An analysis of the complex tasks associated with Army procurement and economic mobilization featuring the War Department2s business relationships from prewar planning and the determination of military requirements to the settlement and liquidation of the wartime procurement effort.

An analysis of the complex tasks associated with Army procurement and economic mobilization featuring the War Department2s business relationships from prewar planning and the determination of military requirements to the settlement and liquidation of the wartime procurement effort.

In World War II the War Department, whose primary and traditional mission was to mobilize, train, and equip military forces and direct them in combat, found itself drawn into the center of the gigantic effort to mobilize America's industries for war. It became one of the principal agencies of the Government in administering as well as planning the nation's economic mobilization. This book, by an economist, tells how the War Department operated in performing these tasks. The experience had a lasting effect on the mission, organization, and outlook of both the Army and the Air Force. Their present functions and structure cannot be understood without reference to it. This volume is therefore of vital interest to every officer. Furnishing, as Dr. Smith's approach to his subject does, a comprehensive view of the impact of war on the national economy, his book should prove invaluable to staff planners in all agencies of the Government, to industrial leaders, to the civilian scholar, and to the thoughtful citizen. The Army and Economic Mobilization is a complement, in the area of domestic economy, to the two-volume work, Global Logistics and Strategy, in the area of international economy. It is the capstone to others in the U.S. ARMY IN WORLD WAR II that deal with the procurement and distribution of supplies in their organizational and operative aspects. The relations with labor into which the War Department was drawn are set forth in a forthcoming volume, The Army and Industrial Manpower. A separate volume, Buying Air Power, is being devoted to the special problems of procurement by and for the Army Air Forces.

Contents: Mobilization activities before Pearl Harbor day; education for mobilization; interwar planning for industrial mobilization; mobilizing for war: 1939-1941; the war production board; the controlled materials plan; the office of war mobilization & reconversion; U.S. production in World War II; balancing military & civilian needs; overcoming raw material scarcities; maritime construction; people mobilization: Rosie the RiveterÓ; conclusions. Appendix: production of selected munitions items; the war agencies of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.