US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

CHAPTER V
Planning for War With Germany
or Japan or Both
1940–1941
BACKGROUND FOR WAR PLANTNING
It seemed to some otlicers that the publicized policy of the civilian heads
of the government and the vocal opinion of certain mid-western Ccmgressmen
at various times prior to World War I and World War 11 was that,
while the military were supposed to win any war which the United States
got into and the Congress then authorized, there was to be no counteroff
ensive war planning of any kind and no defensive war planning for a
war against any specific country, nor for a defensive war allied with any
specific country.
President Woodrow Wilson actually had forbidden the Joint Board, the
pre-1942 Joint War Planning Agency, to meet when he learned they were
working hard in the pre-Vera Cruz days planning on what to do should the
United States get involved in a war with Mexico. This suspension lasted
from 1914 through World War I and into 1919.
Secretary Daniels forbad the creation of a War Plans Division within the
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, when that office was created by
Congress in 1915 over his opposition. There was a Director of Plans, but not
until Mr. Daniels had left office and World War I was over, was there a
War Plans Division and a Director of War Plans.
It was not until 1936 that the Navy found enough moral courage and
oficer personnel to establish billets for War Plans Officers on the staffs of
the principal Fleet, Force, and subordinate seagoing commands and on the
shoreside staffs of the logistically essential District Commandants, and it
was not until 1941 that the designation started appearing in the command
rosters.
Despite these powerful handicaps, the press of world events by 1938
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