IF U.S. SHOULD BE CHALLENGED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25136, 18 March 1947, Page 7

IF U.S. SHOULD BE CHALLENGED

TIME NEEDED TO RE FORM ARMY f (Red. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 16. A correspondent of the Associated ,z Press, after-questioning military planners, says that if the United States should be challenged to-morrow it could not fight a full-scale war before 1948. It would take at least three months to mobilise men from the pool of 5.000,000 trained former servicemen which the army estimated are available It would take another six months from the time the first combat x division was reformed until they could be organised, equipped, retrained and put into action. The number of divisions which could be used immediately could be counted on the fingers of ope hand. Officers said equipment and supplies remaining from the last war would probably be sufficient to outfit a reconstituted army at the start but they expressed doubt about the prospect of getting plants badk intb quick production of war goods. They recalled that by Pearl Harbour day there was a nucleus for war production due to foreign orders but now virtually all plants have thrown out tools for such production. The Associated Press adds, however, that the Air Force and the Navy are in a better position than the Army.