Army & Navy: Mechanics’ War

Starchy Alfred Robinson glancy, former vice president of General Motors Corp., long bemoaned Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal Government. Last week Glancy had a new and important job—under Franklin Roosevelt—running the automotive combat division of Army Ordnance in Detroit.

Scheduled to become a brigadier general Glancy will direct the “design, procurement, supply and maintenance of all Army vehicles and tanks.” His first act on hitting Detroit was to take over the second highest building in town for a prospective staff of more than 2,500, for he has a terrific job ahead of him.

For a bitterly long time the Army has lost skirmishes in the spare parts and maintenance war. In the same war Field Marshal Rommel has often won victories in the desert by patching up busted tanks and planes, while the British, brave fighters but indifferent to machinery, won defeats. Under the tents that serve as machine shops in the desert the U.S. means to win victories, but first it has a big job to do.

U.S. equipment sent overseas has sometimes been damaged in transit due to faulty packing, lost through inefficient storage, or has sat useless for lack of simple parts like spark plugs or coils. Where parts have been ordered they have often served no good end: there is no sense ordering as many spare truck cabs as spare fan belts—one seldom requires replacement, the other frequently does.

To solve this stuttering maintenance the Army needed an Army man with industry know-how. Glancy’s knockabout experience had included engineering in Cuba, managing an iron foundry, a tractor and auto company, and generally trouble shooting for General Motors.

When glancy returned to Detroit, he found the auto industry already teaching Army men to maintain the tanks and other weapons they produce. He found G.M. going farther: sending factory engineer observers to fronts overseas. These observers have the job of reporting why equipment fails in service, when & why the service is inadequate—putting war-materiel servicing on the same efficient basis that automobile servicing has long been in the U.S.

Observers will soon wear special uniforms and have a status similar to war correspondents—so that they can get around and won’t be shot if captured. G.M. would not let the Army make officer specialists of its men because giving its men commissions would enmesh them in military red tape.

Approved last week by the Senate Military Affairs Committee was a bill speeding up the period of officer training at West Point from four years to three. First effect: to give 450 first classmen commissions in January instead of next June.