(2 of 2)
Two young officers arriving frustrated in Australia from the Battle of Java had the same idea in cruder form (fired by their first drinks in weeks). Hearing that a convoy was unloading at the Melbourne docks, they called for volunteers. Object: to throw the typewriters on the ships overboard before they could be landed. Luckily for them, but perhaps unluckily for fighting proficiency, they got no volunteers.
Other officers have struggled more systematically, but just as angrily, against the form and procedure that inevitably tend to strangle big organizations. Some high-rankers, like General "Hap" Arnold of the Air Forces, have often been in official hot water for cutting through red tape to get things done. General George Marshall has a maxim: "Red tape can be cut, but you've got to be deadly accurate."
Major General Levin Campbell, head of the Ordnance Department, recently wrote a classic general order to his officers: "Whenever a member of the Ordnance Department, regardless of rank, encounters 'red tape' in conducting our business: throw the 'red tape' to hell out the window! If an abundance of paper work is involved . . . deliver first and fill out the forms when there's time!"