We found there was a general lack, due to the rapid increase of the Army, of appreciation of the food problem, and we have distributed a series of posters which have been very effective, posted in every mess hall. We also have sent out letters throughout the country to all commanders, telling them what factors are involved in wastage, and have found that has been very effective. We have also reduced the amount of food prepared in certain items.

If you have 10 items of food to be served and you have 100 men to serve, not every man will eat all that is there to eat of the 10 items. So we have found that 35 out of 100 will eat soup, 50 will eat spinach, but only 35 will eat kale. So we arrange our mess menus which we send out monthly all over the Army so that they will have items of each kind of food in proportion to the amount of food which experience has shown that 100 men will eat, and we have found that that has effected a very substantial saving. The saving in one camp was so great that the garbage contractor complained to his Senator that he was losing money on his garbage contract because the amount of garbage was only about one-fourth of what it used to be. Another man said that he fed his hogs on Army garbage, but that he could not get enough garbage to feed the hogs.

Mr. SNYDER. In other words, it might have been appropriate for Mr. Pearson to have written his article last November or December, but it does not apply in May or June 1943?

General GREGORY. That is right.

Mr. SNYDER. In other words, he is just about 6 months behind the times?

General GREGORY. At least 6 months behind the times. (Discussion off the record.)

DEHYDRATED FOODS

Mr. SNYDER. I want to put a word in the record about Colonel Logan. Colonel Logan gave an interesting display of dehydrated foods in my district and showed them to the assembled citizenry in the county seats of three of my counties, and he, with the officers who were with him, did a magnificient job. He is doing an excellent piece of work and is deserving of great commendation.

Also, I want to say this, that those three public demonstrations that took place were witnessed by some 1,500 grown-ups and about 2,000 high-school students and it gave them a clear picture of what is being done and made them enthusiastic for the support of the Army and its auxiliaries. It was a most effective demonstration.

That was about 2 weeks ago. I was up in my district over Sunday, and I got some of the reaction from Colonel Logan's visit. I talked to one mother at Uniontown, who has five sons in the service. She had walked from her home at the edge of the town-some 21⁄2 milesto see what kind of food her sons were getting. She was just as happy as a lark when she left.

Take, for instance, one or two of those dehydrated articles, like raspberries or cabbage. When she saw what happened to that cabbage she was pleased beyond words.

I want to give that to you to show what a food demonstration can do.

If it were possible to have Colonel Logan, or someone like him, go into the centers of population and tell people what dehydrated food means in the feeding of our soldiers, I think it would be well worth while.

SUFFICIENCY OF FOOD SUPPLIES

Mr. STARNES. General Gregory, do you anticipate a sufficient supply of meats, potatoes, and other items of food called for in the subsistence program will be produced in 1943-44?

General GREGORY. The current situation is such that we are not getting all the beef we would like to have, nor are we getting all the poultry or potatoes that we need.

Mr. STARNES. When you speak of the current situation you are speaking of the over-all supply of food at present available for the civilian population of this country, the Army of the United States, and the tremendous amount of food we are making available under lendlease and otherwise to the armies and civilian population of other nations?

General GREGORY. Yes, sir.

Mr. STARNES. Strictly speaking, with reference to the requirements of the Army of the United States and the people of the United States there is no shortage of food in any of the items if our productive capacity were made available solely to the Army of the Unitd States and the civilian population of the United States?

General GREGORY. I do not think there is any question about that. Mr. STARNES. That is the point I wanted to make clear because the idea has been put into the minds of our people we have an acute food shortage and were therefore forced to deny ourselves and ration ourselves to feed and clothe our own armed forces. I have contended, and I think the facts bear me out, that with the food available to us which we produce in this country, plus that available in this hemisphere there is and will not be a shortage in any item for the people of the United States or the Army of the United States.

General GREGORY. I think that is correct. Of course there are certain items the consumption of which has increased very materially. But I still think there is enough for everyone, if consumption were entirely confined to this hemisphere.

REGULAR SUPPLIES OF THE ARMY

Mr. SNYDER For regular supplies, the estimate is $206,219,000. Will there be a carry-over?

Colonel Hoss. Yes, sir.

Mr. SNYDER. How much?

Colonel Hoss. About $50,000,000.

Mr. SNYDER. Why will not that amount be obligated?

Colonel Hoss. That amount is $50,000,000, a large part of which is due to reduction in unit costs and changes in the Army supply program.

Mr. SNYDER. You are going to have considerably more men in the service this year than you originally planned?

Colonel Hoss. That is right.

87353-43--13

Mr. SNYDER. In the past, as I recall, this appropriation has been determined very largely upon the cost-per-man basis. Your balance looks to me like you either overestimated or have found yourselves overstocked.

Colonel Hoss. Neither condition obtained. Of course the program is under constant study and revision, and there were some downward revisions during the course of the year which contributed to this amount. However, as stated previously, the greater part of this amount is due to unexpended balances of prior appropriations being carried forward. In preparing the estimate that we are speaking of now, we took up individual items and figured the quantity for our over-all requirements, and from that figure the inventory on hand was deducted, so this is the actual requirement for the over-all picture during the period covered by the estimate.

Mr. SNYDER. You have got about 49 pages of items here. I do not think you possibly could have left out anything. How carefully were stocks checked in building this estimate?

Colonel Hoss. Before the amount was set up in the justification, the total requirement of every item was determined and was considered, and in every case we deducted the stock on hand to arrive at the net requirements we are asking for.

Mr. SNYDER. You did not have available, did you, a record of articles in store at camps or stations? In other words, you did not have a complete inventory?

Colonel Hoss. Deductions were made for post, camp, and station stocks on hand.

Mr. SNYDER. I did not think so. Tell us how you arrived at the unit costs.

Colonel Hoss. The unit costs are the last costs of record.

Mr. SNYDER. General, if we should cut this item the amount of your carry-over, you still would have $48,000,000 more than you have this year. Why not try to get along on that basis?

General GREGORY. No, sir; the justification calls for the amount of supplies and equipment required for the Army of the size stated; namely, 7,533,000 in an enlisted status. If you cut us $50,000,000 it will mean the curtailment of our program.

Mr. SNYDER. And that would mean what?

General GREGORY. It would mean we would have to curtail it either as to time or as to the amount, and we would have to reduce the amounts set up here.

V-MAIL

Mr. SNYDER. On page 175, project 4, pertaining to V mail, suggests the inquiry as to what the Army is doing with regard to microfilming the V-mail. That seems to have become a very important activity because of the saving in cargo space. We should like a rather complete statement, and some indication of the expense.

Colonel SCHWARTZ. The V-mail is being pushed rather extensively, and as the result of the service, which is primarily to reduce vital cargo space and give better mail service here to and from the troops overseas. In October 1942, we sent 2,373,000 V-mail letters overseas, and that was 5 percent of the total volume of all mail. The total volume at that time was roughly 46 million letters for the month.

In April 1943, which is the last month for which we have complete figures at the present time, we sent 9,056,000 V-mail letters overseas, which was 13 percent of the total volume of 72,000,000 letters.

The last figures we have are as of the 23d of May, which represents a monthly period, and show that our V-mail volume has increased to 16 million for that period, which is 18 percent of the total mail that we have sent overseas.

Mr. SNYDER. That represents a saving of poundage and, therefore, transportation?

Colonel SCHWARTZ. A saving in transportation space. It reduces the gross weight requirements by 97 or 98 percent of what would be required if we used ordinary mail. Space required is similarly greatly reduced.

Mr. SNYDER. What about the time required for mail going to and from the theaters of war, in England and Africa?

Colonel SCHWARTZ. At the present time the transit time of mail is dependent upon transportation.

Mr. SNYDER. I understand that, but what is the average?

Colonel SCHWARTZ. The average time to the United Kingdom is 3 or 4 days at the present time, and to north Africa it ranges from 5 to 6 days.

Mr. SNYDER. There is no preference given to V-mail, as such, from that side over here?

Colonel SCHWARTZ. V mail is given preference over all types of personal mail.

Mr. SNYDER. Of course, the first priority would be for official mail? Colonel SCHWARTZ. Yes, sir; official air mail.

Mr. SNYDER. This statement is from the hearings on the naval appropriation bill for 1944:

On microfilm these letters (15,000,000) weigh approximately 6,000 pounds. In their original form they would weigh approximately 400,000 pounds; thus a saving of approximately 300 plane loads of mail monthly is obtained.

I suppose you would say the same thing, using the same predicate. Colonel SCHWARTZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. SNYDER. That is intensely interesting.

Colonel SCHWARTZ. May I suggest that Major Barnhart received a letter from Karachi India, this morning which was mailed on the 27th of May.

Mr. SNYDER. Who is the originator of V-mail?

Colonel SCHWARTZ. I do not know the individual, but it was the Eastman Kodak Co.

PROCUREMENT OF DOG FOOD

Mr. SNYDER. Changing the subject violently, I notice on the succeeding page an item of $3,595,788 for dog food. What is the justification?

Colonel Daniels, I believe you are going to give the justification for that item.

Colonel DANIELS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SNYDER. You may proceed.

Colonel DANIELS. That is to feed our dogs that have come into the service since the armed services became interested in using dogs,

starting last July. That amount is to cover the expenditures for dog food required by this program.

Mr. SNYDER. How many dogs have we now?

Colonel DANIELS. We have 4,803.

Mr. SNYDER. Each man has a dog?

Colonel DANIELS. Not in all classifications. We have what we call sentry dogs. We have four dogs to one man to train. When a man is trained in one of our schools he takes the dogs to his home station where he trains the other guards in the use of the dogs. The sentry dogs are used on the basis of two men to one dog. Then there are messenger dogs which are trained with two men as a team, and scout dogs with one man to a dog. So the classification we use for these dogs in a way determines the number of men employed with the number of dogs in service.

Mr. SNYDER. Do we have any dogs with the men in the front line? Colonel DANIELS. We have a few small units that have gone out. Whether they have arrived at the front, I do not know.

Mr. POWERS. Tell us something about these dogs and how they are working.

Colonel DANIELS. Last year, General Gregory became interested in using dogs for plant protection purposes in the Quartermaster Corps. The activity was entirely new and was made a part of the operations of the Remount Branch.

It was something entirely new.

It was new to me.

We organized reception and training centers at our regularly established remount depots, starting on the idea that the Quartermaster Corps would use dogs to increase the efficiency of protective personnel at quartermaster installations.

Then both the War and Navy Departments became generally interested in the use of dogs. This interest has gradually grown, and the demands have steadily increased.

Then we interested the Ground Forces in the use of dogs for combat, carrying messages, and patrolling, the principle being that the keeness of the dog's sense of smell and hearing were so much greater than that of a man that we could utilize those faculties to great advantage.

Another interesting dog that we have developed is one we know as the casualty dog, to locate the wounded. If men are wounded and are lying out of sight, these dogs will find them and lead other men to them so they may have their wounds treated promptly.

The first depot we organized was at the Front Royal Quartermaster Remount Depot. Then we established a dog center at Fort Robinson, and finally built a new depot at San Carlos on the west coast. We have another depot organized on the Gulf, and have established a temporary depot at Beltsville, Md. There is a sled and pack dog depot at Rimini, Mont.

Mr. POWERS. What type of dogs do you use, and where do you get them?

Colonel DANIELS. We use the husky in the colder regions for sled and pack work.

For other purposes we use dogs of all descriptions from the common, ordinary dog to the purebred. We use the Boxer, the shepherd, the Doberman and the Airedale. There are a number of other breeds

that are desirable but very rare in this country.