Army Service Forces

Leatherman, M., Army Service Forces, Chemical Warfare Service, Memo. Rept. TDMR 936 (1944). 

To illustrate the value of these efforts in one year the job training methods, j-esearch projects and improved work developments originating at Picatinny, and passed along to outside plants, saved the Government more than 30,000,000. This accomplishment was recognized by Lt. Gen. Brehon Somervell, Chief of the Army Service Forces, and Maj Gen L.H. Campbell, Jr, Chief of Ordnance, in letters to the Commanding Officer... 

John D. Millett, The Organization and Role of the Army Service forces, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, IJJ4), chs. II and XII. 

The Army Service Forces manual. Logistical Planning and Reference Data, arrived in the theater in May 1943. Although the ASF manual primarily dealt with transportation of supplies, it did present some helpful examples of requirements computations. Such information as the ASF manual provided was useful, both in the headquarters and to the supply officers in the field, but it met only part of the need. To satisfy the whole need, Colonel Coblentz, Chemical Officer, ABS, made his own compilation of logistical data. In July he obtained OCCWS Circular No. i, issued on 20 June 1943 as a predecessor to CWS supply catalogs. Although the OCCWS circular contained the latest War Department information, Colonel Coblentz experience in the theater led him to reproduce a table of maintenance factors prepared by the CWS ETO. The European theater was not engaged in... 

In August of 1944, the Army Service Forces promised an adequate stock of spare parts within the next six months. Also in August the theater formulated, and in September put into practice, an individual CWS NATOUSA spare parts policy, concentrating supply and control of spare parts in Peninsular and Delta Base Sections. But, as the investigations of a CWS spare parts team from December 1944 to February i94J demonstrated, the Mediterranean theater CWS never reached the goal of adequate parts stockage. ... 

The OflSce, Chief of Military History, provided several other groups of studies and histories. The Army Service Forces monographs on logistical problems were of great assistance as was the History of Allied Force Headquarters. The histories and after action reports of a number of organizations and units from army groups to chemical mortar battalions and even service units were extensively xised. In the... 

The Organization of Ground Combat Troops The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops The Army Service Forces... 

The Organization and Role of the Army Service Forces The Western Hemisphere... 

During the prewar years and on into the first few months of the war the Chief, CWS, was under the direct jurisdiction of the Chief of Staff. There was constant consultation between the General Staff and the CWS staff over matters of policy. In March 1942, under a major War Department reorganization, another echelon of command was placed between the supply arms and services and the General Staff. That echelon, commanded by General Somervell, was the Services of Supply, or as it was later called, the Army Service Forces. Chart 4) From that time until after the close of the war, policy matters were usually formulated after consultation between ASF staff officers and their opposite numbers in the CWS. At times War Department General and Special Staff officers had direct contact with CWS personnel, as in the case of the United States Chemical Warfare Committee, but such contact was the exception rather than the rule. ... 

Chart 4—Organization of the Army Service Forces, As OF 30 June 1943... 

In 1943 Somervell presented a plan to the War Department which would have eliminated the technical services. Millett, Army Service Forces. Chapter XXIV. 

A copy of this directive is in Organizational Problems of the Army Service Forces, 1942— 1945. I, 7—14. a five-volume manuscript compiled by the Historical Branch, ASF. In OCMH. 

For the influence which ASF had on the internal developments of technical services such as CWS, see Millett, Army Service Forces, pages 304-08. 

The Army Specialist Corns was activated under Executive Order 9078, 26 February 1942. See WD Bull ii. Sec. ii, 1942, and WD Army Specialist Corps Regulations (Tentative, 1942, G—I, 16545—46, Part III). For a general discussion of the Specialist Corps, see Millett, Army Service Forces, p. loi, and Henry P. Seidemann, "Army Specialist Corps," Army Ordnance, XXIII (194a), 502-04. 

A good many chemical warfare officers were assigned or attached in the zone of interior to the Army Ground Forces, the Army Air Forces, and the Army Service Forces. Chart lo) ... 

Army Ground Forces Army Air Forces Army Service Forces Overseas Commands... 

These were entertainers who were members of the Special Services, ASF. See Millett, Army Service Forces, p. J48. 

Under the revised policy, training responsibilities of Army Service Forces extended only to those service units that were organized to operate ASF-type installations and activities, including overseas service or communication zone operations. Ground and air forces became responsible for training both tactical and noncombat units organized for operation within their respective commands. Flexibility under this policy was provided by authoriz-... 

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