For the fighting man in time of war, the crucible that proves or disproves his training and his theories is combat with the enemy. So it is too with those whose milieu is not the drill field but the drawing board, not the staff college but the proving ground, those who design, develop, and maintain the weapons, munitions, and vehicles of war. The crucible for the Ordnance Department, like the individual fighting man, is the battlefield. In previous volumes in the Ordnance Department subseries of The Technical Services in the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, historians have told the preliminary stories, the complex, often frustrating saga of planning munitions for war and of procuring and getting them to the troops who use them. This, the third and final volume in the subseries, tells the climax of the Ordnance role in World War II, the story of how the vast armory and its administrators fared in combat. In presenting this story of Ordnance in the overseas theaters, Mrs. Mayo has concentrated logically on Ordnance at the level of the army headquarters, for from this level munitions and fighting equipment flowed directly to the user. While giving some attention to all theaters involved in the global story of Ordnance administration, she has concentrated on the three main theaters as representative of the problems, the improvisations, the shortcomings, the achievements worldwide.

In cost and bulk, the munitions manufactured by and for the Army's Ordnance Department during World War II exceeded the output of all the other technical services of the Army combined, and in cost they rivaled that for the aircraft and ships with which the war was fought. The process of getting these munitions to fighting forces all over the world-of storing them until needed, of keeping track of them, and of keeping them in repair-was almost as complicated as their manufacture. In writing the story of these two main aspects of the Ordnance mission on the home front, the authors have produced a record of enduring value; for whatever the character of military procurement now and in the future, the problems of producing and distributing military equipment on a very large scale remain much the same. Since private industry and civilian labor inevitably are called upon to contribute enormously to the making of munitions on any large scale, civilian as well as military readers should find much in this volume to instruct them. Perhaps its greatest lesson is the long lead time required to get munitions into full production, and therefore the need for calculating military requirements with the utmost accuracy possible. It is imperative, in this age of international tension and partial mobilization, that all of the intricacies of military production be clearly understood if the nation is to get the maximum of economy as well as security in preparations for its defense.