Talk:Army Service Forces

Other Periods of Usage

This patch was known to be used outside the stated "Active" period of 9 March 1942 – 11 June 1946. It was worn by members of the United States Data Support Command (USADATCOM). USADATCOM was the data processing arm of the Adjutant General's Command, Department of the Army, headquartered in the Pentagon. It is known to have been used during the period of my tour of duty with USADATCOM, Sept 1966 - Sept 1967. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.41.157.125 (talk) 15:55, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I was stationed at USADATCOM from 5 SEP 1966 until 14 JUN 1968. Initially in the basement BE1000 and then in the CG's office 1A909. Would be interesting to hear from others that were there. "Tex" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:6000:CD45:8A00:F019:A8D4:23C0:DCFD (talk) 06:05, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Merge this page?

The United States Army Services of Supply was renamed the Army Service Forces on 12 March 1943. Anyone think the two pages should be merged? June w (talk) 05:27, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

The two articles are about different things. The Army Service Forces article is about the command in the United States. The SOS article is concerned with the ones overseas. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you!June w (talk) 17:31, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

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Spelling: "bureaus" v. "bureaux"

The dispute in spelling and changes to "bureux" is not well supported by the references in the article itself. While a quick search of .mil sites will find hits on "bureaux" in U.S. publications the more common, modern, U.S. usage appears to be "bureaus" and contention that "bureaux" is the proper spelling is not supported. As for referenced material, Supplying the Troops: General Somervell and American Logistics in World War II uses "bureaus" as in "General Staff was, among many things, to supervise the supply bureaus" and "All the supply bureaus were under its wing." Others, potential references in the article:

"Finally, the very existence of divided authority caused uneasiness in the General Staff, which was mindful of its long struggle to control the supply and administrative bureaus." (Leighton & Coakley: The War Department — Global Logistics And Strategy 1940–1943)

"Judge Hastie called the situation to the attention of the War Department Director of Civilian Personnel and Training and the heads of the bureaus and requested that investigations be made of specific cases." (Fairchild & Grossman: The War Department — The Army and Industrial Manpower"

My personal view with decades of reading the histories is that "bureaux" in "American English" is "Huh? A bit pretentious." as it is not all that common and, whether accusations of degradation of knowledge of origins are valid or not, a bit of a "bump" in reading. The article is about U.S. military, thus U.S. standard, current usage should predominate. I'll go for the one U.S. readers will not notice as "Huh?" and "bureaus" here. Palmeira (talk) 12:17, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

The bureaux are now bureaus. This is an American military organization and American English is called for (Les bureaux sont "bureaus" pour les purtistes.) At least the rail cars were only wagons, not waggons. --Lineagegeek (talk) 22:14, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Successors?

Can anyone describe what happened to the roles performed by the Army Service Forces after the war? There must be successor agencies or commands which took over its functions. A good history will lead the reader to them. Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 21:24, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Successor organizations become complicated - as does all U.S. military organization — by creation of a Department of Defense. That eliminated the two great military organizations, Department of the Army and Department of the Navy with all their long histories. The big successor organization is Defense Logistics Agency which replaced the top logistics entities of both Army and Navy though all the services still have logistics functions. Please let us not get into the wholesale erasure of history that is so damned common on Wikipedia in which some modern successor gets reams of bits and bytes and articles of historical predecessors get merged into a paragraph. Yes, a good history will "lead to" the modern (sometimes rough) equivalent, but more often here I've seen merge and erase. A lot of that seems to come from "veterans" of recent vintage with almost no historical perspective. A really awful example is the Army Ports of Embarkation where even some pieces I started got "merged" into a modern port facility that is in no way, shape or form what an Army Port of Embarkation (Command and entire network of camps, port facilities and even ship repair extending over entire regions — no, the Seattle Port of Embarkation was not today's port of Seattle!). For an example of that sort of idiocy see New York Port of Embarkation and then see what happened to San Francisco Port of Embarkation, an "article" about a tiny piece of the massive Army POE San Francisco. Palmeira (talk) 10:18, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Looking at the first paragraph of Defense Logistics Agency#Origins, 1941–1954, I can surmise from its vagueness that it could have resulted from what you describe. Still, it appears that this article should end with a reference to the DLA. Thoughts? Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 01:35, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I do not think one should or even can make a direct 1:1 sort of evolution there. That results in exactly the sort of thing I see in the Army POE to "Port of Seattle" or "Fort Mason" idiocy. One did not simply evolve to another. As noted below there was a postwar demobilization/devolution to something like the prewar state even as both military and political powers were thinking of a new, combined, less "stove piped" structure for all the forces. The war had taught a hard lesson that combined forces and massive efforts required something more than two services with parochial and sometimes combative fiefdoms. Thus a Department of Defense that would incorporate some of those lessons. It has been a long time since i did deep reading in old source material, but there was an element of traditional elements trying to restore 1940 status and new thinking trying to force combined forces support structures. Remember too that the WW II elements had been forced by circumstances — sometimes over the "dead bodies" of old time thinkers — and were not necessarily ideal but "good enough" for wartime support. On supply, procurement, think of the fact that well into the war both Army and Navy were building landing craft under separate designs and contracts. If I recall even Higgins had separate contracts before higher authority bashed some heads together and forced unified procurement and production. Both services "hated" the fact the War Shipping Administration (WSA) had the clout to "allocate" commercial type shipping to them and no few USS/USAT Navy and Army transports were only bareboat chartered from WSA, not owned, by the services. WSA "died" in the 1946 period and the services were getting back to two sea transportation services when heads were bashed again and Military Sea Transportation Service came. The Army's old and honorable sea transportation role came to an end. Now MSC is also under a joint command and not exclusively Navy.

In both Army and Navy there were old organizations going back to the 1800s, Signal Corps and the powerful bureaus of Navy, all real fiefdoms. In 1946 those were reestablishing control but others saw that as a disaster in making. Then there was the "rebel" USAF out of USAAF (I've got copies of records of a "rebel" state there even in the war). So, war ended, 1946 "let's get back to normal" with both political and military forces driving something new and more combined force like. Then in 1950 there is a monstrous shuffle and (over some more "dead bodies" of bureaucrats) came the beginnings of our DoD. Now we are in a world a 1946 vet would not recognize. Fort Myer, named for the founder of the Signal Corps, is Joint Base Myer. Andrews Air Force Base is Joint Base Andrews. The evolution from what was in 1945 through 1950 to now is far from clean and clear and 1:1. "Articles" I think should point to "successors" but also reflect the complexity and most certainly not be "merged" into something that really is a different beast entirely. The Army's San Francisco POE was a command, it included much of the port but also ferries, camps and rail heads and actually was in charge of the trains of troops and material on the way to the rail heads. It was not "Fort Mason"! Army Service Forces did not become DLA and DLA is not just the combination of old service logistics elements — but there is a connection. Palmeira (talk) 11:04, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The Army service Forces was abolished, effective 11 June 1946. The Army's logistical organisation went back to the way it was before the war, with the heads of the eight technical services and six administrative services answerable to the Chief of Staff. The ASF headquarters divisions became part of the War Department General Staff. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Can this be cited and added to this article? Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 01:35, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. The whole article needs an overhaul. I created it in 2007 after I wrote the article on Brehon B. Somervell. Looks like I started it and never finished it. I'll add it to my to-do list. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:03, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Okay, the article has been overhauled. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Army Service Forces/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 17:43, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• "The Northwest Service Command, in September 1942." - sentence fragment

  Y Added missing word. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• "ports of embarakation" - extra a in embarkation

  Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Lutes is lined twice in the staff divisions section

  Y removed duplicate links. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• The position of Director of Administration did not work out, and it was abolished in November 1943 - this appears to be the first mention of this exact title; it likely needs a little more explanation

  Y Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• "and Major General Dawson Olmstead was relieved by Somervell on 30 June 1943 and replaced by Major General Harry C. Ingles, a West Point classmate" - the others you specifically state the position held, but not for this one. Recommend doing so

  Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• " Roosevelt had nominated Major General James H. Burns," - wrong link for Burns

  Y Unlinked. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• "The principle was that they were customer was always right," - something is off here

  Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Is there a map of the service area boundaries that matches those present in the wartime boundaries? Colorado, Arkansas, and Louisiana vary between the 1921 map and the wartime table

  Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• "The program ultimatyely - c/e

  Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Was gonna make this change myself, but wanted to make sure first - are the three references to Marshal typos for Marshall?

  Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Sources are all reliable and formatted well
• "File:Harry C. Ingles.JPG" - date of 2012 is obviously not accurate for the original work; needs a more specific source than just the War Department if possible

  Y Changed date. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• "File:CairoConferenceParticipants.jpg" - source link is dead

  Y Added archive link. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

That's all from me for GA, placing on hold. Hog Farm _Talk 04:52, 12 October 2021 (UTC)