Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

204 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
937th Field Artillery Battalion firing 155-mm. guns during the Soyang River battle
tremendous stock of ammunition, but it was not a balanced one. Hasty demobilization
depleted the Army of personnel who could have assessed and cared for the
ammunition, and as a result, much of it deteriorated. The Army drew on the large
stock without replacing it, and the lack of postwar orders caused the ammunition
industry to close down. Prosperity in 1950 made the business community reluctant
to reconvert factories to wartime needs, especially when many believed that the war
would be short and that reconversions would not be necessary with the large World
War II stockpiles available. Because an eighteen-month to two-year lead time was
necessary under the best of conditions to produce ammunition in quantity, ammunition
was not supplied in adequate amounts until late 1952 and early 1953. The
piecemeal financing of the war also increased the difficul ties, as did the steel strike
in the spring of 1952, which, in particular, affected ammunition production. 32
By the spring of 1952, it was apparent that if ammunition were fired in Korea
at the authorized rates, complete replacement would not be possible and theater
levels would drop. Stocks, globally, were reaching critically low levels. The Far
East Command, therefore, reduced the number of rounds a weapon could fire per
day. Orders required that, wherever possible, air support and support from heavy
32 Hermes, Truce Tent, pp. 224–25; Hearings on Ammunition Supplies in the Far East, 1953, p.
145; Rpt, Maj Gen William O. Reader, Dep ACofS, G–4, [1954–55], sub: The Korean War Ammunition
Shortage, pp. 2–7, 11–12, 69, copy in CMH files (hereinafter cited as Reader Rpt).