US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

198 Amphibians Came To Conq#er
Navy’s General Board. The Joint Board on this date had two planning
agencies, the Joint Planning Committee, and a subsidiary, the Joint Strategic
Committee.
As head of the Navy’s War Plans Division, Rear Admiral Turner on
1 February 1942, was one of the two members of the Joint Planning Com-
mittee, the other representative being Brigadier General Dwight D. Eisen-
hower, of the War Department’s War Plans Division. These two officers
were handed the hot potato of determining what sort of a new military
command organization should be established in the United States to provide
direction and cohesion in running the United States military part of the war.
The ~ask was assigned on 28 January 1942, and the report of these two
oficers was submitted on 27 February 1942.
Brigadier General Eisenhower recommended that a Joint General Staff of
fifteen members be created directly under the President and headed by a
Chief of Staff who would be responsible only to the President. The General
Staff would provide for coordination of both operations and logistic support,
and be responsible for strategy and the employment of military forces, but
would not command them. Command would be vested in Theater Com-
manders.
Rear Admiral Turner recommended the organization of:
1. A Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, consisting of the Chief of Naval
Operations, the Chief of ,Staff of the Army, the Commander in
Chief ~f the U. S. Fleet, and the Commanding General, Army
Field Forces.
2. A Joint training system for higher command levels of both Services,
stating this to be an essential prior to the acceptance of Joint Annual
Staff.
In order to obtain unity of command, he recommended
3. Assigning command responsibilities in campaign areas and on f ron-
tiers to an officer of the Service with primary interest and awareness
of the anticipated problems.
The Joint Board did not accept either proposal when they were presented
at the 16 March 1942 meeting and both proposals reached the President.
The President, who perhaps was wary of Brigadier General Eisenhower’s
solution (which reflected General Marshall’s desires), thinking it might
dilute his own prerogatives as Commander in Chief to direct the war effort
in some detaiI, eventually accepted what was in effect Rear Admiral Turner’s