The next chart shows the distribution of 25,263 Regular officers who will be on board January 1958. This blue area represents those Regular officers. This is our Regular officer hump area, and consists of those officers appointed into the Regular Army Air Corps in 1946 and 1947.

This group of officers are those officers that have been integrated into the Regular Air Force subsequent to January 1, 1948.

Due to the fact that this legislation will more than double the Regular officer authorization for the Air Force, we propose to utilize this period to eliminate existing discrepancies within the Regular officers structure in order to have a sound basis upon which to build our new officer structure.

We have two major discrepancies within our structure at this time: One, as you have already heard, is our Regular officer hump area, and the other one consists of officers in this area who were appointed under the provisions of the Officer Personnel Act and denied credit for service they had performed prior to January 1, 1948.

Under the Officer Personnel Act, an officer may not be credited with more than 5 years' service.

We have approximately 2,500 officers in this area that are in that situation. For example, we have an officer that has actually performed 10 years of active Federal commissioned service, but under the Officer Personnel Act, he is only credited with 5 years of active Federal commissioned service.

If we take the case of 2 officers, both having served 10 years of active Federal commissioned service, and recalling the fact, as General Stone stated, that a Reserve officer will be positioned in the Regular structure based upon the amount of active Federal commissioned service he has performed, we have this 1 officer who is a Regular; he has performed 10 years of service, but he sits back here in the 5-year bracket.

His Reserve contemporary, if selected and appointed, would be appointed in the 10-year bracket, and thus become 5 years' senior to his Regular contemporary.

Therefore the Air Force proposes to adjust the promotion list service of the officers in this area to equal that of the amount of active Federal commissioned service they have performed subsequent to age 21 and after December 7, 1941.

The next chart will show you how these officers would then be distributed.

Mr. KILDAY. Let me see if I understand. In this first hump that you have, those men under the Officer Personnel Act of 1947 could only be integrated if they were less than 27 years of age and could be given credit for not to exceed 5 years' previous service?

Colonel AYLES. Yes, sir.

Mr. KILDAY. So the initial commission could not be higher than first lieutenant. Is that correct?

Colonel AYLES. That is correct.

Actually, the age is 32 years.

is 32 years. You add 5 years and it is age 32. Mr. KILDAY. You can exceed the statutory maximum by the years of service which you can credit him. Is that it?

Colonel AYLES. Yes, sir.

Mr. KILDAY. When you readjust those dates of rank, are you going to put people ahead of people they were formerly junior to?

Colonel AYLES. Yes, sir. That could happen. They were formerly junior due to this situation where this officer was put back here. If they were to integrate on their active Federal commissioned service, they would be promoted and senior, all along.

Mr. KILDAY. But they are going to reverse positions?

Colonel AYLES. That is correct.

Mr. KILDAY. Will that cause difficulty?

Colonel AYLES. No, sir. The officer realizes he is now senior. But actually has less service and the man junior to him realizes that this is the situation.

Mr. KILDAY. Is it true practically all of the men hold temporary rank in excess of the men

Colonel AYLES. Yes, sir. That is what I was going to state.
Mr. KILDAY. Go ahead.

Colonel AYLES. The officers have moved from this area, and have now moved into the crosshatched area.

If at any time an officer moves through a promotion cycle, a permanent promotion cycle or mandatory promotion cycle, at 7 or 14 years of service, it will not cause an automatic promotion. He will meet the next promotion board and if selected, will receive the next higher promoted rank.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Let us have that again for the record.

When you make your adjustment for these people, no one will be adjusted in such a manner as to put them beyond for promotion list service the grade in which they should have been considered for promotion, but it may make them eligible for the next permanent selection board that meets.

What I am getting at is that you will have people here who are going to wake up with 18 years of service, or 17 years of service, perhaps, and who may not be selected on the next go-round for permanent promotion?

Colonel AYLES. That is right.

In

Mr. BLANDFORD. And thus would receive severance pay. other words, if they don't have 18 years of service, they are going to get severance pay. That in effect is going to bring about, for them, accelerated permanent promotion, which is the thing that they have to worry about, as far as severance pay is concerned, or compulsory retirement.

Now, would it be fair to assume that an officer today who is serving in a temporary grade, which would be one grade below the grade to which he would be promoted, if found qualified, and not selected, may be at a very serious disadvantage because perhaps he has not been selected for temporary promotion on one go-round and we know that if you fail of temporary promotion once, it can have a most deleterious effect upon your promotion to permanent grade.

And yet this officer who might have thought he had 3 or 4 more years in which to wipe out the bad effects of that one failure of nonselection for temporary promotion is going to find himself immediately before a selection board for permanent grade.

Colonel AYLES. I might say, Mr. Blandford, in that case, that situation, it is possible that could happen. I would state it is quite unlikely because this officer has actually been performing in a position in a grade higher than the permanent grade that he is competing for. Today, in the Air Force, I would say it is a little more difficult to get this temporary promotion, because of the competition, than it possibly might be for the permanent promotion.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Let me ask you this: How many people are going to end up with 7, 14, or 21 years of promotion list service as a result of this adjustment, and then have to be promoted if found qualified, regardless of vacancies?

Colonel AYLES. Well, that is hard to say right now-whether they will go out through attrition, and how many will actually proceed up through the 21 years of service, we cannot say.

Mr. BLANDFORD. I am trying to get at the language that is in the bill, as to why you have to have these people in excess of the numbers as far as the Officer Grade Limitation Act is concerned.

There has to be some reason for that language in the bill.

Colonel AYLES. Well, that is, as this group moves forward and we get a squeeze in promotions, where your permanent promotions eat up all of the authorizations under the Officer Grade Limitation Act, and you mandatorily have to promote a large group.

Mr. BLANDFORD. That is exactly what I had in mind

Colonel AYLES. You might have to exceed the Officer Limitation Act on that point.

Mr. BLANDFORD. And we are bringing it on ourselves when we give you the authority to readjust a promotion list service.

So I think we had better know what we are doing so that we do not find outselves a couple of years from now running into the same situation with the Appropriations Committee that we did before, where we have got 7,000 lieutenant colonels on our hands, and they say, "How come?" and we say, "Yes, that was as a result of a readjustment that we authorized."

Colonel AYLES. If I may go back, and then I will answer your question, there are evils to this adjustment, because it does accelerate the permanent promotion of an individual, and of course speeds up his chance of being eliminated.

Mr. BLANDFORD. That is right.

Colonel AYLES. But this evil is not as bad as having a Reserve officer coming in 5 years senior to him under this promotion squeeze that we may run into in the Air Force, and therefore under the language for the authority to exceed the provisions of the Officer Grade Limitation Act, it is possible, but we don't consider it too likely