January-February - Air Defense Artillery

A Single Department
Unification
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of our armed forces in a sinole department of
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national d dense with land. sea and air power as coequal
partners offers the only sound basis on which to build future
national security. It provides as coordinating head of these
three forces a single civilian secretary empowered to organize
them into a balanced fighting team.
Integration of our military strength thus afforded would
insure the continuance in peacetime of unity of direction,
a principle so successfully demonstrated in the fiohtino
• 0 n
areas during the past war. Just as total war demands the
use of combined arms under a single command. so does the
single problem of national security call for unity in shaping
and directing the armed might that must protect the nation
in any future emergency.
Unification does not mean a merger wherein the present
fighting forces lose their identity or specific functions.
Rather the integrity of each force would remain unimpaired.
Each force would retain maximum autonomy consistent
with economy and efficiency. yet each would develop
its full coordinate strength within the framework of a single
structure of national defense.
\VIIY lhnFICATlON IS NEEDED
l\Iost observers agree that any future war will be waged
simultaneously on land, sea and in the air. If war should
come, it will strike swiftly, probably without warning, affording
our fighting forces no opportunity to improvise a
combat organization while the battle rages.
These prospects, plus the frightful destruction threatened
in any war fought with atomic missiles, demand that
the nation perfect in peacetime the military organization it
will require in the event of war. As President Truman
stated in his message to Congress on December 19, 1945,
"True preparedness now means preparedness not alone in
armaments and numbers of men. but preparedness in organization
also."
In the summer of 1944 the Joint Chiefs of Staff organized
a special committee to obtain the views of combat
commanders on the question of a unified department. Composed
of two admirals and two generals of long experience,
the committee conducted hearings for 10 months, visiting
commanders in Europe, the l\ lediterranean area, India-
China, and the Pacific theaters of war. Upon completion
of its hearings, the committee, with only its senior naval
member dissenting, recommended the establishment of a
single department of the armed forces.
In reaching this conclusion, the committee indicated
that the fundamental Jesson of the past war. learned from
hard and costly experience, was that there must be single
direction of the land, air and sea forces.
In 1941 when Germany and Japan declared war on the
United States, the nation had two services, the Armv and
the Navy, each with its independent field of operatio~s and
its independent mission. No unified over-all command ex-
of National DefensE
isted, short of the President as Commander in Chief. E::
sen'ice had de\'eloped the type of organization that it
lieved essential, with little or no collaboration or consu:
tion with the other. Each service guarded its own prero
tives, and there was no way of compelling cooperation
the exchange of information. except by the President hi
self.
\Vhen war came there was no adequate cooperation
tween the two sen'ices, no plans for a unified command
the ficld, and air power functioned as an auxiliary to
t\rmy and Navy. The prewar and early war period bro
efforts to overcome these defects in our defense struc
\ Vithin a month after Pearl Harbor the President cr
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an agency designed to ex
control over world-wide military operations on the ba
mutual consent. On the industrial technological and
tific side, a multitude of joint boards and committees I
formed in an attempt to bring coordination in these
But, for practical purposes, mutual agreement normal!
volvedlong and costly delay in these organizations, h
improvised as many of them were, and in some cases
ferences never could be satisfactorily resolved.
As war progressed, it became re,{dily apparent that
military effort of consequence required unified contr I
exploit the maximum capacity of ground, sea and air f
This led to the appointment of supreme commanders 1
were responsible for the employment of all forces \Ii
their theaters of operation.
However, the unified direction so necessary to wa,
war successfully was limited largely to the strategic
tactical employment of the major forces overseas.
unity did not extend to the elimination of many duplica
facilities and lines of supply overseas. And in \Vashi
ton, of course. there was no single over-all command
of the President himself.
ORGANIZATION OF A SINGLE DEPARTl\IENT
The \Var Department's plan calls for a single Secr
of National Defense, a civilian of cabinet rank sef\
under the President as Commander in Chief. The S
tary's principal civilian assistant and executive would
an Under Secretary with stature and responsibility si
to that held bv the Under Secretarv of State. The de
ment would b~ divided into three c~rdinate branches:
for land forces, one for sea forces, and one for the air fo
each under an Assistant Secretary. In addition, the S
tary of National Defense would be assisted by three or
Assistant Secretaries appointed on a functional basis \
would be responsible for such vital matters as coordina
of scientific research and development, supervision of
curement and industrial mobilization, and legislative a
and public information.
On the military side, the principal advisor and execu
to the Secretarv would be the Chief of Staff of the A