Procurement Districts activation

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. 

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 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,... 

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. 

The plans for the purchase of these components were worked out in considerable detail in the various procurement district offices before being submitted to the Procurement Planning Division, OC CWS. The district office plans were not confined to the components of the mask, but they were of primary concern while chemicals were secondary. Each procurement district was headed by a civilian chief, who was chairman of an advisory board of five to ten members drawn from among the leaders of the community in the fields of science, commerce, and industry. Each district also had a military executive officer, usually of company grade, with a civilian assistant. The planning activities of the district office were facilitated by the assignment of selected CWS Reserve officers to appropria.te mobilization duties. From the ranks of these Reserve officers were to come competent officer material for World War II. ... 

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. ... 

Still another problem of expanding procurement activities was plant protection. The Federal Bureau of Investigation inspected all War Department and contractors facilities until the spring of 1941, when the function was transferred to the War Department itself On 12 May the Under Secretary of War notified the Chief, CWS, of the change and outlined the activities to be carried out. He "stressed the safety features of plant protection as well as the need for guarding against sabotage and directed that plant protection units be set up in the Office of the Chief and in the procurement districts. In conformity with this directive, the Chief, CWS, activated a plant protection unit in his office in May 1S>41 and instruaed the chiefs of the districts to do likewise. ... 

After the outbreak of hostilities the number of inspectors rapidly increased. They were needed not only in the existing installations but also in those newly activated—Pine Bluff, Huntsville, and Rocky Mountain Arsenals, and Atlanta and Dallas Procurement Districts. By the close of 1942 the CWS reached its peak wartime figure of 6,398 inspectors. From then until the end of the war the number dropped sharply—less than 3,000 in December 1943 and less than 2,500 in May 1945. ... 

A survey of the districts conducted by the branch in the fall of 1943 revealed an almost total lack of interest and initiative with regard to pricing functions. To rectify this situation General Ditto, Assistant Chief, CWS, for Materiel, wrote a letter in December 1943 to the commanding officers of the districts in which he emphasized that price analysis was primarily a district function. From then until the close of the war the procurement districts were more active in conducting pricing operations. The Purchase Policies Branch, OC CWS, continued to act in a staff capacity on all pricing matters. 

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