Procurement Districts

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. ... 

Wat Depattment Bulletin 14, 1923, authomed the activation of these procurement district... 

Passage of the Lend-Lease Act of ii March 1941 gave further impetus to the CWS procurement and supply program. Lend-lease appropriations enabled the CWS to undertake procurement activities on a larger scale. Between April and December 1941, the Chemical Warfare Service procured raw chemicals, gas masks, and other items for supply to Great Britain. Many of the items were manufactured at Edgewood, but a number were also secured through special contracts in the procurement districts. 

Figures based On various manuscript histories of chemical warfare procurement districts.

Late in January 1942 the Office of the Chief, CWS, sent Maj. Herbert P. Heiss to Atlanta to establish a procurement district office. A month later Col. Alfred L. Rockwood was transferred from the San Francisco Procurement District to assume command of the new Atlanta office, and Major Heiss then proceeded to Dallas to open the new office there. He arrived in Dallas on 2 March, and five days later the district was activated. With the creation of the Atlanta and Dallas districts, some of the territory formerly attached to the Pittsburgh and Chicago districts was put under jurisdiction of the new districts. The Atlanta district included the following states Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi while the Dallas district included the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. (See Map, page 112.) Early in 1943, Headquarters, ASF, and OC CWS decided that the continuation of the Atlanta office as a separate district office was not justified and, in April 1943, it was designated a suboffice of the Dallas district. 

The United States entrance into the war brought such a vast increase in the number of contracts that the War Department decentralized authority for approval of many more contracts to the procurement districts. On 13 December 1941 General Porter authorized the CWS districts to negotiate contracts up to and including 200,000. On 3 January 1942 this authority was extended to contracts up to 1,000,000 and on 23 March this figure was raised to 5,000,000 at which level it remained throughout the war. ... 

The expansion of activities in the procurement districts necessitated a corresponding expansion of organization. Administrative units which formerly performed two or three functions were broken down into separate units. For example, in the Pittsburgh district there was a Fiscal, Property,... 

The standardization of organization in the procurement districts and other CWS installations facilitated the standardization of administrative procedures. Before the Control Division survey of the districts, for example, each district office had its own forms and records system. This led to endless confusion in the Chief s office, where the data coming in from the installations had to be correlated. Until the forms and records were standardized it was extremely difficult to tell in what areas progress was being made. 

Procurement District Headquarters and Field Inspection Offices... 

The representative of the Chemical Commodity Division reported to the chief of that division whose headquarters were in the New York procurement district. This division was set up in August 1944 to centralize the administration of procurement of chemicals. For details see Brophy, Miles, and Cochrane, From Laboratory to Field. 

Chart 6—Chicago Procurement District, Chemical Warfare Service, As OF 15 August 1944... 

From the point of view of operations, the system was effective because the quality of chemical warfare items improved greatly after the spring of 1943. The commanding officers of the procurement districts felt, however, that the same objectives could have been attained had the Chief, CWS, held them personally accountable for both quantity and quality of items. Such a procedure, they believed, would have avoided the administrative problems of divided authority that sprang up after separate inspection offices were activated in the districts. 

In its administrative no less than in its operational activities, the CWS felt the influence of the ASF. But only with regard to the depots was ASF influence direct and predominant. ASF headquarters specified that a standard organization be established in each depot. In the procurement districts and arsenals ASF initiative was never so pronounced. There the CWS generally inaugurated and carried to completion all actions of an administrative nature. These actions were, of course, subject to ASF approval. 

Civilians with proper qualifications provided an important source of officer procurement in 1941-42. The Personnel Division of the Chief s office and the procurement district offices carried out a program of contacting industries where qualified civilians might be available. Pamphlets listing the specifications of CWS officers were compiled and circulated. In this way numerous civilians were attracted to the Chemical Warfare Service and granted direct commissions. ... 

The personnel requirements of the procurement districts included the following general categories (i) chemists and engineers for chemical analyses and production methods (2) clerical, administrative, and fiscal personnel (3) inspectors and (4) warehouse employees. 

In recruiting employees, the procurement districts generally possessed certain advantages over the other types of CWS installations. All of the district offices, and even the suboffices, were located in large cities where a sizable pool of professional, skilled, and clerical labor was available. A great many of the district employees lived within easy commuting distance... 

Another factor which complicated the personnel situation was the growth in the number of field inspection offices, the aftermath of the increased number of contracts. The CWS had to make provision with the Civil Service Commission to permit chief inspectors in certain field offices to hire all personnel under blanket authorities issued by the commission. As time went on the procurement districts, like other installations, hired more and more women to do jobs formerly done by men. 

The most pressing manpower need of the procurement districts in the early part of the war was for inspectors. In the emergency period, as indicated above, newly hired inspectors were sent from the districts to Edgewood Arsenal for training. These employees upon their return to the districts helped train more recently hired inspectors. Once war got under way this method could not satisfy the greatly expanded need for inspectors. 

BCWPD Boston Chemical Warfare Procurement District... 

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