would be spare parts for the same equipment that would be over $300 which we would have to report.

I reported that to the office of the Quartermaster General and asked that we get an exception to the general rule so that if the spare parts all belong to the same obsolete item, let us get authority to get rid of the whole works. If we dispose of the small items under $100 that apply to a given end item, and then keep the items valued over $300, it doesn't make much sense because if we need anything we need the smaller items.

Mr. BALWAN. The X, P, and Q classifications were designed to relieve the paperwork at the Surplus Materials Division, Washington, rather than to help the depots which are making the declarations and disposals.

General MARSHALL. We did run into that. I think there should be an exception.

Take a piece of obsolete materials-handling equipment. You have all the small parts that cost less than $100, and then you have the frame, and it doesn't make too much sense to screen the frame all through the agencies.

Mr. COTTER. Can we break in here to determine what happens to these items that, by your standards, you declare to be uneconomically repairable and transfer into your surplus property? Does the fact that you put that classification on them relieve the surplus property man of any formality or precautions in his disposal? Are they still listed as individual items, and what circulation does your sale get on that type of item?

General MARSHALL. When those items go over to the disposal officer, and they are of such type that they should be sold by item, he will advertise the sale by item. If he does not get a bid that will come up to or exceed the scrap value of that item, he will not sell it by item but for scrap.

I think he ran into that on the cots out here. We could not get a bid. He advertised them for scrap.

He told me about refrigerators, and he got a bid of 27 cents apiece. That is not even scrap value. We withdrew that sale and sold them as scrap.

We do not relieve the disposal officer of using his head in disposing of this property. From what I have found, he has done an excellent job of it.

Lieutenant Colonel LEEPER. I would like to move into the surplus property chart.

I will start out by saying that there is some correlation between this chart and the technical service excess property chart, to this extent, that a majority of our technical service excess property, when it is shipped, is shipped into the surplus-property area.

Now, any decrease in tonnage of excess on hand which resulted from shipments is, in a general way, reflected in this surplus tonnage on hand figure, and is certainly most directly correlated with the receipts that the surplus property man receives during the same month.

We see that in the surplus property category we had some 2,400 tons of supplies on hand in September 1953.

Mr. BALWAN. Compared to how much technical service excess property?

Lieutenant Colonel LEEPER. Eleven thousand some odd tons.

Mr. BALWAN. The 2,400 tons of surplus is technical service excess property on which title has passed over to Mr. Kaster, the property disposal officer.

Lieutenant Colonel LEEPER. That is right.

Mr. BALWAN. And he has only about one-fourth or one-fifth the amount of the excess property here.

Mr. COTTER. It is generating all the time.

Lieutenant Colonel LEEPER. Here are the receipts for the last 4 months, 600 tons, 1,200, and a little under a thousand, and this insignificant sum.

Mr. BALWAN. Is the surplus disposal keeping up with receipts? Lieutenant Colonel LEEPER. No, because the shipments out of surplus are running considerably under his receipts.

This shows we have some 2,400 tons on hand. This chart indicates the requiring of some 180,000 square feet to store it. About 170,000 square feet of it is open storage, and some 10,000 is closed.

This particular chart merely indicates his receipts and shipments, and they show us where the receipts came from, whether it was depot maintenance division or storage division or other.

All other surplus property is disposed of in one of three ways; either through donation, through sale, or returns to post, camp or station upon definite directive.

Mr. COTTER. Are you talking about surplus?

Lieutenant Colonel LEEPER. Yes.

Mr. COTTER. You do not return that to posts, camps, or stations to any great degree, do you?

Mr. JOSEPH G. KASTER. Take Fort Knox, for instance. We may have items that are incomplete. They may want those items for training aids or taking out on maneuvers. In most cases they will not be used as originally intended, but could be used as a training aid on

some maneuvers.

Mr. COTTER. But they have already had a chance at this stuff. It has been screened for months.

Mr. KASTER. It is very small on your surplus items.

Mr. COTTER. Do you have the chart in there?

Lieutenant Colonel LEEPER. Yes, sir, it is very small.

Mr. KASTER. It is some very few items.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Can you give us an illustration of the type of item that may be used for that purpose?

Mr. KASTER. Some bins, or maybe a steel frame that could be used for racks, maybe the metal beds, the springs, they cut the springs out and they use the frame to make racks.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. But the percentage is very small?

Mr. KASTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALWAN. What is the total amount of space that you have available here which is being occupied by technical service excess property and surplus property? What is the total amount of inside storage space and outside storage space on the base?

Col. JAMES F. SEALS. According to the last report that I have seen, the gross storage space is 2,226,000 square feet, and the space available for storage is 1,904,000 square feet. That is inside storage space.

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