General MOORMAN. That is right. If I may, I would like to explain, because as you look through here you will note that in all the headquarters are included the weather station. We have assigned the weather station to that headquarters, so as to eliminate the administrative work. Mr. BLANDFORD. Actually, your flight section there only consists of two officers, in other words? General MOORMAN. Yes, that is right. Mr. VAN ZANDT. General, I am thinking of Cheyenne, Wyo. You use a commercial airport there. Do you have a weather detachment? General MOORMAN. I don't believe so; no, sir. Mr. VAN ZANDT. In other words, if an Air Force man goes in there, he uses the CAA facilities? General MOORMAN. He does, but in order-under certain conditions he must clear with what is called a military flight service center. Mr. VAN ZANDT. Yes. General MOORMAN. If he is a certain type of pilot, he can clear without that. But, generally speaking, he has to call on the telephone to Denver and get a weather briefing from them and also, say, have them tell him he may clear, at what altitude, and so on. Mr. VAN ZANDT. And he also has the CAA local information available to him? General MOORMAN. Yes. But you see, they won't take the responsibility for allowing him to go, or authorizing him to go, when they shouldn't. Mr. BLANDFORD. What does a typical weather group consist of in officers and enlisted personnel? Colonel WALKER. You mean the total group, sir? Mr. BLANDFORD. The total group. Colonel WALKER. The total group is around 400 to 500 people. Mr. BLANDFORD. Four hundred to five hundred people? Colonel WALKER. Right. General MOORMAN. It depends on the number. Mr. BLANDFORD. And yet you appear to have two colonels with each group. Colonel WALKER. Yes, sir. These are authorized and not necessarily are they manned. General MOORMAN. When we set up what we call the functional organization, the organization designed to meet the specialized. requirements of Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command, and so forth, we took over the functions of the staff weather officer. During World War II, we had assigned to these units, not a part of the weather squadrons, around 800 officers. We have now taken over that function and to do that, we have incorporated an additional officer, who uses all the facilities of the group headquarters to provide the advice. Mr. BLANDFORD. Is one officer administrative and the other officer a technician? General MOORMAN. They are both technicians. They both are supervising the weather activity of the unit and advising the commanding general of the Tactical Air Command. Mr. KILDAY. General, my knowledge of weather is about confined to the weather map that they have over in the lobby of the House and all look at every day. I think it says on there that the readings were taken at 7 o'clock this morning. From that I assume that the Weather Bureau has their observers wire in at stated times? Mr. KILDAY. The weather conditions, and their forecasters use that. Now in military operations, would it be necessary if certain missions were to be performed, maybe globewise, that you would run special readings at almost any time, by telegraph notification to take it as of now or as of a certain time? Do you do that? General MOORMAN. Yes, sir. We actually do that on schedule, 24 hours a day, 1 every hour. In addition, we take them when the weather deteriorates or changes by a certain amount. Recently with the jet, where it is so important to many to know what the weather is at the time before he makes a decision, we found we had to put people out on the runways to make continuous observations to be immediately transmitted to him, because once the jet commits himself, he has either got to land or bail out. Mr. KILDAY. But, if General LeMay was about to commit a mission, would it be possible that he would want special weather readings and forecasts over maybe a protracted period of time? General MOORMAN. Yes, sir. Well, he would certainly on the forecasts; yes, sir. The observations we may increase, even, beyond those that we now do; yes. Mr. KILDAY. And it would all be a part of whatever the strategic mission that he was about to mount was. It wouldn't be published around to the Weather Bureau and everybody else? General MOORMAN. Right. It is exactly so. Our activities depend entirely on the requirements of the unit we are serving. They tell us what they want to do their job and we have to do it, try to do it. Mr. BLANDFORD. What is an "AWW"? General MOORMAN. Air weather wing. Mr. BLANDFORD. Air weather wing. General MOORMAN. We have 2 of them, 1 in the Pacific located in the headquarters at Tokyo, and 1 in Europe, located in Wiesbaden. Mr. BLANDFORD. I have just gotten out of the habit of referring to the Air Force and its group program, so I could learn wings, and now I find groups back here in the Air Service and I also find wings. What is the difference between a group and a wing? General MOORMAN. A wing is one higher echelon. We have the headquarters Air Weather Service, the 2 wings, and underneath them, under 1, is 6 squadrons and under the other is 4 squadrons, and then we have the groups. Those are smaller units, that don't have as great a responsibility, don't have as many people, don't have as many stations. It is justwe have eliminated them with the wing, though. We have squadrons and then the wing. Mr. VAN ZANDT. General, thinking about the CAA and the Air Force and the Navy. General MOORMAN. Yes, sir. Mr. VAN ZANDT. All having weather or offering weather assistance to pilots, is it not true that the CAA has a specific mission for civilian aircraft and the Air Force has a specific mission for Air Force craft and the Navy, likewise, for Navy aircraft? General MOORMAN. Yes, sir. Mr. VAN ZANDT. And isn't the mission of the three different, to the extent that the overlapping, we will say, is necessary? General MOORMAN. That is right, sir. Mr. VAN ZANDT. And then there is a coordination between the three also? General MOORMAN. Yes, sir; that is right. We have different type aircraft. The Weather Bureau or CAA does not forecast for jets, they don't forecast at higher levels, the longer ranges, and longer periods. The Navy doesn't have the B-36 that flys all over. So in order to support those different specialized functions, we do have separate services. Mr. VAN ZANDT. I have noticed this at an airport, where you have the CAA, the Air Force, and the Navy all functioning, that the number of ships in and out of that airport represents a tremendous amount of traffic, and the communications necessary just bogs down everything, and one has no realization of just what goes on until he stands there and studies it. General MOORMAN. That is right. Mr. VAN ZANDT. That explains why it is necessary to have so much. personnel. Mr. ARENDS. Thanks, General. I would like to ask the committee to go into executive session for just a few minutes, if you can. (The committee went into executive session at 11:45 a. m.,. Wednesday, March 18, 1953.) 26066-53-No. 49-18 REVIEW OF PROMOTIONS OF OFFICERS IN THE ARMED SERVICES THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1953 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE No. 2 OF THE Washington, D. C. (The subcommittee met at 10 a. m., Hon. Leslie C. Arends, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.) Mr. ARENDS. The committee will come to order. This morning we have General Wensinger of the Marine Corps here. I understand you have a prepared statement, General. TESTIMONY OF MAJ. GEN. W. W. WENSINGER, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, USMC, ACCOMPANIED BY LT. COL. D. J. BARRETT, ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, PERSONNEL General WENSINGER. That is true, sir. Mr. ARENDS. And we would be very glad to hear your prepared statement at this time. We will let you finish your statement before we start interrogating you. Mr. BLANDFORD. Mr. Chairman, may I insert in the record at this time before we start the hearings today, a list of the aerological units, and a statement on nonduplication, prepared by the Department of the Navy. Mr. ARENDS. Yes; without objection, it will be inserted in the record. (The information is as follows:) DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY, Memorandum. From: Op-533. To: Pers A132. Subject: List of Aerological Units and Statement on Nonduplication. Enclosures: (1) List of Aerological Units; (2) Statement on nonduplication of weather activities by the United States Navy. 1. Enclosures (1) and (2) are submitted in accordance with your verbal request. (2549) R. O. MINTER. |