Industrial Mobilization Plan

While procurement was kept at a minimum there were no restrictions on procurement planning. The Procurement Planning Division of the Chief s office was responsible for drawing up and submitting its portion of industrial mobilization plans to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War. Early in 1924 procurement district offices were activated in New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Francisco. ... 

Ordnance item except rifles and small arms ammunition. The implications of this experience were not lost on the War Department or on the Congress, and in the 1920 revision of the National Defense Act provision was made against future emergencies through the inauguration of a system of industrial mobilization planning. 

For a discussion of the background of interwar industrial mobilization planning see R. Elber-ton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization. UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1959), chs. II and IV. 

From 1937 onward all industrial mobilization planning was based on the manpower requirements of the Protective Mobilization Plan (PMP). The PMP called for an army of 400,000, within 30 days after mobilization, known as the Initial Protective Force and made up of the Regular Army and the National Guard. Within 4 months, the number would be raised to 1,000,000 men and within 14 months to a peak wartime figure of 4,000,000. The CWS planned for both units and facilities under the PMP and estimated the time it would require to furnish the mobilized forces with critical and essential items, such as gas masks, toxic agents, smoke, munitions, impregnite, airplane spray tanks, and shells for 4.2-inch chemical mortars. ... 

The CWS Annex to the 1925 Industrial Mobilization Plan listed the following activities that would have to be carried out in peacetime as a basis for wartime expansion ... 

Although the President did not put the Industrial Mobilization Plan of 1939 into operation, the plan was nevertheless followed rather closely in War Department procurement activities for the Army at large. So far as the CWS was concerned, it had a much mote restriacd application. In the general scramble for contracts by all elements of the armed forces and by foreign governments after the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, many allocated plants were lost to the CWS. In only one chemical warfare procurement district. New York, were contracts awarded on a considerable scale to previously allocated manufacturers. This situation was probably due to the fact that the majority of the contracts in the New York district were for certain raw chemicals for which there was no keen competition. In other districts, it was the exception rather than the rule for a previously allocated plant to be awarded a contract. ... 

ICAF R63, Use of Industrial Mobilization Plan in World War II. See especially Table 1. 

The hardships which the Chemical Warfare Service began to experience in obtaining suitable contractors in the emergency period became much more pronounced after the declaration of war. Since the Industrial Mobilization Plan of 1939 had not been put into operation, the CWS, as indicated, in some instances had lost allocated contractors to other elements of the armed forces, particularly the Ordnance Department and the Navy. This state of affairs continued into the war period. Only for the gas mask and raw chemicals did the CWS experience little difficulty in obtaining contractors with the necessary experience and equipment. Thanks to the ucational order contracts on the mask, excellent contractors with well-equipped plants were already in production and were willing and able to proceed with other gas mask contracts. In the case of raw chemicals, a sizable number of well-established houses were available for government work. On all other items, CWS usually placed contracts with establishments that had not been allocated to it under the Industrial Mobilization Plan. In almost all instances these establishments were small operators who had to convert their plants in order to manufacture the items. 

In 1948 the Chemical Corps awarded a contract to Firestone Industrial Products Co., Akron, Ohio, to make a study aimed at improving the industrial mobilization plan for the gas mask. In compiling data, the Firestone Co. interviewed representatives of the various World War II gas mask contractors. Among other things the Firestone report recommended that in the future all mold manufacurers should use identical patterns. See Industrial Mobilization Planning Study, Mask, Service, Combat, M-5-11-7, Chemical Corps Contract W 18-035-CM-834 Phase I, 5 March 1948, p. 65- ETF 611.69-2/2. Hereafter referred to as Planning Study, Mask. 

For information on industrial mobilization planning and on the scanty procurement and supply activities of the peacetime period, the author used pertinent retired files of the Chemical Warfare Service the War Department Assistant Chief of Staff, War Plans Division (WPD), G-3, and G-4 and The Adjutant General s Office. Footnote citations throughout the volume which give file numbers preceded by the abbreviation "CWS indicate documents from the retired files of the Chemical Warfare Service. Records of the Assistant Chiefs of Staff G-3 and G-4 are indicated by the prefixes "G-3 and "G-4, respectively, those of The Adjutant General s Office by the prefix "AG. At the time this volume was written the majority of these records were in the custody of the Department of the Army. Since then, however, these records have been transferred to and are in the custody of the National Archives. 

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