Commanding General, ASF

To carry out these provisions the Commanding General, ASF, promptly established a committee headed by General Porter and including representatives chosen by G-2 and OPD of the War Department General Staff, the Requirements and Operations Divisions of the ASF, and the U.S. Navy. ... 

The chiefs of the technical services had two distinct fields of responsibility. Each administered an important procurement and supply agency, supervision of which was delegated by the War Department to Headquarters, Army Service Forces. At the same time each branch chief was a technical adviser to the Chief of Staff and/or the Secretary of War in his special field, the Surgeon General in the field of medicine, the Chemical Officer in the field of chemical warfare, and so forth. In this latter capacity, the relationship of the technical branch to the War Department was naturally direct rather than through the commanding general, ASF. It was the practice of the Chief of Staff, when circumstances demanded, to curtail... 

The commanding general of the service command had ample authority on which to base his recommendations of 24 May, for just twelve days before the ASF had designated Camp Sibert a Class I installation of the... 

The reaction of the ASF to the proposal for another chemical warfare school under the jurisdiction of the Chief, CWS, was not favorable. Instead, the chief of the Training Division, ASF, on ii September 1943 directed that a chemical warfare school be set up at Camp Beale, California, as a Class I installation under the jurisdiction of the commanding general of the Ninth Service Command. Such a school, known as the West Coast Chemical School, was activated in October 1943, and the first class assembled on 13 December. As of 8 March 1944, 100 students were in attendance at the school, 56 of whom were officers and 44, enlisted men. These included personnel from the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps." Col. Maurice E. Jennings was named commandant of the school. 

In contrast to ASF activity at the depots, whose revised organizational structures were looked upon approvingly by key personnel in the CWS, the ASF decision to put Camp Sibert under the jurisdiction of the commanding general of the Fourth Service Command, was not viewed with favor by the Chief, CWS. General Somervell, nevertheless, stood by the ASF directive to make Sibert a Class I activity of the Fourth Service Command, as noted above. General Porter undoubtedly had that situation in mind when in September 1944 he set up the San Jose Project Division in his office to supervise all activities of the Panama installation. Porter was taking a precaution to insure that all responsibility for San Jose would remain under CWS control. 

When General Somervell was appointed commanding general of the Army Service Forces in March 1942 he took most of his G-4 organization with him. From that time until the end of the war the CWS, as a technical service of the Army, usually reported directly to ASF headquarters on procurement and supply activities. ... 

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. ... 

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