staff procedures and a final Operations Order for the ‘first practice day
was developed.
It was hoped by members of the staff that this Operations
Order would stand unchanged without amendment of any kind; however, this
was too much to expect.
were made.
jo
New problems arose, and revisions of this order
Some of these problems are illustrated later on in this chapter.
Command Post Exercise No. 1.
On 26 November 1947, when the Office of the Air Commander was
located in Washington, D. C., the Air Commander mentioned at a staff meeting the need for comand post exeroises aboard ship to camiiiarizse personne]
in this office with the need for prompt action on "X", "Y" and "Z" days.
He realized that the facilities aboard the USS MT. MoKINLEY were so in-~
tegrated and so overlapping that it would take considerable training before
all personnel wuld be able to take the proper and necessary action without
stopping to think just how that action should be taken.
Therefore, the Air
Commander directed that all personnel in the Office of the Air Commander
assist in the preparation of ocamand post exercise messages to simulate all
possible, and some seemingly impossible, situations that might arise on the
test days. These messages were prepared and sutmitted to J@5 ef the Task
Force who had also recognized the need for training along these lines.
Other units of the Task Force were asked to prepare messages for the command
post exeroise until it seemed that all possible situations had been coverede
On 2 Mareh 1948, Joint Task Force Staff Memorandum No. 35 was
issued, pointing out that one or more command post exercises would be held
aboard the USS MI. McKINLEY while the ship was en route from Hawaii to
Eniwetoke.
It stated that the purpose of the command post exercise was to
familiarize communications and message center personnel of the USS MT.
McKINLEY with the type of messages to be expected, their proper distribution,
Section VIII
38
Eee