Dr P. Lo Brooks, Dr. J. J. Steinhardt, were assigned to var- 

 ious naval bases In the Caribbean, North and South Atlantic 



It is not too much to sa^ r that probably the most impor- 

 tant work of Group M during the first year of its life was the 

 work done at the outlying bases; for the work at the Washington 

 headquarters was necessarily work of a long-range type which 

 was inevitably slower in reaching its full ef f ectiveness . 



As organizational practice developed, it be cane the rule 

 to exchange men between the central headquarters at Washington 

 and the outlying bases. This practice had a dual advantage „ 

 To the men who had been held down to detailed work in a Wash- 

 ington office, It offered the stimulus of getting nearer to 

 the war. It brought back to Washington men with first-hand 

 knowledge of field problems and the personnel who had to deal 

 with them. 



Headquarters Staff , 



All this is not to minimize the importance of the work 

 being done by the members of the group stationed at the central 

 headquarters in Washington,, It was at the Navy Department in 

 Washington that the official orders were issued and the general 

 doctrine was written,, It was here that the reports of all the 

 base men and the action reports from all of the anti-submarine 

 forces could be collected, correlated, and studied statistic- 

 ally It was here that a centralized contact could be main- 

 tained with the NDRC laboratories and with the laboratories 

 of the Navy*, In Washington, detailed theoretical analyses 

 could be worked out and the results sent cut to base men who 

 were usually too busy to work out long and complex calcula- 

 tions o Here, the correlated results from all the far-flung 

 bases could be transmitted back to the field so that the mar- 

 in one locality could see how his colleagues in other areas 

 were doingo Here, supervision of the work could be given by 

 proper Naval authorities, clearances could be had most quick- 

 ly, authority could best be. obtained for publication and dis- 

 tribution, and the general terms of reference of the group 

 with the related services could be maintained,, 



The makeup of the Washington office was at first pre- 

 ponderate^ statistical, but as the rotation system began to 

 show returns and the base men began to come back from their 

 first tours of duty, a greater percentage of men trained in 



48 



