We enter a scene at a Congressional hearing in April 1944 — just months ahead of the D-Day landings — where top defense officials were brought in to discuss the post-war unification of the War and Navy Departments. The Army and Army Air Forces had, for three days straight, been testifying that duplication and overlap between Army/Navy procurement has led to massive inefficiencies. They wanted a unified command.
Finally, on April 28, Navy leadership got its turn. Unfortunately, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox died that very day of a heart attack. And so Undersecretary James Forrestal leads the Navy response:
The Chairman. Judge Patterson, in his testimony, gave quite a number of illustrations of overlapping and duplications that were clearly caused by the two services and which could clearly be obviated by consolidation. He mentioned as one of them, which I think was typical but not unique, the two airfields at Anacostia and Bolling Field, that there was two of everything there, and he mentioned many other instances.
Mr. Forrestal. I think that is a very fair criticism and I think it is an example of what will be developed as these hearings go forward. On the other hand, there are certain things in the field of procurement where duplication has been, in my opinion, and again I say it very humbly, extremely wise.
I think in certain elements of ordnance, and certainly in aircraft, the fact that there was a friendly competition in the types of aircraft gave the Navy dive bombers, and I do not believe we would have had dive bombing as either a material or as an art without it. Whether it is good or bad is a matter for the professional men to say, but I think the fact remains that without that competition you would not have developed the air-cooled engine to the extent we have.
I am confident the Army would not have completely ignored the development of an air-cooled engine, but the fact remains the Navy believed in, sponsored, and pushed the development of that engine, and today I think it is fair to say that it is carrying and fighting a very large part of the war.
Instances of so-called duplication had really taken different approaches, often based on conflicting concepts of war or technology. The Navy “believed” in dive-bombers and air-cooled engines whereas the Army Air Forces did not. The resulting success is less relevant than the fact that different opinions were not only heard, but fully pursued.
Unified direction meant just that, selecting the single best opinion or approach. However, under the fog of war and technological uncertainty, prudence suggests taking a diversity of approaches that only appear inefficient in the traditional business sense
Three years later, Forrestal became the very first Secretary of Defense, and died shortly thereafter of either stress, mental health problems, or possibly an assassination.
Source: Forrestal, James V. 28 April 1944. “Hearings Before the Select Committee on Post-War Military Policy.” House of Representatives Seventy Eighth Congress, second session, pursuant to H. Res. 465: A Resolution to Establish a Select Committee of Post-War Military Policy. Part 1 of 1, pp. 126.
Great history! How do you find this stuff?!?
I found that one strolling through the Pentagon library looking for info on the debate over War/Navy unification. I was pleased to have found the Woodrum Committee hearings of 1944 because they demonstrate nicely the prevailing wisdom of central planning (particularly from the War Dept) and then you had James Forrestal speaking in defense of pluralism but without much of a framework to explain why rivalrous decentralization leads to innovation.