal government, with the many special agencies set up by the President to deal with the war emergency, and with the missions sent to Washington by the foreign governments allied with the United States in the war against the Axis powers. In most cases these relations and their administrative implementation are dealt with in this work under the branches of the Navy Department having the prime responsibility for the functions involved. In other cases the administrative tasks imposed on the Navy Department to provide collaboration with external agencies, whether American or foreign, can best be dealt with in a separate chapter, such as this one, dealing specifically with the subjects.

Inter-Allied and Inter-Service Military Agencies

Some 75 major inter-service agencies were set up during the war, each representing two or more of the United States military services or the military services of two or more of the United Nations.¹ They dealt with particular aspects or phases of the war. These boards, committees, and commissions functioned in a variety of ways. Most of them served the War and Navy Departments in a staff capacity to coordinate planning and execution of the activities of the Armed Forces of the United States or of the allied nations.

Joint Board. The Joint Board was the oldest of these agencies. It was established in 1903 to supply a need that had always existed for joint Army-Navy planning and that had come to a head during the

Spanish-American War. The Board never received statutory authorization, but operated under an agreement between the War and Navy Departments entered into by the Secretaries of these departments. It was described in its original charter as an advisory board whose proposals were subject to the approval of the Secretaries before being placed in effect. The approval of the President was also required if a matter of important policy was involved. The Joint Board was suspended by President Wilson from 1914 to 1919 as he did not wish it to enter discussions of subjects that he considered to be the President's prerogative and that might lead to political repercussions. When the Board was revived in 1919 its membership for the Army was Assistant Chief of Staff for War Plans; for the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, and the Director of the War Plans Division.

A number of the joint Army-Navy agencies, such as the Army-Navy Munitions Board, were also in operation before the outbreak of the war in 1939. In July of that year the Joint Board, the Joint Economy Board, the Aeronautical Board, and the Army-Navy Munitions Board were all placed directly under the President as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy so as to provide more direct White House control over their activities. The participation of foreign governments in the collaborative work of the American military services did not begin until August 1940 when an Army-Navy-British Aircraft Production Committee was established. Other inter-allied military boards were set up in `940 and 1941 to bring about collaboration of the United States with the Canadian, Brazilian, and Mexican governments It was not however, until the United States was brought into the war by the attack on Pearl Harbor that an agency, known as the Combined Chiefs of Staff, was brought into being to plan on a global scale the combined war effort of the United States and Great Britain.

Combined Chiefs of Staff. The Combined Chiefs of Staff organization was established by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill as a result of the United States-United Kingdom Military Staff Conference, known as the ARCADIA Conference, held in Washington from December 24, 1941, to January 14, 1942. For the United States the top level military conferees were the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces. For Great Britain the military conferees were a representative of the Prime Minister in his capacity as Minister of Defense, and the Chiefs of Staff Committee consisting of the First Sea Lord, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and the Chief of the Air Staff. These, or in the case of the British officers, their Washington

representatives, became the group known as the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Their first meeting as the Combined Chiefs of Staff was held on January 23, 1942. A document describing their organization and proposed duties was prepared and submitted to the President and the Prime Minister on February 10, 1942, but was not formally approved by President Roosevelt until April 21, although the Combined Chiefs began functioning usefully from the day of their first meeting.

The original American members of the Combined Chiefs of Staff were the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral H.R. Stark; the Chief of Staff for the United States Army, General George C. Marshall; the Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet, Admiral Ernest J. King; and the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, Lieutenant General Henry H. Arnold. In March 1942 when the duties of the CNO and of CominCh were combined in the one person of Admiral King, Admiral Stark was relieved of this duty, but in July 1942, Admiral William D. Leahy was added in his capacity as Chief of Staff to the President. Thereafter, throughout the war the American membership remained unaltered.

On the British side, the representative of the Prime Minister was Field Marshall Sir John Dill, and later Field Marshall Sir Henry Maitland Wilson; the representative of the First Sea Lord was Admiral Sir Charles Little and later in turn, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Admiral Sir Percy Noble, and Admiral Sir James Somerville; the Chief of the Imperial General Staff was represented by Lieutenant General Sir Coville Wemyss, and later by Lieutenant General G.N. Macready; the Chief of the Air Staff (Air Chief Marshall Sir Charles Portal) was represented in turn by Air Marshall D.C.S. Evill, Air Marshall Sir William L. Welsh, and Air Marshall Douglass Colyer.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff reported directly to the President and to the Prime Minister. Its duties were to formulate and to place in line for execution policies and plans concerning (1) the strategic conduct of the war; (2) the broad program of war requirements based on approved strategic policy; (3) the allocation of munition resources based on strategic needs and the availability of means of transportation, and (4) the requirements for overseas transportation for the fighting services of the United Nations based on approved strategic priority.

In addition the Combined Chiefs of Staff furnished advice to the President and the Prime Minister on any subject requiring coordination, collaboration, and cooperation between the armed forces of the United States and those of Great Britain. After decisions had been made by the President and the Prime Minister the CSS individually, as heads of their respective military services, initiated appropriate action to carry out those decisions.

Joint Chiefs of Staff. In order to carry out their duties as the United States representatives on the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the United States Chiefs of Staff had to get together and agree beforehand on the subjects to be discussed, and on the position to be taken by the United States in the matters under discussion. Unanimity of American opinion was of the greatest importance in dealing with the British or, for that matter, with any other ally. The first formal meeting of the United States Chiefs of Staff, known thereafter as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was held on 9 February 1942.

From the outset the Joint Chiefs of Staff² had two distinct functions. One, as already mentioned, was to represent the United States on the Combined Chiefs of Staff. The other was to continue and to expand the functions of the Joint Board which they had supplanted. In this role the JCS had the responsibility for making and recommending to the President the strategic plans for the conduct of the war and for coordinating the land, sea, and air military efforts of the United States armed forces. They reported directly to the President and discussed strategic plans, that were in the making, only with him. All aspects of such work were classified as top secret and until decisions had been reached by the President not even the Secretaries of War and the Navy were informed of the planning in progress. Through the JCS the President gave effect to his broad military decisions on the conduct of the war. The JCS were the mechanism through which were coordinated the military phases of the nation's war effort.

Committees of the Combined and Joint Chiefs of Staff

The detailed work of the Combined chiefs of Staff and of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was accomplished through studies made by committees. In all cases a committee that was found necessary by the Combined Chiefs to handle specific subjects or phases of war planning had to have a counterpart in the Joint Chiefs organization to do the preparatory work involved, particularly with a view to insuring full consideration of the interests of the United States when the subject came up for discussion by the Combined Chiefs. It was usually advantageous to detail the same military personnel to a Combined Chiefs committee that served on the corresponding Joint Chiefs committee. Initially, the upper level personnel on most of the standing committees had additional duties in the War and Navy Departments. As time went on many were relieved of their

additional duties and put in all of their time on committee work. Practically all committees had full-time staffs of officers, including civilian specialists in the case of some committees. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also availed themselves from time to time of the services of ad hoc committees.

It should be emphasized that these two organizations, one United States-British, and the other entirely United States were separate agencies, but that the various committees functioned on parallel lines. Furthermore the United States members on the CCS committees were the same men who served as the members of the corresponding JCS committees. if this is kept in mind the below outline of the responsibilities of the various committees should not be confusing.

The following were the principal committees of the two organizations that emerged as the result of war experience:³

Combined Chiefs of Staff (United States-British)		Joint Chiefs of Staff (United States exclusively)
Combined Secretariat Combined Staff Planners Combined Intelligence Committee Combined Military Transportation Committee Combined Communications Board Combined Meteorological Committee Combined Administrative Committee Combined Munitions Assignment Board in Washington		Joint Secretariat Joint Staff Planners Joint Intelligence Committee Joint Military Transportation Committee Joint Communications Board Joint Meteorological Committee Joint Logistics Committee Joint Civil Affairs Committee Joint Munitions Allocations Committee
		Joint Chiefs Committees with no counterpart in Combined Chiefs
Note: Admiral W.D. Leahy as Chief of Staff to the President, "became a member of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and their presiding officer." (See Fleet Admiral King, by King and Whitehill.)		Joint Deputy Chiefs of Staff Joint Strategic Survey Committee Joint Committee on New Weapons and Equipment Army-Navy Petroleum Board Joint Security Control Joint Production Survey Committee Joint Post-War Committee

Secretariat. The Secretariat of the Combined Chiefs consisted of the Secretariats of the Joint Chiefs and of the British Joint Staff Mission

acting together.⁴ It was not a record-keeping body. Records of the Combined Chiefs after being agreed upon by the Combined Secretariat were maintained by both the Joint Chiefs Secretariat and the Secretariat of the British Joint Staff Mission.

Joint Staff Planners. Provision for this committee of the CCS was made in the agreement creating the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Its United States representatives consisted of the U.S. Joint Staff Planners who were a continuation under a new name and with enlarged membership of the Joint Planning Committee of the Joint Board. The duties of the Joint Staff Planners varied somewhat as other committees were created or discontinued, but throughout the war they were charged with preparing joint war plans and giving strategic advice to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to the subdivisions of the War and Navy Departments having to do with war plans. They were assisted in their JCS functions by a full-time subcommittee. The officers assigned to planning were all career officers having a background of special training and education for such work.

The Joint Staff Planners were charged with three basic responsibilities: (1) the preparation for submission to the JCS of basic war plans for operations in which any or all branches of the United Stats Armed Forces would participate; (2) the preparation of basic war plans for combined operations in which both United States and forces of the allies would participate (they performed this function as the United States members of the Combined Staff planners; and (3) they provided advice in strategic matters to all other committees and groups of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Joint Staff Planners consisted of two naval officers, one of whom was usually a naval aviator, an army officer and an officer form the Army Air Fore. They had duty, also, in the planning sections of their respective departments.

A Joint War Plans Committee was the working subcommittee of the Joint Staff Planners. Its primary duty was the study of possible future operations and the actual making of plans for operations that had been decided upon As soon as the plans for an agreed upon operation had been approved by the Joint Chiefs and by the President, these plans were furnished to the appropriate Field Commander to be used as the basis for making detailed plans and issuing orders for carrying out the operation. The Field Commander was told in general terms what to do, but not "how to do it."

The charter providing for the Joint War Plans Committee stipulated that it be composed of a minimum of four officers from the Army and

four from the Navy, at least one of whom was to be an officer of the Marine Corps. In actual practice, however, the size of this Committee was normally larger. Late in 1944, for example, it had between sixteen and eighteen members, including seven from the Navy. Of these, two were Marine Corps officers.

The extent to which the planning was carried by the JCS organization depended on the theater in which the operation was to take place. If, in the European theater, the planning was handled largely by the Combined Staff Planners under the Combined Chiefs of Staff, inasmuch as the operations practically always involved the employment of the military forces of several of the United Nations predominantly, however, the forces of Great Britain and the United States. The american Staff Planners wore "two hats," it will be recalled; one as Combined Staff Planners and one as Joint Staff Planners. The United States Chiefs of Staff themselves, kept in close touch with plans as they progressed so that the plans would correctly represent the position of the United States and would be acceptable to the President.

Pacific theater operations, on the other hand, usually involved the employment of United States forces only. If they did, the plans and the problems arising thereunder, were handled exclusively by the Joint Chiefs of Staff organization. Much more of the detailed planning for Pacific theater operations was left to the theater commanders than it was in the case of European operations.

Intelligence Committees. The Intelligence Committee of the United States JCS was a continuation and enlargement of the Joint Board Committee of the same name. It was reorganized in March 1942, but it received no charter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff until May 1943. Its primary function was to furnish intelligence in various forms and gathered from various sources to other agencies of the JCS, and to represent the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the Combined Intelligence Committee. the U.S. Joint Intelligence Committee was assisted by ten or more full-time subcommittees. The Combined Intelligence Committee consisted of the U.S. Joint Intelligence Committee, the British Joint Intelligence Committee in Washington, and representatives of the British Joint Intelligence Subcommittee in London.

The Joint Intelligence Committee was composed originally of the Directors of the intelligence services of the War and Navy Departments, representatives of the State Department, and of the Board of Economic Warfare, and later of the Director of Strategic Services. The charter of May 1943 added the Director of the intelligence staff of the Army Air Forces.

Military Transportation Committees. Such a committee was established

under the Combined Chiefs of Staff in February 1942 to advise the Combined Staff Planners concerning transportation problems and to present the requirements for overseas transportation for the fighting services of the United Nations. It consisted of a Joint Military Transportation Committee and representatives of the several transportation services of the United Kingdom. The Joint Military Transportation Committee grew out of the needs for furnishing authentic information at the planning level to the Combined Staff Planners. It held its first meeting on March 10, 1942. It was composed of two officers each from the War and Navy Departments with, in addition, a representative of the War Shipping Administration as an associate member. Some details covering the functioning of these committees are given in the Chapter on "Logistics."

Communications Board. The coordination of communications became an inter-allied need even before the United States entered the wear. The Associated Communications Committee was organized in London in November 141 and the Inter-Service Communications Board in Washington in December 1941. After the creation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff these two agencies became respectively the London Communications Committee and the Washington Communications Board, the former being responsible to th British Chiefs of Staff Committee and the latter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In July 1942 the Board was reconstituted as the Combined Communications Board and was recognized as the only Combined Communications body of the Combined Chiefs of Staff.

The Joint Communications Committee was established by the War and Navy Departments in April 1942. When the Washington Communications Board was reconstituted as the Combined Communications Board by the Combined Chiefs of Staff in July 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reconstituted and took over the Joint Communications Committee which then became the Joint Communications Board. The Board was composed of two Army and two Navy officers on part-time duty. They were, however, assisted by a large number of part- and full-time agencies organized into groups, committees, and subcommittees on various aspects of communications problems, some of which had their roots in the questionable loyalty of civilian radio operators.

Meteorological Committee. On the Combined Chiefs level this Committee was authorized in February 1942, but was not fully organized until October 1942 when a committee of the same name was established by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to coordinate meteorological matters of all kinds. The Joint Committee consisted of one representative each form the Weather Bureau, the Army Air Forces, and the Navy, who were also the United State members of the Combined Meteorological Committee. There were also representatives on the Combined Committee from the Dominion

of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the New Zealand government, and the Union of South Africa. These committees were of great value in coordinating weather information from different sources and in placing weather forecasting on a more scientific basis. This became particularly important in connection with anti-submarine warfare and the operations of the various air forces.

Administrative and Logistics Committee. A committee called the Joint Administrative Committee was established in May 1943 under the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a similar committee in June 19843 called the Combined Administrative Committee under the Combined Chiefs of Staff to take over certain functions which were not directly operational, but which stemmed from and were a necessary part of the implementation of war plans. Their duties were at first somewhat vague, but it was soon found that logistical matters occupied most of their time, with the result that the JCS committee was renamed the Joint Logistics Committee. Its members were also the members of the Combined Administrative Committee which retained its name, but also devoted most of its time to logistical problems. These committees handled also any miscellaneous matters that needed doing and that were not the responsibility of other committees.

In November 1943 a working subcommittee, known as the Joint Logistics Plans Committee, was set up under the Joint Logistics Committee consisting of six full-time members with a varying number of additional part time associate members form the War and Navy Departments.

Civil Affairs Committee. Such a committee was established by the Combined Chiefs of Staff in July 1943 to recommend civil affairs policies for enemy or enemy-held areas, and to coordinate military and civilian agency interests in such matters. The British membership consisted of one representative of the foreign office, two from the British Joint Staff Mission, and one additional civilian expert. The United States membership consisted of one representative each of the War, Navy, and State Departments with an additional civilian official who served as chairman of the Committee.

A corresponding Joint Civil Affairs Committee was not established by the JCS until March 1945. Prior to that time, the Civil Affairs Division of the War Department, the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, and the Joint Post-War Committee on which the Navy Department had representation, had all been concerned with long range civil affairs problems, particularly those relating to surrender terms and other post-hostility arrangements. The Joint Civil Affairs Committee was created to advise the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the military aspects of civil affairs for enemy and enemy=held areas that were occupied by joint operations. The membership of the Committee, unlike that of the Combined Civil Affairs Committee was

entirely military and consisted of three officers from the Army (one of whom was from the Air Force) and three officers from the Navy.

Munitions Assignments Board in Washington. In January 1942 the President and the Prime Minister agreed to establish Munitions Assigment Boards in Washington and London under the Combined Chiefs of Staff. The Washington Board oeprated uner the chairmanship of Harry L. Hopkins. Except for the civilian chairman it was composed of officers from the War and Navy Departments and a senior officer form each of the British armed services. The Washington Board allocated finished war materials produced in teh United States to the several United Nations. In May 1943 more than a year after the creation of the Munitions Assignments Board in Washington as a Combined Chiefs of Staff agency, the Joint Munitions Allocations Committee. It was composed of Army and Navy officers who allocated finished munitions among the United States military services and continued to represent the United States on the Munitions Assignments Board in Washington.

Besides the foregoing committees which were common to the CCS and the JCS, a number of important committees were established under the Joint Chiefs of Staff which had no counterpart in the Combined Chiefs of Staff. The most important of these were the following:

Committees of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Joint Strategic Survey Committee. The Joint Chiefs of Staff lacking time individually to study and discuss strategic problems of the war in detail felt the need for an advisory group of experienced officers separated from operational and administrative burdens. To meet this need a Joint Strategic Survey Committee was established in Noember 1942 under a charter providing for a membership of two general officers of the Army, one of whom was to be from the Army Air Forces and not more than two flag officers of the Navy.⁵

The funcitons of this committee were to advise the Joint Chiefs of Staff on matters of grand and military strategy; specifically: (1) advice in regard to relating military strategy to national policy, (2) advice in regard to combined military strategy in the light of developing predictable situations, and in the light of long range possibilities, (3) advice on

strategic possibilities to be considered when current plans had either been executed or become impracticable.

In the early days of the committee its work was concerned largely with developing and reviewing the basic strategic concept of the war and advising the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding the position to be taken in conferences with the Combined Chiefs of Staff. In addition, any broad questions of concern to the Joint Chiefs of Staff which did not fall within the purview of any other Joint Chiefs committee were referred to the Joint Strategic Survey Committee. Included were post-war military policy, joint command, special Army and Navy coordination problems, assistance to the State Department regarding the military aspects of the international security organization, etc. The members of this committee served as delegates to the Dumbarton Oaks Conference and as advisors to the United States delegation at the San Francisco Conference for the establishment of the United Nation's organization.

Joint Deputy Chiefs of Staff were appointed in December 1942 to implement agreed upon policies and to handle matters referred to them by the Joint Chiefs of STaff. Early in 1944, studies relating to the post-war organization of the armed services was assigned to them. They dealt chiefly with matters involving the details of coordination and uniform action within the respective services, and in the implementation of general policies upon which agreement had been reached. The Combined Chiefs of Staff did not set up a similar group.

Joint Committee on New Weapons and Equipment. This Committee, known as the JNW, was established in May 1942 to give recognition to the work being done by civilian scientists that had been mobilized under the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and to provide a more direct contact between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and that organization. Its function was essentially that of speeding up the evaluation and introduction into service use of the new weapons and devices that were coming out of the research and development laboratories. The membership of the Committee consisted of the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development⁶ and of one officer each from the Army and the Navy. In January 1944 an officer of the Army Air Force, and in August 1945, one more naval officer, were added. The Committee had a number of part time subcommittees and panels to deal with various special projects and problems.

Army-Navy Petroleum Board. This Board became an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in January 1943 to effect coordination between the military services on the procurement, storage, and shipping of petroleum products. Originally its membership consisted of three officers each from the Army

and the Navy. This number was reduced to two each by a new Joint Chiefs of Staff charter in May 1943. The Board was assisted by a permanent administrative staff.

Joint Security Control Committee. An agency named Security Control was established by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in August 1942 to protect the security of contemplated military operations. Under the guidance of the Joint Staff Planners it operated directly under the Joint Chiefs of Staff Prior to March 1945 it consisted of the Directors of the Intelligence Service of the Army and Navy. After that date two Army officers one of them from the Air Force, and not more than two naval officers constituted its membership.

Joint :Production Survey Committee. This Committee was created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September 1943 to study and furnish advice on strategic requirements and to maintain close liaison between the military services and the Office of War Mobilization. It was composed of two officers from the navy and one each from the Army and the Army Air Force. Its charter was terminated in October 1945 and its functions transferred to the Joint Logistics Committee.

Joint Post-War Committee. Early in 1944 the Joint Staff Planners created a special subcommittee to study questions concerning post-war military bases. As other post-war problems began to appear, especially as to the disarmament, demobilization, and demilitarization of the Axis nations, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in June 1944 established the Joint Post-War Committee to consider and make recommendation on all post-war matters of interest to them. It functioned under the overall guidance of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee. It consisted initially of three officers of the Army and three of the Navy, which was later reduced to two officers from each of the services and an increase in the working staff. The designated members of the Committee, a well as the staff, were detailed for full-time duty.

Office of Strategic Services

The Office of Strategic Services had its roots in a need, felt by President Roosevelt, for an agency organized to operate behind enemy lines for obtaining military information and for planting the seeds of resistance movements in enemy occupied territories. The Navy Department had its Office of Naval Intelligence and the War Department its G-2 for gathering military and technical intelligence, but these organizations were handicapped in various ways in performing the functions the President had in mind. The first step was the establishment of a Coordinator of Information by an Executive Order Number 6FR3422 of 11 July 1941 charged

with the responsibility of collecting, analyzing, correlating, and making available to the President, the War and the Navy Departments, and certain other government agencies information bearing upon national security; and to carry out, when requested by the President, supplementary activities designed to facilitate the obtaining of information important for national security and not otherwise available to the government. This agency soon got out of hand, especially with respect to planning and executing operations in support of intelligence procurement. The President then placed i under the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Order Number 7FR4469 of 13 June 1942 renaming it the Office of Strategic Services.⁷

Placing the office under the Joint Chiefs of Staff had several advantages over its former status as an independent civilian agency. The new arrangement provided broad military control over an activity that frequently had to work closely with the military services and prevented the mushrooming of its activities to unnecessary proportions along lines that paralleled those of the military services. The OSS, for example, entered into such work as the development of air-sea rescue equipment and air-sea rescue operations. Its activities in this field are covered in the chapter on the "Coast Guard." Much of its personnel had to be given military status and could, therefore be drawn from the military establishments. The new arrangement furthermore, made available to the JCS an organization that was elastic and was not restricted to working in rigidly prescribed military channels.

Additional duties were assigned to it by th JCS form time to time, among them the conduct of military psychological warfare, including propaganda. However, buy an Executive Order of 9 March 1943, OSS activities connected with the dissemination of propaganda abroad were turned over to the office of War Information. The OSS played a part in gathering intelligence information for planning invasion operations, organizing and supplying war material to resistance movements behind enemy lines and in enemy-held territory, and in committing acts of sabotage against the enemy. The creation of the OSS gave recognition to organized espionage as an integral part of warfare, and to the utilization of research and analysis in intelligence work.

Combined and Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Policies and Procedures

Combined Chiefs of Staff Procedures. In the foregoing recital of the origin, organization, and responsibilities of the Combined and Joint Chiefs of Staff,

the emphasis has been on the administrative mechanisms that were set up to make possible inter-service and inter-allied strategic planning and effective collaboration between the fighting forces of the various military services. Little mention has been made of the deliberations and discussions that preceded the creation of these mechanisms, nor of the way they functioned in actual practice. Some mention of these aspects of the administrative history of the agencies is in order.

One of the first questions that had to be settled at the Arcadia Conference was whether the agency setup to manage the overall strategy of the war should include representatives of all the United Nations. This was ruled out because the number involved would have been so great as to cause delay in reaching decisions promptly, as the representative of each nation would normally have had to consult his government before taking a position on even relatively unimportant questions. It was, therefore, decided to confine representation on the Combined Chiefs of Staff to the United States and Great Britain with provision, however, for calling in representatives of the other belligerents from time to time for consultation, advice, and the furnishing of information.

Target priority had also to be agreed upon, but was quickly settled when General Marshall and Admiral Stark at the first meeting of the ARCADIA Conference on 24 December 1941 proposed that Germany be considered the dominant member of the Axis powers. If this view was accepted, then: (a) the war in the Atlantic and in the European theater must have priority over the war in other theaters; (b) operations in the Pacific would be chiefly of a "holding" nature to prevent, so far as forces were available, the further extension of Japanese conquest and would include offensive action to that end when opportunity permitted; and (c) after the defeat of Germany, the collapse of Italy and the defeat of Japan could be counted upon to follow. The policy was to 9include, also, the build-up of ships, bases, and the attainment of positions that would serve as springboards for full-scale offensives in the Pacific. These cardinal predicates were agreed upon and relieved the apprehension of the British that the attack on Pearl Harbor might have diminished American interest in the defeat of Germany.

However, the "Germany first" policy became the genesis of one of the greatest administrative difficulties experienced by the Navy Department during the war, namely, obtaining for the war in the Pacific, an adequate percentage of the overall war effort to insure victory over Japan. This was particularly a Navy Department problem because the war in the Pacific was predominantly a naval war. Admiral King set thirty percent as a reasonable and logical proportion of the war effort that should be devoted to the defeat of Japan, but until victory was in sight in Europe, the Pacific

area never received much more than about fifteen percent of the total war effort.

The attitude of Winston Churchill toward the war in the Pacific began to change when the global strategic situation began to improve. During the early part of the war the British pressed continually for more naval help in the Atlantic to combat German U-boats and to strengthen their hands in the struggle against Germany and Italy. When victory in the battle of the Atlantic was in sight the Prime Minister offered the help of the British Navy in the Pacific. At the Quebec Conference in September 1944 his principal preoccupation was, in fact, to have Great Britain given a more prominent part of the war against Japan, no doubt to regain some of the prestige that the British Navy had lost in the Far East early in the war, to share the credit and to strengthen Great Britain's economic and commercial position in the Orient after the restoration of peace. Admiral King resisted these efforts strenuously as the logistical problems of supporting naval forces in the Pacific and the special training required for this type of amphibious warfare, were such as to make the employment of green naval forces, untrained in this type of warfare, a detriment rather than a help at that stage of the war with Japan.

Eventually, he had to yield to a decision of the President which permitted the Royal Navy to move into the rear areas of the Pacific in considerable strength for training, but the war ended before these contingents were ready to be used in the front lines.

Command in the field became a major subjects for discussion early in the ARCADIA Conference. The United States representatives made forceful arguments for unity of command in the field, citing the experience of World War I, where the adoption of this policy was postponed until 1918 when it had to be put into effect to insure victory for the Allies. The principle of a single supreme commander for clearly defined areas or for a specific undertaking was adopted by the Conference, but toward the very end of the war, the Joint Chiefs of Staff found it difficult to apply this principle to the command of their own forces that were to make the assault on Japan. The surrender of Japan before the assault was launched solved the problem.

A much more difficult problem for the War and Navy Departments was the retention of military control over the allocation and distribution to the various war areas, of munitions and war matériel in general. General Marshall and Admiral King stressed the point that such control was as vital to the carrying out of agreed upon strategy as the deployment of men, ships, and aircraft. The original British proposal was to st up a Munitions Assignment Board as a civilian agency independent of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. The Board, with Harry Hopkins at its head, was to

coordinate the production of munitions in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, including control over raw materials and distribution of the end-products.

When this proposal was made known to General Marshall he insisted that the Munitions Assignment Board be placed under the authority of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, although he saw no objection to parallel committees in Washington and London dealing with the allocation of American and British war material, respectively. He was, however, opposed to any duplication of the Combined Chiefs of Staff organizations in Washington and in London. He advanced the argument, strongly supported by Admiral Stark and Admiral King, that the military heads in the War and Navy Departments could not plan military operations and carry them out if some other authority over which they had no control could refuse to allocate the matériel required for the operations.

Harry Hopkins himself concurred in this view. He became the head of the Munitions Assignment Board, but it functioned as a committee of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. The committee's recommendations, like those of other committees, could be accepted, modified, or completely rejected by \the Combined Chiefs. As was to be expected, the decisions of the Munitions Assignment Board were never entirely satisfactory to the commanders in the field, particularly to those in the Pacific. As already mentioned, one of Admiral King's greatest problems was to obtain an adequate share of war matériel and shipping for the war in that theater.⁸

Joint Chiefs of Staff Procedures. The committees that were set up to do the exploratory work for the Combined and Joint Chiefs of Staff have been described. In the beginning the Joint Chiefs originated the problems and questions requiring decision. These they assigned to the appropriate subsidiary group for study and recommendation. After the committees got into the stride of their work they generated many of the questions themselves and after study passed them up to the JCS with their recommendations. These reports were apt to be lengthy and exhaustive which led to a continual effort on the part of the Joint Chiefs for greater brevity. The range of the decisions that had to be made was enormous. Some 1,457 separate subjects were considered from the first meeting of the JCS on 9 February 1942 to the Japanese surrender date of 2 September 1945. Formal processing of papers ran as high as 223 for a single month--September 1944. Only about two-thirds of the subjects were of concern to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, who, during this period, considered some 902 subjects.

Regular meetings of the Joint Chiefs were held on Wednesdays beginning with luncheon. Special sessions took place at any time, often on Sundays, and even late at night. Early in the war, other besides the Chiefs of Staff attended thee meetings, but later it became the practice to limit attendance to the actual Chiefs of Staff, except when an important theater commander was in Washington who could discuss the problems in his area. Later, also, they held monthly meetings to which the heads of various civilian war agencies were invited in order to keep them more intimately in touch with the strategic situation and the logistic needs of the Armed Forces.

The major campaigns were always planned in close liaison with the {resident. Sessions of the joint Chiefs of Staff were frequently held in his study at the White House. After approval by the President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, through the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, issued overall directives to give effect to the decisions that had been reached. The forces to be employed, provisions for transportation, allocation of equipment and munitions, and other basic matters were settled by the JCS, but all details of the operations were left to the area commanders, and of logistics, to the appropriate organizational units in the War and Navy Departments. All of the discussions with the President and the correspondence connected therewith, were kept highly secret.

Admiral Leahy, the chairman of the JCS, kept the President and the Joint Chiefs closely in tough with each other. Admiral Leahy said, 'The most important function of the Chief of Staff (to the Commander in Chief) was the maintaining of daily liaison between the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was my job to pass on to the Joint Chiefs of Staff the basic thinking of the President on all war plans and strategy. In turn I brought back to the President from the Joint Chiefs a consensus of their thinking."⁹ The functions and duties of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were never formally defined nor set down in writing during the war.¹⁰ This permitted great flexibility of organization and the extension of its activities into fields, the significance of which had not been realized at the outbreak of the war, but which became of great importance later on.

Admiral King had this to say about the suitability of a mechanism such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff for strategic planning and exercising overall military control of the armed forces:¹¹

"My experience in Washington has been that overall military control of the armed forces can best be exercised by a body such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . . the

strength of the Joint Chiefs of Staff lies in the combined knowledge possessed by the members and in the 'checks and balances' that tend to prevent domination by any one person.

"During the last war in overall strategic guidance the proposals or convictions of no one member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were as sound or as promising of success as the united judgement and agree decisions of the group. In their deliberations and in the final decisions made the Joint Chiefs of Staff used the principle of unanimity. This use of unanimity is based on the fundamental principle that a military commander is personally responsible for the military decisions he makes."

The extraordinary success of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in performing their tasks may be ascribed to a number of reasons. One was individual competence of a high order of the Chiefs of Staff themselves. They were career soldiers, sailors, and airmen who had dedicated their lives to the military professions and were outstanding officers in their respective services. Another indispensable factor to success was the availability of trained and experienced career naval personnel to fill the many important billets on the committees. Reserve officers proved themselves capable of absorbing quickly th training needed for shipboard and shore duties in the secondary levels, and even for command of the smaller naval units, but when it came to filling billets in the military planning and coordinating activities, experienced professional naval officers with special education and training were found to be critically necessary.

It could have been taken for granted that the Army and the Navy would have in their ranks, officers capable of performing superlatively the military functions that have been described, but the organization to make effective use of these talents in order to meet the exigencies of modern warfare, had to be devised. It was fortunate that the form of government of both the United States and Great Britain vested in a single individual, a civilian, the supreme and complete authority to make the final decisions on all matters of strategy and war policy submitted to them by their military chiefs. This reduced the complexities of civilian control to si terms and avoided the frustrations, delays, and political maneuvering that have characterized coalitions and hydra-headed war councils in the past. This is one of the important lessons to be learned form the experience of World War II.

State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee

Throughout the war, the Secretary of the Navy attempted to maintain close personal liaison with the Secretary of State. Secretaries Hull, Stimson, and Knox met once a week for this purpose, a practice which was continued by their successors.¹² Nevertheless, the relationship between the

State Department and the military departments often had some tough spots.¹³ For example, in July 1944, Secretary Forrestal found that the State Department had prepared a paper on the mandated islands in the Pacific without obtaining the views of the Navy Department. He took the position that there should be no debate as to who administered the mandated islands formerly owned by Japan in the Central Pacific, because of their vital importance as future strategic bases.

The matter was brought to a head when the Secretary of War objected to the procedure by which the State Department frequently consulted the Joint Chiefs of Staff directly on questions which had military implications, thereby eliminating the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy from the channel of communications through which the State Department received advice on such questions. On 4 November 1944, Mr. Stimson wrote to the Secretary of State that he felt the State Department should always received advice of this nature through the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. He suggested that communications form the State Department be addressed jointly to the two Secretaries who would make themselves responsible for consulting the appropriate military agencies, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who would also coordinate the views of the two departments. The Secretary of State replied with a proposal that an inter-departmental committee be formed, composed of representatives of all three Secretaries, "charged with the duty of formulating recommendations to the Secretary of State on questions having both military and political aspects and of coordinating the views of the three departments in matters of inter-departmental interest."

This proposal was concurred in by the Secretaries of War and Navy, and a committee was set up under date of 1 December 1944, consisting of Assistant Secretary of State James Dunn, Chairman; Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy; and Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air Artemus Gates, implementing the agreement. Subsequently, a secretary and working staff were provided.¹⁴

At the first meeting of the group on 19 December 1944, it was decided to call the committee "The State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee," which became known as Swink. The Secretariat consisted of three officers from each of the three departments. Subcommittees were appointed to deal with matters relating to particular geographic areas or specific subjects.

The work of SWNCC included the formulation of policy concerned with the surrender and administration of Japan and of liberated areas in the Far East, the military government of Austria and Germany, as well as

the coordination of the views of the three departments in the formulation of policies to be presented by the United States at international conferences.

It was not until two months after the Japanese surrender that on 16 October 1945, the authority of SWNCC was defined and formalized in a memorandum signed by Secretaries Byrnes, Patterson, and Forrestal of the State, War, and Navy Departments, respectively, as follows:

The State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee is designated as the agency to reconcile and coordinate the action to be taken by the State, War, and Navy Departments on matters of common interest and, under the guidance of the Secretaries of State, War, and the Navy, establish policies on politico-military questions referred to it.

Action taken by the Coordinating Committee will be construed as action taken in the names of the Secretaries of State, War, and the Navy. Subject to approval of the President where appropriate, decisions of the Committee will establish the approved policy of the State, War, and Navy Departments. Dissemination of the decisions of the Committee will be accomplished by the three departments for the information and guidance of all concerned and, where appropriate, with necessary instructions for action.¹⁵

Notwithstanding the clearly defined procedure that had been agreed upon in the foregoing memorandum, an instance of confusion in policy-making arose a few months later, in the inept handling of a matter that, as mentioned above, had been brought to attention by Secretary Forrestal as early as July 1944. In January 1946, Secretary of State Byrnes, while attending the first meeting of the United Nations in London, inquired of the State Department whether he could make a statement that the United States would be prepared to trustee the former mandated islands in the Pacific "either under ordinary trusteeship arrangements or as strategic areas."¹⁶

Dean Acheson as Acting Secretary of State, got the President's assent to such a statement and cabled the authorization to Byrnes without consulting the military departments. When Forrestal heard of it he and the Under Secretary of War Kenneth Royal, immediately saw the President and entered a protest against making the statement, as they considered it unwise and precipitate. The point particularly stressed by Forrestal was that Dean Acheson's method of securing the President's approval of Mr. Byrnes' request was inconsistent with the general principle of coordination between the War, State, and Navy Departments that had been agreed upon. The incident brought to the front the need for close cooperation in national policy-making. Eventually it became one of the arguments

Use by Forrestal for advocating the creation of the National Security Council to insure integration of the interests of all departments in high-level policy making.

Logistic Aid to Allies (Lend-Lease)

The furnishing of aid, whether logistical or military, to an ally or a potential ally is one of the oldest forms of cooperation between allies. The most common form of such aid in the past had been to supply fully equipped armed forces; ground, naval, or air in modern times, to assist an ally in a specific campaign or undertaking. The furnishing of extensive logistic support in all of its diversified ramifications was, for the United States, in some respects an innovation of World War II. The innovation lay more in the magnitude and variety of the aid furnished than in its character. It had another unusual aspect in that the United States embarked on the policy at a time when there was still a deep-seated prejudice on the part of most Americans toward giving such help to any belligerent.

The administration of naval logistic aid to the Allies became one of the most important tasks of the Navy Department because there was never a time after Pearl Harbor when the needs of the Armed Forces of the United States did not have to be weighted carefully against the requests for aid coming form the Allies. The tremendous war potential of the United States led foreign countries to believe that American industrial capacity had no limits, when actually there were critical shortages in many areas of supply and production that were slowing down the pace of offensive war in the Pacific.

Background of Lend-Lease. Among thinking people the world over, there had been intense preoccupation after World War I with the question of how to prevent wars in the future. In the United States there was a school of thought that placed the blame for American involvement in World War I on the sale of war munitions to England and France after hostilities had broken out in Europe in 1914. There was much unrealistic arguing on the subject, but wishful thinking finally found expression in a joint resolution of Congress in 1935, known later as the Neutrality Act,¹⁷ making it unlawful on the outbreak and during the progress of war between foreign states to export arms ammunition, and implements of war to the belligerents or even to neutrals if it appeared likely that such munitions would eventually reach the belligerents.

More teeth were written into the Neutrality law by additional joint resolutions approved February 29, 1936 and May 1, 1937, but neither the

original Act not the amendments forbade the placing and filling of such orders so long as the nation for which intended was not actually at war. When the international situation began to deteriorate in 1936 substantial order for airplanes and other war materials were placed in the United States by Great Britain, China and France. However, a serious threat of non-fulfillment hung over the contracts. In case these countries were attacked by the Axis powers the embargo provisions of the Neutrality laws would take effect immediately.

In the spring and summer of 1939 the Secretary of State requested that the embargo provisions of the Neutrality laws be repealed, as it had become likely that the unsatisfied ambitions of Germany would lead to war. However, nothing was done before Hitler marched into Poland on September 1, 1939. Then, in order to comply with the law, President Roosevelt had to place an embargo on the shipment of war munitions to the belligerents, but he called a special session of Congress on September 13 to reconsider the arms embargo provision of the Neutrality laws. He was in the forefront of those in his own party and in the country at large, who believed that the defeat of Great Britain and France by Germany would be a serious blow to the security of the United States. He felt also, that in any case an embargo on the shipment of arms could not by itself keep the United States out of the war not dissuade others from war.

Although there was no general agreement on the part of the public or in the press on how far American security might require the United States to go in order to prevent an Axis victory, a considerable majority in Congress believed that, as a minimum, England and France should be permitted to buy arms in the United States for cash, provided they also carried them away in their own ships. This policy was embodied in an Act approved on November 4, 1939 cited as the "Neutrality Act of 1939," but which became more generally known as the "Cash and Carry Act." The Act established a National Munitions Control Board consisting of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, Navy, and Commerce with the Secretary of State as its chairman and executive officer. It was a policy-making body created to promulgate rules and regulations for the enforcement of the Act. At the working level, the Interdepartmental Committee for Coordination of Foreign and Domestic Military Purchases¹⁸ was set up by the President on December 6, 1939. Its membership included the Paymaster General of the Navy, the Quartermaster General of the Army, and the Director of Procurement of the Treasury Department. This marked the beginning of Navy Department participation in the administration of what later became the Lend-Lease activities of the United States Government.

The already impaired security situation for the United States became grave when France fell and the British army had to be evacuated from Dunkirk in June 1940 leaving behind practically all guns, ammunition, and equipment. Ten British destroyers were sunk and 75 more were so badly damaged that they had to be sent to dock yards to extensive repairs. These catastrophes emphasized the need for going to the aid of Britain promptly. the most quickly available replacement for the munitions that had been lost were the stocks in the storehouses and ammunition depots of the Army and Navy. The War and Navy Departments were accordingly directed to return to the manufacturers such guns, ammunition and other equipment as could be spared, who then resold the articles to Great Britain on a cash and carry basis. This was a procedure that violated the principles of genuine neutrality and might have led to war had Hitler been looking for a pretext to begin hostilities with the United States at that time; actually, he was hoping to avoid war with the United States.

Destroyers for Bases. More destroyers were also an urgent British need after Dunkirk. Ships of the escort type were indispensable for convoy protection in order to preserve Britain's life-line with the western hemisphere. The loss of ships of that type at Dunkirk was a particularly serious blow to the effective operation of the convoy system because the ships could not be replaced quickly by the British shipbuilding industry. Largely because of the weakening of the convoy escort forces, merchant ship sinkings by German U-boats had risen to an unprecedented high of around 400,000 tons in July 1940. Hitler was also assembling an invasion fleet of 2500 barges.¹⁹ The idea of transferring American destroyers to Great Britain for escort duty must have occurred simultaneously to many men on both sides of the Atlantic. Prime Minister Churchill made an urgent request for such help a few days before the Dunkirk evacuation was completed.

The United States Navy had on hand some 250 destroyers²⁰, 162 of which dated back to World War I. Many of the ships of that vintage had been laid up in reserve ever since the Washington Naval Limitation Treaty in 1922. Due to niggardly naval appropriations, all of the destroyers actually in reserve were in need of repairs and some alterations, which had to be made before they could be place din service, but they were basically in sound condition as demonstrated by their performance during World War II. One of the destroyers transferred to the British Navy accumulated an endurance record of 250,000 miles without a breakdown.²¹

The request for these overage vessels brought up some serious questions for the United States. The President and Frank Knox, who had just bee named Secretary of the Navy, were heartily in favor of coming to the aid of Great Britain in this manner. The authority of the President to make such transfers had been recognized by Congress and by the courts in the past, but Congress had placed a limitation on this power in June 1940 by stipulating that no naval vessel could be "transferred, exchanged, sold, or otherwise disposed of in any manner whatsoever unless the Chief of Naval Operations in the case of naval material ... shall first certify that such material is not essential to the defense of the United States." Fortunately, Great Britain had something to offer in exchange for destroyers, which had a bearing on the question of their essentiality to the defense of the United States, namely sites for bases.

While the destroyer discussion was going on negotiations were actually in progress for the acquisition by the United States of sites for bases in British territory along the Atlantic Coast and in the Caribbean. Off-shore bases were highly important for the protection of the Atlantic approaches to the United States and to prevent further Nazi economic penetration of Latin America. The trade agreed upon was to transfer 50 destroyers for the right to establish naval and air bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Antigua, and British Guiana. The Attorney General had in the meantime been requested to pass on the legality of the proposed exchange.

He held, under date of August 27, 1940²², that the President was authorized to acquire from the British government rights for the establishment of naval and air bases in exchange for overage destroyers and obsolescent military material. He held also that "the Chief of Naval Operations ay and should certify under Section 14(a) Act of June 28, 1940 that the destroyers involved are not essential to the defense of the United States if in his judgement the exchange of the destroyers for the naval and air bases will strengthen rather than impair total defense." The transaction was thereupon formally concluded on September 3, 1940 as Admiral Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, had no hesitancy in making the certification considered necessary by the Attorney General.

The destroyers-for-bases exchange marked the beginning of giving substantial outright aid to the future allies of the United States in World War II as distinguished from the former policy of merely facilitating the purchase and delivery of war materials to them. The transaction was referred to as "Lend-Lease" by President Roosevelt at a press conference

on December 17, 1940, and the policy was thereafter known by that name, although many forms of aid afterward bore little resemblance to actual lend-lease.

Lend-Lease Act. However, when the urgent need for coming to the aid of Great Britain arose in the summer of 1940 it was not at all clear just how far the President could go in such matters without specific authority from Congress, even though the Attorney General had held that he was empowered under existing laws to exchange the overage destroyers for bases. To put foreign aid on a firm statutory basis, Congress passed a law approved in 11 March 1941²³ cited as "an Act to promote the defense of the United States," which became known as the Lend-Lease Act. The Act did not go into many details but it was explicit on several important points. "Defense articles" and "defense information" could be transferred to other countries only if the President deemed the transfers in the interest of national defense. Definitions of the two terms were given in the Act.

For the President the international political situation was largely the governing consideration in deciding whether aid to any particular country was in the interest of national defense. No elaborate administrative machinery was needed to arrive at such decisions. By 12 December 1941, the defenses of 32 countries and the British Empire had been declared vital under the L-L Act. At the end of the war 38 foreign governments had been recipients in varying degrees of L-L aid including 19 American republics. In other words, practically all countries not allied with the Axis powers or occupied by them received aid from the United States.

The Act empowered the President to authorize the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, among other government agencies, to procure or manufacture defense articles for transfer to foreign governments. However, the Act made a distinction between defense articles procured or manufactured under appropriations made by Congress specifically for lend-lease and those proposed for transfer from the stocks of the armed services. In the case of the latter the transfers were to be made only after consultation with the Chief of Staff of the Army, or the Chief of Naval Operations of the Navy, or both. The purpose of this provision was to guard against the transfer of materials or defense articles procured or manufactured for our own use without first giving the military heads of the Army and Navy an opportunity to say whether the materials or articles could be spared.

Lend-Lease Procedures. Under date of 19 March 1941, a directive was issued by the Secretary of the Navy requiring that all lend-lease requests made on the Navy Department be cleared through the Chief of Naval

Operations in order to carry out the consultative provisions of the Act. That office was not, however, in position to pass on this aspect of the requests without obtaining information from the cognizant technical bureau as to the availability of the article; whether on hand, under contract, probable date of delivery prior commitments, etc., but this was only part of the information needed to arrive at a logical answer. The decision, whether the article could be spared, had to be coordinated with the operational situation of the moment and with strategic plans for the future. This responsibility rested with the Chief of Naval Operations. As pointed out in the chapter on "Logistics," the organization of the CNO during this early period was in need of strengthening in order to handle logistics planning effectively. After this situation had been corrected, the CNO was able to carry out more effectively the responsibility for expressing opinions on lend-lease requests.

Approximately $50 billion was spent by the United States on foreign aid during the actual war period. Out of this total, about $25 billion was appropriated by Congress specifically for lend-lease aid; the other half represented expenditures for defense articles and materials procured or produced originally under other appropriations and later transferred to foreign governments. About $5 billion came from money appropriated for the Navy Department.²⁴ Both the expenditures for Navy matériel under direct L-L appropriations and those made from naval appropriations placed an additional administrative load of considerable magnitude on the Navy Department. It did not, however, necessitate any noteworthy change in the organization nor in the basic procedures of the Navy Department; an example of the elasticity and adaptability of the Bureau system to emergency situations. The system became even more effective after the Chief of Naval Operations was given statutory responsibility and authority to coordinate the logistic functions of the bureaus.

The Secretary of the Navy had the responsibility for the final decision on L-L requests for naval matériel. A Lend-Lease Liaison Office was established directly under the Secretary in November 1940 as one of the Executive Offices of the Secretary, through which all requests were channeled. On 28 April 1941, Admiral Joseph M. Reeves, USN (Ret.) was ordered to duty as the head of the office and became the Secretary's deputy for lend-lease. He represented the Secretary in defense aid and lend-lease negotiations between representatives of foreign governments and the Navy

Department. When the Office of Lend-Lease Administration was created by Executive Order of 28 October 1941, Admiral Reeves was designated as its Navy Member and later of the Foreign Economic Administration when the latter absorbed the Office of Lend-Lease Administration in September 1943. The Lend-Lease Liaison Office controlled the lend-lease activities of the Navy Department, including those of the International Aid Division of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts. After the spade work on requests for aid, described in a previous paragraph, had been done by the cognizant bureaus and the office of the CNO (often in consultation with the Lend-Lease Liaison Office), the requests were acted upon by Admiral Reeves, subject always to final review and decision by the Secretary and by the White House.

The Lend-Lease Act was specific in requiring that periodic reports be made to Congress covering th operations under the Act. To carry out this provision the Division of Defense Aid Reports, within the Office of Emergency Management was established as of May 2, 1941. On 28 August 1941, the President appointed Edward fr. Stettinius, Jr., Administrator of the Lend-Lease Program. Harry L. Hopkins was designated at the same time as Special Assistant to the President in charge of all defense aid activities. In September 1941, the Office of Lend-Lease Administration, with Stettinius as its administrator, replaced the Division of Defense Aid Reports. In September 1943, the Office of Lend-Lease Administration was transferred by Executive Order and merged with the offices of Economic Warfare, of Foreign Economic Coordination, and of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations to form the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA). FEA admonistered L-L until September 1945, when it was abolished by Executive Order, and its remaining functions transferred to the State Department.

At the time the Lend-Lease Act was under consideration early in 1941, it was assumed that there would be np difficulty in filling promptly most of the requests for such aid. Shortly, however, as the huge defense programs, authorized in the summer of 1940, gathered momentum, critical shortages in certain raw materials and finished products, such as machine tools, began to appear. It was often a fine point whether an article was or was not at the moment essential to the defense of the United States, and, therefore, whether it could or could not be spared for transfer to an ally.

The problem of furnishing articles that did not conform to American practices also became important, such as the fittings and equipment needed for the repair of British naval vessels sent to United States navy yards for repair. It was decided to reduce requisitions for "non-common items" as much as possible, in other words, to make every effort to limit lend-

lease materials and equipment to things that were produced normally by American industry and to follow the specifications and standards of the United States Navy in building ships and other large end-products earmarked for lend-lease.

With the growth of the lend-lease procurement programs the question also came to the front as to whether final approval of transfer to a foreign country should not be deferred until the article was ready for shipment rather than committing the United States to the transfer at the time the requisition was approved for procurement. This was a more serious matter for naval mat&eaute;riel than for most articles being furnished by other departments of the government because of the "lead time" required for the production of many of the items furnished by the Navy Department, "lead time" begin defined as the time from the decision to furnish an article to the completion of the article ready for transfer or shipment. The embarassing situation was not uncommon of a requisition having been approved under circumstances that had changed radically by the time the item was ready for delivery. This presented a strong argument for deferring final commitment as to a transfer until the article was actually ready for transfer.

Thee latter considerations became particularly pressing after Pearl Harbor. Munitions and other defense materials which had been approved for delivery to the British or the Russians months before, were now urgently needed by the American forces in the Pacific and elsewhere. To meet this situation the Lend-Lease Administrator delegated to Admiral Reeves the authority to withhold such articles for our own use, even though previously earmarked for transfer to a foreign government. The Chief of Naval Operations quoted this authorization to all Bureaus and Offices of the Navy Department, with a directive that articles falling in this category be reported to the Chief of Naval Operations.²⁵ Controversial items went to the Secretary of the Navy and even to the White House for decision. The President sometimes reversed the decisions of the Secretary, as for example, when he directed that a large number of machine tools be released for shipment to Russia after Secretary Knox had decided that they were needed in the United States.

Naval Ship Construction for Lend-Lease. Next to the destroyers-for-bases transaction, the most important single lend-lease program involving the Navy Department was the building of 1,799 minor combatant vessels of various types for the British Navy. An Act of Congress approved 6 February 1942²⁶ appropriated $750 million for the construction of these craft

"for the United States Navy or for disposal in accordance with existing law." The Act actually contemplated their transfer to the Royal Navy.

Included in the "1,799 program" were 250 destroyer escorts (DEs). The need for this type of vessel in the United States Navy also had been under consideration for some time, but there had been such sharp differences of opinion with respect to their size ad characteristics, that no decision on a construction program had been reached The Bureau of Ships had prepared a number of designs in August 1940, but none received the approval of the General Board with the result that no escort type was under construction for the United States Navy even as late as the end of 1941. Finally plans for a 1,085 ton destroyer escort type, estimated to cost about half as much as a destroyer, received the approval of the CNO and the General Board. The characteristics were acceptable also to the British Admiralty Supply Mission for the DEs to be built under the "1,799 program." Of the 250 DEs called for, only 75 were delivered to the Royal Navy, the rest being retained for service in the United States Navy. Of the other craft included in this program and originally intended for transfer to Great Britain, a considerable number were also retained because urgently needed by the United States.²⁷

It is an oddity of planning that the United States Navy obtained its first DEs by building 250 such ships for the British Navy only to find it necessary to retain most of them for use in the U.S. Navy. These DEs were, however, used almost exclusively for anti-submarine warfare in the Atlantic to prevent German U-boats from severing the British lifeline with the United States. Thus, they actually served the purpose for which they were originally intended.

Russian Protocol. Aid to Russia presented a special problem, as Russia had joined Germany in the exploitation of Poland after the Nazi attack on that country in September 1939, but Hitler's attack on Russia, launched on 22 June 1941, brought Russia into the war on the side of the Allies. President Roosevelt announced within a few days thereafter, that the United States government would help Russia to obtain war supplies in the United States, but emphasized that our greatest responsibility lay in assisting Great Britain under the Lend-Lease Act, and that any aid to the Soviet Union would have to be furnished outside of the lend-lease program. To have given assistance to Russia under Lend-Lease would have necessitated a declaration that the defense of the USSR was vital to the defense of the United Stats. Neither the American public nor the Roosevelt administration was ready to go that far at that time.

The Amtorg Trading Corporation, the purchasing agent for the Soviet government in the United States, had placed many orders for supplies of all kinds (no weapons were included), in the United States during the previous two years, but export licenses on such supplies had been refused because of the existing Nazi-Soviet Pact. Much of the material was actually in storage awaiting shipment. In July 1941, the President ordered the release of this material and a review of other lists of supplies submitted by a Soviet military mission that had arrived in the United States.

In August 1941, a combined Anglo-American mission was sent to Moscow²⁸ to negotiate a long range program of supplies to be furnished by the United States. A nine-month program was agreed upon involving an expenditure in the United States of about $1 billion. This agreement, signed on 1 October 1941, became known as the First Russian Protocol. Within the first two months after the signing of the protocol, 28 ships sailed from the United States carrying some 130,000 tons of cargo for Russia.

The problem of the best route for such shipping was an important one because of the submarine hazard to which all ships in the North Atlantic were exposed. Until after the attack on Pearl Harbor, some of the supplies were sent across the Pacific to Vladisvostok under the American flag. After Pearl Harbor, some shipments continued in Russian ships, but Russia had few merchant vessels available for use in the Pacific. Another route was via the Persian Gulf, but this route also had drawbacks, as it involved a long haul by rail or trucks through Iran and the rebuilding of roads and the railroad in that country. The Persian Gulf route was mostly a War Department administrative problem, although the Navy Department administered certain port developments that were needed.

On 11 June 1942, a few weeks before the termination of the Russian Protocol, a master lend-lease agreement was concluded with the USSR. After that, lend-lease administrative channels were used for handling logistics aid to Russia. During the protocol period the Navy Department was frequently put in the position of having to protest the release to Russia of materials that were of vital importance to the Navy's own defense programs.

Reverse Lend-Lease. The underlying philosophy of lend-lease was the pooling of the resources and war potential of the United Nations. In the realm of logistics the United Stats was in position to make by far the largest contribution to the pool. In order to reduce currency exchanges to

the minimum, to simplify fiscal adjustments, and to save shipping space, lend-lease originating in the United States was to be offset so far as possible by credits in the form of lend-lease in reverse originating in other countries.

There was not much that the European allies of the United States could contribute to the pool in the way of raw materials and large end-products, but they were in position to furnish services and supplies in considerable amounts in support of the American military and naval forces stationed in Europe, and for the construction of air bases and other military facilities abroad, mostly in the United Kingdom [of England, Scotland] and northern Ireland. The Navy Department also received reverse lend-lease offsets from China and from repairs made to naval vessels in the shipyards of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. The contribution of British science to wartime research and development in the United States was an intangible but very valuable item. South American countries, particularly Brazil, were able to furnish certain items needed for the logistic support that would otherwise have had to be devoted to bringing the items from the United States. The united States at first paid outright for such supplies, but reverse lend-lease came into the picture later on. The total money value of reverse lend-lease was, however, small compared to the value of the aid furnished by the United States to her allies.

Coast and Geodetic Survey

Background. On the recommendation of President Jefferson, Congress authorized the establishment of a National Coast Survey in 1807 "for the purpose of making complete charts of our coast, with the adjacent shoals and soundings."²⁹ For various reasons, one being the War of 1812, little progress was made in getting the survey underway until 1817, when its newly appointed Superintendent, Mr. F.R. Hassler, established a base line back of the Hudson Palisades for the triangulation of New York harbor and the adjacent coastline. However, the project languished and the organization practically disappeared during the next fifteen years. Then, largely through the continuous urging of Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard, during his long term of office from 1823 to 1829, the National Coast Survey was brought back to life in 1832 with the reappointment of Mr. Hassler to the position of its superintendent.

The name of the agency was changed to "United States Coast and Geodetic Survey" in 1878, and in 1905 the service became a part of the Department of Commerce and Labor. When that Department was divided into two departments in 1913, the Coast and Geodetic Survey was placed under the Department of Commerce. Congress, by an Act of 22 May 1917, made provision for the transfer of CGS ships and personnel to the War and Navy Departments in time of emergency as follows: "That the President is hereby authorized, whenever in his judgment a sufficient national emergency exists, to transfer to the service and jurisdiction of the War Department or of the Navy Department, such vessels, equipment, stations, and personnel of the Coast and Geodetic Survey as he may deem to the best interest of the country, and after such transfer all expenses connected therewith, shall be defrayed out of the appropriations for the department to which a transfer is made, provided that such vessels, equipment, stations, and personnel shall be returned to the Coast and Geodetic Survey when such national emergency ceases ..."³⁰ The services of the Coast and geodetic Survey were made available to the War and Navy Departments under this Act in both World Wars I and II.

Duties. The normal peacetime functions of the CGS include the surveying and charting of the coasts of the United States and its possessions, the study of tides and currents, the preparation of aeronautical charts, the determination of latitude, longitude, and elevation above sea level of numerous points throughout the United States, and the making of observations of the earth's magnetism. During the war, nearly all of its activities were directed toward meeting the needs of the Armed Forces for charts, maps, tidal data, and geodetic and coastal surveys of bases in the Caribbean, the Philippines, the Aleutians, and the Hawaiian Islands. Numerous other special surveys were made to fill such needs, particularly those of the Navy in the Pacific.

In scientific work there was close liaison between the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department and the Coast and Geodetic Survey. This was emphasized when the Secretaries of State, Navy, and Commerce agreed in June 1926 to have the Hydrographer of the Navy and the Director of the CGS jointly represent the United States in the International Hydrographic Bureau which had been established by the United States, England, and France in 1921 with headquarters at the Oceanographic Institute, Monaco.

Administration. Under date of 20 January 1942, joint regulations were issued by the Secretaries of War, Navy, and Commerce, "... governing the duties to be performed by the Coast and Geodetic Survey in time of

war and for the cooperation of that service with the War and Navy Departments in time of peace in preparation for its duties in war."

The regulations provided for an Interdepartmental Board consisting of three members, one form each of the three departments.³¹

The functions of the Board were described as follows:

1. The board shall investigate and consider the need for the continued supply to the military forces of the products and services of the Coast and Geodetic Survey during the emergency and shall submit for approval of the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of Commerce:

   1. Recommendations as to personnel, vessels, equipment, and stations of the Coast and Geodetic Survey to be transferred to the jurisdiction of the War and Navy Departments.

   2. Recommendations as to modification of the normal activities of the Coast and Geodetic Survey in order to correlate them with military activities.

   3. Recommendations as to new activities to be undertaken by the Coast and Geodetic Survey.

2. The board shall continue in existence for the duration of the emergency for the purpose of investigating and recommending, from time to time, such further disposition of the facilities of the Coast and Geodetic Survey as may appear desirable to meet developments.

3. Any questions which may arise between the departments concerning the effect or execution of the Act of May 22, 1917, shall be referred to the board for recommendation.

Officer Personnel. The officer personnel of the Coast and Geodetic Survey had military status with rank, and titles, and ratings, corresponding to those in the Navy. CGS personnel in considerable numbers were transferred to the Navy during the war, and thus, became eligible for the promotion accorded to naval personnel. This created a situation whereunder those who were not transferred, but remained in the Coast and Geodetic Survey engaged in the performance of its peacetime duties, were likely to suffer in promotion compared to those who were transferred. Legislation was enacted in December 1942 to correct this situation by providing for the temporary promotion and commissioning of officers and affording to the officers remaining with the CGS, if engaged on work defined as hazardous by the War or Navy Departments, the same

opportunities for advancement and the same privileges provided for officers temporarily transferred to the Army and Navy.³²

Of the 171 commissioned officers in the CGS on 1 January 1942, 94 were eventually transferred to the armed services. Of this number, 29 served with the Navy on Coast and Geodetic Survey ships or naval survey ships as commanding officers, executive officers, or technical officers, and 17 with the Marine Corps. Many of the surveys were made in enemy waters under combat conditions.

Ships and Equipment. Between July 1941 and September 1942, six of the nine major ships of the CGS were transferred to the Navy and were placed on minesweeping duty. The Navy furnished the CGS three small replacement vessels to continue some surveying work, but they were soon returned to the Navy. The most modern survey ship, the Pathfinder, while still under construction, was transferred to the Navy in September 1942. This ship and two others that had been transferred to the Navy, the Oceanographer and the Hydrographer, made emergency and important war surveys in the Pacific, ranging from Alaska to Guadalcanal.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, all radio and hydrophonic equipment in the CGS magnetic observatory at Honolulu and on the ship Explorer were turned over to the Navy to relieve an acute shortage of such equipment.

Latin American Relations

Naval Missions. The sending of military missions by the great powers to smaller countries has been a time-honored method of exchanging the military knowledge and experience of the former for the trade and friendship of the latter. Great Britain and France in particular, used this method for many years for bringing foreign business to their shores. Due to the great prestige of the British Navy, naval missions were usually British during the 19th and early part of the 20th century. The shipbuilding industry of the United Kingdom was the principal beneficiary of this practice. Army Missions were usually French, with the munitions industry of France the chief beneficiary. However, the entire domestic economy of these countries shared in any prosperity resulting form the orders for ships, munitions, and collateral equipment received from abroad.

This was the normal pattern, but the pattern had many variants. Often, the object of a strong power was to give immediate and direct assistance in the form of a military mission to an ally or a potential ally, or to gain some political advantage demanded by the current international situation. Furthermore, in the Western Hemisphere, military missions other

than British and French, were often employed. Germany and Italy had such missions in various Latin American countries at one time or another after World War I.

The United States had no formally accredited military missions to foreign countries until after World War I, although naval officers had, from time to time in the past, served in foreign countries as advisors on naval matters. The first instance of the latter kind was the ill-fated experience of John Paul Jones entering the service of Catherine the Great of Russia in 1788. There were other instances of individual naval officers being authorized to take service with foreign governments; for example, with Uruguay in 1818 and with Japan after 1854. The nearest the United States came in the early days to sending a full scale naval mission to a foreign country occurred in 1848 when Prussia requested such a mission to organize and train a naval force for use in her war with Denmark. A full scale mission did not materialize because the war as of short duration. The Navy Department, however, furnished the Prussian government much information and advice on the organization and training of a navy and the requirements for naval shore establishments. The USS St. Lawrence, under the command of Captain Hiram Paulding, was sent on a cruise to German ports and a number of naval officers were individually given leave and entered the Prussian service for a short time, thus the United States played a considerable part in the founding of the German Navy.

It was not until World War I that the United States, through a chain of extraordinary events and circumstances, entered this field of foreign relations leading finally to the sending of a full scale naval mission to Brazil in 1922, and to other Latin American republics later on. British naval officers had played an important part in the wars of liberation in South America early in the 19th century. The employment of individual British officers by South American countries was followed by the accrediting of larger British official missions to most of these countries.

By the early part of the 20th century, Latin American navies were almost exclusively of British construction due as much to the worldwide prestige of the British shipbuilding industry as to British naval prestige. In 1910, for example, there were added to the Brazilian Navy two battleships, two cruisers, and ten destroyers all built in British shipyards. Brazilian naval personnel had had extensive contracts with the British through the inspection of the ships while under construction, and through the officers and crews that were sent to England for training before the ships were taken over. A number of British engineers accompanied the ships to Brazil and some of them stayed there as technical advisors to the Brazilian Ministry of Marine. Thus, the Brazilian Navy of that period may be said to have been British-built and British-trained.

Naval Mission to Brazil. Brazil remained neutral during the first three years of World War I, but after the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Brazil followed in October 1917. Her contribution to the war was to be a naval force for convoy escort duty in European waters. A request was made on the British Admiralty to send to Rio de Janeiro a group of officers to help train and organize the naval contingent before its departure overseas. It was natural for Brazil to look to Great Britain for such help and for Great Britain to furnish the help, but this period coincided with the darkest days for the Allies during the war. The British Navy, was particularly hard pressed for experienced naval personnel and could not furnish the number and kind of officers needed, so the Brazilian government turned to the United States for assistance. This was logical because the relations between the United States and Brazil had always been very friendly and Rear Admiral W.B. Caperton, USN, in command of the United Stats Fleet in those waters, was very popular in all circles in Brazil, and was highly regarded as a naval officer. Furthermore, an American naval officer, Captain Philip Williams, USN, had, since 1914, proved very successful as a lecturer at their recently established Naval War College.

The upshot was that in 1918 a number of American naval officers headed by Captain C.T. Vogelgesang, USN, were ordered to report to the American Ambassador in Rio de Janeiro for this duty, but the scope of their duties was not defined. It was understood, however, that their functions were to be advisory and not administrative. The group was known as "The United states Naval Commission to Brazil" as there appears to have been some objection to the use of the name "mission" at that time.

Even though the British government was not in position to send naval officers to Brazil during World War I to assist in preparing a Brazilian naval force for service in the ear zone, it did not look with equanimity on being replaced in this field by the United States. Furthermore, most of the high ranking officers in the Brazilian Navy were hostile, or at least lukewarm, toward American naval advisors, as they had been brought up in the traditions of the Royal Navy and had had some part in building, outfitting, and commissioning in the United Kingdom the ships that were added to the Navy ten years before. Therefore, the task of the United States Naval Commission did not begin auspiciously.

The Brazilian Navy realized, however, that the two battleships, San Paolo and Minas Geraes, were urgently in need of repairs and modernization. When it was arranged to have this done at bargain prices and easy terms of payment at the New York Navy Yard, the stock of the Commission began to rise even though the British Ambassador represented to

the Minister of Marine that, as the ships were built in the United Kingdom, it would be advantageous to Brazil to have them repaired and modernized there, instead of in the United States.

The Brazilian naval officers who took the ships to New York, and others who were detailed to plan and inspect the work were immediately impressed with the high level of integrity and competence of the American naval and civilian personnel with whom they had to deal. This was also their experience on the highly successful post-repair trials of the ships. Every opportunity was also given the Brazilian officers, while in the United States, to inform themselves on any engineering, technological and management matters in which they were interested. It, thus became clear to them that the foremost purpose of the United States Navy was to improve the material condition and the operating efficiency of the Brazilian Navy in every way possible, and to do this at minimum cost to Brazil.

The outcome was that the Brazilian government in 1921 made a request for a full scale mission, the Naval Commission being continued in the meantime. The contract for the mission was negotiated by Captain (later RADM) C.T. Vogelgesang who chose its personnel and became its first head. It consisted of 16 officers and 19 chief petty officers who arrived in Brazil on 21 December 1922. The group was composed mostly of line officers, but all staff branches of the United States Navy, except the Civil Engineer Corps, were also represented. The Mission was to be purely advisory and was to have no administrative authority, although its most useful service to the Brazilian Navy eventually became quasi-administrative in character.

The experience of Brazil with its Naval Commission led the Peruvian government, in November 1919, to request the loan of a United States naval officer of rank to take complete charge of the Peruvian Navy. Additional officers were also requested for duty as his assistants. The status of this Mission differed from the one sent to Brazil in that it was to be an administrative mission, its members holding commissions in the Peruvian Navy. The chief of the Peruvian Naval Mission held the position of chief of the General Staff of the Peruvian Navy and was subject to the orders of only the Minister of Marine and the President of Peru.

In 1924, Secretary of the Navy Curtis Dwight Wilbur summarized the reasons for sending naval missions to Latin American countries in a statement to Congress, as follows:

First: To educate, indoctrinate, guide and train the personnel along lines of the U.S. Navy.

Second: To encourage the use of material of standard pattern.

Third: To foster friendly relations.

Fourth: In addition to instruction by naval missions, certain South

American Republics have sent officers to this country to receive instructions in radio, gunnery, marine engineering, aviation, etc. This instruction has been given in civil and well as in Government institutions.

The policy, with respect to military missions, did not receive statutory sanction until the passage of the Act of 19 May 1926 authorizing the President to detail officers and enlisted men of the United States Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to assist the governments of the Latin American Republics in military and naval matters.³³ The Act authorized personnel so detailed, to accept such compensation and emoluments for their services in addition to their regular service pay and allowances as might be approved by the Secretary of War or the Secretary of the Navy. The additional compensation was authorized to reimburse the personnel for the was authorized to reimburse the personnel for the extra expenses involved in living in foreign countries and in meeting the requirements of their positions. The Act also provided that such personnel were to be given the same credit for longevity, retirement, and all other purposes that they would have received if serving with the forces of the United States.

Naval Missions to other Countries. The United States sent Naval Missions to South American countries mainly to cultivate goodwill in support of the Monroe Doctrine and of Western Hemisphere defense. This was considered to be of greater importance to the United States at that time than the expansion of trade with South America. In fact, the U.S. Naval Mission to Brazil deliberately underplayed the commercial aspects of the policy. The Mission stressed the preparation of plans and specifications to describe the end-products needed by the Brazilian Navy and advocated their procurement through competitive buying. In consequence of this policy, orders for naval ships and equipment during the inter-war period usually went to Europe rather than to the United States, as European industries, due to much lower labor costs, were able to underbid American manufacturers. However, the policy benefitted Brazil greatly because of the encouragement it gave to the development and adoption of sound engineering standards and practices by the Brazilian Ministry of Marine.

The services rendered to Brazil and Peru by United States Naval Missions, either in an advisory or executive capacity, covered every phase of naval administration; the operation of their naval forces, their engineering and technical practices, their procurement procedures, the management of their shore establishments, the design of shore facilities, and their accounting and fiscal practices.³⁴

These two Naval Missions were the only United States military missions accredited to Latin American countries during the two decades following World War I. During that period Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy established military missions of one kind or another (Naval, Army, and Aviation) in twelve South America countries. Four European powers had military missions in the four South American Republics bordering on the Pacific Ocean; a sea frontier of great strategic importance to western hemisphere defense.³⁵

Officers on the two American Naval Missions pointed out, from time to time, that it would be difficult for the United States to cooperate effectively with the European organized, trained, and equipped armed forces of Latin America, and that it should be the policy of the United States to replace all European missions by American missions. This became, in fact, the policy of the United States.

By the time the United States entered World War II in December 1941, all European military missions had been withdrawn from the South American Republics and the United States had established missions, Naval, Army, or Aviation, in some cases all three, in all of them except Argentina which employed only a few American Army and Navy advisors, and Chile which did not request a Naval Mission until 1945. In 1943, Naval Missions were accredited, also, to Cuba and the Dominican Republic. When the Lend-Lease Act of 11 March 1941 was extended to the Latin American Republics on 6 May 1941, it greatly strengthened the influence of the American military missions in all of these countries.

The request for a Naval Mission usually began with exploratory talks between the foreign office of the country desiring a mission, and the American Ambassador to that country assisted by the American Naval Attaché. In the Navy Department such matters were at first handled by the Office of Naval Intelligence working closely with the State Department. Details such as the scope of the mission's duties and responsibilities, the preparation of contracts between the two countries, and the assignment of personnel were worked out by the Navy Department.

The outbreak of World War II introduced additional problems of such variety and importance with respect to Latin American relations that a Pan American Division was set up directly under the Chief of Naval Operations in January 1942.³⁶ This Division formulated general policies

for the consideration of the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of State, and drew up the plans and procedures for effecting naval cooperation with Latin American Republics. It acted on the requests for naval matériel under lend-lease submitted by these countries and made the arrangements for the instruction and training of their naval personnel in the United States.

The Navy Department wisely favored advisory and training missions rather than the executive type, thus placing the emphasis on cooperation rather than on authoritarian procedures. The Latin American Republics were naturally loath to admit that their military forces needed organizing and training by foreign officers, but they were less sensitive to this reflection on their efficiency than they would have been to the actual administration of their armed forces by outsiders.

The long range success achieved by the missions depended largely on the tact and diplomacy displayed by their members in dealing with the civilian officials and military personnel of the countries to which they were accredited. Officers on such duty had many direct contacts with the highest government officials, not all of whom were friendly to the United States. The Naval Missions were thus, in position to make or mar cordial relations with these countries. The cultivation of friendly relations as a step toward effective cooperation in matters of western hemisphere defense was after all the basic purpose of the missions. This objective could not be achieved by iron-fisted methods nor by officers lacking in professional competence.

Many officers having in a high degree the requisite qualifications for Naval Mission duty were not attracted to such assignments because it was the general impression that such duty impaired an officer's chances for advancement in the United States Navy. The laws prescribed that duty with missions in foreign countries was to be considered on a par with other duty, but a number of very competent officers appear to have suffered in promotion because of too much Naval Mission duty.

It will be recalled that the officers constituting the first Naval Commission to Brazil reported to the American Ambassador for duty. This was looked upon as a precedent by the State Department and was to plague the War and Navy Departments and the military missions to Latin America throughout the war. At one time during the war the State Department prepared a letter to the President requesting that Ambassadors to Latin America countries be given the same status, with respect to military missions, as that of the military commanders in the field, with respect to the armed forces under them; in effect, that the personnel of military missions b placed under the overall authority of the local Ambassador. When the proposed letter was brought to the attention of the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of War a conference was held

with the Secretary of State, with the result that the letter was withdrawn. However, the State Department never conceded the right of United States military representatives or chiefs of missions to deal directly with the military leaders of Latin American countries in staff conversations or military agreements without being monitored by a State Department representative.

Western Hemisphere Defense. With the destruction of the international situation in the last half of the 1930 decade, it became apparent that something more than United States military missions to Latin American countries was needed to strengthen Western Hemisphere defense against possible foreign penetration. Conferences were held in Lima in December 1938 and in Havana in July 1940 to discuss various aspects of the subject. These were followed by staff conversations between representatives of the United States armed forces and representatives of the armed forces of the American Republics. The United States stated its position on Western Hemisphere defense as follows:

The United States will employ its armed forces to assist any Republic to defeat attacks on its by the armed forces of a non-American state or by fifth column groups supported by a non-American state, when requested so to do by the recognized government of the republic concerned.

The United States will assist American Republics to acquire armaments, to train their personnel, and to provide the assistance of such advisers as may be desired and available. In the supply of armaments, the United States will assist to the extent that its resources, present program, and legal restrictions permit, either by releasing material from its existing stocks, or by making available the necessary manufacturing capacity in government or commercial plants.³⁷

The American Republics agreed, in turn, to the following, under certain limitations: (1) to permit the common use by the naval forces of all American Republics of such ports, harbors, and anchorages as might be needed for hemisphere defense, (2) to organize local defense which would, as far as practicable, be composed of shore fortifications, off-shore patrols, in-shore patrols, and escort service for shipping, (3) to deny the use of ports and harbors to Axis raiders and supply ships.

Under date of 19 June 1941, Uruguay reaffirmed a previous declaration made during World War I: "That no American country, which in defense of its own rights should find itself in a state of war with nations of other continents, will be treated as belligerents; and that existing decrees which may be a contravention of this resolution shall be null and of no effect."

All of the American Republics subscribed to the above declarations of policy. To implement these agreements a number of boards and commissions, described below, were established; most of them at the initiation of the Navy Department. The Pan American Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations was responsible for supplying Navy representation on these agencies, and for initiating the directives necessary to carry out the Navy Department's share of the commitments and responsibilities agreed upon.

Inter-American Defense Board. The IADB was composed of officers of the armed services of the United States and of 20 Latin American republics. It was established in accordance with a resolution of the meeting of Foreign Ministers at Rio de Janeiro in January 1942. The Board was one of several major agencies concerned with problems of Western Hemisphere defense. It held many conferences in Washington and made a number of tours through Central and South American countries during the war. Its wartime activities included studies and recommendations concerning air power, anti-submarine defense, the transit of foreign military aircraft through Latin America, protection against sabotage, supervision fo telecommunications, distribution of translated versions of U.S. Army training films to Latin American countries, naval bases, and the protection of merchant shipping.

Joint Advisory Board on American Republics. This Board, which was also known as the Joint Army-Navy Advisory Board on American Republics, was established in December 1940 to review requests from Latin American governments for munitions of all kinds. With the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1`941, it participated in reviewing requests under the Lend-Lease programs. After January 1942, the Board's recommendations on such requests were presented for action to the United States members of the Munitions Assignments Board, the successor Joint Munitions Allocations Committee, or its appropriate subcommittees. Representatives of both the Pan American Division and Logistics Plans Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations served on the Board. In 1944 the scope of the Advisory Board's activities was enlarged to include consideration of military collaboration with Latin American military forces in general.

Joint Mexican-United States Defense Commission. The JMUSDC was organized early in 1942, its purpose being to study the problems and make recommendations relating to the common defense of Mexico and adjacent areas of the United States. Its deliberations and recommendations during the war pertained to a variety of military and naval defense measures, such as a "Basic Defense Plan" for the two countries, and the installation of direct telephone and teletype circuits between Mexico, Western Defense Command headquarters, and the Navy's Western Sea Frontier. The

Commission's recommendations together with copies of its minutes and other papers, were normally transmitted to the Joint CHiefs of STaff, the War and Navy Departments, and the corresponding Mexican agencies and formed the basis for further discussion and action. The Chief of Naval Operations, the War Department, and the Commander, Western Sea Frontier were represented on this Commission.

Joint Brazilian-United States Defense Commission. The JBUSDC was established in August 1942, and served in Washington during the remainder of the war as an agency for preparing, recommending, and reviewing plans and proposals for mutual defense and for coordinating various aspects of the military activities of the two nations. The Commission studied and made recommendations on the matériel and personnel requirements of the mutual defense plans. Included were such matters as the training in the United States of Brazilian personnel, the allocation of United States equipment for use in Brazilian military training, the equipment and shipping needed for the transportation of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and similar matters.

Summary

The crucible of war itself tested and approved the wisdom of the American policies and practices with respect to Naval Missions. Through these missions the United States gained the confidence, goodwill, and cooperation of South American countries. The instruction and training given their navies by Naval Missions, and the opportunity afforded great numbers of their officers to serve on ships of the United States Navy were potent factors in providing the United Nations with adequate sea power for Southern Hemisphere defense. The Brazilian Navy especially, due to geographical and other reasons, fitted ideally into the pattern of integrated naval power in that area. This was particularly gratifying to the United Stats Navy as it was a fitting return for the devoted work of scores of American naval officers who had, over the years, served on the Naval Mission to that country.

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Footnotes

1. A guide to the location of the extensive records of the inter-allied and inter-service military agencies will be found in Federal Records of World War II, Vol. II, Military Agencies, Government Printing Office.

2. The British counterpart was the British Joint Staff Mission, which was the parent organization from which sprang the British representation on the Combined Chiefs. It continued in existence in Washington after the establishment of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and furnished the British military personnel for the various Combined Staff committees.

3. For a description of the duties of most of the committees, see footnote No. 1 (of this Chapter) on Military Agencies.

4. The Secretary of the JCS, who saw the agency through its formative stage was the brilliant Major Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, USA, later Chief of Staff to Gen. Eisenhower when the later became Supreme Commander for "Operation OVERLORD,"--the invasion of Europe.

5. The actual membership which remained the same throughout the war consisted of only three officers: Lieutenant General S.D. Embick, USA (Ret.); Vice Admiral Russell Willson, USN (Ret.); and Major General M.S. Fairchild ,USA.

6. Dr. Vannevar Bush.

7. William J. Donovan who had been the Coordinator of Information was retained as the Director of the OSS and served in that capacity throughout the life of the office. He had had a distinguished career in World War I and was the originator of many of the ideas underlying the functions and operations of the OSS.

8. Further details on the history of the origins and evolution of the Combined and Joint Chiefs of Staff will be found in Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood, and in Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record by King and Whitehall.

9. I Was There, Fleet Admiral William D. Leady, USN, p. 125.

10. The Joint Chiefs of Staff was recognized as a permanent agency by the National Security Act of 1947.

11. Statement made on 9 October 1948 to a Congressional Committee on the National Security Organization.

12. The Forrestal Diaries, New York (1951), p. 8.

13. U.S. Naval Administration in World War II (Office of the Secretary), Vol. II, p. 12.

14. Ibid., p. 13

15. Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XIII, November 11, 1945, pp. 746-747.

16. The Forrestal Diaries, p. 130.

17. Public Resolution No. 67--74th Congress, August 31, 1935.

18. National Archives, No. 29, Records of the Foreign Economic Administration, compiled by H. Stephen Helton, pp. xi, xii and 1.
[See http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/169.html for the current incarnation of this guide. --HyperWar]

19. Edward R. Stettinius, "Lend-Lease--Weapon for Victory," p. 35.

20. Ships Data Book--1938, published by Bureau of Construction and Repair, Navy Department.

21. The former USS Meade, Edward R. Stettinius, "Lend-Lease--Weapon for Victory," p. 34.

22. Official opinions of the attorney General, Volume 39, March 8, 1937 to December 31, 1940, p. 484.

23. 55 Stat. 31.

24. Statistics with respect to the purposes for which L-L expenditures were made will be found in the various reports of the President on Lend-0Lease operations required by the L-L Act.

Reports to Congress on Lend-Lease Operations, Washington, D.C., GPO, 1941-1945. 35 Reports (D753A28 Nos. 1-35). The bibliography on Lend-Lease given in the appendix should also be consulted.

25. CNO ltr Op-29-A (SC)L11-7/EF Set 04724 of 9 December 1941 addressed to All Bureaus and Offices of the Navy Department.

26. Public Law 440--77th Congress.

27. Details as to the numbers built and their disposition will be found in various editions of Bureau of Ships Ships Data Book, particularly the edition of 1952.

28. The mission consisted of W. Averell Harriman as Chief, Admiral W.H. Standley, USN, Major General James H. Burns, USA, William L. Batt of the Office of Production Management, and Major General James E. Chaney, USA.

29. 2 Stat. 413.

30. 20 Stat. 215, an Act of 20 June 1878 (45th Congress).

31. The original members were Rear Admiral George S. Bryan, USN, Hydrographic of the Navy Department; Captain Gilbert T. Rude, USC&GS, Chief of the Division of Coastal Survey; and Lieutenant COlonel E.B. Sebree of the Army's General Staff Corps. Rear Admiral L.O. Colbert, USC&GS, was the Director of the CGS throughout World War II.

32. P.L. 786 (HR 7556); 77th Congress (2nd Session); 3 December 1942.

33. 44 Stat. 565.

34. Details covering the operation of Naval Missions are contained in a monograph by Captain, later rADM, W.O. Spears, USN on file in the Navy Department Library.

35. "The New International Year Book" (1940, 1941, 1942, and 1944 Editions), Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York, lists the military missions accredited to Western Hemisphere nations during this period.

36. Rear Admiral W.O. Spears, USN was assigned to duty in the Office of the CNO in June 1940 to exercise overall supervision of Naval Missions as he was recognized as the Navy Department's expert on Latin American naval matters, having had two tours of duty on Naval Missions to Brazil and one on the Naval Missions to Peru; the last two years as its chief. He became the Director of the Pan American Division in January 1942 and held this position throughout the war.

37. World War II Historical Narrative of the Pan American Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, on file in the Division of Naval History.