Mr. RIEHLMAN. You have other civilians here for the maintenance of property, is that correct? Colonel BEDELL. There will be a total engineering staff, including the fire department, of about 40 people. Mr. RIEHLMAN. What we saw in that building is what you feel is necessary to maintain the property until the 1st of April 1954? Colonel BEDELL. Generally speaking; yes, sir. Mr. RIEHLMAN. The thought I am trying to develop is why since there are so many items that might be used, that these items are not being retained here, instead of disposed of and shipped out, inasmuch as you are going to have to maintain this property and continue it on a semiactive basis after April 1, 1954. Colonel BEDELL. Our program was to reduce that new stock to an amount that could be systematically and easily handled by those four people left to run the place. Mr. RIEHLMAN. I can understand that, but looking at the longrange program, if you had 15 more parts for stoves and 50 more screwdrivers and hammers, it would not make any difference to those men. The policy of shipping out some equipment within 6 months or 9 months from now, assuming that you have to procure identical items again eventually, is the thing that I am interested in. Colonel BEDELL. Yes, sir, and I understand your point completely. Mr. COTTER. You had your instructions. Colonel BEDELL. Yes, sir, and I would like to offer this in connection with what Mr. Riehlman just said; when I arrived here in the fall of 1951, that warehouse was chock full of supplies and tools and the rest of it that had been left here when the camp closed. Since 1946 that stock had not been inventoried, had not been inventoried for at least 6 years. The stock record cards were not up to date. We were in a position, I am sure, of buying supplies that were already there, because you could not find them. There is another thing, and that is we have a complete turnover of civilian and military personnel at the beginning and at the end of every one of these training periods, so that we suffer from a lack of trained personnel. I think perhaps we have the best trained group of officers that have been here since I have been at Camp Drum. I feel that most of them know what their jobs are. Mr. RIEHLMAN. I did not want to interrupt your statement, and I hope you will continue. You have told us about what was left in 1946, and that it was a scrambled mess. I would commend you upon the manner in which this was brought up to date and the fine appearance of the warehouse which we have gone through, so that you know what is needed and you will not have a tremendous surplus on hand, at least, at some later date. Colonel BEDELL. I am sure that the chiefs of all the other services have taken similar steps to get their accounts in order and to be left with minimum supplies on hand within their abilities to operate. The consolidated property officer, who will have whatever is in these accounts, has I think, 3 or 4 people. There are two officers and a couple of warehousemen. Lieutenant Colonel JENNINGS. I think there were 12 in that altogether. There were 3 or 4 warehousemen and he probably has 2 or 3 or 4 clerical people. Colonel BEDELL. Our new equipment includes items held in protective custody at Camp Drum for the first Army engineer pool. Now to get back to this annex which I had referred to earlier concerning the engineers paragraph b is as follows: b. Troop supplies will be disposed of, starting immediately, by recording such items to the engineer supply officer, Belle Mead General Depot. c. R. and U. equipment, including items held in protective custody, will be processed and stored to involve a minimum requirement for safeguarding and shelter. Excess items will be disposed of per current directives. That brings us up to just about now. I have one other thing that I would like to comment on. I feel that we here have a public responsibility to meet. The relationship of Camp Drum with the people of Watertown and in the surrounding counties is rather unique. Madison Barracks is an old-Army post located near here, and it has been abandoned by the Army. Many people from Madison Barracks, officers and soldiers, married girls from the surrounding towns, and the same repeated itself with Watertown and surrounding towns when Camp Drum was established here. The city of Watertown has been most hospitable to us. We have reciprocated as well as we could, so that anything that involves Camp Drum involves the community. We at Camp Drum are not all military. We have a great number of civilians who are employed by us living in surrounding towns, and the unfortunate publicity that we got was a little upsetting to these people and to us. I would like our people, our neighbors, as far as possible, to be assured that we are not too far wrong. I will probably be called on to testify in other matters involving the engineers, so I will sit down until that time. Mr. RIEHLMAN. Well, all right, Colonel. Let me reassure you that we have no intention of amplifying any criticism. We are here to do a constructive job if we possibly can. We are going to let the chips fall where they may. If the responsibility rests here, we want to place it. As I said previously, if there is to be commendation we will see that you get that also. We appreciate your statement. You were saying that at the close of hostilities in 1946 the camp was shut down. Do you have any information or do any of the members of your staff have any information as to whether or not there was a disposal program? Was a lot of the equipment moved out or did the equipment remain here? Colonel BEDELL. This is partly hearsay and partly from observation: I think that there was a disposal program of a kind. I have looked for some equipment that I knew had once been purchased for Camp Drum, and on further investigation I found it was transferred to another post. But the small items, items of engineer supply that you saw, I do not believe any steps were taken to ship that. I think they closed the camp rather abruptly and locked the door. Mr. RIEHLMAN. Maybe some of the other witnesses will have some information. Who is the next witness? Mr. COTTER. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur J. Jennings. TESTIMONY OF LT. COL. ARTHUR J. JENNINGS, POST SUPPLY OFFICER, CAMP DRUM, N. Y. Lieutenant Colonel JENNINGS. Property Disposal is a branch of the S4 (Post Supply) Office, and is responsible for the sale of all surplus property and salvage at this station. When the Department of the Army directed that Camp Drum be placed on a caretaker status no later than October 15, there were many tons of supplies of all kinds that had to be moved. The various chiefs of the technical services of First Army worked very closely with the technical chiefs of Camp Drum in establishing levels of supplies to remain here, and providing disposition instructions for supplies to be returned to the depots and for lateral transfer to other stations within the First Army area. Forms 120 were prepared on many items and forwarded to First Army, requesting disposition instructions. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS This form and, when continuation sheets are necessary, Standard Form 120 shall be used to report excess personal property in accordance with Personal Property Management Regulation No. 3 and to make amendment or withdrawal of prior reports. Reports shall be confined to property at one location constituting a single commodity group, as defined in detailed instructions below. Contractor inventory, reimbursable property, and nonreimbursable property shall not be included on the same report but shall be the subject of separate reports. Legal restrictions (including patent) on the power of the holding agency to dispose of property being reported excess shall be fully explained in the listing of such items. Reports shall be submitted in the number of copies required by Personal Property Management Regulation No. 3. DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS No. of Pages. Enter here total number of pages in the report. 1. Report Number. Insert the serial number of the report and any other identifying number or symbol the reporting agency may desire. If the report is an amendment or withdrawal of a prior report, the prior report number shall be entered followed by the letter (a), (b), or (c), etc. to identify the respective successive amending and withdrawing reports. 1. Date Mailed. Insert the date the report is mailed (not date on which prepared). 3. Total Cost. Insert the sum of all amounts shown in column (h) of the property listing except that, when reporting an adjustment or withdrawal of a prior report, the net amount by which the "Total Cost" of the prior report is increased or decreased shall be entered followed, respectively, by the letters "Inc." or "Dec." 4. Type of Report. Indicate the type of report by inserting an (X) in the appropriate box. If the report is an amendment or withdrawal of a prior report enter the number and date of mailing such prior report in 4A. In preparing such reports observe the following: a. If the report amenda a prior report, each line item amended shall be restated under its original consecutive line item number in column (a) and as it should be in columns (b) through (j). b. If the report withdraws in part a prior report the line items withdrawn shall be restated in columns (a) through (c) as they appeared in the original report. The word "withdrawn" should be written across the remaining columns (ɗ) through (ƒ). c. If the report withdraws in total a prior report the word “withdrawn” should be written across columns (a) through (√) of the Excess Property List. d. The amount by which the "Total Cost" of the prior report is increased or decreased by the amending or withdrawing report shall be entered in box 3 as an "Inc." or "Dec." amount, respectively. 5. To. Enter name and address of the executive agency and office to which the report, in accordance with Personal Property Management Regulation No. 3, is to be made. 6. From. Enter the name and address of the Federal agency or department, and bureau, office, or other subdivision making the report. 1. Location of Property. Give the warehouse, building, or other specific location and the address at which the property is located. 8. Custodian. Enter name, address, and telephone number of the custodian of the property. If the property is in the custody of another agency enter also the name of such agency. 9. Rail Carrier. Indicate by (X) in appropriate box whether location is served by rail carrier. If so, enter name of carrier. Any clear, commonly understood abbreviation may be used. 10. Further Information Contact. Enter name, title, address, and telephone number of the person who may be contacted for further information about the property. 11. Send Purchase Orders To. Give name, address, and telephone number of the person, or office, to whom purchase orders are to be sent. 12. If the property is at a location to be abandoned give date for sach abandonment. If located on excess realty indicate such fact by an (X) in the appropriate square. 13. Reimbursable. Indicate by (X) in appropriate box whether the property is or is not reimbursable and if reimbursable enter the appropriation symbol and title or the name and address of the Government corporation to receive the net proceeds from disposition. 14. Contractor Inventory. Indicate whether the property is 17. Excess Property List. For the purpose of this list a line item of property shall consist of a single unit of property or a number of identical units each of which meets the descriptions in columns (b) through (e), (g), (i), and (ƒ). (a) Item. Enter the consecutive number of the line items in the report, beginning with number one for the first line item on the first page. For example, if 10 line items are being reported excess and there is room for only 6 on the first page of the report they will be given consecutive numbers "(1)" through "(6)" on the first page of the report and the remaining 4 line items will be given consecutive numbers "(7)" through "(10)" on the continuation sheet. Leave a blank line space across all columns between line items. (b) Description. In this column describe each line item in commercial terms and in sufficient detail to permit transfer or sale without further reference to the holding agency. Stock numbers and prefixes, manufacturer's part number, and standard catalog reference numbers should be stated. The condition of the most important components of an item should be noted. Specify the type of container or package and the quantities in each. (c) S. C. C. Code. The Standard Commodity Classification code may be entered in this column as additional descriptive identification of a line item. (d) Cond. Code. Enter the appropriate letter and number code combination taken from the following code system: Used-repairs required X Items of no further value for use as originally intended but of possible value other than as scrap. If condition of a line item cannot be adequately described by code, describe condition in column (b). (e) Unit. Enter the unit of measure, such as: Each, pounds, tons, dozen, gross, etc. Distinguish between long, short, and metric tons. Standard abbreviations may be used. (f) Number of Units. Enter the quantity of each line item in terms of the unit of measure given in column (e). (g) Acquisition Cost-Per Unit. Enter the recorded acquisi tion cost per unit (column (e)). If acquisition cost is not known, enter the estimated original cost per unit excluding transportation and handling charges incurred after purchase. Identify an eatimated cost by the prefix (E). (h) Acquisition Cost-Total. Enter the computed total cost of each line item (number of units in column (f) times the cost per unit in column (g)). (i) Fair Value Code. Insert the following fair value letter code which describes the fair value condition of the property. Code A B с D Fair Value Condition "New excellent" means unused personal property, ready for use in a Usable minor repairs required" means personal property requiring (j) Fair Value Per Unit. Enter the fair value per unit deter. mined by applying the following percentages to the base price (current delivered market price, new; or acquisition cost) arrived at in accordance with Personal Property Management Regulation No. 3. U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1950-0-70053 |