Evolution to AMCOM: The Formation of the U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command (ATCOM) Part II: Organ

By Dr. Kaylene Hughes, HistorianOctober 13, 2017

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Through the years between the founding of ATCOM's earliest predecessor organizations and the separation of the merged Aviation and Troop Support readiness and research and development missions into two dedicated commodity commands in the 1980s, the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) major subordinate commands (MSCs) in St. Louis experienced several redesignations, mission expansions and physical relocations. Each move, reorganization and name change occurred as part of the Army's ongoing efforts to improve efficiency and effectiveness as well as to reduce costs. During the 1960s in particular, ATCOM's predecessors underwent several alterations.

The standup of AMC in 1962 was part of a major Department of the Army (DA) reorganization which resulted in the discontinuance of the Technical Services (i.e., Transportation, Quartermaster, Ordnance,* etc.). That same year, AMC placed the U.S. Army Transportation Materiel Command (TMC), under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Mobility Command (MOCOM), one of the new major command's original MSCs. Subsequently, TMC was designated the U.S. Army Aviation and Surface Command (AVSCOM), effective Nov. 1, 1962. The command's new name recognized that 85 percent of its assigned mission related to aviation.

What would become the Troop Support branch of ATCOM's (and ultimately the U.S. Aviation and Missile Command's) lineage also underwent some extensive organizational changes with the creation of AMC. Troop Support traced its origin to 1941, when the Corps of Engineers established the Engineer Supply Control Office (ESCO) in Granite City, Illinois. The office relocated later to downtown St. Louis. As part of its initial organizational structure, the Materiel Command in 1962 created the Engineer Maintenance Center then consolidated it with two other Quartermaster field organizations to form the Mobility Support Center in Columbus, Ohio. ESCO fell within the jurisdiction of the newly created center.

In 1964, AMC formed the U.S. Mobility Command (MOCOM), headquartered in Warren, Michigan, as part of implementing the reorganized Army Supply and Maintenance System. Early that same year, AMC decided to separate AVSCOM's surface and air functions. AVSCOM was renamed the U.S. Army Aviation Materiel Command (AVCOM) on Feb. 2, 1964. During the same period, ESCO became the Mobility Equipment Center (MEC) and, like AVSCOM, answered to MOCOM. The first Aviation-Troop Support interaction actually occurred on May 1, 1964, when AVCOM transferred responsibility for supply management of rail and surface mobility equipment to MEC. In addition, AMC assigned the surface equipment research and development mission to the center. With the transfer of surface equipment responsibility to MEC, AVCOM's remaining mission centered only on aviation materiel.

When AMC disestablished MOCOM in Aug. 1966, the Aviation Materiel Command became an AMC MSC in its own right as did MEC, which was renamed the U.S. Army Mobility Equipment Command (MECOM). From once small offices reporting to the Transportation Corps and Corps of Engineers, respectively, both organizations had grown by mid-decade into major subordinate commands with increased missions and functions as well as greatly increased work forces.

However, while MECOM's organizational structure remained stable for the next nine years, AVCOM's new commander initiated a management study in Sep. 1967 that AMC requested be reoriented two months later to address higher headquarters recommendations on the creation of a standard commodity command. AVCOM was also to establish a pilot organizational structure for all of AMC's commodity commands. In Oct. 1968, DA approved the new structure implemented this month, at which time AVCOM became the U.S. Army Aviation Systems Command (AVSCOM).

The transition from AVCOM to AVSCOM was, according to a former Army Aviation historian, "the evolutionary offspring of four years of functional alteration and geographic reorganizations involving activities scattered coast to coast." The newly realigned and renamed command consisted of 300 military personnel and 4,000 DA civilians (DACs) employed at AVSCOM headquarters in St. Louis and across the nation in research and development laboratories, plant cognizance activities and test flight activities assigned to AVSCOM's jurisdiction.

Responsible for a budget in excess of $2 billion a year, AVSCOM also held 900 aircraft in storage and at various disposal sites, as well as supported an aircraft inventory that had increased 200 percent since 1955. In 1968, that fleet totaled over 14,000 aircraft. By the start of the new decade, the Army Aviation program represented about 50 percent of the total AMC budget. The command sustained 12,000 aircraft, including 600 Army aircraft with the U.S. Air Force, 350 with the U.S. Navy and 300 with more than 30 foreign allies. It also supported about 9,000 helicopters.

*In 1985, the Ordnance Corps became the first of the Army's support elements to re-establish itself under the branch regimental concept.