How Big?

The protests of Congressmen against the expansion planned by the armed forces still popped and sizzled like a bunch of wet firecrackers. This week the U.S. public heard the other side in some detail. The case of the Army and Navy for a combined force of 11,100,000 armed men (and women auxiliaries) by the end of 1944 was presented in a report to Congress by 75-year-old Senator Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island.

Senator Green's arguments:

> The armed forces manpower program (including an Army of 8,200,000) had been set by their top commanders--Generals Marshall and Arnold, Admirals Leahy and King. It had been approved by the President.

> It was based on their estimate of the strength needed to carry out a carefully planned strategical program which must necessarily be secret. Cutting the strength even by one million men would throw the whole program out of kilter, would threaten military failure, might result in a military stalemate lasting a generation.

> At its present strength (5.5 million), the Army has 73 divisions organized. From the next 3.2 million it expects to organize 27 more, get to full strength with 100 divisions. This will still leave the United Nations with 46 fewer divisions than the present strength of the Axis (which Senator Green put at 483 in Europe plus 86 operating under Japanese command). Without the U.S., the United Nations now have only 423 divisions in the field, by his figures.

> Under the Staff Chiefs' program, the Army will have around five million troops overseas by the end of 1944. They will include about 950,000 Air Forces pilots and ground soldiers (Japan's estimated present air strength is 200,000 men, Germany's 1,250,000).

> At that time 3,450,000 of the Army's total strength will still be at home. These include a round quarter million for defense commands, a half million for base and reserve (supply, etc.) and two and three-quarter million still in training (including one and one-half million of Air Forces' total strength of 2,450,000).

> The Staff Chiefs' plan will call 8% of the population of the U.S. to arms. Germany has 12% under arms. Britain has 10%, keeps pace with the U.S. in per capita production, and runs ahead of it in some phases.

For Congressmen and other dissenters like Herbert Hoover, Senator Green's report gave many other figures to chew on. Some (like Axis and Allied division totals) were stated without documentation. Similarly he left no room for Congress to discuss the specific wisdom of the plan of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Chiefs had made their plans with full knowledge of the world situation and after a full study (said Senator Green) of the United Nations' shipping potential, the U.S.'s capacity for worrying by on a slimmer civilian economy.

Congress could either take it, relying on the country's military top men, or it could leave it--cut the potential of the armed forces, and dare the dire warnings of its strategists.

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