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Show l America In Action n FINDING THE MAN Every time a bomber or fighter-plane fighter-plane rolls off the assembly line, the army air forces technical training train-ing command turns out from 10 to 20 men whose job it is to keep that plane flying. With 185,000 planes scheduled for construction in 1943, the technical training command's program assumes proportions beyond be-yond the wildest dreams of the most mechanically minded people in the world. The task of the technical training command is first to find and then train the mechanics, radio operators, opera-tors, armorers, weather forecasters and a host of other highly skilled soldier-craftsmen. It's a tremendous assignment, one of the biggest and most important of the war. Classification is the secret of the technical training command's ability abili-ty to fit the round peg in the round hole and not a square peg in a round hole. Usually within 24 hours after the inductee reaches the recruit recep- tion center, he has taken his general classification test and his education, civilian employment and hobbies all have been entered on his soldier's qualification card that becomes part of his permanent record. This initial ini-tial classification takes place before the recruit is sent to the training command and is only the beginning. When assigned to the army air forces, the recruit goes from his recruit re-cruit reception center to a basic training center of the technical training train-ing command. The sifting and sorting sort-ing process begins in real earnest at the basic training center. At the time the soldier is assigned to a school or permanent station, his qualification card, which by this time contains a full biography of the man, is sent as a part of his permanent perma-nent records to his new station. And wherever he goes throughout his army career, at home or overseas, over-seas, the soldier's qualification card accompanies him. Filed away with thousands of others, each individual card, with all the coded information, can be found almost immediately. Although classification may seem like an unromantic subject to the average man and has never been glorified in the Sunday supplement sections, it is the bedrock on which the army air forces technical training train-ing command is founded. For the technical training command, the classification system spells the difference dif-ference between hit-or-miss methods meth-ods and a scientific personnel selection. |