Viewing page 17 of 266

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

17

formed and asking us for information on what his colleagues had ordered. The same was true of the Navy. In those early days, the Army men we were contacting were Capt. Baldwin of Ordnance, Lt.Col. Seybold, Major Marsh and Capt. McLeod of the Engineers, and Major Wolf and Capt. Willis of Army Navy Munitions Board. The two ANMB officers were hassling with each other some of the time because Capt. Willis was a railroad man in civilian life while his boss, Major Wolf, was a rayon man and it burned Willis up to have Wolf in the driver's seat on these locomotive matters. Pursuit of the Army locomotive sponsors took us to the Pentagon, the Munitions Bldg. on Constitution Avenue and Ft. Belvoir where the Engineers were headquartered. But these weren't the only Army places; there were more that I've forgotten. As the demand for these small locomotives built up, it became fairly evident that there would be no problem getting authorization to build at least all the standard design units on order but when it came to where they would be shipped, that was another matter. Therefore the sponsors were particularly sensitive about approving a locomotive for a particular location until they investigated, and this took time. For instance, suppose we had an order for a 45-ton unit for Tulalip Ammunition Storage Depot out in the middle of a virgin pine forest north of Everett, Washington; the chances are good that our contact man at the ANMB or whatever was responsible, didn't know Tulalip from an apple orchard. So he had to investigate [[red pencilled underline]]Tulalip's need[[/red pencilled underline]] stacked up [[red pencilled underline]]against the need of some other[[/red pencilled underline]] installation yelling for power. Another complication might be that although the Tulalip locomotive was basically a standard unit, it may have been ordered with [[red pencilled underline]]special[[/red pencilled underline]] spark-arresting mufflers, perhaps five tons of extra ballast, maybe for operation on short-radius curves. If so, this would complicate getting a replacement quickly if it were diverted elsewhere. The question might be, would such a delay be tolerable or intolerable? In other words, before rearrangements in schedules could be made intelligently, someone had to ascertain all the pertinent facts and then have the judgment to make a sound decision. It's not inconceivable that the [[red pencilled underline]]Army[[/red pencilled underline]] had a [[red pencilled underline]]hundred locations[[/red pencilled underline]] around the country needing new locomotives and quick. That many locomotives weren't available quick and there had to be some give and take and temporary improvisation. And when you dumped all this need and variety and competition and analysis and practical limitations into one big pile and then tried to unscramble it and come up with a neat answer, you really had a job on your hands. But that's what we were trying to do working through a lot of government agencies.
The [[red pencilled underline]]Navy locomotive[[/red pencilled underline]] situation was similar to the Army but not as involved because they didn't have as many installations to be taken care of and it seems to me that they started their program somewhat sooner. Lt. Julian was the Navy man at the Army Navy Munitions Board that we contacted. And there were Lt.Comm. Augustus and Ensign Tiebout. Lt.Comm. [[red pencilled underline]]John Grace[[/red pencilled underline]] was