Chapter XXVI.

PAYMASTER’S DEPARTMENT.

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Brig. Gen. George Richards was the Paymaster of the United States Marine Corps, stationed at Headquarters, during the entire period of the war.

STRENGTH AND DISTRIBUTION.

The commissioned, warranted, appointed, and enlisted personnel of the paymaster’s department, at the beginning of the war, consisted of:

Permanent commissioned paymasters	6
Officers of the grade of captain detailed for four years	3
Officers appointed as special disbursing agents under Revised Statutes 3614	4
Permanent pay clerks	9
Civil force	3
Enlisted men	51
Total force	76

The above force was distributed as shown in the following table:

Key for column headings:
PC =	Pay clerks.
QS =	Quartermaster sergeants.
S =	Sergeants.
C =	Corporals.
P =	Privates.
T =	Total.
	and lieut. = lieutenant.

Pay stations.	Personnel attached.
	Number and rank commissioned officers.	PC	QS	S	C	P	T
Established offices in United States.
Headquarters, Washington, D. C.	1 brigadier general; 1 lieut. colonel; 1 major; 1 first lieut.	4 }	4	5	2	6	28
		[7]3 }
San Francisco, Calif.	1 major	1	1	2	1	1	7
New York, N. Y.	1 captain	1	3	3	2	4	14
Outside of United States.
Peking, China	1 captain[8]	..	1	..	..	..	2
Virgin Islands	do.[8]	..	1	..	..	..	2
Port au Prince, Haiti	1 first lieut.	..	1	1	1	1	5
Cape Haitien, Haiti	1 captain[8]	..	1	..	1	..	3
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.	1 captain	1	1	..	1	..	4
Santiago, Dominican Republic.	do.	1	2	1	..	3	8
Managua, Nicaragua	1 second lieut.[8]	..	1	..	..	..	2
Unassigned		1	..	..	..	..	1
Total	13	12	16	12	8	15	76

The commissioned force of the paymasters department reached a maximum strength of 47 officers, including special disbursing agents, when the latest detail to the department from the line was made, and as then constituted, consisted of:

Permanently commissioned paymasters	5
Officers detailed from the prewar line	9
Temporary officers (eight former pay clerks and four temporary line officers)	12
Officers of the reserve force	16
Officers appointed as special disbursing agents	5
Permanent pay clerk	1
Temporary pay clerks	58
Pay clerks of the reserve force	6
Enlisted men	501
Total authorized force	613

The above force which was the maximum authorized complement of the paymaster’s department, was distributed as follows:

Key for column headings:
PC =	Pay clerks.
QS =	Quartermaster sergeants.
S =	Sergeants.
C =	Corporals.
P1C =	Privates, first class.
P =	Privates.
T =	Total.
	and brig. gen. = brigadier general.
	and lieut. col. = lieutenant colonel.

Pay stations.	Number and rank commissioned officers.	PC	QS	S	C	P1C	P	T
Established offices in United States.
Headquarters, Washington, D. C.[9]	1 brig. gen., 4 majors, 5 captains.	22	27	37	55	22	67	240
New York, N. Y. (established May, 1908).	2 majors, 1 captain	2	5	5	5	2	8	30
Philadelphia, Pa. (established, May, 1917).	1 colonel, 1 captain	2	2	2	2	1	3	14
Quantico, Va. (established June, 1917).	1 lieut. col., 1 major, 2 captains.	4	5	8	8	3	13	45
Atlanta, Ga. (established June, 1917).	1 captain	3	3	3	4	2	6	22
San Francisco, Calif. (established March, 1901).	do.	2	2	3	3	..	3	14
Outside United States.
Expeditionary Forces in France.	4 majors, 12 captains	20	34	34	31	9	39	183
Seventh Regiment, Cuba	1 captain	1	1	1	2	..	1	7
First Regiment, Cuba	do.	1	1	1	2	..	1	7
San Domingo, Dominican Republic.	do.	1	1	2	2	..	1	8
Santiago, Dominican Republic.	do.	1	1	1	2	..	1	7
Port au Prince, Haiti	1 special disbursing agent.	1	1	1	1	..	..	5
Cape Haitien, Haiti	do.	..	1	..	1	..	1	4
St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.	do.	1	1	..	..	..	..	3
Managua, Nicaragua	do.	..	1	..	..	..	..	2
Peking, China	do.	..	1	..	..	..	..	2
Attached to posts in United States and elsewhere.	1 captain	4	15	..	..	..	..	20
Total	47	65	102	98	118	39	144	613

HOW WAR INCREASES WERE MET.

The enlargement of the paymaster’s department to meet war conditions at the beginning of the war, and until the enlisted strength was raised to 75,500, was effected in the following manner:

1. By the temporary appointment and advancement to the grade of captain, pursuant to act of May 22, 1919, of eight of the permanent pay clerks of the department.

2. By the temporary advancement of enlisted men of experience and long service under this department to the grade of pay clerk.

3. The new enlisted clerical personnel was partly obtained from enlisted men who had previously been employed as pay roll clerks at shore stations and aboard ships of the Navy, and from men enlisted and enrolled from civil life with clerical experience outside. The men obtained were detailed in the regularly established offices, and there formed into classes for instruction in their duties, the commissioned officers and senior clerks being used as instructors for this purpose. In addition to the above, and to the end of creating a proper spirit and morale, and bringing about a better understanding throughout the department of its aims and purposes, a series of lectures by the Paymaster and subordinate officers was delivered at headquarters, and afterwards published and distributed to the entire personnel of the department. Later on, in order to meet the further increased demand for clerical assistance, a school for the instruction of men in paymaster’s department work was established at the Marine barracks, Parris Island, S. C. This was, however, in addition to the system of instruction previously instituted in the permanently established offices. The school was of considerable value in that it aided in the selection and assignment of men (recruits) with previous clerical experience to duty in the paymaster’s department. The demand for clerks for both home and overseas service, however, was so great for some time before the close of the war, that it was not possible at any time to keep the men under instruction in the school or in the offices for sufficient length of time to complete the prescribed course that had been laid out for them. As a consequence, many men had to be sent out with but a meager idea of the duties they were to perform. The clerical forces of the permanent offices, therefore, finally became so drained of experienced clerks and stenographers taken away to supply the demand for expeditionary and overseas forces that it became necessary to enlist or enroll women to perform these duties.

MONEY EXPENDED.

The amount of money expended for pay and allowances for each month from April, 1917, to December, 1918, follows:

Months.	Officers.	Enlisted men.	Total.
1917.
April	$143,698.37	357,398.60	501,094.97
May	176,742.19	413,019.82	589,762.01
June	201,977.79	565,677.22	767,655.01
July	220,884.23	989,495.53	1,210,379.76
August	280,038.19	1,196,082.09	1,476,120.28
September	269,160.66	1,137,790.16	1,406,950.82
October	332,859.49	1,244,965.55	1,577,825.04
November	378,458.48	1,266,138.57	1,644,597.05
December	350,098.46	1,353,510.60	1,703,609.06
1918.
January	328,517.81	1,322,724.98	1,651,242.79
February	337,407.35	1,441,099.32	1,778,506.67
March	369,298.24	1,321,933.64	1,691,231.88
April	373,395.58	1,313,210.75	1,686,606.33
May	378,551.77	1,815,309.63	2,193,861.40
June	385,042.99	1,856,344.35	2,241,387.34
July	441,838.15	2,124,134.76	2,565,972.91
August	515,273.26	2,436.318.86	2,951,592.12
September	572,721.39	2,322,089.79	2,894,811.18
October	522,995.22	2,503,312.62	3,026,307.84
November	648,615.69	2,597,542.71	3,246,158.40
December	597,142.61	2,545,932.41	3,143,075.02
Totals	7,824,715.92	32,124,031.96	39,948,747.88

ADDITIONAL DUTIES DURING WAR.

The duties of the paymaster’s department during the war were greatly enlarged and made more complicated and difficult: (1) By reason of the enactment of the war risk insurance act of October 6, 1917. The work connected with family allotments and war risk insurance created by this act was of such magnitude as to require the establishment of a separate administrative section under a commissioned officer to handle the voluminous correspondence, keep the records, and make proper audit of these items in the accounts involved. It was also found necessary in order to facilitate the work of this section, that a liaison group of clerks be kept in the War Risk Bureau. (2) By reason of the taking over of the payment of all Marine Corps allotments, as the deputy of the Navy allotment officer. (3) By reason of the necessity of having to pay many men on affidavits without proper records; service record books and other papers pertaining to their accounts having been lost or destroyed by operation of war or other accidental circumstances. (4) By reason of the large number of wounded men, some of whom were scattered in various hospitals throughout France, and others of whom were returned to the United States without due notice to military authorities, and sent to both naval, military, and civil hospitals at widely scattered points throughout the States. In but a few of these cases were there any records on which full and accurate payments could be made. Hence a system of emergency, or casual payments, as they were called, was established both in France and in the United States. The absence of records in these cases was not the worst feature however, but the absence of any information whatever, as to the whereabouts of the men made it at first impossible to locate some of them and effect regular payments. However, after the first few months’ experience with the handling of payments to the wounded, a system was devised by which most of those returning to the States were immediately reported and prompt payments were thereafter made. A similar system of emergency or casual payments to wounded men was adopted by the department in France, but wounded men in France were evacuated so frequently from one hospital to another, that no system of reporting was practicable. Each hospital there had to be visited in person by a paymaster at least once a month and such wounded Marines as were found, had to be paid on their own representations a sum sufficient to meet their immediate needs. Under such a system some necessarily went without pay for some time, while others more fortunate in meeting a paymaster at frequent intervals, received at times more money than was properly due them. (5) By reason of the enactment of February 24, 1919, providing a gratuity of $60 to all persons in the military and naval forces of the United States, who were discharged under honorable conditions at any time subsequent to April 6, 1917. This law necessitated the establishment at headquarters of a claims section, whose sole duty was to settle the twenty or thirty thousand supplementary claims created by this act and the act of February 28, 1919, increasing the amount of travel allowance to 5 cents per mile to all enlisted men discharged subsequent to November 11, 1918.

NEW PAY ROLL.

In addition to the above, it became necessary to adopt a new pay roll suitable for preparation on the typewriter and so arranged as to make it adaptable for use as a combination pay and muster roll, should this be deemed necessary. This roll was prescribed and put into use in the midst of the war without much confusion, and it is understood resulted in a saving of much clerical labor to the organization commanders.

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF PAYMASTER, U. S. MARINES, FRANCE.

In obedience to orders dated October 2, 1917, and in compliance with provisions of G. H. Q. General Orders No. 38(2), September 17, 1917, the “Office of the Chief Paymaster, U. S. Marines, France,” was established in Paris, France, on October 5, 1917. Maj. Davis B. Wills was Chief Paymaster, U. S. Marines, France, from that date until the office was abolished in August, 1919.