Re: Truman and the Marines

[Love Shack <Home@DanSources.com>]

Thank you Ed:
Just to say a person hated something does not explain the issues.
Truman did trust the military just not many of them as they were
corrupted by the good ole boy systems.

One of the big issues surrounded Curtis Wright and the P40 during WW2.
This company barely advanced the planes performance through its history.
As compared to the Me109.

After WW2 that company was asset striped. It was the second largest company
after WW2.
The owners had NO intention of making it a world class commpany.
GM was the largest. Their intent was to grow but was also part of the asset
corruption schemes.

In fact if it were not for the British we would not have had the Mustang with
the NIH Not Invented Here mentality. It took military planners a long time
to accept this plane.  Despite our involvement in WW2 fighting it was a Choice
not
a necessity as compared to Russia, Britain or France and this reflected our
design attitudes.
That is until we really got the US manufactures to build war products for the
USA
and not Germany and Japan.

So from my understanding Truman intent to break this up because in a future war

we would have had a Military Leadership like France did before WW2.
Which had the same entrenched problems as Truman discovered.
Entrenched military getting paid under the table and no movement of fresh
military planners.

Ed Evanhoe wrote:

> Vincent,
>
>  >>At 08:44 PM 9/9/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>
> >At least his inability to dismember the U.S. Marines shows we're not
> >fascist... Hitler even had old teachers done away with or something...  I
> >guess Saddam's fair-enough game, but I don't think so since he followed
> >the U.N. reasonably enough (with U.S. backing for the U.N. that is).  What
> >about managing the situation responsibly with Korea.  Anyway, I don't
> >think I should respond to any more missives till later for now...<<
>
> I suggest you read the post by Ben Frank carefully.  He was chief historian
> for the Marine Corps until he retired three or four years ago.  IMO he
> knows more about the politics behind the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine
> fight in the 1940's than anyone else on this list.  And what he wrote about
> the infighting over funds goes along with everything I've developed over
> the years.
>
> Along this line, from what I've read from various sources Truman developed
> a great distrust of regular army officers while serving as a  National
> Guard artillery battery commander in the trenches in World War
> I.  Apparently Truman believed the "regulars" considered the National
> Guardsmen and reservists as "unreliable" fighters, thus gave them the dirty
> jobs while saving their own men. (There is considerable historical data
> pointing in this direction.)  His distaste was compounded during WWII when
> he headed a Senate committee Investigation (IIRC in 1943) into the buying
> practices of the various services.  The investigation turned up numerous
> cases of kickbacks by companies to those doing the buying.  This went up
> into the general/admiral ranks and there apparently was an organized
> attempt by some in the military to sweep this under the table.  This
> attempt included giving false statements and fake documents to the Senate
> committee.  As a result only a few senior military officers ever earned
> Truman's trust.
>
> Bottom line to this is there is always a lot more to any event/happening
> than was general public knowledge at that time it happened. Thus what
> little information there is available at the time often paints a different
> picture from what actually happened.
>
> Ed