Others will undoubtedly request release from active duty for the same reason. As a result, it will be necessary to procure new officers to replace these trained officers who cannot be retained. Such increased procurement requirements will incur additional expense in procurement costs, training, travel, and outfitting.

An additional and very important point is that, administratively speaking, the Davis provision is extremely difficult of implementation. For these reasons, the Marine Corps is convinced that section 634 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for 1953 should be repealed.

If this committee should be inclined to retained a revised version of the Davis amendment, I urge you to consider the problem of the Marine Corps with respect to the number of lieutenant colonels to be allowed, even though we are not affected by provisions of law relating to physicians and dentists.

Of significance is the effect of section 634 on the Marine Corps as compared to the effect on the other services. Section 634 permits the following numbers of lieutenant colonels and commanders per 10,000 personnel in the services indicated:

Army, 85 lieutenant colonels per 10,000 personnel.

Navy, 85 commanders per 10,000 personnel.

Air Force, 84 lieutenant colonels per 10,000 personnel. Marine Corps, 50 lieutenant colonels per 10,000 personnel. It is true that the Navy provides the Marine Corps with some 90 commanders for the performance of certain duties. Generally, these duties are as doctors, dentists, chaplains, civil engineers, and staff duties of various types. However, the Marine Corps also provides the Navy with a considerable number of lieutenant colonels in addition to the 29 assignments to the Navy Department shown on the table.

Despite the limitation imposed by section 634, the Marine Corps has a real need for 1,350 lieutenant colonels. I do not believe that you will disagree with me when I state that the Marine Corps should not entrust the command of a battalion of ground troops or a squadron of combat aircraft to an officer of any less experience and judgment than a lieutenant colonel, if it can possibly be avoided. Nor, would you disagree with reference to the assignment of lieutenant colonels as second in command of larger formations, such as regiments. I can assure you that the same need is in evidence with respect to all of the other billets which the Marine Corps proposes to fill with lieutenant colonels.

To summarize, the Marine Corps recommends that section 634, Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 1953 be repealed in its entirety.

Should the committee decide not to act favorably on this recommendation, then it is urged that section 634 at least be amended so as to allow the Marine Corps 1,350 lieutenant colonels and to authorize the application of vacancies in a higher grade to any lower grade or grades.

Mr. ARENDS. General, that concludes your prepared statement? General WENSINGER. That completes my prepared statement. Mr. ARENDS. Possibly the committee would like to ask some questions? Mr. Cole, do you have any questions?

Mr. ARENDS. Mr. Brooks?

Mr. BROOKS. No questions.

Mr. ARENDS. No questions. Any member of the committee that would like to ask the general a question? Mr. Norblad.

Mr. NORBLAD. As I understand it, then, the strength figures which I have seen on the Marine Corps indicate that you have about half the strength that you had at the end of World War II, approximately, i that right?

General WENSINGER. Overall strength?

Mr. NORBLAD. Overall?

General WENSINGER. That is true, sir.

Mr. NORBLAD. And as far as colonels are concerned, at the end of World War II, you had 391 colonels and with half as many men you now have approximately 546 or would in June; is that right?

General WENSINGER. No, sir. We had 399 in World War II. We now have 516.

Mr. NORBLAD. Your figure as of June is 546. Is that right?

Mr. NORBLAD. I can't see the upper row up there.

Major DICK. The current distribution, Mr. Norblad

Mr. NORBLAD. As of what date?

Major DICK, December 31, 1952.

Mr. NORBLAD. Yes.

Major DICK. The first column shows distribution as of December 31, 1952; the second column shows billet requirements at the end of June 30, 1953; the third column shows the limitation imposed by OPA; and the fourth column shows the limitation imposed by section 634. Mr. NORBLAD. Is that second row June 30, 1953?

Major DICK. Yes, sir. These are the numbers, by grade, that we wish to achieve by that time.

General WENSINGER. I may be able to help you. In the first part of my statement, I explained, I think, just exactly what you are inquiring into.

Mr. NORBLAD. Well, I can't understand why with half as many men now you had 399 colonels at the height of World War II and you are now up to 516 or 548, whatever your figure is.

General WENSINGER. I explained that, because at the end of the statement there is a table to show how many new jobs had been created in each of those ranks since World War II.

Mr. NORBLAD. What is the necessity for that?
General WENSINGER. Beg pardon?

Mr. NORBLAD. What was the necessity for the new jobs? That was the same explanation the Navy had, that they had a lot more billets. Why do you have more billets now?

General WENSINGER. The necessity for the job is that we have new activities for which we must provide lieutenant colonels, colonels, and even generals.

Mr. VAN ZANDT. You mentioned, General, three new billets the Marines have had to fill regarding foreign aid?

General WENSINGER. Yes, sir.

Mr. VAN ZANDT. General Seldon occupies one of them in Europe? General WENSINGER. Yes, sir. I mentioned that in my statement, Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Netherlands;

Europe; and Director of the Staff, Joint Inter-American Defense Board, over in the Pentagon. We didn't have those

Mr. VAN ZANDT. What about your Military Assistance Group? General WENSINGER. I have that, sir. I think that is the Military Assistance Advisory Group, which is the same thing.

Mr. VAN ZANDT. I am thinking of the colonels that you have had to assign. An illustration: the colonel that does the training of the Korean or the Chinese Nationalist marines in Formosa is an additional billet?

General WENSINGER. That is right, sir. I haven't listed all the jobs, sir. I have just given you the total and haven't listed them. Mr. GAVIN. I might say the General stated:

At this point I should like to direct your attention to the table attached to the copies of the statement I am presenting to you. This table shows at the foot of the different columns that today we have 4 generals, 154 colonels, and 148 lieutenant colonels to perform new or peacetime functions which did not exist in 1945.

And above he explains, too:

The Department of Defense, the various military assistance advisory groups, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other similar activities, had no counterpart during World War II,

which is the reason I believe for their increase in the number of billets that they have.

Mr. NORBLAD. Then, why do you have just taking your own figures-I wasn't here of course when that started. You claim you need 154 more colonels and yet you have a lot more than 154 at the height of World War II when you had half as many men. Go into your lieutenant colonels. You were discussing them. You claim you need 330 more lieutenant colonels-you are claiming you need 248 lieutenant colonels because of these functions. Instead of having 248, you have 330 more lieutenant colonels than you had at the height of World War II, with twice as many men in uniform.

General WENSINGER. Well, on page 4-you want the colonels first? Mr. NORBLAD. Take lieutenant colonels. That was the figure you discussed a great deal.

General WENSINGER. On page 4 of my statement, the last paragraph, I explained that.

Mr. ARENDS. Read it again, General.

General WENSINGER. Referring again to the table, you will note that there are now 248 lieutenant colonels' billets which were not required in 1945. When added to the 1,095 lieutenant colonels which we did have in 1945, it totals 1,343. We now have 1,200 lieutenant colonels. We need 1,350. This is 7 more than we had in 1945, if you deduct the 248 that would have been added for new functions since World War II. And I explained that General Vandegrift put a restriction on the promotion to lieutenant colonels because our input to build to a basis of some 37,000 officers was at the bottom of the list and we just didn't feel reconciled in pushing those people up to lieutenant colonels in a short time.

Mr. NORBLAD. Is there any list which you have which may be classified showing all these new billets that are needed for all the

rank?

Mr. VAN ZANDT. Right here.

General WENSINGER. May I have your question again, Mr. Norblad?

Mr. NORBLAD. I had the answer.

I wanted to know if you had a

list of all these new billets that had been created.

Mr. VAN ZANDT. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ARENDS. Yes, Mr. Van Zandt.

Mr. VAN ZANDT. General, is it not true that these billets that you have to fill, such as military assistance or foreign aid, whatever it may be: you were simply told to come up with an officer to fill that billet?

General WENSINGER. That is right, sir.

Mr. VAN ZANDT. And it was not in your table of organizations as the Marine Corps?

General WENSINGER. No, sir.

Mr. VAN ZANDT. Therefore you have had to promote to provide the man to fill the billet?

General WENSINGER. That is right.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ARENDS. Yes, sir. Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. General, why do you take the base of 1945 and have to add from that? If in 1945, or if we hadn't these 154 colonels or 248 lieutenant colonels, would you still maintain that the Marine Corps should have as many officers with half as many enlisted men as it had in 1945? You start from 1945 and add these new functions to justify it. But if you did not have these new functions, would you still say that the Marine Corps should have as many officers today, then, as it had in 1945 when it had twice the number of enlisted personnel, substantially?

General WENSINGER. Are you talking only about the first three grades, sir?

Mr. MILLER. I am talking about all grades, these particular grades that you are just filling, these higher grades. That is the thing that bothers me. I should imagine that from the high of 1945, if you did not have these added, 406 grades that are extramural sort of things, that you would have cut the officer personnel of the Marine Corps materially today?

General WENSINGER. Well, we actually have. In August, August 31. 1945, we had a total of 34,411 officers. Today we have 17,128 officers.

Mr. MILLER. Where was that in your statement?

General WENSINGER. Well, you get the 17,128 off of that chart, the left-hand column, and I looked up the number of officers we had in August 1945, which was not really our peak, and at that time we had 34,411 officers.

Mr. MILLER. I see.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Mr. Chairman, may I say something at this point? Mr. ARENDS. Yes, Mr. Blandford.

Mr. BLANDFORD. This has a bearing on what General Wensinger said and I think should be reemphasized, for it is true with the Marine Corps and it is true with the Air Force. I think in all of this discussion we have to remember the base from which these people expanded. Now you had a Marine Corps with only one-thousand-and-some-odd officers at the start of World War II. Now, what happened--and in

second lieutenants, the bulk of them, and we expanded. There were majors doing a lieutenant colonel's jobs, many a lieutenant colonel was doing a colonel's job. They did a good job. And it was true in the Air Force. There is no question about that. Then at the end of the war, when the Congress decided to keep a larger Marine Corps, they integrated these people into the Marine Corps and gave them Regular commissions. Now you weren't going to take some chap who had gone to the grade of major and integrate him as a second lieutenant. He wasn't going to go in as a second lieutenant. You had to give him a grade commensurate with his responsibility. So after you integrated those people, you had some so-called inflated rank, but it wasn't really inflated rank. What you have to look at is what the distribution of officers would have been in the Marine Corps had you had a Marine Corps of a comparable size today and then add to that the number of billets today that require additional officers. There is your comparison. Always go to your base from which you expanded and your integration program and remember that the Officer Personnel Act was to give these people a career opportunity so that over a period of 30 years in the Armed Services they would have some opportunity to arrive at the grade of colonel, a few would arrive at the grade of general, and the remainder would be retired after anywhere from 25 to 30 years of service.

Mr. ARENDS. Mr. Bennett.

Mr. BENNETT. General, in view of the fact that some of the new jobs are requiring officer personnel relatively temporary in nature, does not this indicate the propriety of establishing a system whereby when a job is abolished the position of rank required for that job should be abolished as well and the personnel involved therein be demoted for the purpose of carrying out an orderly procedure?

General WENSINGER. I don't know of any indication on that table that the job is of a temporary nature.

Mr. BENNETT. Well, do you consider that foreign aid and military assistance is of a permanent nature?

General WENSINGER. We probably would do it in the reverse, Mr. Bennett. We would probably send the lieutenant colonel out to the job and have the major fill the place that he is holding in the United States. That would be the only answer. We would not advocate, looking that far ahead, to reduce that lieutenant colonel. Of course we are on temporary promotion today in lieutenant colonel and we intend to stay on it.

Mr. BENNETT. Well, in setting aside this temporary situation which seems to me to underlie the value, the basic thing I am trying to inquire about, why wouldn't it be a good thing for the armed services to establish a policy of having the rank of a particular individual follow the position that he is holding, rather than trying to find a billet for him to fill that particular rank?

General WENSINGER. I am afraid I don't get that question, Mr. Bennett.

Mr. BENNETT. Why doesn't the armed services have a policy whereby the job that a particular person is doing sets the rank that he holds at that particular time and that he fluidly moves from high to low rank, within certain reasonable limits, of course, depending