WAR BLUNDERING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22618, 5 January 1937, Page 7

WAR BLUNDERING

WASTAGE OF MONEY CRITICISM BY GENERAL [from our, owx correspondent] NEW YOEK, Dec. 2 Revelations, hitherto unpublished, of colossal blundering and waste of public funds by the United States after its entry into the Great War, have been made by the former Inspector-General of the lines of communication, General Hagood, in his plea for preparedness. He said: — "America spent a billion dollars on the manufacture of artillery and artillery ammunition, but not a single shot was fired from an American gun by an American on the Western Front, except some railroad artillery that had been manufactured and brought over by the Navy. We would not adopt the British machine-gun, which had been invented by an American Army officer. Colonel Lewis, and had been offered to America free before he sold it for a fortune to the British.

"The arms and munitions bought by America amounted to less than 3 per cent, but little of it got to France," added General Hagood. "We spent a billion and a-half on aviation; and we never flew an American aeroplane on the Western Front, except some socalled 'flying coffins,' a very poor type of observation machine.

"In all, we purchased 26,000,000 pairs of shoes, of which 9,000,000 pairs were_ sent overseas. Every man who received a new pair of shoes was required to break them in by standing in water for a certain length of time and then walking about for an hour until the shoes dried on his feet. Several million pairs of trousers were manufactured, but none of them ever got to France, and, after the war was over, Ave went back to breeches and puttees. One general officer, with his aides, required two three-ton trucks for baggage, although he had only come over as an observer."

Sir John Cowans,- British Quarter-master-General, had reported to the American Embassy in London, said General Hagood, that the luggage carried by the American troops was so excessive and so unnecessary that it blocked the British railway lines and prevented their being used for the distribution of food. One American soldier arrived in Liverpool with nine pairs of shoes.

"The mistakes we made," the general concluded, "grew out of a divided responsibility—one group of men, or several different groups, saying what was wanted, another group of men finding itself unable to get what was wanted, and the General Staif charged with the responsibility of deciding between them, but not being qualified to do so, either by training or experience."