CHAPTER VII
Functional Organization inthe Zone of Interior
WARDEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION
Chapters III to VI havedealt with the Army Veterinary Service in general terms as to its centraladministration, its personnel, and its training and supply. Probably, a moreinteresting subject is the functional organization of the Army VeterinaryService in the Zone of Interior or the discussion of the deployment andutilization of veterinary personnel and their activities in the United States during World War II. Unfortunately, functionalorganization per se is difficult to understand and proves even more difficult todescribe, particularly since veterinary functional organization was one ofintegration into the combat arms and technical services. Essentially, itfollowed the command structure of the Army as a whole and, as the latterchanged, so did veterinary functional organization change. Sometimes, themilitary command structure created hardships on the orderly operations of amilitary veterinary service, but this could be expected, and though, seeminglyor theoretically, threatening a complete breakdown for adequate and properprofessional activities, these hardships were minimized by willful cooperationand recourse to technical channels of communication between the veterinarypersonnel who came under control of the various commands. The latter always hadas their objective the gaining of command support in the conduct of meat anddairy hygiene and veterinary animal services. These two activities, togetherwith veterinary laboratory service, characterized the organizational functionsof the Army Veterinary Service in World War II.
Before discussing theveterinary organization, one must be moderately acquainted with the organizationof the War Department which, physically located in the United States, wassuperimposed over the Army both in the Zone of Interior and overseas. At theonset of World War II, the War Department, as contrasted with the Army, includedthe civilian Secretary of War and the military Chief of Staff, who controlledthe War Department General Staff and the War Department Special Staff. Thelatter comprised the chiefs of combat arms, certain administrative bureaus suchas were headed by The Adjutant General, Judge Advocate General, Inspector General,and Chief of Finance, and the chiefs of supply and technical services. Theservice chiefs were the Chief of Chemical Warfare Service, Chief of Engineers,The Surgeon General, Chief of Ordnance, The Quartermaster General, and ChiefSignal Officer. There was no Chief of Transportation until mid-1942. The Armyorganization comprised the four field armies which commanded most of the groundtactical forces in the United States, and the nine corps area commandsadministered the military camps and
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stations and supported theground force units. There were certain other field installations, however, suchas general depots and ports, which came under the direct control of the WarDepartment. Finally, there were two major commands which had come into existenceduring the pre-Pearl Harbor emergency periods: The Army Air Forces and theGeneral Headquarters for the field forces. The latter, created in July 1940, wasresponsible for the tactical training of ground troops and the planning for thedefense of the United Statesby four territorial defense commands. By thistime, the Army Air Forces was started on its way toward a degree of autonomy.
There were few components ofthe overall military organization in the Zone of Interior below the level of theGeneral Staff that did not have assigned veterinary personnel. The larger shareof this personnel was, at the beginning of the war period, located at variouscamps and stations under the jurisdiction of corps area commands, in the depots,hospitals, schools, and laboratories controlled by The Quartermaster General andThe Surgeon General, and at the general depots, ports, or other exemptedstations which reported directly to the War Department. Gradually, as theNation`s first peacetime draft law came into operation and military Reserveforces were ordered into active duty, more Veterinary Corps personnel wereassigned to the ground combat units and to the Army Air Forces fields and bases.
Effective on 9 March 1942,about 3 months after the start of active hostilities, the War Department wasreorganized, and the operational controls over military activities in the Zoneof Interior were redevided among three, newly created, separate commands: TheArmy Air Forces, the Army Ground Forces, and the Services of Supply-thelast being renamed Army Service Forces in May 1943 (1). The veterinaryorganization of these three commands is described later, but it is of immediateimportance to observe that the commanding general of each of these commandsreported to the Chief of Staff of the Army. The Surgeon General, in turn, wassubordinated to the Commanding General, Army Service Forces.
Of the three newly createdWar Department commands in the Zone of Interior, Army Service Forcespredominates in the discussion of the Army Veterinary Service, because the ArmyService Forces command included The Surgeon General of the Army and the MedicalDepartment of which the Army Veterinary Service was a component element. Also,it included the Quartermaster Corps which supplied the Army and other ArmedForces with foods and animals, the Transportation Corps which transported theArmy and moved its supplies, and the service commands (once called corps areas)which controlled or administered nearly all of the Army camps and stations inthe Zone of Interior. In contrast to the alignment of the larger share of theArmy Veterinary Service with Army Service Forces, a proportionally smallernumber of veterinary personnel on duty at airfields and bases were transferredto Army Air Forces, and Army Ground Forces came into control
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over those personnel whowere assigned to Infantry, Cavalry, Field Artillery, and other ground combatservice organizations and units.
RELATIONSHIPWITHIN THE ARMY SERVICE FORCES
The Army Services Forcescommand included its headquarters organization, certain operational elementswhich were the technical or the administrative and supply services, and theservice commands (formerly corps areas) which were the major elements of itsfield organization. At its head was the Commanding General, Army Service Forces.The several functional staff divisions of Headquarters, Army Service Forces,were not unlike the policy-making General Staff divisions of the War Departmentand also comprised the groups of certain War Department administrative bureausincluding the offices of The Adjutant General, the Judge Advocate General, theChief of Finance, the Provost Marshal General, and the Chief of Chaplains. Noveterinary personnel were assigned to Headquarters, Army Service Forces. Thetechnical services and supply departments of the Army were in the next echelonof the command. One such agency was the Medical Department which was headed byThe Surgeon General; the latter`s office included the Veterinary Division whosedivisional chief-aVeterinary Corps officer-wasthe chief of the Army Veterinary Service. The technical services included alsothe Chemical Warfare Service, Corps of Engineers, Ordnance Department,Quartermaster Corps, Signal Corps, and Transportation Corps. Each of these, asdid the Medical Department, controlled a number of field installations in theZone of Interior, also referred to as class IV installations, where veterinarypersonnel were on duty. These personnel comprised the remount depotveterinarians, remount purchasing board and area headquarters veterinarians,Army dog center veterinarians, depot veterinarians, market center veterinarians,port veterinarians, veterinary instructional staffs in schools and trainingcenters, and those engaged in research and development activities. The ArmyService Forces field organization or its service commands, from a veterinarystandpoint, comprised the service command veterinarians, medical laboratoryveterinarians, and the many camp, station, and area veterinarians. Installationsunder the control of service commands were designated as class I installations,and the veterinary services thereat, as class I activities.
Thus, within Army ServiceForces, veterinary personnel in the Zone of Interior were divided among twocommand groups-thosebelonging to the several technical services and the others under jurisdiction ofthe service commands. This division or scattering of veterinary personnel camewith the Army Service Forces emphasis on decentralizing command authority oversupply matters (that is, procurement, transportation, storage, and distribution)among the technical and supply services and that of "housekeeping" tothe service commands. Professional and specialist activities were accordedsecondary roles in the Army Service Forces so that training, labora-
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tory services,hospitalization functions and other medical activities, including the veterinaryservices, were grossly and arbitrarily divided between the Army`s technicalservices and its "housekeepers." This division complicated and madedifficult an overall technical supervision of veterinary activities by TheSurgeon General, such as in a service command, in a Quartermaster Corps depot,or in a Transportation Corps port. However, by means of informal arrangementsand personal communications on professional matters, necessarily made outside ofcommand channels, the various groups of veterinary personnel were coordinated intheir activities to become equally important in accomplishing the major missionsof the Army Veterinary Service in the Zone of Interior.
ROLE OFPERSONNEL ASSIGNED TO THE TECHNICAL SERVICES
The Army Veterinary Servicewith the supply and technical departments, bureaus, or corps of the Army ServiceForces necessitated the distribution of veterinary personnel and theirutilization at various field (or class IV) installations which were controlledby the respective chiefs of services. At one time, in 1943, there wereapproximately 600 such installations in the Zone of Interior, but no more thanone-fourth of this number were provided with organically assigned veterinarypersonnel, including some that were provided part-time or attending veterinaryservices by personnel under service command jurisdiction. Essentially, thesepersonnel assignments were regulated by The Surgeon General in the same generalmanner that all Medical Department officer and enlisted personnel assignmentswere controlled, and were made in cooperation with the chiefs of technicalservices who required Army Veterinary Service personnel. There was no instanceon record that The Surgeon General was, or could be, criticized one way or theother in his actions on withholding or making available veterinary personnel tothe various technical services; in fact, the Quartermaster Corps which requiredrelatively large numbers of them, on one specific occasion, augmented thearguments of The Surgeon General in order to obtain veterinarians for militaryservice in numbers greater than the number that Headquarters, Army ServiceForces, was willing to grant. Following their assignments, the veterinarypersonnel came under the immediate control of the respective installationcommander and the latter`s chief of the technical service concerned; forexample, under the depot commander and The Quartermaster General or under theport commander and Chief of Transportation. However, a varying degree ofprofessional or advisory assistance on technical matters for conducting theveterinary service in the class IV installations was provided by The SurgeonGeneral to these assigned personnel. With one exception, the personnel soassigned to the various technical service installations retained their identitywith the Veterinary Corps, Medical Department-theexception being a few officers who were assigned to duty with the ChemicalWarfare Service. At these class IV installations, the
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commander and his chief oftechnical service directed the performance of specialized veterinary serviceswithin the defined overall mission and functions of the concerned technicalservice organization. Of course, this direction was self-limiting to the degreethat the veterinary services rendered were within the scope of MedicalDepartment activities and were coordinated and uniform in nature and that theveterinary personnel were properly and economically assigned and utilized; allwere matters of immediate and continuing importance to The Surgeon General.
ChemicalWarfare Service
The Chemical Warfare Service(later Chemical Corps) was one of the Army Service Forces technical serviceshaving assigned veterinary personnel. Its veterinary service was a major MedicalDepartment activity at Edgewood Arsenal, Md., and other field installations which werecontrolled by the Chemical Warfare Service. The veterinary activities there werediversified, ranging from the operation of laboratory animal colonies toscientific research into the effects of chemical warfare gases on animals andthe development of procedures and protective equipment regarding animals andtroop food supplies which may be exposed to any chemical warfare attack by anenemy. Also, pertinent training publications were promulgated for use throughoutthe Army, and instructional services were rendered. Altogether, these veterinaryactivities were completely defensive in nature as regards the mission andfunctions which were defined for the Chemical Warfare Service; of course,activities pertaining to the actual care and handling of animal casualties andcontaminated subsistence were the responsibility of the Medical Department.
These activities had aninauspicious start when, just before World War II, one Veterinary Corps officerwas assigned to the Medical Research Division at Edgewood Arsenal; as ofSeptember 1945, the number of veterinary officers there was eight.This medical facility was reorganized several times during the warperiod, so that for some time the veterinary personnel were assigned to theMedical Department Research Laboratory. In 1943, however, the laboratory wasbrought under jurisdiction of the Chemical Warfare Center, Edgewood Arsenal, andthus was controlled by the Chief of Chemical Warfare Service. In September 1945,the Medical Research Laboratory was discontinued, but its activities at EdgewoodArsenal were continued as the new field organization, or Research Branch of theMedical Division which was established in the office of the Chief of ChemicalWarfare Service. Within this reorganization, veterinary officers comprised thefield Veterinary and Animal Section and others were assigned to the Flame Attackand the Food Chemistry Sections. At various times, these personnel were detailedto duty in the Chemical Warfare Service mobile or field testing unit atBushnell, Fla., and to the San Jos? Island project, Panama Canal Department.Another two officers were permanently assigned to the Medical Research
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Laboratory, Dugway ProvingGround, Tooele, Utah. Matters relating to the veterinary medicalaspects of chemical warfare and progress reports on research and developmentwere communicated directly, or through the office of the Chief of ChemicalWarfare Service, to the Veterinary Division, Surgeon General`s Office.
At Edgewood Arsenal, one ofseveral specific activities of Veterinary Corps officers was their utilizationas part-time instructors in the training courses, including the MedicalDepartment Officers` Course, that were held in the Chemical Warfare School.Another activity and one that was conducted in other installations was theprocurement of experimental animals and the management of laboratory animalcolonies which were needed in chemical warfare research; the veterinary officersoften evaluated the toxicological and biological reactions occurring in testedanimals. In addition, these personnel entered into research and developmentprojects on the effects, hazards, protection, and treatment or decontaminationof military animals and food supplies exposed to chemical warfare agents.Fundamental principles of veterinary medical or defensive aspects of chemicalwarfare were promulgated in Army training manuals (2, 3, 4), andprotective equipment was developed for military animals; namely, the Horse GasMasks, M4 and M5; the Dog Gas Masks, MG-12-8; and the Protective Pigeon Bag. Themasks became items of standard issue by the Chemical Warfare Service.Recommendations also were made with regard to the treatment of animal casualtieswhich led to the development at the Medical Department Equipment Laboratory,Carlisle Barracks, Pa., of the new Veterinary Gas Casualty Chest Set.In regard to the Army`s food supplies, studies were made on the protectiveefficacy of outside packing and packaging materials, particularly those whichwere used on field rations. Actually, this development concerned the ChemicalWarfare and Army Veterinary Services as much as it did the Quartermaster Corps-thelatter being primarily responsible for the Armed Forces food packing andpackaging. Later, a kit was developed for Medical Department issue to militaryunits that could be utilized to detect the gross contamination of foods bycommon chemical warfare agents; this was officially referred to as the FoodTesting Kit (fig. 6). In 1945, the Army Veterinary Service with the ChemicalWarfare Service initiated a new project for studying chemical agents which mightbe used beneficially as insect control or insecticidal agents.
Completely separate from thepreceding utilization of Veterinary Corps personnel, the Chemical WarfareService had approximately 20 others in its Special Projects Division who wereconcerned with the veterinary medical aspects of biological warfare. Detailsregarding their activities are generally unavailable except perhaps the notationthat the Chemical Warfare Service sometimes had no responsibility other thanthat of administering the money. Thus, in this way, the Chemical Warfare Servicebecame involved in the joint United States-Canadian research project that wascon-
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ducted on the viral agent ofrinderpest disease of cattle, leading to the development of a new avianizedvaccine that could be used to effectively protect the country`s cattle populationfrom a panzootic of that disease. This project was conducted at the War DiseaseControl Station, Grosse Isle,Canada, and was staffed by six Veterinary Corpsofficers and several research scientists from the Army Medical Corps, the Navy,and the Canadian Army. Other Veterinary Corps officers were engaged inantibiological warfare research at an installation in Maryland.
MedicalDepartment
The Medical Department mustalso be described as one of the Army Service Forces technical services havingassigned veterinary personnel, exclusive to those comprising the VeterinaryDivision in the Surgeon General`s Office. Just as Edgewood Arsenal came undercontrol of the Chief of Chemical Warfare Service, there were a number of MedicalDepartment installations and activities commanded by The Surgeon General. Themore obvious of such were the Army Medical Museum (later Army Institute ofPathology), the Army Medical Center-bothin Washington, D.C.-andthe Medical Field Service School, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. Other class IVinstallations under The Surgeon General were the medical depots and medical sectionsof general depots, medical research facilities including the Veterinary ResearchLaboratory at Front Royal, Va., and the instructional staffs of replacementtraining centers such as at Camp Grant, Ill., and Fort Lewis, Wash., and theenlisted technicians school at William Beaumont General Hospital, El Paso, Tex.The named general hospitals, including WilliamBeaumontGeneralHospital, were not commanded by The Surgeon General afterAugust 1942 when Headquarters, Army Service Forces, transferred them to servicecommand control; only training activities within them were regulated by TheSurgeon General. Also, the regional and convalescent hospitals or hospitalcenters (except that of Walter Reed), which came into existence later, were notcontrolled by The Surgeon General. These were controlled by the commandinggeneral of the service command in which they were located, but, in the spring of1946, they were transferred to Medical Department control. The same situationpertained to the replacement training centers for veterinary enlisted personnel; that is, the centers` instructional staffs and training doctrineswere regulated as class IV activities by The Surgeon General, but all otherveterinary services at Camp Grant and Fort Lewis were regulated by the concernedservice command as at any other of its class I installations.
The installations justmentioned, or any others that were commanded by a chief of technical service,were commonly referred to as class IV installations. The same classificationprocedure designated activities and facilities coming under service commandcontrol as class I installations; those of the Army Ground Forces were class IIinstallations, and the
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Army Air Forces controlledits own (class III) installations. Actually, there was a continual interchangeof the class designations of installations so that, for example, CarlisleBarracks which housed the MedicalFieldServiceSchool was, for a short period of time (August 1942 toMay 1943), controlled not by The Surgeon General but by the Third ServiceCommand. The situation pertaining to replacement training centers and the schooltraining staffs in named hospitals was even more confusing because theinstallations housing them were designated as class I or under the control ofthe service commands; but, as previously mentioned, The Surgeon Generalprescribed the training doctrine and assigned the instructional staffs in theseinstallations.
Army Medical Center.-Thefunctional organization of the Army Veterinary Service at the Army MedicalCenter, Washington, D.C., was largely that of the ArmyVeterinarySchool. The ArmyVeterinarySchool was a component of the Medical DepartmentProfessional Service Schools organization of the center and was headed by aVeterinary Corps officer as school director. Its mission, pursuant to ArmyRegulations No. 350-1000, were (1) to provide instructional service in thetraining of Medical Department personnel, (2) to conduct a veterinary laboratoryservice and research investigations on animal diseases and Army foods, and (3)to produce, develop, and distribute certain veterinary biologicals. In addition,the Army VeterinarySchoolrendered station meat and dairy hygiene andveterinary animal services for the medical center which included the WalterReed GeneralHospital. The exception to the organization of allveterinary activities at the ArmyMedicalCenterunder the ArmyVeterinarySchool occurred with the establishment, in April 1941,of the Medical Department Enlisted Technicians Schoolunder the administrative control of theProfessional Service Schools organization. A special veterinary instructionalstaff was assigned but was discontinued in March 1945 when all veterinaryactivities of the installation again came under control of the director of the ArmyVeterinarySchool.
The ArmyVeterinarySchool laboratory was essentially the centralveterinary laboratory for the Army and, until World War II, comprised the onlyMedical Department laboratory facility available for routine clinicodiagnosticand food analytical needs of the Army Veterinary Service in the Zone ofInterior. Then, in 1941, as new corps area (or service command) medicallaboratories were established, each with a veterinary section, the laboratory ofthe Army Veterinary School restricted its routine services to satisfying theveterinary laboratory needs of the Third Service Command and the MilitaryDistrict of Washington. In its activities as the Army`s central veterinarylaboratory, the Army Veterinary School trained nearly all veterinary personnelwho were assigned to the Medical Department laboratory system, provided advisoryservices to the Surgeon General`s Office, evaluated and standardized testprocedures and equipment, and acted as a
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control or appeal laboratoryregarding controversial matters arising between other laboratories. Its researchinvestigations and activities included the perfection and production of equineencephalomyelitis vaccine; the application of improved biologic preparation tothe production of typhus vaccine; the production of large quantities of JapaneseB encephalitis vaccine used to immunize troops; the isolation and identificationof the viruses of various types of equine encephalomyelitis infection in man andanimals; the effects of freezing, storing, and thawing fresh milk; and theanalyses and nutritional evaluation of the military ration. Many of thesestudies were conducted in collaboration with the laboratories of the ArmyMedicalSchool.
Medical Field ServiceSchool.-TheArmy Veterinary Service with the Medical FieldService School, Carlisle Barracks, included the veterinaryofficers who were assigned to, and comprised, the school`s Department ofVeterinary Field Service. Prior to September 1942, the department was referredto as the Office of the Senior Veterinary Representative. Their activities werelargely those of providing veterinary instructional services in the courses onmedical field service that were conducted for Medical Department officers and inthe officer candidate school. The Basic Course or the wartime Officers`Refresher Basic Course were attended by veterinary officers as well as bymedical and dental officers. In addition to their instructional activities, theschool`s veterinary officers provided the station meat and dairy hygiene andveterinary animal services for Carlisle Barracks and represented the VeterinaryDivision, Surgeon General`s Office, in the development of training doctrine andWar Department manuals concerning veterinary medical field service. Also, theseofficers cooperated with the Medical Department Equipment Laboratory in studieson improving and developing Medical Department equipment and supplies which wereused or needed by the Army Veterinary Service in the field.
Following the termination ofthe war, on 15 February 1946, the Medical Department school was discontinued atCarlisle Barracks and concurrently reestablished, with its VeterinaryDepartment, at BrookeArmyMedicalCenter, Fort Sam Houston, Tex. The equipment researchactivities relating to packing and chest assemblies were resumed at theArmy-Navy Medical Purchasing Office, New York, N.Y., and those relating to veterinary foodinspection equipment were assigned to the Meat and Dairy HygieneSchool, Chicago,Ill.
Army Medical Museum.-TheArmy Medical Museum in Washington, D.C., redesignated in 1946 as the Army Institute ofPathology and then in 1949 as the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, firstgained the assignment of a Veterinary Corps officer on 13 October 1943. Actually, this facility had need for veterinaryservices long before this date because of the growth in the collection of animalspecimens during the opening years of the war and the need to arrange,investigate, and study such pathological material. Several months later, on 23 March 1944, The Surgeon General
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granted approval for theAmerican Veterinary Medical Association to sponsor a veterinary subdivision orelement of the American Registry of Pathology (5, 6). This subdivision,named the Registry of Veterinary Pathology (originally called the Registry ofComparative Pathology), was administered by the senior pathologist or chief ofveterinary section, pathological department (fig. 10). As of the end of WorldWar II, the Registry of Veterinary Pathology contained 3,600 accessions and wasalready providing clinicodiagnostic and consultation services in pathology tomembers of the American veterinary profession. It had also contributed towartime research on animal disease of military importance such as equineinfluenza, equine periodic ophthalmia, and canine leptospirosis.
Veterinary ResearchLaboratory.-Anotherclass IV installation was the Veterinary Research Laboratory, located at theAleshire Quartermaster Remount Depot, Front Royal, Va.This laboratory originated with recommendationsmade on 6 August 1938, by the Chief of the Veterinary Division,Surgeon General`s Office. Cooperative actions subsequently taken by the localquartermaster depot commander and depot veterinarian led to the de-
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velopment of laboratoryfacilities suitable for the conduct of research investigations on diseasesseriously affecting Army horses and mules. By 10 June 1939, the first Veterinary Corps officer and otherpersonnel had arrived. There is no official date on its establishment, but, asof September 1944, the Veterinary Research Laboratory was being formallyreferred to as a field installation under the command control of The SurgeonGeneral (7). At this time, concurrent with Army planning for closing thedepot at an early date, the Surgeon General`s Office, with the concurrence ofthe Remount Branch, Office of the Quartermaster General, sought and eventuallygained (on 3 May 1945) approval from Headquarters, Army Service Forces, torelocate the laboratory in Nebraska at the Robinson Quartermaster Remount Depot.The Veterinary Research Laboratory was physically transferred to its newlocation in September 1945, where it continued in operation until it closed inJuly 1947. Actually, only the physical plant of the laboratory was closedbecause the Veterinary Research Laboratory was then transferred on paper in aninactive status to the ArmyMedicalCenter, and the existing research projects werereferred to the ArmyVeterinarySchool at that center for further study.
During the tenure of itsoperations, the range of the activities of the Veterinary Research Laboratoryparalleled that of any scientific research on diseases and injuries andconsisted of investigations on the clinical and pathological changes and theimproved means for diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of equine influenza,equine periodic ophthalmia, and equine infectious anemia.
QuartermasterCorps
Within the Army ServiceForces organization in the Zone of Interior, the Quartermaster Corps was theleading technical and supply service with regard to the number of veterinary personnel utilized at its installations. This personnel included animalpurchasing board veterinarians, headquarters veterinarians of remount purchasingand breeding areas, remount depot veterinarians, veterinarians of Army dogreception and training centers, depot veterinarians of Quartermaster depots andsections of general (or Army Service Forces) depots, and to a degree, theQuartermaster market center veterinarians. These veterinarians, or veterinaryofficers, and the veterinary detachments which they commanded renderedprofessional and technical services in as many as 7 or more purchasing boards, 7remount areas, 4 remount depots, 6 dog centers, 18 depots and depot sections,and 34 market centers. The first three were concerned with the Quartermastersupply of horses and mules; the next group of installations was involved in thesupply of dogs to the Armed Forces; and the last two groups procured, stored,issued, and otherwise handled the nonperishable and perishable subsistencesupply for the Army. All were class IV installations under the control of TheQuartermaster General, and their veterinarians came under the jurisdiction ofthe concerned installation commander. At the installa-
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tions, the senior veterinaryofficers supervised the conduct of routine station?type meat and dairy hygieneand veterinary animal services-theseactivities being the same as in any Army camp or airbase. However, theirprincipal duties were of a specialized nature and were characteristic of theoverall missions of the particular Quartermaster installations to which theveterinary officers were assigned.
Animal purchasing boards.-Forthe supply of horses and mules to the Army, the Quartermaster Corps establishedanimal purchasing boards. These were mobile procurement agencies which went tothe farms, horse production areas, and livestock markets located within or in apart of a specified geographic area conforming to the boundaries of one of theseveral designated remount areas in theUnited States. Actually, these boards were constituted oractive only during the time that horses and mules were being procured in theirgiven geographic areas, and their operations were regulated by the concernedheadquarters` remount purchasing and breeding areas, within whose geographicboundaries they were operating. Sometimes, two or more animal purchasing boardswere operational in a remount area, but usually the rate of animal procurementduring World War II was so sporadic and relatively small, in contrast to thesituation in World War I, that only one board was allowed to operate at a timein a remount area. In fact, most frequently, remount area headquarters personnelwere placed on additional duty to the local animal purchasing board whenever anyanimals were to be procured. The numbers and kinds of animals purchased wereregulated by The Quartermaster General who issued procurement directives to thepersonnel in headquarters` remount purchasing and breeding areas, who in turncontrolled the concerned animal purchasing boards.
The Army Veterinary Servicehad the assigned mission to physically examine all animals prior to purchase,with a view to insuring the acquisition of only healthy, sound horses and mules,and to inspect and supervise the sanitary conditions at purchasing points andalong the shipping routes to Army remount depots or other destinations in orderto prevent the introduction or spread of communicable animal diseases (8, 9).At the organization level of the animal purchasing board, this mission was thedesignated responsibility of the purchasing board veterinarian. Each purchasingboard was required to have a Veterinary Corps officer in the composition of itsmembership, who came under the immediate jurisdiction of the officer in chargeof the board. The purchasing board veterinarian determined the age (andsometimes the weight) and made a complete and systematic physical examination asto health, soundness, and physical condition of each horse or mule submitted tothe board, followed by specific recommendation as to the acceptability of eachanimal. This recommendation was made subject to the result of the intradermicmallein test for glanders that was conducted on the animal at the purchasepoint, if sufficient period of time (48 hours) was available, or after theanimal`s arrival at destination. The animals which
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MAP l.-QuartermasterRemount Purchasing and Breeding Areas, Army Service Forces, May 1942.
were finally accepted forpurchase were then identified descriptively, and temporarily or permanentlymarked with a Preston brand. In addition to these activities, thepurchasing board veterinarian conducted sanitary inspections of purchasingpoints and of the methods and facilities which were being used in handling andshipping the animals and investigated the animal disease situation amongcivilian populations in the locality. Animals which, on physical examinationsfor Army procurement, showed signs or symptoms of serious communicable diseasewere reported to local civilian authorities for disposition; furthermore, areaswhich were experiencing enzootics of such diseases or were under animalquarantine imposed by States or the Federal Government were removed as points ofanimal procurement.
Headquarters, remountpurchasing and breeding areas.-Theremount areas, more descriptively named remount purchasing and breeding areas,were geographically defined areas of the United States, including its territories. Within each sucharea, all matters relating to horse and mule procurement and to the Army HorseBreeding Plan were coordinated and supervised by the pertinent area headquartersorganization which, in turn, was controlled by The Quartermaster General. At thebeginning of the war period, there were seven such areas (map 1). Subsequently,the number of remount areas was reduced to six and then, in 1947, to four.
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Each remount areaheadquarters included the headquarters veterinarian who, under the direction ofthe immediate officer in charge, supervised all veterinary matters relating toanimal procurement and the Army Horse Breeding Plan in the respective area (10).His special duties included the assignment, training, and supervision ofveterinary personnel who were assigned to animal purchasing boards whichoperated in the area; the sanitary inspection of facilities and procedurescommonly used throughout the area for assembling, handling, and transportinganimals; and the veterinary survey, in cooperation with local, State, or Federalagencies, of the nature and extent of prevailing animal diseases and otherconditions bearing on the potential military usefulness of animals in theremount area. Arrangements also were made for the care and treatment of thosenewly purchased animals which might become sick or injured before they wereshipped from the purchase points or while en route to the remount depots. Also,the headquarters veterinarian provided professional services to theGovernment-owned stations which, under the Army Horse Breeding Plan, were farmedout in that area to selected civilian horse breeders, called stallion agents.These professional services included the examination of the stallions forcondition, soundness, and sterility and the examinations of the civilian mareswhich were to be serviced by the stallions. Of course, professional advice andinstruction were provided as to the proper care of the stallions, the mares,and their foals in order to further the object of the Army Horse Breeding Plan,which was to improve the quality of horses suitable for military use. Some fewremount area headquarters had their own stables for handling the stallionsbetween times of issue to the civilian agents; infrequently, these animals wereso handled as to require their withdrawal from stallion agents.
Remount depots.-Thethird agency or installation organic to the Army horse and mule supply comprisedthe Quartermaster remount depots. These received the newly purchased animals(also called remounts or green animals) from the purchasing boards in theremount areas, conditioned or otherwise processed them, and then issued theanimals to mounted organizations and installations. These depots also maintainedsmall brood mare bands, assisted in the operation of the Army Horse BreedingPlan, and became the location of two Army dog reception and training centers. Atthe beginning of World War II, the number of remount depots operating in theZone of Interior was three: Aleshire, at Front Royal, Va.; Keno, at Fort Reno,Okla.; and Robinson, at Fort Robinson, Nebr. Their capacities were expanded inthe fall of 1940 to handle as many as 35,000 horses and mules at one time. InOctober 1943, the Kellogg Arabian Nursery, Pomona, Calif., was acquired bydonation and was established as the fourth remount depot in the Zone ofInterior; however, its activities were less expansive than those of the otherthree. Between July 1940 and June 1945, the depots processed over 100,000animals (including 57,000 newly purchased remounts and 47,000 horses and muleswhich were returned by organizations and installations) and had issued more
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than 65,000 animals, somebeing issued more than one time. As of December 1945, animals in the four depotstotaled little more than 12,000.
Each remount depot wasinternally organized to include a veterinary section headed by the depotveterinarian who commanded the veterinary detachment and the station veterinaryhospital. Typical of the functional organization of veterinary services innearly all Quartermaster installations, the depot veterinarian also occupied theposition of staff officer to the commanding officer of the depot. The veterinarysection itself was divided into several subsections: Administration; medicalsupply; station meat and dairy hygiene and forage inspection; receipt,quarantine, and issue; breeding and nursery; and, of course, the veterinaryhospital. The depot veterinarians also supervised veterinary officer replacementpools and veterinary activities of Army dog centers when they were operated atthe remount depots. With regard to the remounts which were received or theanimals returned from organizations, the depot veterinary activities includedidentification and branding, supervision of quarantine, diagnostic testing and immunizationagainst serious animal diseases, dipping and internal medication againstparasitic infestations, and the care and treatment of sick and injured animals.Special inspections were made at the time the animals were prepared for issueand shipped from the depot so that only those in good health and physicalcondition would arrive at destination. As required, depot veterinary personnelwere detailed as attendants to the animals while en route.
The veterinary service withthe depot brood mare bands was highly specialized in character because itinvolved, not only routine veterinary care and treatment activities, but alsosupervision over brood mares and stallions which were particularly subject toso-called breeding diseases and sterility problems, and the proper management offoals. New techniques and scientific improvement of horse production and controlof animal diseases were under continuous study by the remount depotveterinarians.
Army dog reception andtraining centers.-Anothertype of Quartermaster installation concerned with the processing of animals wasthe Army dog (or the officially named war dog) reception and training center. Thiswas an innovation of World War II when dogs were, for the first time in Americanmilitary history, included in the definition of military animals and thus wereprovided with the same degree of veterinary care and treatment as Army horsesand males. Beginning in March 1942, the Army began to accept donations oftrained war dogs, but, a few months later, the Army undertook the training ofdogs with arrangements being made with a newly organized civilian agency torecruit dogs (lent by civilian owners) and to send them to Army dog receptionand training centers. Later, in March 1945, the Army also began purchasing its ownwar dogs. The newly acquired dogs were received, conditioned or otherwiseprocessed, and issued to military organizations by Army dog reception andtraining centers; what was accomplished there paralleled the mission andactivities of remount depots with
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newly purchased horses andmules. Five dog centers were established in late 1942, in the remount depots atFort Robinson and Front Royal, at Camp Rimini, Mont., at Cat Island (nearGulfport), Miss., and at San Carlos, Calif. Only the installation at FortRobinson was continued in operation after November 1944; the others were closeda few months earlier. In 1943, a sixth Army dog center was established andoperated at the U.S. Department of Agriculture`s Agricultural Research Center,Beltsville, Md., but its activities were limited largely to a joint researchproject on Army dog rations. The Camp Rimini installation was designatedprimarily as the center for processing sled and pack dogs. Approximately 18,000dogs were received at the centers from the civilian agency, and another 1,380were purchased by the Army between March and August 1945; of this number, morethan 10,000 dogs were issued, including those shipped overseas.
Each dog center had its ownveterinary detachment, whose commanding officer was responsible for theveterinary care and treatment of the dogs which were received, processed, andissued by that installation. The veterinary activities in the Army dog centersincluded physically examining the dogs at time of arrival; identifying andbranding them; supervising their quarantine, feeding, kenneling, and handling;diagnostic testing for and immunizing against communicable diseases; controllingparasitic infestations; treating and hospitalizing sick and wounded dogs; andinspecting the dogs for health and physical condition at the time of issue orshipment from the center. The major difference between these activities and theveterinary service with horses and mules in remount depots was that the dogsreceived from the civilian procurement agency were frequently not examined forhealth and physical condition until after their arrival at the dog centers.Thus, many animals were necessarily hospitalized at the centers or weredestroyed, with owners` consent, if the initial examinations showed them to beseriously sick, injured, or infected with a communicable disease; unfortunately,a relatively large percentage of these animals were disqualified by otherfactors, such as temperament, but even so, they could not be returned to theirowners while sick or known to be infected with serious disease. This situationwas strikingly exemplified in 1942 when one recruit dog developed signs ofrabies infection after its arrival at the Fort Robinson center. Of course, whenthe dogs were procured by purchase, a Veterinary Corps officer usually made acomplete physical examination of the dogs before acceptance and prior to theirshipment to an Army dog center. During 1942-43, a contractor in the FirstService Command who was supplying trained sled dogs was provided attendingveterinary services after suffering serious losses on account of insanitaryconditions and after an epizootic of canine distemper in his kennels threatenedto curtail the Army supply.
Quartermaster depots andsections of Army Service Forces depots.-Althoughthe Army Veterinary Service at the several types of Quartermaster Corpsinstallations was concerned with animal care and treatment, there were
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two other types ofinstallations which utilized an even greater number of personnel as veterinaryfood inspectors; namely, the Quartermaster depots and sections of general (orArmy Service Forces) depots and the Quartermaster market centers. These otherinstallations procured, received, stored, and distributed meat and dairyproducts for the Army in the Zone of Interior and for shipment overseas; thedepots handled nonperishable subsistence, and the market centers handled theperishable subsistence.
At the beginning of the war,Veterinary Corps personnel were on duty at the five active subsistence storageand distribution depots in the United States: Chicago and Seattle QuartermasterDepots, San Antonio General Depot, and the depots with the ports of embarkationat New York and San Francisco. During the prewar emergency period, these depotswere expanded, and new general and Quartermaster depots were constructed so thatthe Quartermaster depot system of Army food supply in the Zone of Interioreventually totaled 18 installations, each having its own veterinary detachment.These included the Atlanta Army Service Forces Depot in Georgia, BostonQuartermaster Depot in Massachusetts, California Quartermaster Depot (atOakland), Charlotte Quartermaster Depot in North Carolina, Chicago QuartermasterDepot in Illinois, Columbus Army Service Forces Depot in Ohio, Jersey CityQuartermaster Depot in New Jersey, Kansas City Quartermaster Depot in Missouri,Memphis Army Service Forces Depot in Tennessee, Mira Loma Quartermaster Depot inCalifornia, New Cumberland Army Service Forces Depot in Pennsylvania, RichmondArmy Service Forces Depot in Virginia, San Antonio Army Service Forces Depot inTexas (at Fort Sam Houston), Savannah Army Service Forces Depot in Georgia,Schenectady Army Service Forces Depot in New York, Seattle Army Service ForcesDepot in Washington, Utah Army Service Forces Depot (at Ogden), and Fort WorthQuartermaster Depot in Texas. These Army Service Forces depots were calledgeneral supply depots before Headquarters, Army Service Forces, had changedtheir names, and each handled not only nonperishable subsistence but also otherQuartermaster supplies and the supplies of other technical services for theArmy. Of course, there were other depots, but some depots were so littleconcerned with the Army food supply that they did not warrant the assignment ofveterinary personnel, although all were provided station-type veterinaryservices, usually on an attending basis. Thus, mention by name only is made ofthe Belle Mead Army Service Forces Depot in New Jersey, JeffersonvilleQuartermaster Depot in Indiana, Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot inPennsylvania, New Orleans General Depot in Louisiana, New York General Depot inNew York, and the Washington Quartermaster Depot in the District of Columbia.
The depots just mentionedwere class IV installations under the control of The Quartermaster General,except for the early period of the war when the general depots were regulated bythe War Department General Staff and
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then, for a brief period oftime, by Headquarters, Army Service Forces, which had created a General DepotService to supervise them. The latter control was discontinued in July 1942 whenthe responsibility for general depot administration was transferred to TheQuartermaster General, who was already operating his own Quartermaster depots.At each of the 18 depots having assigned veterinary personnel, there was thedesignated depot veterinarian who was responsible to the immediate depotcommander for the conduct of the veterinary activities at that depot. Theseactivities were the performance of routine station-type meat and dairy hygieneand veterinary animal services and the inspection of the nonperishable meat anddairy products that were received, stored, distributed, or otherwise handled bythe depot. Also, the depot veterinary detachments inspected foods, bothperishable and nonperishable, during their procurement, but this activity becameso complicated with the veterinary food inspection activities of servicecommands as to warrant its discussion in later paragraphs.
The Quartermaster depotveterinary detachments had varied beginnings. Two of them, the Chicago and SanAntonio depots, actually existed before the prewar emergency periods; severalothers originated from the division of existing combination depot-portveterinary organizations, and then there were a few which at one time hadveterinary personnel detailed to them on an attending basis by the corps area orservice command in which the depots were located. Combination depot-portdetachments were the predecessors of separate depot veterinary detachments whichwere organized at the Boston (in the spring of 1942), the California or theformer San Francisco (in September 1942), and the Seattle (in May 1942) depots.The combination depot-port detachments in New Orleans and New York, however,became predominantly port organizations as the original depots in these citieswere subordinated or disappeared. The Columbus (before September 1942), Savannah(between December 1941 and October 1942), and New Cumberland (between September1941 and April 1945) depots as well as that at Boston (prior to January 1942)were originally dependent on the Fifth, Fourth, Third, and First ServiceCommands, respectively, for their veterinary services, but eventually thesedepots gained their own assigned veterinary personnel. On the other hand, untilDecember 1940, the Chicago depot veterinarian was detailed additional duty asSixth Corps Area veterinarian, and the veterinary detachment at Schenectadydepot did not formally originate until January 1942 when the civilianveterinarian, who was employed at that installation in connection with theCivilian Conservation Corps program, was ordered into active military service asa Reserve Corps officer. Finally, there were the two subdepots or branch depots-MiraLoma and Fort Worth-wherethe originally assigned veterinary personnel from the parent California and SanAntonio depot detachments became separate veterinary detachments, in August andMay 1942, respectively, when the subdepots were reorganized as full depots. Thebeginning dates of veterinary detachments in other
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CHART 1.-Functionalorganization of the Chicago Quartermaster Depot, Chicago, Ill., 17 August 1945
depots were as follows:Atlanta, March 1941; Charlotte, December 1941; Jersey City, July 1941; KansasCity, December 1940; Memphis, May 1942; Richmond, July 1942; and Utah, May 1942.
Within the operatingorganization of the various depots, the depot veterinarian frequently was placedat the level of chief of a division and as a staff officer reporting directly tothe depot commander (chart 1). In less than half of the number of installations,the depot veterinarian organized his operations as a branch under thejurisdiction of the chief of the depot`s administrative division. In a few otherinstances, the veterinary service organization was placed under the supervisionof the depot`s procurement division of the storage division, but thisarrangement, although commonly observed in many depots during the early part ofthe war period, was generally unsatisfactory as obligating the inspector to thechief of a division for which the inspections were being conducted and asrestricting the performance of the overall mission of the depot veterinarydetachment. This organization within the depots completely separated depotveterinarians from super-
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vision by medical supplyofficers in Army Service Forces depots and from the depot surgeons or medicalsections except in regard to the sanitary inspections of local food supplies andstation veterinary service with the few animals which were maintained there.
The internal organization ofthe veterinary branch or division likewise varied among the depots and wasusually developed by the depot veterinarian in accordance with the localsituation. Thus, the office of the depot veterinarian was recognized as theadministrative section and veterinary detachment headquarters; the depot sectionperformed the station service and inspected the depot`s receipts, storage, anddistributions of nonperishable foods, and sometimes there was a laboratorysection and a field inspection section. The field inspection section usually hadone or more suboffices in the city where the depot was located; performedinspections in the commercial food establishments, storage warehouses, andshipping points that were involved in the Army food supply program; and alsoprovided the Veterinary Corps officer in attendance at the Quartermaster marketcenter, if one was located in that city. Many depot veterinary field inspectionsections were further subdivided, as required, into two or more subsections,each being responsible for the inspection service in a geographical area of thecity or for the specialized inspection of certain products or a specificactivity (such as milk supply and refrigerated storage plants).
The numbers of personnelcomprising the veterinary organizations varied greatly among the depots andgenerally increased as the war progressed. In the beginning, only one or twoveterinary officers and from one to four civilians were required at many depots,but then these were not engaged in the origin inspections of foods; enlistedpersonnel were not especially assigned pursuant to the Quartermaster Corpspolicy that depot operations should be manned by civilian employees. The latterwere utilized in capacities as clerk-stenographers, in such depot laboratoriesas came under the jurisdiction of depot veterinarians, as laborers for openingand repackaging the sample inspection cases of food, and infrequently asinspectors. Most of the enlisted personnel were added in connection with theoff-depot veterinary activities, particularly after the fall of 1943, whenveterinary inspection responsibilities in metropolitan areas in which depotswere located were assigned to the respective depot veterinary detachments. As ofmid-1945, an estimated 160 Veterinary Corps officers were assigned to duty withthe depots, together with 450 veterinary enlisted men and 90 civilian employees,but this number (aggregating 700) was somewhat below the peak strength which wasreached in the depots earlier. The largest depot veterinary detachment was thatat Chicago where 72 officers and 171 enlisted personnel were assigned as ofOctober 1943.
The depot-assignedVeterinary Corps officers usually were graduates of the wartime Meat and DairyHygiene Course which was begun in November 1940 at the Chicago QuartermasterDepot. Throughout the war period, however, this course was conducted under thesupervision of the depot veteri-
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narian, ChicagoQuartermaster Depot, but the instructional staff and training doctrine wasselected and prescribed by the Surgeon General`s Office. At seven depots(Boston, California, Chicago, Kansas City, San Antonio, Seattle, and Fort Worth)Veterinary Officer Replacement Pools, under control of The Surgeon General, wereestablished for conducting on-the-job training for newly appointed officerspreparatory to their permanent assignment. Depot-assigned veterinary officersalso provided instructional services in formal training courses which wereconducted at the depots for Quartermaster personnel.
The relationship between thedepot veterinary detachments and the Army Veterinary Service of the servicecommands was manifestly one of cooperation. Actually, pursuant to the channelsof command within the Army Service Forces organization, the depot veterinarydetachment was totally outside the jurisdiction of the service command eventhough the latter was responsible for, and did provide, certain services,including medical activities, to the depots.
ANIMAL SERVICE
In regard to veterinaryanimal service, it may be mentioned that a few depots (such as at Richmond with60-70 horses, Utah with 40 horses, Atlanta with 18, and Columbus and Schenectadyeach with less than 10) utilized horses to mount civil guard patrols or fordrayage purposes in lieu of motor vehicles. These and a number of other depots(including Chicago, Mira Loma, New Cumberland, Savannah, and Fort Worth) alsohad Army dogs to augment the internal security procedures inside warehouses andstorage areas. These animals usually came under the full supervision of thedepot veterinary detachment. In other depots, studies were conducted on thedevelopment of animal feeds and forage. At the California depot, more than1,200,000 pounds of grain, hay, and straw were inspected prior to purchase inthe period 1940 through March 1945, but the greater part of this amountpertained to supervising or inspecting the double compressing of grain hays bycontractors at the Tracy subdepot for transshipment overseas. At the Seattledepot, research studies led to the development of a canned horsemeat and herringproduct for feeding Army dogs in the Alaskan Department.
MEAT AND DAIRY INSPECTIONS
Since few depots hadmilitary troops, the station meat and dairy hygiene inspections were largelylimited to sanitary inspections of foods which were procured locally by theofficers club messes or the concessionaires who operated restaurants for thedepot`s civilian employees. This sanitary inspection of foods and the conductingof a rabies control program for civilian-owned pet animals and Army dogs on thedepot were the only veterinary activities that were accomplished under thesupervision of the depot surgeon. The latter frequently designated the depotveterinarian as the depot medical sanitary officer.
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TABLE 17.- Inspectionof meat and dairy products by the Army Veterinary Service with Quartermaster andArmy Service Forces depots, 1940-45
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Millions of pounds |
Millions of pounds |
Millions of pounds |
Millions of pounds |
Millions of pounds |
Millions of pounds |
|
Atlanta |
---- |
11.2 |
63.7 |
36.9 |
24.8 |
23.3 |
|
Boston |
--- |
--- |
(1) |
(1) |
286. |
321. |
|
California |
31.1 |
84.1 |
396.0 |
240.6 |
525.6 |
468.9 |
|
Charlotte |
--- |
--- |
30.3 |
17.4 |
67.5 |
42.3 |
|
Columbus |
--- |
--- |
186.6 |
221.6 |
308.9 |
2202.2 |
|
Kansas City |
--- |
28.5 |
518.8 |
315.3 |
255.6 |
248.8 |
|
Memphis |
--- |
--- |
64.3 |
157.4 |
215.0 |
3192.5 |
|
Mira Loma |
--- |
--- |
22.3 |
176.1 |
306.9 |
252.7 |
|
New Cumberland |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
(1) |
|
San Antonio |
13.4 |
67.6 |
190.0 |
295.2 |
147.8 |
159.9 |
|
Schenectady |
--- |
--- |
160.6 |
(1) |
478.2 |
(1) |
|
Utah |
--- |
--- |
(1) |
225.8 |
264.2 |
341.4 |
|
Fort Worth |
--- |
32.9 |
178.3 |
238.5 |
423.9 |
(1) |
1Data not available from source material.
2To June 1945.
3To August 1945.
Source: Histories of the Army Veterinary Service With Quartermaster Depots andSections of Army Service Forces Depots During World War II. [Official records.]
Note: In addition to those inspections shown, the Chicago Quartermaster Depot`sveterinary inspections of products passed each month averaged 90 million poundsin 1942, more than 142 million pounds in 1943, and 122 million pounds in 1944,with July 1945 marking the month of greatest amount of inspections at 205million pounds. The Jersey City Quartermaster Depot`s inspections during 1944gradually increased from 91 million pounds inspected in March to 168 millionpounds in October, and reached a quantity as high as 200 million pounds in March1945.
In contrast to thestation-type meat and dairy hygiene service just mentioned there were theinspections of the nonperishable (or canned) meat and dairy products that werereceived, stored, distributed, or otherwise handled by the depots.Until the fall of 1943, this comprised the principal duty of the ArmyVeterinary Service with Quartermaster depots and sections of Army Service Forcesdepots; of course, many depot veterinary detachments also were inspecting theprocurements of nonperishable foods. After August 1943, the principal activitiesof the detachments were twofold: (1) The in?depot inspections of foods handledby the depots, and (2) the off-depot meat and dairy hygiene inspections whichthen were officially limited to contiguous metropolitan areas but extended toall commercial food establishments, storage warehouses, or shipping points,located within the area, that were concerned with the Army supply of bothnonperishable and perishable meat and dairy products. The quantities ofsubsistence thus inspected varied greatly among the individual depots (table17); in fact, some few depot detachments (such as at the Atlanta, Charlotte, andMemphis installations) had little to do with the inspection of perishable meatand dairy products.
The on-depot veterinaryinspections of the nonperishable meat and dairy products received, stored, orshipped by the depots were largely sanitary in
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nature. Before the war, verysmall amounts of subsistence were stockpiled, only at the Chicago QuartermasterDepot and at the Seattle Quartermaster Depot to the account of the San FranciscoGeneral Depot (later, the California Quartermaster Depot). In early 1941, aswartime stockpiling programs were begun, the Chicago Quartermaster Depot, inparticular, scattered its subsistence holdings to seven depots (namely,Atlanta, Charlotte, Jersey City, Kansas City, New Orleans, San Antonio, andSchenectady). This led to the formation of many additional depot veterinarydetachments. In mid-1941, the new Quartermaster system of nonperishablesubsistence supply in the Zone of Interior gave the designation of nineinstallations as regional distribution depots which would supply the needs ofcertain specified Army camps and airbases. Additional depots were soon namedso that there were no Quartermaster depots and sections of Army Service Forcesdepots having veterinary detachments that were not receiving, storing, anddistributing canned meat and dairy products.
On-depot inspection ofnonperishable meat and dairy products was continuous throughout the periodof their storage or holding at the depot. Special inspections were conductedat the time of their receipt as a phase of veterinary procurement inspection.Although originally inspected during the time of manufacture or canning incontractor`s plants, these products were reinspected for sanitary conditionbefore the Army finally accepted them on delivery. Occasionally, the extent ofdamage to subsistence while in transit to the depots had to be assessed so thatproper claims could be made against the rail or truck carriers. Also, pursuantto those terms of contractual documents relating to the contractor`s guaranteeagainst more than specified rates of spoilage in newly delivered products,timely veterinary inspections were made which would enable Army contractingofficers to obtain the contractor`s replacement shipment or payment for thespoiled or deteriorated products. At regular intervals, surveillance inspectionswere made on the stored subsistence so that lots of a particular item, longeston hand or showing signs of beginning deterioration, would be granted priorityfor distribution at an early date. Actually, stock turnover was quite rapidduring most of the war period so that comparatively small quantities ofnonperishable subsistence in the depots became unsuitable for distribution. Theleakage among cans of evaporated milk, the penetration of wooden-box nails intocans of imported corned beef, and the rusting of the exterior of cans incommercial-type packages seemed to have been the major causes for the lossesthat occurred. Of course, particular attention was directed to preventunnecessary exposure of stored products to extreme climatic conditions, tominimize the damage from outside storage when enclosed warehouse space was notavailable, and to avoid the losses attributable to factors such as were readilyregulated (such as rough handling and high stackpiling). Another veterinaryinspection was conducted at the time the products were distributed or shippedfrom the depot to the Army camps or airbases or to a port for oversea movement;routinely,
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however, the inspection ofnonperishable subsistence immediately prior to shipment could be minimizedwherever the surveillance inspections of nonperishable products in storagewere systematically conducted.
FOOD SALVAGE
Veterinary surveillanceinspections in seven depots were extended to food salvage activities that hadbecome necessary as Army camps, once having relatively large numbers of troops,returned their surplus stockages to depots for redistribution. Also, largequantities of subsistence were returned from the Alaskan area after the Aleutiancampaign and from other offshore base commands which had been built up in1940-41. In these activities, depot veterinary inspection personnel, utilizingprisoner-of-war labor, segregated the sound canned products and repackaged themso that the processed stock was suitable for domestic use or even exportshipment; usually 90 to 95 percent of these products was actually saved. Atthe Utah installation, the salvage operations were particularly extensive,covering more than 400 carloads or about 35 million pounds of returned cannedmeat and dairy products. In addition, the Army Veterinary Service at theAtlanta, Charlotte, Jersey City, Mira Loma, New Cumberland, Richmond, andSeattle depots, on authorization of the local commander, extended their foodsurveillance inspections to the canned fruits and vegetables and to thecereals which were stored or handled in the depots.
TESTING LABORATORIES
Another depot activityusually assigned to the operational control of Veterinary Corps officers was thelocal Quartermaster subsistence or general testing laboratory (figs. 11 and 12). Actually, the Army Veterinary Service had little need for theselaboratories in connection with their meat and dairy hygiene inspections becausethe Medical Department system of laboratories in hospitals and for the servicecommands was set up and available pursuant to an authorization earliergranted by the War Department. However, regardless of this and probably withthe encouragement of individual veterinary personnel, the Atlanta, California,Charlotte, Jersey City, Kansas City, Memphis, Mira Loma, and Seattle depots hadtheir own laboratories under Veterinary Corps supervision, but the SurgeonGeneral`s Office refrained from granting them Medical Department trainedpersonnel and equipment. Instead, the depot subsistence laboratories were mannedby civilian employees, utilizing locally procured laboratory equipment andsupplies.In the California installation-apparently the most elaboratelaboratory-theworkload, in 1944 alone, comprised 40,050 separate examinations and tests on14,630 samples which were representative for 78 million pounds of subsistence.
Centralized procurement ofnonperishable subsistence.-In regard to the off-depot inspections, the depotveterinary detachments were concerned with two Quartermaster systems of Armysubsistence procurement-one, the
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FIGURE 11.-Veterinary FoodLaboratory, California Quartermaster Depot, Oakland, Calif.
centralizing of procurementfor nonperishable meat and dairy products in three depots, and, the other, theQuartermaster market center system pertaining to the procurement, storage, anddistribution of perishable products. The Quartermaster market centers aredescribed later in this chapter, but it may be noted that few depot detachmentshad much to do with inspecting the perishable subsistence supply, until afterAugust 1943, as this inspection workload at the onset was left to the ArmyVeterinary Service under control of the service commands. In regard tononperishable products procurement, however, both depot veterinary detachmentsand service command veterinary detachments were involved early.
During the prewar emergencyperiods, only a few canned meat, fish, and dairy products were centrallypurchased for the Army. There were three so-called procuring depots, but theymade little or no demand for veterinary products inspection at the point oforigin or during the time of manufacture. Each such depot had its own veterinarydetachment which conducted acceptance inspection on such samples as weresubmitted by the contractors. This was a common practice forced on the peacetimeArmy, though at times detachment personnel traveled to the food establishmentsto inspect the
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FIGURE 12.-Testinglaboratory at the Atlanta Army Service Forces Depot, 1945.
product during itsmanufacture. Later, origin procurement inspection gained more recognition, andsoon the procuring depots` veterinary detachments were faced with an almostinsurmountable workload at many, far?distant and widely separated cities wherecivilian subsistence contractors were producing for the rapidly expanding Army.Also, the number of canned items designated for central procurement, by theChicago depot in particular, was greatly increased. During January 1941,following approval of Quartermaster Corps planning by The Surgeon General, TheAdjutant General authorized depots to communicate with the commanding generalsof service commands (then called corps areas) in regard to the ordering ofVeterinary Corps officers on origin inspections of nonperishable subsistence (11, 12, 13,14). This became effective almost immediately in the First, Third,Fourth, and Fifth Service Commands, and the veterinary detachments of the depotswhich were located in these service command areas (including those of theBoston, New Cumberland, Richmond, Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Savannah, andColumbus depots) and conducted little, if any, origin inspections of cannedproducts for the procuring depots. At other depots, such as at Jersey City,Schenectady, Chicago, Kansas City, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Oakland, Mira Loma,Seattle, and Utah (which were in the geographic areas of the Second, Sixth,Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Service Commands), the depot detachments greatlyexpanded their
165
activities, sometimes todistant points, to inspect the nonperishable subsistence which was beingprocured.
Unquestionably, individualdepot commanders believed that their veterinary detachments were betterqualified to conduct origin inspections of nonperishable subsistence thanthose under the jurisdiction of service commands (15). Individual commandinggenerals of service commands, however, believed that their veterinaryinspection services, which were already organized for inspecting most of theQuartermaster market center procurements of perishable products, were beingdisrupted by the off-depot inspection activities by depot veterinarydetachments. In any event, areas of conflict and overlapping of inspectionaljurisdiction developed between the depots and the service commands. A partialsolution to these problems came in February 1943 when The QuartermasterGeneral requested his depot commanders to limit the deployment of theirveterinary detachments on origin inspections of nonperishable subsistence topoints within a radius of 30 miles from the cities or towns where such depotswere located (16). In August 1943, Headquarters, Army Service Forces, directedthat the depot commanders (or their veterinary detachments) would haveinspectionalresponsibility over nonperishable, as well as perishable, meat and dairyproducts such as were procured, stored, or otherwise handled by the Army inmetropolitan areas where the depots were located; in all other geographicalareas, the concerned service command`s veterinary inspection organizationwould assume the responsibility (17). Thus, the depot veterinarydetachments,such as the Boston, Richmond, and Columbus installations, which were thenperforming only on-depot meat and dairy hygiene services, were considerablyenlarged and then undertook full veterinary inspectional responsibilities intheir metropolitan areas; on the other hand, those detachments with the JerseyCity, Chicago, Kansas City, San Antonio, and Fort Worth depots lost theirinspectional jurisdiction over large geographical areas to the respectiveservice commands.
Quartermaster market centersystem for procuring perishable subsistence.-In the system for the centralizedprocurement of perishable subsistence by Quartermaster market centers started in1941, the veterinary inspection workload, for the most part, was divided betweenthe Army Veterinary Service with the service commands and that with theQuartermaster depots and sections of Army Service Forces depots. The latter,however, had little to do with the inspection of perishable, or fresh, meat anddairy products until after August 1943. Under this system that graduallyreplaced the peacetime procedures in which individual Army camps and airbasesprocured and competed against each other in the same local markets, theresponsibilityfor perishable subsistence procurement was transferred from the formerlyindependent camp and base purchasing officers to the Office of the QuartermasterGeneral and thence to its new field agency in Chicago; namely, Headquarters,Perishable Subsistence Branch, later named Field
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Headquarters, PerishableBranch, Subsistence Division, Office of The Quartermaster General. AVeterinary Corps officer, assigned on 2 October 1941, as headquartersveterinarian and chief of veterinary section, was accorded the recognition ofhaving originated a system of inspection that in great measure assured thesuccess of the Quartermaster market center system (18).1 The headquartersorganization supervised the procurement, storage, and distribution of perishablesubsistence on a regional or geographic basis through a varying number ofoperating agencies, designated Quartermaster market centers. Eventually, thesehandled all types of perishable meat and dairy products in the Zone of Interiorbut, in the beginning, only butter, cheese, fresh eggs, and poultry wereprocured, stored, and distributed. Any or all procurement and storage activitieswith respect to the products in a given geographic area were the responsibilityof a specific Quartermaster market center which was responsible also fordistributing them to Army camps and airbases in their immediate vicinities; therequired inspections were conducted, or arranged for, by Veterinary Corpsofficers on duty with the respective market centers.
At the field headquarterslevel of organization, the headquarters veterinarian originally planned forthe inspection of all meat and dairy products which were to be procured, stored,distributed or otherwise handled by the Quartermaster market center system andinitiated the proposal that soon saw the utilization of the existent ArmyVeterinary Service with the service commands, depots, ports, and otherinstallations-whichever had aVeterinary Corps officer available and nearestthe area-to conduct the required inspections. Then, on 17 October 1941, pursuantto this planning, The Adjutant General authorized the officers in charge ofmarket centers to call on the commanding generals of service commands (thencalled corps areas) to arrange for service command veterinary personnel toconduct point of origin inspections on market center purchases of perishablemeat and dairy products (19). This authorization was similar to that madeearlier in 1941 with respect to the veterinary inspection of depot procurementsof canned subsistence. In November 1941, The Quartermaster General authorizedmarket center officers also to request the commanding officers of four depots(Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, and Kansas City) to provide veterinary inspectionalservices. However, pursuant to the original authorization, the service commandsundertook the performance of the major share of the veterinary procurementinspection workload for the market centers, although, in accordance witharrangements made locally with the service command veterinarians, a few port anddepot veterinary detachments expanded their operations in response to marketcenter requests for inspection at points of origin. Naturally, there wereseveral geographic areas in which these
1The veterinary section, asof August 1945, included 6 veterinary officers and 18 civilian clericalemployees and was internally organized into 5 subsections: Administrative; meatand meat food products; butter, eggs, and fish; and the Chicago QuartermasterMarket Center veterinary component.
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arrangements wereunsuitable, with the result that in August 1943, Headquarters, Army ServiceForces, directed that, with the exception of the metropolitan areas contiguousto depots where the concerned depot commanders would be responsible forproviding all veterinary food inspection services, the commanding generals ofservice commands were responsible for providing the veterinary inspectionalservices-whether it be in regard to perishable or to nonperishable subsistence(17). Thus, during the winter of 1943-44, the service command veterinaryservice organizations assumed the inspection workload in cities and townsthroughout the continental United States except in about a dozen metropolitanareas in which depot veterinary detachments conducted the inspections of meatand dairy products. Sometimes the service command`s inspection workload waspassed on to the veterinary detachments at airbases and fields under controlof the Army Air Forces.
At the level of the marketcenters, which were the operational elements of the Quartermaster market centersystem, only those concerned with meat and dairy products were provided withorganic veterinary services. These included the following market centers,designated after the city or town in which they were located: Alexandria, Va.;Baltimore, Md.; Boston, Mass.; Columbia, S.C.; Columbus, Ga.; Denver, Colo.;Dover Buying Office, Dover, Del.; El Paso, Tex.; Houston, Tex.; Jacksonville,Fla.; Kansas City, Kans.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Little Rock, Ark.; Louisville,Ky.; Memphis, Tenn.; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans, La.; New York, N.Y.;Norfolk, Va.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Orlando, Fla.; Philadelphia, Pa.;Phoenix, Ariz.; Richmond, Va.; Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Tex.;San Francisco, Calif.; Seattle, Wash.; Spokane, Wash.; St. Louis, Mo.; Syracuse,N.Y.; Fort Worth, Tex.; and Edmonton, Canada. The veterinary section of fieldheadquarters included a subsection which rendered this service to the Chicagomarket center. Usually, veterinary officers were detailed to the installationson an attending or part-time basis from their primary assignment with a nearbydepot or service command camp. There were a few market centers, however, whichgained their own assigned veterinary officers, but such assignments wereregarded as tending to subordinate inspectional activities under thejurisdiction of procurement and supply officers and buyers.
The market centerveterinarian functioned under the supervision of the officer in charge reviewedthe purchase orders made by the buyers, and forwarded copies of such orders withrequests for inspection to the Army camp, airbase, depot, or other veterinaryofficers located nearest the geographic area in which the purchases were beingmade. The field headquarters veterinarian promulgated an official guide on theformat of such market center purchase orders and bid proposals which were usedby the contracting officers and buyers in all market centers, and at the sametime promulgated a series of letter guides on the veterinary technical aspectsof inspecting market center purchases and storages of subsistence for use by theArmy camp, airbase, depot, and other inspecting veterinary officers. At
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first, the market centerveterinarian`s requests for inspections were forwarded to the offices of theconcerned service command veterinarians who, in turn, determined which Armycamp, airbase, depot, or other veterinary detachment would conduct theparticular inspections; later, the market center veterinarians were authorizeddirect communications with the actual inspectors, and the service commandveterinarian was supplied with information copies of inspection requests. Thisexpedited the rendition and reporting of the veterinary inspection,particularly when the market center purchase instruments were changed, as theyoften were, or when the contractors failed to comply with the provisions ofthe Army purchase instruments. By the end of 1942, most service commands wereroutinely informing the market center veterinarians of the location andaddresses of the veterinary detachments which would conduct inspections inspecified areas. The service commands were responsible also for ascertainingthat contractors` food establishments, storage warehouses, and commercialdistribution points operated at certain sanitary standards; routinely, theestablishments entering into a contract were previously inspected by aVeterinary Corps officer on request of a market center, and then reinspected atleast each month during the time that such establishments maintained interest incontracting with the Army. Establishments failing to comply with certainsanitary standards were disapproved and, on recommendation of the servicecommand veterinarian, were not used in the subsistence buying by theQuartermaster market center system. The same was applicable to sources of thenonperishable subsistence which was procured by the depots. Lists of approvedestablishments thus were officially promulgated by service commandveterinarians, who then forwarded them to the market center veterinarians who,in turn, advised the contracting officers and buyers in regard to civiliancontractors with the facilities and standards of operation needed to produceclean, wholesome products for Army supply.
In the market center systemof procurement, emphasis was placed on the veterinary inspection of meat anddairy products during their manufacture or processing and for compliance withthe grade and sanitary qualities as indicated in the purchase instruments;another and final veterinary inspection was conducted for sanitary conditionof the products at the time of arrival at destination and actual receipt by Armyproperty or supply officers. Until December 1945, inspections were made on theprocurement of 13,411,237,884 pounds of meat and dairy products, having a valueof $3,359,231,351. Some of these products were delivered to Zone of Interiordestinations for immediate troop issue; however, a large portion of them weretemporarily stored as reserve stockpile or were purchased during peak orseasonal production periods. Veterinary surveillance inspections were made ofthese products, usually stored in commercial cold storage plants, at 30-dayintervals. Market center veterinarians, reviewing the periodic reports ofsurveillance inspections submitted by Army camp, depot, airbase, or other
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inspecting veterinarydetachments, were generally successful in advising the market center property orsupply officers in regard to which products, longest in storage or showing signsof early deteriorations, should be moved from the storage plants for earlydistribution. Improper packing or damage to shipping containers comprised majorcauses for recommending that certain lots be withdrawn from transshipmentoverseas. During the period from September 1944 through June 1945, the outrightmonetary losses in storage holdings of perishable subsistence did not exceed0.005 percent of the value.
Transportation Corps
The Army Veterinary Servicewith the Transportation Corps was centered at ports of embarkation whichserved as the terminal points for moving materiel from the Zone of Interior tothe oversea theaters. The Transportation Corps, however, did not come intoexistence until the spring-summer of 1942, so that the onset of World War IIactually found the military transportation activity divided between the WarDepartment General Staff (Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4) for overall supervisionand the Quartermaster Corps and its Army Transport Service. At that time,there were only two Army ports of embarkation-at New York, N.Y., encompassingthe Brooklyn Army Base, and at San Francisco, Calif., encompassing Fort Mason.Other ports were established during the prewar emergency periods at Boston,Mass., New Orleans, La., and Seattle, Wash. The veterinary services at theseArmy ports were conducted on a coordinated basis with that of the general andquartermaster depots that were located in coastal cities. Of course, when thesemilitary ports became identified as field installations of the newly createdTransportation Corps, the dualistic activities of the veterinary detachments inthe seaboard cities were terminated. Separate veterinary services wereestablished.
Veterinary detachments wereformed at the following eight class IV installations under jurisdiction of theChief of Transportation, or ports of embarkation: Boston, Charleston, S.C.,Hampton Roads, Va., Los Angeles, Calif., New Orleans, New York, Seattle, and SanFrancisco. A number of subports and three cargo ports were established under thecontrol of these ports of embarkation which also for short periods of time,supervised shipping operations of a lesser extent at approximately 10 othercoastal cities, including those in Alaska (at Excursion Inlet, Juneau, andSkagway) and in Canada. Usually, a satellite installation was providedveterinary service on a part-time basis by the area command in which it waslocated. Between December 1941 and the end of 1945, these Army ports embarkedwell over 7? million passengers and loaded out approximately 1? million shiptons (measurement tons of 40 cu. ft.) of cargo freight (20). Also, more than11,000 mules and horses were transshipped to the U.S. and Allied armiesoverseas.
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The Army Veterinary Servicewith each port of embarkation was regulated by the senior Veterinary Corpsofficer, designated as the port veterinarian, assigned to the office of theport surgeon. Thelatter acted as adviser to the port commander for all medical activitiesperformed in behalf of that port; after mid-1943, technical guidance overMedical Department activities in ports by the Surgeon General`s Office was moreor less assumed by a medical officer then detailed to the Office of Chief ofTransportation. Under the supervision of the immediate surgeon at each port, theport veterinarian commanded the port veterinary detachment; conducted the port`sveterinary services, including routine station-type meat and dairy hygiene andveterinary animal service operations; provided for the inspections of thefoods and the animals which were received, processed, and transshipped throughthe port; and performed veterinary sanitary inspections of harbor craft,freighters,refrigerated cargo ships, and animal and troop transports. The last twoactivities were, of course, the principal and characteristic operations of theArmy Veterinary Service at Transportation Corps ports. A few post veterinarydetachments also were involved in the inspection of the Quartermaster Corpssupply of subsistence, but, by the fall of 1943, procurement inspection in theZone of Interior was reallocated to service commands and depots. The New Orleansport veterinary detachment, which had been conducting large?scale procurementinspections along the Gulf Coast, for example, in September 1943, lost severalpersonnel and this inspection responsibility to the Eighth Service Command.
The numbers of personnel inthe veterinary detachments varied among the ports, aggregating a total ofapproximately 50 officers and probably more than double that number of enlistedpersonnel. Civilians were employed as clerk-stenographers in most detachmentoffices. As of mid-1945, the Los Angeles port had 7 veterinary officers and 16enlisted personnel on duty; at New York, these numbers were 9 and 19,respectively. Wartime peak strengths in the San Francisco port averaged 14veterinary officers each month during the last 6 months of 1944 and 33 enlistedpersonnel per month during the period from January to June 1943. Most portveterinarians conducted their own programs of on-the-job training for theirveterinary detachments. In addition, port veterinarians, pursuant to Armyregulations, conducted special training of veterinary personnel who accompaniedthe oversea shipments of Army horses and mules, dogs, and other animals and, atthe New York and San Francisco installations, supervised the operation ofveterinary officers replacement pools.
Station-type veterinaryservices.-In the conduct of their routine,station-type veterinary services,the port of veterinary detachments may be compared with the depot veterinarydetachments as previously described. They provided professional care andtreatment for a small number of horses and mules that were maintained in severalports for drayage purposes or to mount guard patrols and for a few Army dogswhich were used as internal
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security guards. One port ofembarkation (Boston) had as many as 19 horses and 23 dogs in a subsidiaryinstallation, and at another (Charleston), the port veterinarian attended 40horses and 12 dogs; however, not more than an aggregate of 150 animals cameunder veterinary supervision in the ports at any one time. The majorstation-type activity was not veterinary service with animals, but the meat anddairy hygiene services relating to the subsistence supply to port-assignedpersonnel, the crews on small boats or harbor craft, and the troops during theirstaging. Usually, the meat and dairy products used inside of the ports and theirtroop staging areas were received from nearby depots and market centers, andthus, having been inspected when procured, only came under veterinarysurveillance inspection at the times of receipt and issue. At all ports, thismeat and dairy hygiene service was extended to veterinary sanitary inspectionsof Army exchange restaurants, officers club messes, concessionaires, and troopmesshalls; this activity at the New York port, for example, led to the renditionof more than 1,700 monthly sanitary inspection reports through the 2-year periodending June 1945.
The station-type veterinarymeat and dairy hygiene services also included the veterinary sanitaryinspections of the food storage facilities on small boats and harbor craft, onbaggage-kitchen and kitchen cars of troop and hospital trains arriving anddeparting from the ports, on Army-operated ships, and sometimes on Navy, WarShipping Administration, and British Ministry of War Transport vessels in Armyservice. Troop trains requiring additional subsistence supply while en routeordinarily obtained the meat and dairy products from one of approximately 125specially designated Army installations or supply points along their routes oftravel. Another activity was related to the inspection of so-called shipsstores or the subsistence which was used in the feeding of crews during thevoyages; this supply was entirely separate from subsistence cargo for overseasupply and the subsistence which was used for on-ship feeding of Army troopswhile en route.
The Army and Navy routinelyprovided subsistence stores for their ships from regular military stockpiles,but the other agencies obtained their ships stores for crew feeding from amiscellany of domestic and foreign sources where sanitary conditions were oftenquestionable. The problem here was that the Army Veterinary Service had noresponsibility or authorization to conduct meat and dairy hygiene servicesregarding the ships stores on the War Shipping Administration and Britishvessels, but, at the same time, this subsistence-of unknown origin and ofquestionable quality-such as became surplus to the crews was being discharged atthe oversea destinations and entered into Army subsistence supply. This occurredparticularly during the early war years and often comprised the first freshfoods that were available in the oversea theaters; Army hospitals in the NorthAfrican thea-
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ter and in the South PacificArea gained priority for receiving such surplus ships stores.
Along with their conduct ofroutine meat and dairy hygiene services in the port areas, the veterinarydetachments became involved in a number of related food inspection activities.For example, the port veterinary detachments at the Boston and Seattleinstallations also inspected the fruit and vegetable supply. At the Charlestonport, this extra duty was added, in July 1944, when the port commanderdetermined that past losses among nonanimal-origin foods were too great.Another activity was the supervision of subsistence conservation measureswhereby seriously damaged food containers were set aside on the piers (that is,removed from oversea shipment) for collection later and then recommended forreissue locally. Possibly, an activity that reached considerable proportions inthe vicinity of ports, such as at Charleston and New Orleans, was theencouragement and the sanitary supervision of local fresh milk supplies; portcommanders more or less demanded that, for maintaining morale in the troopstaging areas, fresh milk would be made available in plentiful supply. In thisconnection, the Army Veterinary Service at the Boston and the Charleston portsinaugurated, or participated in, the original studies on the development of asuitably frozen fresh milk for issue to the Army hospital ships which wereevacuating patients from the European theater. The Transportation Corps,QuartermasterCorps, and the Medical Department viewed this development as a major advancementin the feeding of hospital patients. The Army Veterinary Service withTransportation Corps ports also comprised a security guard against theintroduction of animal diseases into the United States and frequently cooperatedwith such Federal nonmilitary agencies as were legally empowered to regulate theimportation of animals, food products, or ships stores, and the disposal ofgarbage on ships returning from oversea theaters. For example, foot-and-mouthdisease (aphthous fever) was not brought into the United States even in theimmediate postwar period when millions of military personnel were returned fromEurope. Particular mention may be made of the successful operations of variousdegrees of import quarantine conducted in the Los Angeles, New Orleans, NewYork, and Seattle ports. Also, importations of Army purchases of South Americancanned corned beef were inspected routinely at time of arrival by port or nearbydepot veterinary detachments in cooperation with civilian veterinary inspectorsof the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Inspection of shipboardsubsistence.-The specialist activities of the Army Veterinary Service with theZone of Interior ports concerned the transportation of animals to thetheaters, the oversea movement of subsistence cargo, and the subsistence supplyfor on-ship feeding of troops while en route. The last-named activity posed amajor and difficult problem throughout the war period because so few troopmovements were made on ships under regulatory control of the Army; in fact, theNavy, War Shipping
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Administration, and BritishMinistry of War Transport transported the majority of Army troops. This problemwas twofold in nature: It concerned the sanitary inspections of ships galleysand the storage of subsistence which were involved in the feeding of Army troopswhile in transit; and it related to the veterinary sanitary and other qualitygrading of the actual food products. The first part of the problem was readilyanswered, because Veterinary Corps officers were usually named into membershipon official port inspector general teams that passed on the acceptability ofships which were being offered by the agencies for moving Army troops. At theHampton Roads and San Francisco installations, such port veterinary inspectionsover the 2-year period ending June 1945 were made of 988 (including 162 Navy?controlled)ships and 466 ships, respectively. At the New York port, as many as a hundredships were inspected during a single month.
The second part of theproblem related to the veterinary inspections of the products used for shipboardfeeding of Army troops is somewhat comparable to the situation of the entry ofships stores from War Shipping Administration vessels into regular Army supplychannels overseas, as previously noted. This was not readily solved becausethe War Shipping Administration and other agencies, including the BritishMinistry of War Transport, and less so, the Navy, each maintained its ownsubsistence procurement responsibility. However, what was accomplished duringthe war to improve the quality of this shipboard subsistence was done inaccordance with local arrangements made by individual port veterinarians and theconcerned agency representatives. However, near the end of the war period, thematter of veterinary-inspected meat and dairy products became the subject ofconferences between the Army and the War Shipping Administration, but no final,centralized interagency agreement was reached. Pursuant to these localarrangements, the Army Veterinary Service at the onset limited itself to theinspection of foods for sanitary and grade quality at the time of arrival at thepiers or immediately prior to their loading into the ships` troop galleys. AtHampton Roads, such inspections of products at shipside were begun in October1943 and aggregated 8,556,966 pounds of inspected meat and dairy products by theend of June 1945. Such shipside inspections were eventually set up at fourports, and at three others, the port veterinarians also requested nearby depotand service command veterinary detachments to inspect the subsistence incommercial food establishments before delivery to the piers.
In regard to troop feedingon British Ministry of War Transport ships which were loading out of the Boston,Hampton Roads, and New York ports, local arrangements were in effect before theend of 1943 for their supplies of meat and dairy products to have originatedfrom Veterinary Corps-approved food establishments and to be inspected atshipside (or prior to loading) for sanitary condition and grade quality. AtHampton Roads, such inspections were made of 761,876 pounds of subsistence inthe 4-month period,
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October 1943 through January1944; at New York, an average of six British transports were inspected eachmonth. Suitable local arrangements also were made in regard to the overseatransportation of Army personnel on Navy?controlled ships, particularly at theHampton Roads, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle ports; of course,during the war, large quantities of Navy?owned subsistence were procuredthrough Army supply channels so that veterinary products inspections at shipsidewere routinely one of observing that the products themselves had notdeteriorated or become spoiled since their last inspection at a procurementpoint or storage facility. It may be mentioned that Headquarters, Army ServiceForces, on 27 March 1944, officially approved the agreement which had beenreached between The Surgeon General and the Chief, Bureau of Supplies andAccounts, U.S. Navy, whereby the Army Veterinary Service would inspect all foodsloaded on War Shipping Administration-controlled ships which were transportingNavy personnel out of the San Francisco port. Similar but less formalarrangements were also in effect at Seattle.
Inspection of subsistencecargo.-The inspection of subsistence cargo for oversea supply was the mostimportant activity of the Army Veterinary Service at Zone of Interior ports. It had for its objectives the removal from transshipment of meat anddairy products such as were deteriorated or otherwise unsuitable or wouldbecome spoiled while en route or soon after arrival at destination and thetechnical supervision over the facilities and procedures of ships storage aswould assure the safekeeping of the products, particularly those of a perishablenature, during the voyage (fig. 13). During the early war years, since fewpersonnel in the ports assumed the responsibility for the overall aspects ofhandling subsistence cargo, port veterinary detachments necessarily operatedas technical advisors on packaging, storage, stevedoring, and security police.For example, at various times in the New York port, 40 percent of outsidecontainers were noted to be damaged as a result of rough handling or improperpackaging, 10 carloads of frozen products had thawed out during their stay onthe pier area before they were opened for loading, and pilferage on the piersapproximated 100,000 pounds per month. Of course, these difficulties weregradually overcome.
The quantities of outboundsubsistence inspected varied among the individual ports, and for each port therate of shipment changed periodically. For example, the West Coast ports shippedlarge volumes during the first 6 months of the war, but with Allied strategycalling for early defeat of the German Axis, larger volumes were later movedfrom the Atlantic ports-first to the North African and then to the Europeantheaters. Boston became concerned with the supply to the base command garrisonsin Newfoundland, Greenland, and Iceland, but its heaviest movements were made tonorthern Europe. New York was the principal port for serving the Europeantheater and also moved large quantities to the Mediterranean. Hampton Roadsdivided its outbound cargo for these two theaters, whereas the Charleston
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port carried a light cargoloading schedule-its wartime role being that of the home port for hospitalships in Atlantic waters. New Orleans was the major shipping port for the ArmedForces in the Caribbean area, but it also shipped to the European andAsiatic-Pacific theaters. On the West Coast, the San Francisco port was theprincipal oversea supplier, but in this it was aided by the Los Angelesinstallation, which also served the Asiatic theater, and by the Seattle port,which moved supplies to Alaska and to the Central and Western Pacific area. InMarch 1945, the veterinary detachment at the New York Port of Embarkation alonetechnically supervised the loading out of 315 million pounds of meat and dairyproducts-a wartime peak monthly inspection workload at a port for the warperiod.
Refrigerated freighters,each usually requiring 5 days for loading, were moved out of many ports at therate of 1 per month, but peak monthly rates of 3 were experienced at HamptonRoads (in November 1943), of 10 at Los Angeles (in the first half of 1943), andof 25 at the New York port. It may be mentioned that refrigerated freighters(also called reefer ships) were not especially plentiful during the early partof the war period; on the other hand, refrigerated storage and issue points werenot fully developed
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in the theaters to receiveor hold any large quantities of perishable subsistence even if it was shipped.The early demands for perishable subsistence were satisfied in part by the useof portable refrigerator boxes (of 360 cu. ft. capacity), which could becarried as deck cargo loads and then put ashore at destination; also, some fewcargo ships were modified during their construction to have built-inrefrigerated space in their holds. Later, refrigerated barges were constructedwhich could be used as floating storage and issue points on arrival at outlyingbases in the Pacific theaters. As of May 1945, the Army controlled only three ofthe total of 148 fully or partially refrigerated ships available in the U.S.shipping pool (aggregating 15 million cu. ft. of refrigerated ship space).Infrequently, veterinary officers were detailed to duty on the refrigeratedships during voyages to observe the conditions of the subsistence on arrivaloverseas.
Veterinary animalservice.-Nearly all ports of embarkation wereinvolved in the movement of Armyanimals to the oversea commands. Altogether, under veterinary supervision,these ports shipped out more than 11,000 mules and horses, approximately 1,900Army dogs, and several thousand pigeons and Medical Department laboratoryanimals. Another 2,227 mules were transshipped to India through the New YorkPort of Embarkation, under the provisions of lend-lease supply to GreatBritain; through the fall of 1945, a few hundred horses and mules surplus to theArmy in the Panama Canal Department, 153 captured horses from the Europeantheater, and many Army dogs and signal pigeons also were brought into the Zoneof Interior through the ports. In this traffic, the port veterinarians inspectedthe animals on arrival, rendered veterinary certificates on their health, caredfor them during their stay in the port area, and supervised the loading andunloading procedures; animals which were sick or injured, or in unsatisfactoryphysical condition, were removed from further shipment. Facilities on outboundanimal transports were inspected before the start of loading operations andbefore the transports departed. Also, such veterinary personnel as accompaniedthe transports to destination were selected, trained, and equipped to care forthe animals while en route. Sometimes, port-assigned veterinary personnelcomprised the animal transports` veterinary detachments, but more often thelatter were veterinary animal service detachments which were en route overseasor the personnel organically assigned to the units whose animals were beingtransported.
With the exception of two,the ports of embarkation did not have special facilities for receiving,processing, and embarking animals. At the New York port, horses and mulesgenerally were moved through the stockyards in Jersey City, N.J., where therequired Army veterinary animal services were provided by a provisionalorganization under control of the Second Service Command. The Ninth ServiceCommand veterinary detachment at the Presidio of San Francisco provided theessential veterinary animal services for the 2,929 mules and horses that werestaged for movement to the Central
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and Southwest Pacifictheaters through the San Francisco port; at Seattle, the detachment at FortLawton, Wash., cared for the dogs which were moved through that port. Elsewhere,pier or warehouse facilities were used. The exceptional ports, or those havingspecial animal embarkation depot facilities, were the New Orleans port with itsAnimal Remount Station, Camp Plauche, La. (fig. 14) and the Los Angelesinstallation with its Animal Depot, Puente, Calif. The latter`s veterinarydetachment became operational in February 1944 and until its discontinuance inMay 1945, received 1,874 mules and horses and actually embarked 1,550 of thesefor the China-Burma-India theater. At the Camp Plauche facility, port veterinaryservices were rendered for as many as 964 horses and mules in a single month(as of June 1944); approximately one-half of the total number of mules andhorses transshipped out of the Zone of Interior during the war were processedat Camp Plauche remount station under veterinary supervision, with destinationsin the Asiatic-Pacific and Mediterranean theaters.
ROLE OF PERSONNEL ASSIGNEDTO SERVICE COMMANDS
Activities and installationsof the Army Service Forces that were not controlled by a chief of technicalservice were administered and organized on a regional basis by service commands.The latter contained the major
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operating elements of theArmy Veterinary Service in the Zone of Interior. There were nine servicecommands whose geographic boundaries paralleled those of their predecessor corpsareas (map 2), and their commanding generals each reported to the CommandingGeneral, Army Service Forces. In the summer of 1942, a tenth service command-butwith additional missions not relating to the Army Service Forces-was formed.This was the Military District of Washington, with headquarters in the Districtof Columbia, which came into control of several installations and a small areapreviously assigned to the Third Service Command (21). During September 1942,the Northwest Service Command was established, with headquarters at Whitehorseand later relocated in Edmonton, to administer specified oil pipeline, highway,and railroad projects in western Canada. This last-named command wasdiscontinued on 30 June 1945 and incorporated, as district subcommand, intothe Sixth Service Command.
Each service command had itsown veterinarian who controlled the command`s veterinary services under thesupervision of the service command surgeon (fig. 15).2 The service commandveterinarian functioned as the advisory and administrative assistant to thesurgeon of the service command in directing the veterinary service thereof, as aveterinary consultant, and as attending veterinarian at the headquarters (22).
Actually, the servicecommand surgeons and veterinarians did not always have this centralizeddirection and control over Medical Department activities and veterinary servicesthroughout their respective commands or in the Army camps and installationswhich came under service command jurisdiction. Before November-December 1943,Headquarters, Army Service Forces, provided for little or no control of theservice commands` Medical Department
2The following VeterinaryCorps officers served in the capacity as service command veterinarians or,before July 1942, as corps areaveterinarians:
First Service Command: Col.George H. Koon (1939 through December 1943) and Col. Jesse D. Derrick (December 1943through 1945).
Second Service Command: Col.Christian W. Greenlee (1939 through September 1940) and Col. Burton A. Seeley(September 1940 through 1945).
Third Service Command: Col.Horace S. Eakins (1939 through August 1942), Col. Frank H. Woodruff (August 1942through August 1944), and Col. George L. Caldwell (September 1944 through 1945).
Fourth Service Command: Col.Burton A. Seeley (1936 through September 1940), Col. William H. Houston(September 1940 through April 1945), and Col. Edward M. Curley (April throughDecember 1945).
Fifth Service Command: Col.W. H. Houston (1937 through September 1940) and Col. C. W. Greenlee (September1940 through 1945).
Sixth Service Command: Lt.Col. Will C. Griffin (1936 through September 1940), Col. Fred C. Waters(September through December 1940), Col. James E. Noonan (December 1940 throughFebruary 1944), and Col. Louis L. Shook (February 1944 through 1945).
Seventh Service Command:Col. Harold E. Egan (1939 through 1945).
Eighth Service Command: Col.Jean R. Underwood (1939 through January 1941), Col. James A. McCallam (March1941 through February 1943), and Col. A. C. Wight (March 1943 through 1945).
Ninth Service Command: Col.Robert J. Foster (1938 through September 1944), Col. Oness H. Dixon (April 1944through August 1945), and Col. Francois H. K. Reynolds (September throughDecember 1945).
Military District ofWashington: Lt. Col. Gerald W. Holmberg (December 1942 through 1945).
NorthwestService Command: Maj. W. E. Bills.
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MAP 2.-Service Commands,August 1942.
functions and activities bythe respective headquarters surgeons and veterinarians because, at allechelons of Army Service Forces organization, the total subordination of medicalaffairs was under the direct control of immediate commanders. In fact, acommanding general of a service command was not authorized to have a surgeon, orany other Medical Department officer, on his immediate staff. This situationoriginated in the summer-fall of 1942 when the predecessor corps areas wereredesignated as service commands and the latter, in turn, were made directagencies of the Commanding General, Army Service Forces. However, before thistime or in the days of corps area organization, there was a Medical Departmentcontrol which in some respects was similar to that seen in the service commandorganization after November-December 1943; that is, each corps area had a corpsarea surgeon (and a corps area veterinarian as assistant to the surgeon) on thestaff of the commanding general. The difference between them and the laterservice command surgeon (and veterinarian) was that the latter supervised hiscommand`s veterinary services under the regulation of the commanding generalof the service command, whereas the corps area surgeon (and his veterinaryofficer assistant), even though he reported to the corps area commander, wascommonly referred to as an agent of The Surgeon General. The corps area`smedical affairs were regulated by technical channels of communication from theSurgeon General`s Office, but this was abruptly discontinued with the neworganization of the service commands.
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The inception of the servicecommand organization in the summer of 1942 brought with it the temporary removalof the ex-corps area surgeon from his staff officer status with respect to thecommanding general and his downgrading to the position of "chief of medicalbranch" under the directorship of the new service command headquarterssupply division (23). At the same time, the service command veterinarian becamea chief of section within the medical branch, although Headquarters, ArmyService Forces, did not provide for a veterinary section in the internalorganization of that branch. In fact, for some time, the veterinary section ofone service command headquarters operated outside the jurisdiction of themedical branch and, in another section, such a separation was discussed. As afurther indication of the irregularities brought on by the Headquarters, ArmyService Forces, plan for the new service command organization, anotherheadquarters tentatively placed its medical branch under the directorship ofpersonnel rather than under the headquarters supply division. More important,however, was the fact that there was no officially recognized service commandveterinarian and that it was not a Medical Department officer (service commandsurgeon
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and/or veterinarian) but theheadquarters director of supply who was explicitly assigned the stafffunctions for supervising the service command`s veterinary services, includingthose at the camp or post level.
At first, Headquarters, ArmyService Forces, provided for these service command headquarters directors ofsupply to supervise also the veterinary inspection services at market centers,plants, and depots in connection with procurement of meat and food supplies.This obviously was an error as it tended to completely separate certain foodprocurement inspection responsibility from The Quartermaster General since allother procurements by him and by the other chiefs of technical supply serviceswere inspected under their supervision or other regulatory control and not byany service command headquarters. In any event, this was soon corrected-aswere other mistakes-by Headquarters, Army Service Forces. Thus, in December1942, a revised manual on the organization of its service commands changed thesupervisory activity so that the director of supply in each headquarters was tosupervise the veterinary inspection service incident to the service commandprocurement of meat and food supplies, and, as requested by The QuartermasterGeneral, they were to assist also in inspections incident to other procurementof meat and food supplies. Actually, by this time, The Quartermaster General,through his developing centralized depot procurement system for nonperishablesubsistence and the new Quartermaster market center system, was procuringmost of the supplies needed by the Army.
Along with this delegationof staff controls over veterinary food inspection activities to theheadquarters` directors of supply, the service command veterinarians also losttheir staff controls both over veterinary personnel assignment in the servicecommands and over their training to the new service command headquarters`directors of personnel and directors of training, respectively. In otherwords, veterinary affairs became a complicated, trifurcated staff problem inthe service command headquarters. Actually, the Army Veterinary Service was notthe only service affected by the service command organization of 1942 becausethe same losses of staff representation and their divisions in managementcontrol were equally experienced by all technical services. It may be noted,however, that, in at least one service command headquarters, the chief of theveterinary section was subdelegated certain responsibilities to take staffaction as an assistant to the local director of supply.
In November-December 1943,after a year and a half of this non-Medical Department headquarters supervisionof the Army Veterinary Service within the service commands, Headquarters, ArmyService Forces, set up its own organizational chart as a pattern forreorganizing the various service command headquarters. At the same time, thechiefs of the headquarters` medical branches were reinstated as servicecommand surgeons, who as chief representatives of the Medical Department weredesignated to act as staff officers and advisers to the commanding generals oftheir service commands.
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CHART 2.-Functionalorganization of the office of the service command surgeon, winter 1943-44
In other words, the servicecommand surgeons replaced the headquarters` directors of supply divisions as theresponsible supervisors and technical advisors to the commanding generals onMedical Department activities within the service commands. Following a patternof organization suggested by the Surgeon General`s Office, each surgeon`s officewas then reorganized to include a veterinary division headed by the servicecommand veterinarian (chart 2).
There was no uniformity ofinternal organization among the veterinary divisions of service commandheadquarters. Usually they comprised the office of service command veterinarian,one to three veterinary officers as assistants, occasionally, a MedicalAdministrative Corps officer and civilian clerical employees. In the SeventhService Command, this divisional organization was subdivided into threebranches, each with two to four sections: Administration branch, foodinspection and milk sanitation branch, and animal service branch. There werefour subsections in the Ninth Service Command headquarters veterinary division:Control (or personnel), professional service, inspection service, and animalservice. In other service commands, such as the First, Second, and Eighth, thedivisions also included the central offices for service command veterinary unitsor detachments as were com-
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manded by the servicecommand veterinarians. Throughout the war period, the service commandveterinarians frequently promulgated letters of instruction or technicaldirectives relating to veterinary matters that were distributed throughcommand channels to the service command veterinary detachments and personnel;in fact, information received from the Surgeon General`s Office, either byofficial correspondence or informally, was coordinated into the service commandheadquarters procedures and disseminated in this manner by the service commandveterinarians.
After November-December1943, there was little further change in the wartime service commandorganization relating to the Army Veterinary Service. Then, with thereorganization of the War Department and abolishment of Headquarters, ArmyService Forces, that took place, effective on 11 June 1946, the nine servicecommands were discontinued (24). By substituting six army areas for theservice commands, the number of service command veterinarians was reduced to sixand their names changed to army area veterinarians. The latter were continued inthe offices of the new army area surgeons who then, with regard to medicalmatters, received orders and instructions from the War Department General Staff.They were responsible for the areas` veterinary service except "veterinaryservices at Quartermaster and general depots charged with supply of foodproducts and veterinary food inspection within the metropolitan areas in whichsuch depots are located" and the "veterinary service at Quartermasterremount depots and remount area headquarters."
Station Veterinary Service
The Army Veterinary Servicebelow the level of service command veterinarians included a varying number ofso-called station veterinary detachments, each commanded by the seniorVeterinary Corps officer assigned and present for duty. He conducted the stationveterinary service under the general supervision of the post, camp, or stationsurgeon assigned to the class I (or service command-controlled) installation orto the camp or class II installation where Army Ground Forces troops werehoused. The Army Veterinary Service with service commands also included theveterinary sections of service command medical laboratories and so-called areaor district veterinary detachments. The latter comprised a new type oforganization in the service commands and gradually came into existence asactions by Headquarters, Army Service Forces, and service command headquartersin regard to command and personnel controls virtually destroyed many stationveterinary detachments. The numbers of Army Service Forces veterinarypersonnelin the service commands at one time, in December 1944, approximated 650officers. In the Fourth Service Command, the veterinary officer and enlistedpersonnel strengths reached wartime peaks of 101 and 306, respectively, by theend of 1943; in the Sixth Service Command, these numbered 99 officers and 213enlisted personnel as of V-J Day. As of the end of 1944,
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both the Second and theSeventh Service Commands veterinary personnel strengths approximated 80 officersand 240 enlisted personnel, each, but the Seventh`s continued to increase to 96veterinary officers and to 260 men by mid-August 1945.
These numbers of personnelwere commented upon by the respective command veterinarians as being eitheradequate or too low for the successful accomplishment of the veterinary mission.Thus, in the Third Service Command-
Even while at its peak theforce was not adequate for the work required. A surplus of inspectors neverexisted; on the contrary the available force was usually spread so thin that thequality of the inspection service suffered thereby. Excepting sometimes in thecase of officers, it was not a problem of being unable to obtain authorization,but rather a problem of obtaining the actual personnel, trained or untrained,from any source. This condition became more critical as the war progressed andphysically qualified Veterinary Service Trained enlisted men were withdrawnfrom our service for assignment to combat units.
This loss of personnel fornonveterinary utilization in the Army Ground Forces comprised a complaint moreserious than that which was made by the service command veterinarians earlierwhen their personnel were being withdrawn for assignment to new stations orthe Army Air Forces in the expansion period or for oversea assignment.Needless to say, the losses were tentatively identified with requisition demandsfor correspondingly larger numbers of limited service and untrained personnel.In the Sixth Service Command-
The numbers of veterinarypersonnel available were considered to be no more than adequate at any time, andwere occasionally insufficient for the rising scale of wartime duties. * * * Itwas very difficult at many times during the war period to obtain sufficientveterinary personnel in the Command for accomplishment of inspectionresponsibilities. The necessary T/O increases and personnel authorizations couldbe obtained without undue difficulty, but the problem was in filling personnelrequisitions in time for the recurrent workload increases. A complicating factorwas that veterinary replacement personnel had to be technically qualified,dependable and with initiative, to be of value for the individual type of dutiesperformed. The problem was solved each year by various means, but grave doubtsometimes existed as to whether food inspection requirements could be satisfied.
Another service commandveterinarian believed that the personnel shortages were caused by overallheadquarters planning which did not project for more than day-to-day operationsof the veterinary service and that the additionally required personnel oftenbecame available long after the given situation was met by a localreorganization or had long since ceased to exist. In only one service commandwas the veterinary personnel strength regarded as being so critical that itcould not be satisfied, at least temporarily, by readjustments in the deploymentof available personnel.
With few exceptions, theveterinary personnel in the service commands were male officers and enlistedmen. The Third and Seventh Service Commands, however, each eventually gainedone or two assigned Women`s Army
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Corps officers who weregraduate veterinarians and a varying number of enlisted female personnel.Civilian employees were used for clerical purposes in many veterinary officesand as animal caretakers in medical laboratories; the trend toward thesubstitution of military personnel by civilian employees in veterinaryinspection work was enforced upon detachments in three service commands.Actually, qualified or experienced civilian meat inspectors were unavailable,but those who were available could not be utilized under any or all conditionsfor the irregular and long periods of inspection work normally required of theveterinary enlisted personnel. In the First Service Command, 2 civilian meatinspectors were employed (as of October 1945); in the Third Service Commandthere were 17 but, as of the end of 1945, only 7 remained.
A varying percentage of thepersonnel assigned to the service commands were trained in Medical Departmentschools and courses for officers and in replacement training centers and MedicalDepartment enlisted technicians schools for enlisted personnel. Nearly allservice command veterinarians experienced difficulties in the acute lack of anyadditional personnel to replace those who were temporarily released from theirduty assignments for such school training, but at the same time there was everyreason for properly training them before their selection for oversea deploymentsometime in the future. After September 1943, the service command headquarters,rather than the Surgeon General`s Office or War Department, ordered veterinaryofficers into school training. This school training was implemented by on-the?jobtraining of the personnel at their assigned stations, particularly on thosesubjects which better qualified them in carrying out the mission of the localstation veterinary detachments. Usually no formal schedule for such on-the?jobtraining was prescribed by the service command headquarters, and pertinentdirectives and publications of a technical nature which were promulgated bythe Surgeon General`s Office and service command veterinarians most frequentlybecame the source material for conducting this on-the-job training in thestation detachments. The equipment and supply for station veterinary detachmentsamong the various service commands were readily obtained and were generallyadequate. In at least one service command (the First), however, difficulty wasexperienced in obtaining suitable clothing for veterinary personnel on duty incold storage warehouses, and, in others, some shortages in the supply of meatand dairy hygiene inspection equipment, especially thermometers, existed duringthe early part of the war period.
Station veterinary serviceswere the basic activities of the Army Veterinary Service with service commandsin the Zone of Interior, and station veterinary detachments comprised its basicfunctional organization. These station veterinary services were comparable tothe routine, housekeeping-like meat and dairy hygiene and veterinary animalservices which were conducted by those detachments assigned to depots and ports,as previously described, and those assigned to bases and airfields which werecontrolled by the Army Air Forces. These routine services were provided by theArmy Service
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Forces service commanddetachments at such installations as replacement training centers, recreationaland personnel redistribution centers, convalescent camps and generalhospitals, arsenals and motor depots, internment camps, and prisoner-of-warcamps, and at the camps where Army Ground Forces units were being trained andprepared for oversea deployment.
Each station veterinarydetachment included all officers and enlisted personnel who were assigned forveterinary service at the station and was administered and commanded by thesenior veterinary officer, the latter being designated the station veterinarian.The detachment`s personnel strength was to be determined by the number ofanimals at the station, whether a station veterinary hospital was operated, andby the extent of the local meat and dairy hygiene inspections. Control over thediscipline, training, equipping, and assigning to duty of the detachmentpersonnel were responsibilities vested in the station veterinarian in hiscapacity as commanding officer; the station veterinarian also was responsiblefor the conduct of the local veterinary services and activities, but in thishe was supervised by the station surgeon. In fact, so far as staff relationswere concerned, the station veterinarian was an assistant to the surgeon whoin turn was the representative for the Medical Department on the staff of thecommanding officer of the station concerned. Sometimes, by local arrangement,the station veterinarian was directly named to the staff of the stationcommander, but this was the exception in common station organization.
Unfortunately, theregulatory provisions for station veterinary functional organization werechanged by Headquarters, Army Service Forces, which through a series of staffactions virtually destroyed station veterinary detachments. For example, allstation Medical Department functions were fully subordinated to local commanderswithout channels of communications for referring professional or technicalmatters to senior Medical Department officers who now had been removed fromtheir staff officer capacity in all service command headquarters, as previouslynoted. In another, but less successful, staff action, Headquarters, Army ServiceForces, attempted a station reorganization which would have placed all MedicalDepartment activities under the supervision of station supply officers andresponsibility for duty assignments of Medical Department personnel under thelocal station personnel officers-a situation which paralleled the servicecommand headquarters organization of 1942-43. Of course, the latterreorganization plan was not forcibly effected, and, throughout the war period,the station surgeons continued to represent Medical Department affairs directto their station commanders. However, the latter were guided in their commandresponsibility over the local station veterinary services by the director ofsupply of the immediate service command headquarters or by that headquarters`personnel division, until November-December 1943, when service command surgeons(and veterinarians) regained their staff officer status.
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In another staff action, inmid-1943, Headquarters, Army Service Forces, changed the procedures which werebeing used by the service commands in allocating space authorizations forpersonnel at the stations. Thus, the service command headquarters were authorized to consolidate the existentpersonnelspace authorizations for medical, dental, veterinary, and all other stationservice complements into a single bulk allotment for the station concerned;furthermore, the authorizations for veterinary personnel were "bulked"with the total Medical Department personnel authorizations. Now, stationveterinarydetachments were discontinued and merged with the station medical detachment,and veterinary personnel lost their identity. Between the station commander andthe station surgeon, who now assumed command over the veterinary detachments,trained veterinary enlisted personnel were transferred, utilized innonveterinary duties, particularly in the station hospitals, and often hadlittle chance of promotion. This had a very deterrent effect on morale andefficiency of station veterinary detachments, and equally important was thefact that service command veterinarians lost all accounting of the availabilityand capabilities of each station detachment to participate in the ArmyVeterinary Service functions of the concerned service commands as a whole (25through 30). By the end of 1944, this situation had become progressively worseas more and more physically qualified personnel were withdrawn for overseadeployment, and the stations, encountering shortages in numbers of personnel,restricted their personnel to carrying out only the station`s immediate missionsand functions. Veterinary detachments which were conducting off-station foodinspection services in commercial food establishments were cut back by localauthority. Not the least concerned in this last action were the service commandheadquarters control divisions.
Although it would seem thatthe status of the Army Veterinary Service at the station level was markedlyreduced, there were saving provisions for its continuance and for centralizedsupervision by the service command veterinarian on a command-wide basis. Onesuch provision was that veterinary personnel were designated in a criticaloccupational specialty for which trained replacements had to be available beforethey could be transferred from their assigned stations. Another was, aspreviously noted, the independent actions on the part of one or more servicecommand headquarters to continue the service command veterinarian as a staffofficer to supervise the veterinary activities and personnel in the command,even though Headquarters, Army Service Forces, had specifically advisedagainst such functional organization in the service commands. Also, in manyservice commands, with the assistance of the headquarters control divisionswhich earlier had been active in reducing station veterinary detachments,separate veterinary detachments were organized to conduct all off-stationveterinary services within a specified geographic area. This latter development,which gave origin to area or district veterinary detachments, together with theservice
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command headquartersreorganization of November-December 1943 which reinstated the service commandveterinarians, actually accounted for continued effectiveness and efficiencyof the Army Veterinary Service with the service commands, though stationveterinary detachments were now virtually ineffective. The status anddevelopments among the various service commands regarding station veterinaryservice are described in later paragraphs. The developments were contingent onthe gradual restriction of station veterinary detachments to duty on the postor camp proper and the emergence of new area or district detachments which tookover all off-station duties, particularly the inspections of meat and dairyproducts at contractors` plants, commercial warehouses, and shipping points inspecified areas.
In the First ServiceCommand, station veterinary service was conducted at a dozen or more class I andclass II installations, including that at two distributions centers (atHartford, Conn., or the Willimantic Distribution Center, and at Medford, Mass.).Beginning in 1943, these station veterinary detachments were reduced in theirpersonnel strengths, and their off-station activities at commercial foodestablishments which were supplying the Armed Forces were transferred to theinspection responsibility of a single service command veterinary unit; namely,Service Command Unit 1100 (or Service Command Unit 1135) as it was called beforeits redesignation, in February 1945, First Service Command Veterinary Service atLarge. It was organized during November 1942, first with veterinary officersand, after May 1943, also with veterinary enlisted personnel-the latter beingformerly assigned to a general dispensary organization. Under the command of the service command veterinarian, Service CommandUnit 1100, First Service Command Veterinary Service at Large, reached a peakstrength of 17 officers and 39 enlisted personnel and 2 civilian inspectoremployees. Their activities approximated two-thirds of the total quantities offoods inspected in the service command during the first 6 months of 1945. Thisunit`s inspections in Boston were assumed by the Boston Quartermaster Depot inthe fall of 1943, but, by the end of 1944, it had taken over inspectionresponsibilities in most areas previously serviced by station and airbaseveterinary detachments and in parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts that oncewere serviced by veterinary personnel assigned to the two distribution centers.At various times, suboffices or substations of the unit were established, suchas at Hartford and New Haven in Connecticut; Gloucester, New Bedford,Springfield, and Worcester in Massachusetts; Manchester in New Hampshire, andat Portland, Maine.
In the Second ServiceCommand, station veterinary detachments were kept intact for the greater part ofthe war period. Some few stations were expanded to satisfy the veterinary foodinspection needs at procurement and storage points in towns and cities nearthem, such as Fort Totten, N.Y., whose veterinary detachment inspected in thePoughkeepsie-Kingston-Chester area, and as Pine Camp, N.Y., whose detachmentinspected in the nearby
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cheese centers. Later,however, the origin inspections of foods in areas outside of routine travelingdistance from the stations were conducted by newly organized districtdetachments. Thus, the inspection services, which were begun in Newark, N.J. (atan issue commissary installation, in May 1943), in Syracuse, N.Y. (in March1944), and in Buffalo, N.Y. (in 1941), were later reorganized as veterinarydetachments of districts 1, 3, and 4, respectively, and assumed the inspectionresponsibility for origin inspections of foods over relatively large areas.Then, on 4 June 1945, all station and other veterinary detachments lost theirarea inspection responsibilities to the 1217th Service Command Unit, VeterinaryInspection Unit, which was then created with 28 officers and 100 enlistedpersonnel under the command of the service command veterinarian. This lastaction with respect to the removal of area food inspection responsibility fromstation veterinary detachments in the Second Service Command essentiallyparalleled that of the First Service Command; the same occurred, as will beobserved, in varying degrees in many other service commands (except in theThird, Fourth, and Fifth).
In the Third ServiceCommand, veterinary services were expanded from four permanent posts as of thestart of the emergency periods to as many as 24 class I and class IIinstallations during the war period. As of V-J Day, veterinary officers of thecommand were assigned to 17 installations, rendering service to 5 others on anattending basis and supervising origin food inspections at a multitude of placesaway from their assigned stations. Thus, the end of war saw inspectionresponsibilities in food establishments, commercial warehouses, and shippingpoints assigned to many station veterinary detachments-there being no tendencyto transfer these responsibilities into a single detachment such as had occurredin the First and Second Service Commands. In fact, at this time, eight or nine such detachmentswere rendering inspection services at more than 20 towns and cities in thevicinity of their respective stations. However, there was one service commandunit, the 1300th Service Command Unit, with station in Baltimore, Md., a parentunit of which had been organized before 1939, and the detachments of threerailheadfacilities, which were organized in the spring-summer of 1942, at Philadelphiaand Pittsburgh, Pa., and Richmond, Va., that conducted origin inspections moreor less on an area basis; as of mid-1945, these four detachments wereinspecting in approximately 50 towns and cities and were doing more than 95percent of the total food inspections in contractors` plants in the servicecommand, equaling 100 million pounds of meat and dairy products each month.
In the Fourth ServiceCommand, the number of station veterinary detachments increased from 25 duringthe prewar emergency periods to more than 40 before the end of hostilities. Asin the Third Service Command, there was no trend toward the centralization ofoff-station activities into one or more service command or district detachments.Throughout the war period, nearly all of the veterinary detachments maintainedinspection respon-
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sibility for the foods whichwere processed, stored, or otherwise handled in their localities. As of V-J Day,19 veterinary station detachments were providing 35 officers and 57 enlistedpersonnel on detached service in 25 towns and cities. Similarly, there was nomajor centralization of origin inspections in the Fifth Service Command, wherethe increased veterinary food inspec?tion activities at contractors` plants,commercial storage warehouses, and shipping points were satisfied by theenlargement of certain station detachments (such as at Camp Breckinridge, Ky.; Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind.; Camp Perry, Ohio; and Fort Thomas, Ky., orlater, at Fort Hayes, Ohio). These located their personnel in about 15 largetowns and cities on full-duty status.
In the Sixth ServiceCommand, station veterinary detachments were at first fully developed. Many,such as those at Forts Brady, Custer, and Wayne and Camp McCoy in Michigan andFort Sheridan and Camps Ellis and Grant in Illinois, assumed inspectionresponsibilities on the perishable meat and dairy products which were procuredin their respective areas. Then, during September 1943, the off-station dutiesof many of the detachments were wholly or partially transferred from them to thejurisdiction of three newly organized veterinary food inspection servicesections, each being assigned to a district subcommand headquarters: Detroit,Mich. (or district 1), Milwaukee, Wis. (or district 2), and Chicago, Ill. (ordistrict 3). These sections, later designated and reorganized as the 1697th,1698th, and 1699th Service Command Units, Veterinary Food Inspection Service,respectively, established area offices in 14 towns and cities from whichveterinary personnel were detailed to inspection duties in contractors`plants, commercial warehouses, and shipping points. The area offices wereestablished in the Michigan district at Alma, Detroit, and Grand Rapids; in theWisconsin district, at Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison, Marshfield, Menomonie,Milwaukee, and Plymouth; and in the Illinois district, at East St. Louis,Freesport, and Hoopeston, and also at Gary, Ind. As of December 1943, the threedistrict detachments, as well as a few station veterinary detachments ofstations, airbases, and other installations (which continued off-stationactivities until September of the next year), were inspecting the output frommore than 200 contractors of meat, poultry, eggs, butter, cheese, fish, powderedmilk, evaporated and other milk products for the Armed Forces. The SixthService Command district organization was as extreme in the reduction of stationveterinary activities as were the First and Second Service Commands, but thelatter had centralized their off-station activities in single service commandunits, whereas the former decentralized these among three district veterinaryfood inspection organizations. However, soon after the cessation of activehostilities, the district commands were discontinued so that, by November 1945,the district veterinary organizations were also inactivated and their personnel,without change of place of duty assignments and their areas of inspectionresponsibility, were transferred to the newly reorganized 1699th
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Service Command Unit-Veterinary Food Inspection Service, with central office location inChicago. In other words, the last reorganization resulted in a formation of adetachment that was no different than Service Command Unit 1100, First ServiceCommand Veterinary Service at Large, or the Second Service Command`s 1217thService Command Unit, Veterinary Inspection Unit.
The Seventh Service Commandstation veterinary detachments were numerically increased from 8 in 1940 to 12as of August 1945, but this last number does not include general hospitalinstallations and prisoner-of-war camps to which veterinary personnel wereassigned or had only veterinary enlisted personnel. Most of the stationveterinary detachments eventually were limited to the conduct of on-stationduties, such as occurred in the Sixth Service Command, and to all off-stationactivities that were being centralized under control of three or four stationveterinary detachments in one or more States. However, these veterinarydetachments were not assigned by district commands; instead, as in the FifthService Command, certain station detachments were specially developed and givenarea-wide responsibilities. Thus, the Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment,1745th Service Command Unit, Fort Omaha, Nebr., performed inspections throughoutColorado, Kansas, Missouri, and eastern Nebraska, as well as in the cities ofSioux City, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, S. Dak.; the Medical Department Detachment(Veterinary Service) of the Station Complement, 1775th Service Command Unit,at Fort Snelling, Minn., operated in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota;and the Veterinary Section of the Headquarters Detachment, Station Complement,1798th Service Command Unit, at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, inspected in Iowa. Afourth veterinary food inspection detachment with station at Fort Warren,Wyo., assumed control over origin inspections in western Nebraska and Wyoming.
The Eighth Service Commandeffected no great change in the status of its station veterinary detachmentsand, in fact, continued to enlarge them in order to perform off-station servicesin their immediate areas. One service command veterinary unit, the 1875th Field Service Unit, wasestablished, however, as a part of the service command headquarters, but it waslimited to the conduct of food inspection services at procurement areas whichwere too far distant from the existing detachments.
In the Ninth ServiceCommand, as of October 1944, veterinary personnel were assigned to 30 servicecommand installations including 17 camps, 7 general and convalescenthospitals, 2 prisoner-of-war camps, a redistribution center, and 3 servicecommand veterinary units. For the most part, the station veterinary detachmentswere kept intact or were enlarged in order to conduct off-station foodinspections in their immediate areas; in fact, a few of them at one time werereferred to as area veterinary detachments. However, only four true areadetachments were ordered into organization as autonomous units with assignmentto the cities of Los Angeles, Calif. (in
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1939), Phoenix, Ariz. (inMarch 1941), Salt Lake City (in July 1941), and Spokane, Wash. (in November1941). While each assumed inspection responsibility in contractors` plants,commercial warehouses, and shipping points in its respective city, the areadetachments also established subsistence inspection services in a large numberof towns and cities such as were not adjacent to stations and airbases in theservice command. These area detachments of the Ninth Service Command were notlimited in their activities as were the service command, district, and area foodinspection detachments of other service commands, because they also performed avariety of duties including veterinary animal service to installations andfacilities in their areas. Beyond these area detachments there was no tendencyto centralize food procurement inspection activities.
These area, district, andsingle service command veterinary detachments seemed to satisfy the needs of theconcerned service command veterinarians. Their advantages were thatadministration was simplified in regard to training, selecting, and speciallyinstructing the personnel who were permanently assigned to off-station duty,that morale and efficiency was maintained by proper promotion and by nonuse inother than the duties for which they had been trained, and that technicalmatters relating to the administration of Quartermaster contracts forsubsistence were readily coordinated and made uniform throughout the servicecommand area.
There were a number ofservice command controlled installations, other than Army camps, which wereprovided with meat and dairy hygiene and veterinary animal services. Included inthis group were the named general hospitals, regional hospitals, convalescenthospitals, and hospital centers. A number of these were serviced by the localstation veterinary detachment just as were other facilities located at thatcamp. Where a hospital was a completely separate installation, such as a generalhospital, its veterinary service was provided either on an attending basis by anexisting detachment from a nearby camp or by veterinary personnel assigned toit. By the end of the war, approximately one-half of these hospitalinstallations had their own organically assigned veterinary detachments orpersonnel.
At these hospitalinstallations, the veterinary detachments inspected the food supplies which werereceived for use in the hospitals and, in particular, surveyed the local dairyindustries that were supplying fresh milk. Later, with the increased emphasis onprograms for the rehabilitation and recreation of convalescents, Army horseswere issued to many hospitals, and these veterinary detachments also providedveterinary animal services-in severalinstances, actually managing orsupervising the hospital stables. A few hospitals also operated vegetablegardens, and at least one (Stark General Hospital) also established a poultryfarm which came under the management of the hospital veterinarian. Elsewhere,these veterinary detachments managed the local laboratory animal colonies forhospital clinicodiagnostic laboratories and inspected the messhalls and thekitchen compartments on hospital
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railroad cars. Aside fromthe purely, on-station veterinary activities, the hospital veterinarydetachments were often designated by service command veterinarians to assumeinspectional responsibilities in nearby cities and towns in the same manner thatother class I station detachments assigned such responsibilities. This wasparticularly true in the Third, Fourth, Eighth, and Ninth Service Commands; infact, in the Ninth, the Barnes General Hospital veterinary detachment purposelyreached a strength of 8 officers, 26 enlisted personnel, and 4 clericalemployees (as of the fall of 1944). It is a matter of record that, until 1945,veterinary personnel were excluded from tables for the organization of generalor other so-called fixed hospitals in the Zone of Interior; in the summer andfall of that year, presumably reflecting on the studies of hospital organizationthat were made during the earlier war years, Headquarters, Army Service Forces,and the War Department in manuals and other directives concerning hospitalorganization provided for a Veterinary Corps officer on the administrativestaff of the commanders of named general hospital centers when operating asindependent installations.
In the category ofspecialized service command-controlled installations, there were also the ArmyGround and Service Forces distribution stations where soldiers were providedrecreational leave pending their reassignment or redeployment overseas for asecond time. Then also, there were the War Relocation Authority camps forinterned Japanese, the many prisoner-of-war camps, and a few Army disciplinarybarracks. Infrequently, these camps had mounted horse patrols, Army guard dogdetachments, and sometimes their own vegetable gardens or hog farms. Usually,such installations were provided veterinary food inspection and animal serviceson part-time basis by Veterinary Corps officers designated as attendingveterinarians from nearby Army camps.
Veterinary Animal Service
Of the three majoractivities of the Army Veterinary Service in the service commands-veterinaryanimal service, military meat and dairy hygiene service, and veterinarylaboratory service and research-the second was by far the most extensive, and ittogether with the last-named activity was the most important during World WarII. Veterinary animal service at station level in the service commands, thoughgenerally greater than in the peacetime years immediately preceding the warperiod, reached a maximum in 1940-42, and after that time progressivelydecreased (fig. 16). There were no auxiliary remount depots in the stations orcamps such as had developed in World War I; now, motor pools provided the camptransportation facilities, and ground combat units were, with few exceptions,motorized and mechanized. By the end of the war, only Fort Riley, Kans., andCamp Carson, Colo., which were Army Ground Forces centers for training Cavalryand Mountain Warfare units, had any great numbers of animals; elsewhere, onlysmall groups of horses and mules were being utilized such as at the
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FIGURE 16.-Post stables,Fort Douglas, Utah.
Army Service Forcesinstallations concerned with hospital patient convalescence, rehabilitationand recreational projects, in rest camps, sometimes for drayage to conservemotor gasoline, and in ordnance depots and prisoner-of?war camps for guardpatrol purposes. Many of the animals at the stations, as they became surplus tomilitary needs during the war, were sold at public auction by U.S. TreasuryDepartment officials; others were returned to the Quartermaster remount depots.
Station veterinarydetachments experienced no major problems in the care of Army horses and mules.Stabling was generally adequate at the larger, permanent installations;elsewhere, temporary or makeshift facilities were provided, but generally eventhese proved to be adequate. Almost the same situation existed in regard tostation veterinary hospitals. Feeds and forage for the animals were generallyobtained through regular quartermaster channels of supply, these productsbeing inspected by Veterinary Corps officers at the time of their procurement.The quantities of grains and hay inspected varied among the service commands andgradually decreased, along with the reduction in animal strength, as the warprogressed. Diseases occurring more frequently in the camp animals includedequine influenza and the related shipping-fever types of diseases, and ringworm.Both became commonplace, during the early war years, when the Army was handlinglarge numbers of newly procured remounts and before an energetic
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program was undertaken fordipping animals before their issue from Quartermaster remount depots. Also, avesicular stomatitis enzootic was experienced at stations and maneuver areasin southwestern United States in 1941 and 1942. Periodic mallein testing forglanders and the annual programs of immunization against equineencephalomyelitis and tetanus proved to be completely successful. Animals usedin civilian educational institutions having Reserve Officers` Training Corpsunits also were attended by veterinary officers.
Station veterinary servicewith animals usually meant the professional care and management only of Armyhorses and mules, but, during World War II, for the first time, the Army dog andsignal pigeon were added to the general definition of Army animals such as wouldbe routinely cared for by the Army Veterinary Service. This station service withArmy dogs paralleled that, with horses and mules; including the conduct ofquarantines, physical examinations; immunization programs to prevent or controlinfectious diseases (such as canine distemper, rabies, leptospirosis, caninedirofilariasis); veterinary sanitation and hygiene; and the care, treatment,and hospitalization of the sick and injured dogs. For the most part, veterinaryhospital facilities and supplies, already available at many stations and beingused in connection with Army horses and mules, were modified as required;elsewhere, small veterinary hospitals with kennels were constructed orimprovised.In some service commands, the Army dog population among the stations totaled asmany as 260 to 600 (in the Second and the First Service Commands, respectively),but others had considerably smaller numbers; only a few of these dogs died orwere destroyed on account of disease or injury while assigned to the stations.In regard to veterinary service with signal pigeons, one large loft withapproximately 3,000 birds was located at Fort Benning, Ga. (in the FourthService Command). Of course, there was also the Signal Corps pigeon breeding andtraining center at Fort Monmouth, N.J. (in the Second Service Command), laterremoved to Camp Crowder, Mo. (in the Seventh Service Command), where VeterinaryCorps officers were assigned. In the First and Sixth Service Commands, pigeonswere located at a number of airbases and fields. However, by the end of 1944,many Army animals-horses, mules, dogs, andpigeons-had been disposed of byreturn to depots and centers, so that the end of the war found veterinary,service with animals at station levels in the service commands to have virtuallydisappeared.
The Army Veterinary Servicewith the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Eighth, and Ninth Service Commandsprovided professional care and treatment to approximately 1,500 horses which,pursuant to the agreement reached during September 1942 between the Secretary ofWar and the Secretary of the Navy, were loaned by the Army to mount U.S. CoastGuard beach patrols (31, 32, 33). Sometimes, Veterinary Corps officers wereassigned full-time duty to the concerned Navy district headquarters but, inother
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service commands, the CoastGuard patrol station commanders utilized the services of nearby stationveterinarians. The animals of Coast Guard dog patrols also were cared for by theArmy Veterinary Service; however, dogs were not a part of the interserviceagreement, so that the required veterinary supplies were obtained, not throughArmy Medical Department supply channels, but by requisition on the U.S. CoastGuard. The station veterinarian, Fort Belvoir, Va., in the Military Districtof Washington, pursuant to periodically renewed agreements, since 1929, betweenthe Secretaries of War and Navy, continued during the war to attend the animalswhich were maintained by the U.S. Marine Corps at Quantico, Va.; afterSeptember 1944, the horses belonging to the U.S. Marine Corps at Camp Crane,Ind., also came under the supervision of a Veterinary Corps officer. Another,but unofficial, veterinary animal services activity was the professional careand treatment of dogs, cats, and other pet animals belonging to militaryorganizationsor privately owned by military personnel. For the most part, this professionalactivity in Army camps was kept minimal, consistent with the requirements ofconcerned station commanders and the capabilities of station veterinarians toconduct it with the personnel already available; that is, no veterinary officerswere specifically assigned to stations for full-time, official duty to conduct aveterinary practice on nonmilitary animals. In regard to these animals, however,station veterinarians, under supervision of the station surgeons, inauguratedprograms for immunizing dogs and other pet animals against rabies and cooperatedwith local provost marshals in freeing Army camps of stray animals.
Veterinary Food InspectionService
The veterinary meat anddairy hygiene services among the service commands were quite variable. Someservices were concerned largely with food procurement inspections (such as theSixth and Seventh), others with the surveillance inspections of products whichwere being moved to the ports of embarkation for oversea shipment (such as theFirst and Second), while others were areas for the concentration of troops intraining and thus were consumer areas (such as the Fourth and Eighth).
At the start of theemergency periods, all station veterinary detachments were concerned with theinspections of meat and dairy products which were procured, received, and issuedby the local Quartermaster officers. Occasionally, off-station veterinaryinspections were made of fresh meat and some chicken or turkey, and, at leastonce each month, the veterinary officers inspected the local dairies and icecream plants which were supplying the camps. Even less frequently-but after manyendorsements on a basic communication (that is, "redtape")-so-calledcourtesy inspections were conducted by a few station veterinary detachments incontractors` plants of the meat and dairy products which were being processedfor delivery to one or more far-distant camps, to a maneuver area, or to anoversea department.
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Later, during the emergencyperiods, the veterinary meat and dairy hygiene inspection services at stationlevels were reorganized, and station veterinary detachments, which up to thistime had so infrequently conducted courtesy inspections of products for deliveryto far-distant points, were then requested by Army purchasing officers toperform inspections at commercial food establishments in nearby cities and townsalmost continuously. This changeover took place concurrent with thecentralization of procurement of nonperishable subsistence in severalQuartermaster depots and with the establishment of the Quartermaster marketcenter system of perishable subsistence supply. These new Quartermasterprocedures for subsistence supply also saw the lessened activity of localQuartermaster or supply officers in procuring foods for Army camps because thelatter were supplied from depots or Quartermaster market center distributionpoints. The station veterinary detachments, although continuing to performsurveillance or sanitary inspections of the foods received and used within theircamps, soon found that the major part of their workload was not in the camps butoff of the station or in an adjacent city or town. There, among other militaryactivities, they conducted inspections on meat and dairy products duringmanufacturein commercial food establishments to determine compliance of the products withthe sanitary or grade qualities, such as were specified in Army contractualdocuments, and conducted surveillance inspections of foods received, stored,transshipped, or otherwise handled at commercial cold storage plants,warehouses, and shipping points.
In connection with theseoff-station veterinary meat and dairy hygiene services by the station veterinarydetachments, it may be noted that, in the early months of 1941, the Secretary ofWar authorized procuring depots to call on service commands (then designatedcorps areas) to issue temporary duty travel orders for their station veterinarydetachments to inspect nonperishable products in contractors` establishments.Later, on 17 October 1941, a similar authorization was set up with regard to theinspection of perishable foods being procured by Quartermaster market centers.As the war progressed, the depot and market center demands on station veterinarydetachments soon became overwhelmingly large; in fact, service commandveterinarians, in order to relieve their workloads, frequently called on theArmy Air Forces veterinary detachments to perform the required inspections,particularly, if the latter were located near a procurement point.Unfortunately,the service command-controlled veterinary inspections extended into geographicareas where depot veterinary detachments also were conducting origin inspectionsbecause the latter were granted inspection responsibilities over both perishableand nonperishable subsistence procurements in nearby cities and towns that werenot unlike those assigned to the service commands. This situation became acutein a few of the larger metropolitan areas contiguous to Quartermaster depotsand sections of Army Service Forces depots but, in some service command areas, no such overlap or duplication of effort
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occurred because theconcerned service command veterinarians either had restricted depot veterinarydetachments to on-depot activities only or had encouraged the depot veterinarydetachment to assume inspectional responsibility over a prescribed geographicarea. Thus, in the fall of 1943, Headquarters, Army Service Forces, on requestby the Surgeon General`s Office, which had investigated the developing servicecommand depot controversy in the metropolitan areas and had obtainedconcurring approval from the Office of the Quartermaster General, directed theassignment of veterinary food inspection responsibility throughout the Zone ofInterior to the service commands, with the exception of those metropolitan areasthat were contiguous to Quartermaster depots and sections of Army Service Forcesdepots where the depot veterinary detachment would conduct the inspections. Theoutcome of this directive was that some service commands gained personnel bytransfer from depots located in their areas, and, in other service commands,just the reverse occurred. Actually, many service command veterinarians were ofthe opinion that the depot-assigned veterinary detachments were conducting alarge percentage of the meat and dairy hygiene inspection workload within theirgeographic boundaries (in metropolitan areas over which they had no formaljurisdiction or technical control); in practice, the depot veterinarydetachments generally coordinated their operations with those established forand used by the service command-controlled veterinary detachments. There wasno change in this division of responsibility for meat and dairy hygieneinspection services in the service command areas for the remainder of the warperiod.
Concurrent with the origininspections of food products, sanitary inspections were conducted in the foodestablishments or contractors` plants and commercial warehouses where theseproducts were manufactured, processed, stored, and handled for Army procurementand distribution. However, abbatoirs and meat establishments which operatedunder the supervision of the Bureau of Animal Industry, U.S. Department ofAgriculture, were exempted from Army veterinary sanitary inspections, as wereany establishments that were inspected by recognized agencies which enforcedsanitary standards equal to or above those of the Army. At the beginning of thewar period, each Army veterinary detachment was conducting initial sanitaryinspections of those establishments and dairies (and then at intervals of atleast once a month) that were involved in the local meat and milk supply to thepost, camp, or station concerned. Then gradually, with the developing system ofregional and centralized procurement by market centers and depots, theseveterinary sanitary inspections at the local level were newly coordinated on aservice command-wide basis, and service command lists of approved establishmentswere promulgated. These lists were furnished to the buyers in market centersand depots as well as to the Army Exchange Service and other militaryprocurement agencies. Routinely, the latter restricted their procurements fromthe establishments named in these
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lists. Owners ofestablishments not so listed, but desirous of becoming Army approved, wererequested to submit requests for veterinary sanitary inspections direct to theprocurement agencies which, in turn, endorsed the request to the service commandheadquarters where the service command veterinarian made the necessaryarrangements for the sanitary inspection to be made by a veterinary officer atstation in the immediate locality of the establishment. The results of theinitial inspection and of subsequent monthly inspections of so-called approvedestablishments were continually summarized by the service command headquartersin officially changed lists of approved establishments.
The veterinary lists ofapproved food establishments included all processing plants, cold storagewarehouses, and commercial distribution points located in the geographic area ofthe concerned service command-naming not only those under the inspectionaljurisdiction of Army Service Forces station veterinary detachments but alsothose inspected by depot veterinary detachments and Army Air Forces baseveterinary detachments. There is no information to indicate whether a format wasprescribed during the war period for obtaining uniformity in the lasting ofapproved establishments by the nine service commands. Apparently, no uniformitywas obtained, because in the list of one service command, the establishmentswere itemized by State, together with the city or town of location and the typesof products for which approved. Another service command list contained anitemization of the food establishments according to the type of food product forwhich approved, together with the city of location and the specific veterinarydetachment (station, area, depot, or airbase) which was responsible forperforming inspections in the plant. In a manner, the lists of approvedestablishments were closely identified with lists of location of veterinaryinspection stations, and, thus, each establishment or town was assigned theinspection responsibility of a certain detachment without chance of duplicationof effort and overlapping of jurisdictional boundaries among the stations,depots, and airbases.
Aside from the inspection offoods procured and distributed to the Armed Forces, the Army Veterinary Servicein the service commands inspected for nonmilitary Federal agencies and otheragencies, when so requested and particularly when it had a bearing on thesanitary condition of foods supplied directly or indirectly to militarypersonnel. A few such agencies were the Civilian Conservation Corps, WarRelocation Authority, War Shipping Administration, Panama Railroad Company,British Ministry of War Transport, Veterans` Administration facilities, andmilitary programs for feeding civilian population in liberated and occupiedcountries.At many Army camps, pursuant to authorization by local commanders, or onrequest of camp Quartermaster officers, veterinary personnel also conductedsanitary surveillance inspections of the fruits, vegetables, and othernon-animal-origin foods that were received and issued at the camps.
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References
1. War Department CircularNo. 59, 2 Mar. 1942, subject: War Department Reorganization.
2. TM 8-285, 27 Nov. 1942.
3. TM 8-285, 15 Apr. 1944.
4. TM 3-220, 15 Nov. 1943.
5. Letter, Col. J. E. Ash,MC, Curator, Army Medical Museum, to The Surgeon General, 22 Mar. 1944,subject: Establishment of a Registry of Comparative Pathology; with 1stindorsement of reply, American Registry of Pathology, 23 Mar. 1944.
6. Letter, Dr. J. G.Hardenbergh, Executive Secretary, American Veterinary Medical Association,Chicago, Ill., to Army Medical Museum, 5 May 1944, with reply thereto, 10 May1944.
7. Surgeon General`s OfficeOrder No. 183, 4 Sept. 1944.
8. AR 40-2005, 15 Sept. 1942.
9. AR 30-440, 18 June 1942.
10. AR 40-2045, 2 Mar. 1922.
11. Memorandum, Office ofThe Quartermaster General (Brig. Gen. H. D. Munnikhuysen, QMC, Assistant TheQuartermaster General), for The Adjutant General, 6 Jan. 1941.
12. Memorandum, from Chief,Veterinary Division, for Military Personnel Division (Commissioned), SurgeonGeneral`s Office, 10 Jan. 1941.
13. Radiograms, The AdjutantGeneral, to the commanding generals and officers of New York and San FranciscoPorts of Embarkation; Chicago, Boston, Jeffersonville, and Kansas CityQuartermaster Depots, and San Antonio General Depot, 18 Jan. 1941. Amended byradiograms, 27 Jan. 1941; by radiograms, 27 Jan. 1941, to commanding officersof the Fourth Corps Area and New Orleans Quartermaster Depots; and radiogram, tocommanding officer, Charlotte Quartermaster Depot, 5 Sept. 1941.
14. Radiograms, The AdjutantGeneral, to Commanding Generals, First through Ninth Corps Areas, 18 Jan. 1941.
15. Letter, CommandingGeneral, Chicago Quartermaster Depot, Chicago, Ill., to The QuartermasterGeneral, 18 Dec. 1941, subject: Veterinary Inspection Service, with 1stindorsement thereto, to The Surgeon General, dated 22 Dec. 1941, and 2dindorsement of reply, by Col. R. A. Kelser, VC, Veterinary Division, SurgeonGeneral`s Office, 30 Dec. 1941.
16. Letter, Office of TheQuartermaster General, to depot commanders, 10 Feb. 1943, subject: CourtesyInspection of Subsistence Supplies.
17. Circular No. 63,Headquarters, Army Service Forces, 19 Aug. 1943, subject: Veterinary Inspections.
18. Dildine, S. C.: Historyof the Army Veterinary Service, Field Headquarters, Perishable Branch,Subsistence Division, Office of the Quartermaster General, Chicago, Ill., 1941.[Official record.]
19. Radiograms, The AdjutantGeneral, to Field Headquarters, Perishable Subsistence Section, Office of theQuartermaster General, Chicago, Ill., and all Quartermaster market centers, 17Oct. 1941.
20. Wardlow, C.: U.S. Armyin World War II. The Technical Services. The Transportation Corps: Movements,Training, and Supply. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1956.
21. War Department GeneralOrders No. 23, 5 May 1942.
22. AR 40-2010, 27 Nov. 1942.
23. Services of SupplyOrganization Manual, 10 Aug. 1942.
24. War Department CircularNo. 138, 14 May 1946, subject: War Department Reorganization.
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25. Derrick, J. D.:Historical Report of the Army Veterinary Service, First Service Command, ArmyService Forces, 8 September 1939 to 14 August 1945. [Official record.]
26.Curley, E. M.: Historical Report of the Army Veterinary Service, Fourth ServiceCommand, 8 September 1939 to 30 November 1945. [Official record.]
27. Greenlee, C. W.:Historical Report of the Army Veterinary Service, Fifth Service Command, 8January 1946. [Official record.]
28. Shook, L. L.: HistoricalReport of the Army Veterinary Service, Sixth Service Command, 8 September 1939to 7 December 1941. [Official record.]
29. Wight, A. C.: HistoricalReport of the Army Veterinary Service, Eighth Service Command, 19 December 1945.[Official record.]
30. Medical Department,United States Army. United States Army Dental Service in World War II.Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955.
31. Letter, Col. E. M.Daniels, QMC, Office of the Quartermaster General, for The Surgeon General, 26Sept. 1942, subject: Veterinary Service for Horses Assigned to Coast Guard forCoastal Patrol.
32. Letter, Office of theQuartermaster General, to The Surgeon General, 2 Dec. 1942, subject: VeterinaryPersonnel for Mounted Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard.
33. Finance and SupplyCircular 125-43, U.S. Coast Guard, 15 June 1943, subject: Procurement ofVeterinary Supplies for Horses and Dogs.
