ARMY & NAVY: Top Brass Plans

ARMY & NAVY

The winning of the war found the top brass with some personal demobilization plans. The bosses of the Army, Navy and Air Forces were getting ready to step down. When they did, Harry Truman would have some important appointments to make.

The Army’s General George C. Marshall, who passed the retirement age (64) last December, probably will retire before October. The Navy’s iron-willed Admiral Ernest J. King, is still spring-stepped but will be 67 in November; he plans to get out about then.

General Henry H. Arnold is younger (59) but wartime strain has aged him perceptibly. Last week forthright “Hap” Arnold said wearily at a press conference (perhaps his last) that he would retire soon. “I intend to go out and sit under an oak tree and I’ll shoot down the first fellow that flies over in an airplane,” said the man who built up an air force of 64,591 planes and 2,282,259 airmen.

Younger Successors. To follow Marshall, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 54, is an overwhelming favorite. Insiders consider the Air Forces job a tossup between General Carl (“Tooey”) Spaatz (54) and his Texas-born lieutenant in the European theater, Lieut. General Ira Eaker (49), but an even younger man may get the job.

The real scramble for power will come in the Navy. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, chief of the Pacific Fleet, is still four years short of retirement age, wants the COMINCH job. The Fifth Fleet’s quiet, hard-working Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance, 59, is also a leading candidate. Navy “radicals” (i.e., proponents of a break from the Navy’s tradition of ancient admirals) would like to lop off the top 10% of the service’s greening brass, lower the retirement age, put in a young admiral as boss. Their favorite, No. 175 on the list of admirals: lean, able Arthur W. Radford, 49, who set up naval aviation’s excellent wartime training program, later bossed a Pacific carrier group.