M-Day Conclusions

ARMY & NAVY

The General Headquarters Air Force of the U. S. Army is known as the M-Day (Mobilization Day) force. Its men and equipment are supposed to be ready to take the air at a moment's notice, concentrate at any point in the U. S. to fight off attackers. Regarded as the most important development since the War in the modernization of U. S. military forces, it is divided into Eastern, East Central and Western Wings, operating from bases at Langley Field, Va., Barksdale Field, La. and Hamilton Field, Calif. Under President Roosevelt's strong national defense program it has grown rapidly in size and importance since its organization in 1935. At present its fighting strength consists of 430 officers, 2,500 men and 350 of the Army's 1,364 airplanes.

Three weeks ago M-Day's three wings concentrated in California. There, divided into two warlike combat groups, it played a new kind of war game. Day & night it attacked and defended an imaginary Los Angeles that had been drawn to scale on the desert sands of Muroc Dry Salt Lake (TIME, May 24). Last week when the battle of Los Angeles ended, M-Day's commander, Major General Frank Maxwell Andrews, sat down with his staff to write a confidential report to the War Department of the conclusions his new game had produced. But before he sat down, the handsome, grey-haired commander assured the press that his new game had proved a point that is standard with every fighting service in all countries. Said M-Day's Andrews: "Six of the nation's nine Air Force groups had to be decimated to increase the other three to war-time strength for maneuvers. If the United States were attacked today on two different fronts, we couldn't defend both of them. We'd have to make a choice. We lack flyers and flying machines . . . inland air bases and a good deal of equipment."

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