Chapter 3: The Engineer Machine in Motion in the United Kingdom, 1942
The engineer force in the United Kingdom spent the months following the formal organization of the theater command struggling to fulfill its obligations under the BOLERO Plan, which was beset by problems of organization and direction, supply, personnel, methodology, weather, and geography. Efficient management was difficult if not impossible given uncertain goals, insufficient personnel, and a bifurcate theater structure. The TORCH decision disrupted the BOLERO program before it could build up any momentum and scattered the engineer effort. Nevertheless, an important beginning was made in 1942 in creating a base in England for an eventual cross-Channel invasion, and the engineer effort was no small part of that accomplishment.1
Personnel
Engineers formed part of the ground and air force troop bases as well as that of the Services of Supply, but the service force engineers were supposed to do most of the static force construction work. Service engineers in the force sent to Northern Ireland had been outnumbered by combat engineers, who consequently had to do construction work for which they had not been trained. In an effort to avoid such a situation in the whole United Kingdom buildup, the Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE) in Washington asked the War Department to provide 16,000 men immediately for twelve general service regiments and ten dump truck companies. They were to be sent overseas with a minimum of basic military training. Late in March General Chaney asked for three general service regiments and for a like number of engineer aviation battalions to assist the British in building those airfields to be turned over to the American air force. Early in May 1942 the Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE), USAFBI, made its first formal requisition for ten general service regiments (13,000 men) and ten engineer aviation battalions (7,000 men) to arrive in the theater between June and October. Not counting aviation battalions, USAFBI then expected there would be some 40,330
U.S. Army engineers in Britain at the time of the Continental invasion. Of these, the two largest groups would be combat units (11,394 men) and general service units (17,626 men).2
These calculations were soon outdated by those surrounding the formal inception of the BOLERO program. The first tentative BOLERO troop basis drawn up in Washington in early May contemplated a force of 1,042,000 for ROUNDUP, about 25 percent service troops. Later in May the War Department prescribed priorities for shipment—first air units, then essential SOS units, then ground forces, followed by additional service units to prepare for more ground force troops. Within these general lines, the theater was expected to prescribe priorities for particular types of units. The scheme was logical enough, but it broke down in practice in the face of shipping shortages, lack of trained service troops, and finally the midsummer shift in strategy.
Early in June 1942 (coincident with the first BOLERO Key Plan) the War Department submitted to ETOUSA a more detailed breakdown of a troop basis that totaled 1,071,060 men. The War Department allotted just over 104,000 engineers to the theater: 31,648 in a total of 279,145 troops for the Services of Supply; 54,380 in a ground force troop strength of 585,565; and 18,909 aviation engineers in an Air Forces strength of 206,400. General Davison argued for increases in all categories to raise the total engineer troop strength to about 147,000, but he received no concessions. Indeed, on the premise that the command could use quartermaster units for many jobs, the SOS allocation was reduced to 29,500.3
The Operations and Training Division of the Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE), ETOUSA, had made Davison’s estimates, using the capabilities of engineer units against the tasks to be performed. For example, depot troop requirements were calculated from the number of depots and the tonnage to be handled, and maintenance companies from the number of pieces of equipment to be kept in condition. But calculations depended on the troop basis figure, which constantly changed. Not until the fall of 1943 could a definite ETO troop basis be evolved for either SOS or combat engineers. Furthermore, the value of these tentative troop bases was questionable because the number of trained engineer troops to support the forces involved was so limited. Planning for aviation engineer units was originally based on one air force, the Eighth, which included interceptor, bomber, fighter, and service commands. After TORCH, a decision came to have two air forces, strategic and tactical. The Air Forces estimated the number of engineer aviation battalions required, although the chief engineer concurred in the proposed total.4
The problem of the shifting troop basis was compounded by that of finding units to fulfill the plan of the moment. Before Pearl Harbor the U.S. Army had few trained service units, and after that day the great cry was for combat forces. The War Department was slow to recognize the need for service forces and to start their training.5 At a May SOS conference in Washington Colonel Larkin said that a half-trained man in the theater was better than no man at all. Accepting this philosophy, the War Department authorized the early shipment of 10,000 service troops to the ETO, many of whom were indeed half trained.
Already plagued by the lack of trained units and an acute shipping shortage, the whole BOLERO schedule was thrown off by TORCH. In August word came from the War Department that no more SOS engineers were to be stationed in the United Kingdom, while many of the units there were alerted for movement to North Africa. In September a new tentative troop basis was published by G-4, ETO, based on the adjustment for TORCH and the 427,000-man force reflected in the third BOLERO Plan. In this plan engineers were to provide 45,000 men or 10.5 percent of the total force-16,600 in an SOS force of 106,000; 6,000 in a ground force of 159,000; and 23,000 aviation engineers in an Air Forces strength of 157,000.
The actualities were somewhat different. On 1 July 1942, of 58,845 Americans in the ETO, then chiefly in Northern Ireland, only 2,150 were engineers. By November the ETO total was 255,155 and the number of engineers had risen to more than 40,000, but 18,554 of them had left England for North Africa by January 1943. The 21,858 left represented 20 percent of the remaining ETOUSA command, a percentage in line with General Lee’s policy to deploy engineers to the United Kingdom early to prepare the way for air and ground forces. But the actual number of engineers was still well below the 45,000 authorized to be there in the next two months and was insufficient to perform tasks under the 427,000-man plan, much less the long-range plan for a million-man force. Moreover, organizing new units such as pipeline companies and separate water supply companies for TORCH, as well as transfers to fill units alerted for North Africa, left the remaining engineer units in the United Kingdom with a shortage of 3,000 men.6
The problems of requisitioning engineers and of supervising assignment and promotion in the Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE), SOS, were the concern of the Personnel and Administration Division, OCE, organized in July 1942. The division’s first chief
was Maj. J. M. Franey, soon succeeded by Maj. Beryl C. Brooks. The division initially edited the consolidated personnel requisitions which engineer units submitted and then transmitted them to G-1, SOS, whence they went to G-1, ETOUSA, and finally to the War Department. This procedure proved cumbersome and slow, and OCE, SOS, ordered engineer units to submit monthly requisitions directly to G-1, SOS, with OCE assisting in a staff capacity to _process the requisitions through G-1.7
The division had difficulty in obtaining authorized personnel. Requisitioning officers and enlisted men by name took too long. Early in 1942 many officers assigned to OCE and to base sections came from a reserve pool; many others were former engineer division and district officers from the Zone of the Interior (ZI). The 342nd, 332nd, and 341st Engineer General Service Regiments, among the earliest engineer units dispatched to Britain, were filled with men experienced in civilian construction work, obtained under special OCE recruiting authority.8
In July 1942 General Larkin had complained of a lack of military experience among engineer officers, and in October Colonel Moore found that 84 of 271 officers in the base sections and in OCE, ETOUSA, had no previous military experience. Among the remaining 187 officers, 170 were from the National Guard or the Officers Reserve Corps with little active military experience. Of seventeen Regular Army officers, four were quite young and six were tapped for the impending TORCH operation. Only seven experienced officers remained to handle the eleven important jobs of chief engineer, chief engineer’s deputy, executive, division chiefs, supervisor of engineer schools, and three base section engineer posts. SOS engineer units averaged one regular or former regular per regiment, and sometimes he was of junior grade. Most of the remaining officers were commissioned in the Army of the United States (AUS).9
Aviation engineer units lacked skilled construction personnel. The total construction experience among thirty-two officers of one aviation battalion added up to two years, while few battalions had an experienced unit engineering officer. Conditions were no better in the lower ranks, and inexperienced officers had to do much of the work of even more inexperienced noncommissioned officers. To remedy the situation Colonel Moore recommended that the post of engineering officer in an engineer aviation battalion be raised
from the rank of captain to that of major.10
TORCH drew heavily on experienced units and key officers with executive and administrative ability. The Offices of the Chief of Engineers, SOS, and ETOUSA, and the base sections gave TORCH sixty-five officers, including Generals Larkin and Davison and Colonel Pence and Lt. Col. Howard H. Reed of the Supply Division. Headquarters, ETOUSA, alerted four battalions of aviation engineers for North Africa. To bring these units to full strength, SOS had to draw on the remaining twelve battalions for both officers and enlisted men. For example, the 830th gave 30 men per company to the 814th; the 809th, also bound for North Africa, drew 105 men from the 832nd and 57 from the 825th. Engineer general service regiments and combat battalions also helped fill out alerted units.
Training
The problems created by personnel shortages and transfers were compounded by the inadequate training of engineers in the theater. Many engineer troops lacked not only specialist training but even adequate basic training. The Corps of Engineers’ size doubled in the first six months of U.S. participation in World War II, and training new personnel for urgent demands was impossible.11
Colonel Lord, deputy chief engineer, ETOUSA, concluded in December 1942 that basic training had to be completed in the United States. He did not stand alone in this judgment, although it was in conflict with Colonel Larkin’s belief that a half-trained man was better than no man.12 Many half-trained engineer troops reached the ETO. Six general service regiments arrived in the Eastern Base Section area in the summer of 1942; they had received an average of ten weeks’ basic training between their organization in the United States and their departure for a port of embarkation. Losses of cadres for newly formed units weakened many engineer organizations shortly before they went overseas. Some engineer unit officers, even commanders, were transferred to other units after reaching the port of embarkation. However necessary it was to build up a large force, the immediate effect on particular units was one of incalculable harm.13
Many units were brought up to strength only at the port of embarkation. In 1942 the 397th Engineer Depot Company arrived at Fort Dix, a staging area for the New York Port of Embarkation (POE), with 4 officers and 68 enlisted men, picking up an additional 104 enlisted men at Dix. In another case the 830th Engineer Aviation Battalion received 82 percent of its enlisted
men and 50 percent of its officers between 29 July and 9 August 1942, before entraining for Fort Dix on 11 August. Units manned in such fashion could hardly be characterized as cohesive.
The hope persisted that basic .training could be completed in the United Kingdom and that the troops could learn their special skills on the job. Good construction experience could be gained, as could some training for amphibious operations, but not for such combat skills as laying and removing mines, booby traps, and other obstacles and rapidly building and reinforcing bridges. Engineer aviation units, which were kept busy constructing permanent bomber bases, could not be trained for building hasty airfields in forward areas. Reports on North African operations later highlighted such deficiencies.14
The chief of engineers in Washington formally recognized the vital need for training, but practical considerations prevented rapid solutions. A supply plan issued in September 1942 left a loophole for tired construction units in England, then working seven days a week on day and night shifts, by providing that training be carried on with minimum interference to unit duties and tasks. Thus during 1942, training was overshadowed—first by the buildup and then by preparations for TORCH. In practice, the time spent on training varied from one hour in eight to one in ten. Some troops took one hour for five days, then four hours on the sixth day. Two aviation battalions, the 818th and the 825th, worked ten hours a day and set aside one day a week for training. Later, these and other units -trained on Sundays. Some general service regiments alerted for North Africa trained one battalion for a week while the other battalion continued construction work; but, in general, training schedules, no matter how elaborate on paper, had little actual meaning.
The chief obstacle was the buildup. Each hour spent away from actual work delayed buildup goals. The official viewpoint—that training was a diversion—affected the attitude of all personnel. Even after TORCH started, the engineer troops remaining in England had construction or other urgent tasks to perform, and realistic training was nearly impossible.15
There were other obstacles. Space was limited in the British Isles; lumber to build training quarters was scarce and equipment hard to come by. Some units fell back on their own resources. The 434th Engineer Dump Truck Company, for example, set up its own crane operator school, while other units did the same for brickwork, plumbing, steel construction, and electrical equipment installation. Engineers from various units received valuable military training at schools for enlisted men set up at Shrivenham, Berkshire, in what became known as the American School Center.
Just as important was the training offered by the British. Perhaps the best
British school open to American engineers was the School of Military Engineering at Ripon, Yorkshire, which gave instruction in field work, bridging, electrical and mechanical work, military duties, and bomb disposal. Here U.S. Army engineers learned the value of the Bailey bridge. Courses ranged from two to five weeks, and after a time American instructors, including engineers, augmented the staff.16 Other British institutions open to U.S. Army engineers included the railroad engineering school, the British staff college, a school that devoted special attention to camouflage, a fire-fighting school, a military intelligence school, and a diving school. By the end of 1942, 47 engineer officers and 185 enlisted men were attending British or American military training schools in England.
Supply
The engineers in the United Kingdom during 1942 were supplied by the United States and by local procurement in Britain, from which came the largest tonnages. Generals Chaney and Davison recognized the need for extensive reciprocal aid from the British, and on 25 May, Headquarters, USAFBI, established a General Purchasing Board and a Board of Contracts and Adjustments.
Made up of representatives of the chiefs of each American service, the General Purchasing Board issued procurement directives, outlined local procurement procedure, and provided information on available materials. Before submitting requisitions for materials from the United States, each service sent copies to the general purchasing agent (GPA), who determined if British materials were available.17
Local procurement took one of three forms: materials that came direct from British resources, articles that Britain manufactured from material shipped from the United States, or substitutes. This third form of procurement took place when American materials went to British overseas forces, principally in the Pacific, and were exchanged for materials produced in the British Isles. The British and Americans did not work out a final procurement system until mid-October; until then lack of clearly defined procedures inhibited procurement under reverse lend-lease. The engineers frequently found it impossible to obtain needed items through the seventeen official British agencies involved and turned to local British businessmen, a procedure which often led to disagreements with the general purchasing agent. As late as January 1943 Col. Douglas C. MacKeachie, the GPA, criticized the engineers for constantly ignoring “most of the policies established for procurement in the UK.” He declared that there had been a waste of “crucial tonnage” because the
engineers did not follow up, and he felt their laxity in figuring requirements for reverse lend-lease items had made it difficult for the British to plan production. The engineer defense against this criticism was that procurement policy remained ill-defined until mid-October. In any case, Colonel MacKeachie admitted that Colonel Moore, the chief engineer of SOS and ETOUSA, had generally worked out satisfactory procedures by January 1943.18
During the last seven months of 1942 the British provided the engineers with 211,150 long (2,240-pound) tons of supplies under reverse lend-lease, not including large quantities of construction materials for sheltering and servicing American troops. Much of this material was shipped to North Africa to support American forces. Among other important items the engineers received or requisitioned were Bailey bridges, Sommerfeld track (a matting made of wire netting reinforced with steel), lumber, and essential tools and spare parts. Thousands of British civilian clerks and laborers worked on construction, depot supply, storage, and other projects. At one time, more than 27,760 civilians contributed to the BOLERO program and 20,000 to the separate air force engineer development.19 Two factors inhibited reciprocal aid; the first was the limited quantity of raw materials available in the United Kingdom and the second was that U.S. Army equipment was standardized to American specifications so as to make substitution often impossible.20
During 1942 the engineers received from the United States some 75,400 tons of supplies representing 11,100 items in the Engineer Supply Catalog. The second half of the year saw 58,000 tons arrive, the peak month being August, when 26,000 tons reached Britain. But this tonnage fell far short of projected figures in BOLERO planning, and again, some quantities were siphoned off to North Africa. From the start and throughout 1942, no definite priority or allocation system existed.21
In July 1942 the Engineer Service, SOS, set up a Supply Division headed by Lt. Col. Thomas DeF. Rogers to receive, store, and distribute engineer supplies and equipment. The division’s early days were marked with confusion, for none of the personnel initially assigned had any experience in engineer supply operations. Ultimately the division established a depot and shop branch as well as planning, procurement, requirements, and transportation branches. Supply Division sent a representative to London to maintain liaison with the General Purchasing Board and sundry British agencies; this office gradually evolved into the Procurement Branch. Liaison with OCE in Washington was not always good, as evidenced by Supply Division’s lack of catalogs,
nomenclature lists, TOES, and TBAs. Another difficulty was the failure of the Construction and Planning Division of OCE, SOS, to recognize that it, and not Supply Division, was responsible for submitting initial lists of requirements. Supply Division worked out a comprehensive engineer supply plan in October, but by December the North African operation had rendered it obsolete and had robbed the division of some of its more experienced officers.22
Not until December did SOS, GPA, and other agencies concerned establish a stable system for securing engineer supplies from the United States. Under this system requisitions went from the Supply Division to the deputy chief engineer, SOS, and then to G-4, SOS. The general purchasing agent received a copy of each requisition to determine whether the materials were available in the United Kingdom. If not, the requisitions went to the Overseas Supply Division in the New York port. Supply Division, OCE, in Washington checked the quantities requisitioned and either approved them or made arbitrary cuts depending upon available stocks.
In the normal requisitioning cycle 90 to 120 days passed between the time Supply Division, OCE, processed a requisition and when the articles were issued at a depot. This length of time often meant that requirements could be outdated by the time requisitions were filled. In July 1942 the War Department authorized a sixty-day level for Class II engineer supplies (organizational equipment to fill TOE and ‘FBA allowances of units) and Class IV items (construction supplies) needed for special projects. The sixty-day level was prescribed as the “minimum amount to be held as a reserve” over and above quantities required for normal operations, but in practice this level could not be maintained and shortages persisted throughout 1942.
Even the calculation of requirements to meet that level was disrupted by TORCH. Requirements for Class II depended upon numbers and types of units, and the North African invasion drained units from the United Kingdom and left the future troop basis uncertain; the requirements for Class IV supply in North Africa were obviously different from those in the British Isles. TORCH seriously depleted British resources, took essential material from U.S. Army engineer units remaining in the United Kingdom, and practically exhausted depot stocks of Class IV supplies in the theater.
Realizing that the lead time for production and delivery of most special project material was twelve to eighteen months, Colonel Moore, in December, sought to rebuild Class IV stockpiles in the United Kingdom and appointed a board to estimate future requirements and delivery schedules. The move seemed to fly in the face of a Somervell directive dated 18 November 1942, stating that no supplies were to be sent to Britain beyond those necessary to equip the 427,000 men scheduled to be in England by spring 1943. But General Somervell hardly intended this figure to be sacrosanct, for an ultimate cross-
Channel invasion was still the principal tenet of American strategy.23
One of the most frequent complaints of engineer units was that their Class II equipment did not reach them until weeks after they arrived in the United Kingdom. Most troop transports carried little or no equipment, sending it instead by slow-moving freighters. It was almost impossible to bring men and equipment together simultaneously in the United Kingdom. When units were still in camp in the United States they needed their equipment for training. Taking the equipment from the men at least a month before departure would have been necessary for it to arrive overseas at the same time as the troops, and even then there would have been no guarantee. Some equipment was lost in ports or depots or sent to the bottom by German submarines. The 817th Engineer Aviation Battalion, on its arrival in July 1942, had 1 transit, 100 axes, and 100 shovels for 800 men, while several other units had nothing but jeeps. Two months after their arrival in late summer, four engineer aviation battalions had received less than one-third of their heavy equipment. Borrowing British equipment alleviated problems somewhat, but such loans were limited. The lack of tools was a major factor in retarding construction.24
The War Department or Headquarters, ETOUSA, regulated the supply and issue of many scarce items. Those under War Department allocation regulation were known as controlled items; those in short supply in ETO were designated critical items by the theater command. Throughout 1942 the supply of items in both categories remained unsatisfactory, and as late as mid-December such engineer equipment as air compressors, generators, welding sets, compasses, mine detectors, gas cylinders, gas pipeline supplies, pumps, D-7 tractors with angledozers, and truck-mounted cranes remained in short supply.25
Nevertheless, by the end of 1942 U.S. Army engineer units in England had received 90 percent of their heavy construction equipment from the United States and 70 percent of their general-purpose vehicles. But few additional engineer troops had been stationed in the United Kingdom since 1 September, and some serious shortages remained—a result of the unavoidable time lag in manufacturing heavy equipment in the United States and an unforeseen heavy demand for it in all theaters. Too few Class II items were arriving, and only about 27 percent of items not under special controls were
available for initial issue requirements. With shortages already prevalent, SOS had to equip units alerted for TORCH by stripping equipment from units scheduled to remain in England.26
Many other supply problems arose. Poor packing in the United States often resulted in saltwater damage. Improper handling caused more loss, and worn or used supplies showed up all too frequently. Sometimes various parts of equipment arrived in separate containers, and in other cases some parts never arrived at all. Vague and ambiguous ship manifests caused countless hours to be spent in sorting equipment. Equipment lost for long periods had to be requisitioned again. Spare parts in large quantities left the United States, yet months later some units had not received a single box. In July a machine training detachment (a captain and twelve sergeants) began working at Liverpool, the chief freight port, supervising the unloading and loading of all engineer equipment and greatly reduced the confusion. This and other steps improved matters so that by November engineer equipment reached the proper units ten days after it landed.27
The depot system serving American forces in the United Kingdom expanded slowly, laboring under the same organizational, geographic, and manpower restraints that hobbled the entire ETOUSA operation in its early stages. The engineers had specified areas for supply in general depots, or they set up their own depots. The system began to take shape with Desertmartin in Northern Ireland and eventually amounted to ten installations in the first year. As shipments from the United States increased, American planners in the theater moved depot operations into large warehouses in Liverpool, Bristol, and other smaller ports on Britain’s west coast. In June 1942 the British turned over to U.S. Army control, under the general command of Chief Quartermaster Brig. Gen. Robert McG. Littlejohn, several existing British Army depots, among them a recently constructed facility at Ash-church, just south of Liverpool. Engineer supply in the summer of 1942 was concentrated at this general depot and at a former Royal Ordnance depot at Thatcham-Newbury, sixty miles due west of London, also shared with other service arms. A small, exclusively engineer depot was established in British quarters at Huntingdon, sixty miles north of London, to supply airfield construction units in the Eastern Base Section with building materials. But the planned storage capacity for the troop buildup under BOLERO still awaited construction. If the consolidation of supply requests was the province of the quartermaster, providing the storage space and the physical fixtures was the responsibility of the chief engineer.28
Decisions on the location of new depots were complicated by the necessity to share buildings with the British and by the lack of space at more desirable sites. The threat of German air attack induced the British government to disperse depot installations in unlikely spots. American engineers followed this principle to some extent, but, also influenced by the plan for a large BOLERO static force, they gave some thought to locating the depots so as to support both the buildup and the subsequent invasion of Europe.
By the end of 1942, the engineers had constructed additional depots in the English interior. All of them suffered problems of transport. Inter-depot shipments were made impractical by circuitous and slow rail service and by an inventory system that failed to show changes in the location of material; by fall of 1942, theater policy forbade movement of materiel between the depots. In September the Thatcham-Newbury installation had 85,000 tons of engineer supplies on hand with the 450th Engineer Depot Company there handling the supply needs of the Southern Base Section. The Engineer Section at Ashchurch not only became a spare parts repository but also took care of the general engineer supply for western and northern England. Though limited in space, another general depot associated with Cardiff and Newport on the Bristol Channel was the only port depot in the system and contributed in the fall of 1942 to the direct flow of materiel into the Southern Base Section from the United States.
Shortages in trained supply technicians and the absence of a standard nomenclature list for items of supply posed other problems. Through the summer, the 450th Engineer Depot Company at Thatcham-Newbury, complemented by British civilians, was the only unit in the country handling engineer depot supplies. The civilians were largely untrained in wholesale stock management, and the depot company found conditions and procedures totally different. The demands of TORCH were particularly felt here. Six depot companies were scheduled to arrive in England by the end of the year; of the two that came, one shipped out immediately for Africa, and the experienced 450th found itself in Algeria in late November 1942. Stock records and daily tally-in and -out cards were unreliable. Illegible and ambivalent notations made some records useless, and inventories at various locations differed in the description of identical items until the ETOUSA chief engineer’s office produced a standard depot manual in February 1943 and a combined British-American nomenclature list the following month. Difficulties in stock and depot control brought the direct attention of the chief engineer to the lowest levels of the command, an undesirable situation since directives and verbal instructions then bypassed the base section commands having jurisdiction over the areas in which individual depots were located.29
Another serious problem in 1942 was equipment maintenance. Normally, five echelons of repair existed for heavy engineer and other equipment. The using
units took care of first and second echelons, mainly preventive maintenance such as lubrication, cleaning, tightening, and minor replacements. Engineer maintenance companies took care of third and fourth echelon work, which involved major assembly replacements and technical repairs; engineer heavy shop companies undertook fifth echelon maintenance—salvaging, rebuilding, and reconditioning. This was the prescribed procedure, but under conditions existing in Britain in 1942 the engineers could not fully implement it. Maintenance operations were slow in getting under way and proved unsatisfactory throughout the period.30
The 467th Engineer Maintenance Company, the first engineer maintenance unit to arrive in the theater, reached Northern Ireland in March 1942 as a skeleton organization made up of company headquarters and one maintenance platoon. In early November the unit moved to the Eastern Base Section where it performed not only third and fourth echelon maintenance for which it was trained but also fifth echelon work. In August, after only a few weeks of training, the 470th Engineer Maintenance Company arrived from the United States as a complete unit and set up at Ashchurch. With only half of its equipment, the company had to borrow tools and parts from the 471st Engineer Maintenance Company, which had arrived in England at the same time. Moreover, the company repeatedly had to provide cadres for new units. OCE, SOS, never issued any directives defining the company’s functions, and few engineer troops outside the immediate Ashchurch area were aware that it existed and that it could aid them. The company left England for North Africa late in November 1942.
The October supply plan had called for maintenance shops at Ashchurch, Shrivenham in Berkshire, and Braintree in Essex. For lack of equipment, these shops were not close to operating at full capacity by the year’s end. Individual engineer units felt shortages in maintenance equipment just as acutely as did the shops. Aviation and other engineer units constantly called for mobile shops, tools, and tool sets. Though schedules called for maintenance machinery to be used eight to ten hours a day, shortages compelled engineer units to use them at times for more than twenty hours.
Despite these handicaps the engineers took on considerable maintenance work and occasionally the duties of the Ordnance Department. In the late fall of 1942, engineers in the Southern Base Section were responsible not only for maintaining engineer equipment but also for operating most of the motor vehicles. Even with shortages of repair parts and operating manuals, most men did their best to keep their equipment in good condition. The dearth of facilities and tools forced men to do things on their own, to employ expedients, and to learn the intricacies of each tool, machine, or vehicle. On the other hand, losses and damages inevitably resulted because so many operators lacked adequate training.31
A critical shortage of spare parts became apparent early. Although in June the War Department had authorized a year’s automatic supply of spare parts for overseas operations, OCE, WD, reported that spare parts stock for the following six months would not be ready for shipment until October and that a balanced twelve-month depot stock, then being assembled, would not be ready until the close of the year. Nor were the prospects brighter that units overseas would soon get a three- to six-month supply of critical spare parts. The situation became so serious in the Eastern Base Section that depots issued some items only upon presentation of the parts to be replaced. In September, OCE, SOS, formed a spare parts depot on the nucleus of an engineer base equipment company at Ashchurch, with subdepots at Egginton in Derbyshire and Huntingdon in Huntingdonshire. October saw some improvement, but stocks were far from balanced.32
The quality of equipment provided to the engineer .units was good, though some was unsuited for larger tasks. The earth auger and the medium tractor with angledozer proved too light for much of the work for which they were used, and they frequently broke down. The 1½-ton dump truck was also inadequate and wore out much sooner than the larger and more rugged 2½-ton truck.
But with their heavy graders, bulldozers, paving machines, posthole diggers, and other efficient machinery, American engineers could usually outperform British engineers, who generally had lighter equipment, although the British machines often excelled in muddy conditions.33
Intelligence
In late 1942 engineer intelligence was still unprepared for the tasks looming ahead. Intelligence functions were related to ROUNDUP, but Continental operations were a hope for the future rather than an imminent reality. To staff officers responsible for building up engineer forces in the United Kingdom, intelligence and mapping appeared less urgent than construction. When the intelligence organization of OCE, SOS, became an independent division in midsummer 1942, its staff consisted of only a few officers and even fewer enlisted men. Lt. Col. Herbert Milwit, formerly with the 30th Engineer Topographic Battalion and an expert in mapping and photogrammetry, remained division chief throughout the war in Europe. Not until December 1942 did sufficient personnel arrive in Britain to make possible more than extremely limited operations.34
In spite of the importance of mapping
Colonel Milwit
as a branch of engineer intelligence, Americans in the European theater at first assumed little responsibility for it. In May 1942 the British and Americans concluded the Loper-Hotine Agreement to divide mapping responsibility throughout the world. The British agreed to take care of most of Western Europe and the Middle East, leaving North and South America, the Far East, and the Pacific to the Americans. The Directorate of Military Survey of the British War Office provided Americans with maps, equipment, housing, and storage facilities. This British agency also aided in training a small but vital engineer model makers detachment, whose model beaches were to prove useful in planning amphibious operations.35
The Loper-Hotine Agreement recognized that the British would require American help in compiling and reproducing maps for American forces and in providing photomaps for those parts of northwest Europe not covered by reliable large-scale maps. The agreement also specified that American topographic units and staffs would support major American forces. Though American topographical battalions arrived in Britain in the latter part of 1942 without adequate equipment, by the close of the year Colonel Milwit’s units were producing maps in considerable quantities and were building up a worthwhile map library.36
For a time, relations with the British were better than with the Army Air Forces. OCE, WD, had arranged with the Air Forces at Wright Field outside Dayton, Ohio, to train a B-17 squadron to carry out photomapping in cooperation with the engineers. After months of negotiating over the type of plane, the need for an escort, and the flying altitude, the scheme failed. Engineer mapmakers thus had to rely upon the slower, less accurate methods of the Royal Air Force.37
Construction
As the BOLERO plans developed, it became apparent that without considerable assistance the British would not be able to house the American force scheduled to arrive in the United Kingdom. General Davison pointed out in June of 1942 that the difference between what the Americans would need and what the British could provide in new and existing facilities would constitute the engineer construction program. Determining American needs was difficult because of the uncertainty in 1942 as to how many American troops would come, when they would come, and how they would be used in the invasion. The orderly development of the quartering and construction programs—at first in separate divisions but in mid-October combined—suffered because of these uncertainties.38
Until enough American “static force” engineers arrived, the British handled everything connected with quartering. British Army and Air Force officers met U.S. Army units as they arrived, directed them to assigned areas, and arranged for various services, including utilities, medical facilities, and the Navy-Army-Air Force Institution (NAAFI, the British equivalent of the post exchange). In at least one instance a British advance party remained with the U.S. troops to aid in maintaining equipment and drawing supplies, to make the Americans familiar with British military procedure, and to provide laundry, shoe repair, and tailoring services. In the early summer of 1942, when the SOS was too new and undermanned to handle these matters, such British assistance was vital.39
Americans gradually took over many of these functions, though the British role remained great. Aviation engineer battalions which had to construct sites on grain fields or pastureland without facilities (mostly in Eastern Base Section) put up tents for those who came next. In Southern and Western Base Sections, the British could usually turn over existing facilities, at least for the early arrivals. To meet U.S. Army requirements, however, these facilities often had to be altered or enlarged by either the British or the Engineer Construction Division. If no housing existed, one or the other had to put up new structures.40
The Engineer Construction Division, a subsidiary of the chief engineer’s office at Cheltenham, was set up in mid-June with two officers and two enlisted men headed by Col. Frank M. Albrecht. As more officers arrived in the ETO the organization grew, and in October it absorbed the Quartering Division. Before TORCH, tasks consisted mainly of planning and liaison. In designing and constructing buildings the British predominated because they ultimately were to own all installations. In some cases, especially in airfield construction, Americans attempted to lower British specifications in the interest of speed and economy, but, in general, the British held to their point of view.
General Lee’s policy of centralized control and decentralized operations governed administrative procedures in building facilities of all types. Engineer officers of the “static force” had authority to approve or disapprove construction projects in accordance with estimated costs. Unit utility offices could approve maintenance and utility projects originating within such units as ground force battalions if the projects cost less than $825, which at World War II exchange rates amounted to £100. American district engineers could authorize projects involving less than $20,600, while base section engineers could approve new construction costing under $164,800. For projects above $164,800 the base section engineers had to secure the approval of the chief engineer, SOS, ETOUSA.
Since all installations were ultimately to be turned over to the British, area, district, or base section engineers had to obtain approval for each project from their opposites in the local British military hierarchy. The British were reluctant to delegate the authority to approve even minor construction, and some projects costing as little as $410 had to go to the War Office for approval.
General Lee constantly pressed the War Office to modify the British system, arguing that new construction costing less than $164,800 could and should be disposed of at a much lower level than the War Office. Not until well into the fall of 1942 did the War Office acquiesce. Thereafter, British commanders had the same approval powers as American base section, district, and area commanders.41
Under the new arrangement, if a camp, depot, or hospital was to cost more than $164,800 the chief engineer asked the British War Office to recommend suitable sites, and the base section engineer then selected a site board. For camp and hospital sites, such boards included an engineer, a medical officer, and representatives of each unit, arm, or service concerned. The board inspected the proposed sites and reported their selection to the chief engineer. Although only the chief engineer or his representative had authority to request sites or facilities from the British, OCE made no objection to informal agreements, subject to the chief engineer’s approval, entered into by other arms and services.42
Differences between American and British methods, organization, and nomenclature posed seemingly endless problems. A requisition was an “indent,” a monkey wrench was a “spanner”; nails were designated by length rather than weight, rope by circumference rather than diameter. Large American trucks had difficulty traversing the narrow, sharply curved British roads. American electrical equipment would not
operate on British current; the USAAF required more hardstandings, quarters, and facilities than RAF airdromes provided; and American commanders found British special facilities for noncoms hard to reconcile with U.S. Army practices.43
A problem stemmed from the fact that the Air Ministry was a separate arm of the British War Office. The engineers wanted to separate the USAAF from construction channels—a policy that found little favor with either the Air Forces or the British Air Ministry. With ETOUSA support General Lee finally succeeded in his efforts to coordinate all U.S. construction under one office, gaining by fall both Air Forces and British Air Ministry acquiescence. The Air Forces stated requirements; the engineers did the construction. The Air Ministry agreed not only to deal directly with the engineers but to grant its subordinate commands powers of approval paralleling those of the American static force.44
Another general working agreement was that American engineer units would undertake the larger construction projects to make better use of their heavy equipment. ETOUSA also agreed that U.S. Army camps would remain as small as possible so that local municipal utility systems could serve them. The British and Americans prepared standard layouts for camps for 600, 750, 1,000, and 1,250 men and hospitals for 750 and 1,000 beds. The need for conserving shipping space, the scarcity of wood, and the necessity for speed in construction all dictated the choice of 16-foot-wide Nissen huts for housing and 35-foot-wide Iris huts for storage and shop space. The British agreed to manufacture these units from billet steel imported from the United States. The huts provided good semipermanent quarters that could be erected easily and quickly.45-
As the machinery for construction and quartering evolved, the Engineer Construction Division and engineer construction units turned their energies toward camps and depots in the Southern Base Section and air installations in the Eastern Base Section. In March 1942 the British indicated that they would need help in providing fields for American Air Forces; General Davison immediately cabled Washington for ten aviation engineer battalions and soon afterwards raised the number to twenty. The first of these battalions arrived in June. Late in July Eighth Air Force set its requirements at 98 airdromes, of which the British already had built 52; they would build 29 more and the U.S. aviation engineers 17.
Men of the 829th Engineer Aviation Battalion erect Nissen hutting
By 1 September the U.S. figure had risen unofficially to 38.46
Although the construction program was neither formally approved nor coordinated, by 1 September unofficial figures listed new camps for 77,346 men, 53 hospitals, and 16 convertible camps, in addition to the 38 new airdromes. SOS building operations were already well under way. Eight general service regiments had arrived and were employed on thirty-one projects. Five of these regiments were in Southern Base Section, one building railroad spurs and four building shelters. By contrast, little had been done in Western Base Section. Although three general service regiments arrived there in August and began shelter construction, in September all were diverted to TORCH.47 In Eastern Base Section the 809th Engineer Aviation Battalion, the first SOS engineer unit to do construction
Paving train at an American bomber field in England
in England, began work at Glatton Airdrome on 5 July. By September sixteen aviation battalions were at work in that area, although only six had been at their job sites more than a few days.48
The British heavy bomber airdrome was accepted as the standard for each field to be constructed by the Americans, with few modifications and a relatively tight clamp on local adjustments. Three runways, each 150 feet wide, were set in a generally triangular form with intersecting legs. The main runway was 6,000 feet long, the other two 4,200 feet each. A fifty-foot perimeter track encircling the runways connected some fifty hardstandings. In addition, at each field a 2,500-man “village” had to be built complete with utilities such as sewage—no small problem in the flat lands of East Anglia. At Matching Airdrome buildings included 214 Nissen huts (16 by 36 feet) arranged in seven living sites, with attendant washhouses and latrines. The technical site adjacent to the runways included some forty-odd buildings for administration, operations, and maintenance. Other structures included hospitals, recreation halls, and messes. Away from these areas was a “danger site,” where a score of buildings housed bombs, fuses, and other ordnance.
Agreement on layouts and construction standards was a minor issue compared
to problems in the actual work. Though the Air Ministry provided airfield and village construction plans and arranged for locally supplied materials, British equipment was often too light and too little. Other considerations plagued the Americans—a lack of experienced construction workers, strange British nomenclature and methods, rains beginning in mid-October that turned fields into bogs and company areas into quagmires, and finally the disruptions of TORCH. Because of delays in the arrival of the heavy organizational equipment, aviation battalions began clearing land with hand tools; one unit had only a small-scale map to locate and chart the runways it was to construct. All units had to train men on the job. Even those with some construction training were at a loss in the United Kingdom where virtually no construction was of wood—every piece came under the control of a separate British Timber Control Board. One unit traded food for enough lumber to build concrete pouring forms. The corrugated curved steel Nissen, Iris, and Romney huts were enclosed at the ends with masonry, and a number of structures on airdromes were entirely of brick. Engineer units had to train large numbers of masons, using men experienced in the trade as teachers.49
Even when heavy equipment arrived more regularly in late 1942, aviation engineer battalions had few men familiar with it. Operators needed intensive training. One method divided the labor into specialized tasks: one company handled the runway preparation and paving; another roads and taxiways; and the third the huts, drainage systems, and ancillary tasks. Methods and schedules varied from battalion to battalion, but nearly all worked double shifts to take advantage of the long summer days. As daylight hours shortened in the fall, units worked under lights; two, and sometimes three, shifts kept the vital heavy equipment running day and night.
Engineer aviation units were armed and organized to defend their airfields should the need arise. In the early days men marched to work with their rifles, stacking them at the job site. Alerts and blackouts punctuated the nighttime work as German bombers passed over on their way to metropolitan areas, but airdrome construction proceeded with little interference. Some attempt was made to disguise the characteristic outline of runways with a wood chip covering and that of buildings with paint, but camouflage did not become an important consideration.
In the end, the progress demanded of the engineer aviation battalions in the first year of construction work in England proved beyond those partially trained, underequipped, and often undermanned units. Airfields that OCE, SOS, originally estimated would take one battalion six months to build took a year or more.50
The decision to invade North Africa dealt a blow to BOLERO construction from which it did not recover until well into the spring of 1943. In September, just when the arrival of more engineer construction units made possible an increase in building activity, many of the engineer units were alerted for TORCH; others had to support the offensive, mainly in depot operations, because TORCH called for a greatly increased volume of supplies from the United Kingdom.51
The diversion of supplies and troops for North Africa dictated new means for tapping the labor supply. Early in October SOS, ETOUSA, provided for labor pools in each of the base sections, with a general service regiment or equivalent serving as a nucleus on which to form organizations for freight handling and various other tasks at depots and similar installations. Aviation engineers also performed these duties. On 1 October Colonel Adams of the Operations and Training Division, OCE, SOS, reported that three aviation battalions had just arrived but had only 20 percent of their heavy construction equipment. General Littlejohn, General Lee’s deputy, pointed to this as a justification for adding these units to the labor pools, emphasizing that 5,000 SOS engineers had already been diverted from construction.52
In November the British, who were scraping the bottom of their own construction labor barrel, removed 2,843 pioneer troops from depot work. Colonel Albrecht of the Construction Division, OCE, SOS, argued to no avail that it was ridiculous to transfer unskilled pioneer labor to construction if this forced more skilled American units to perform unskilled work. At the end of November, a peak of 4,000 SOS, 1,160 aviation, and 1,100 ground forces engineers were in labor pools. Large numbers continued at depot work through March 1943. In spite of repeated requests from the chief engineer, ETOUSA, for more civilian aid, the British could do little. And, with apologies, Colonel Moore had to explain to the Eighth Air Force that the success of TORCH depended upon keeping aviation engineers on unskilled depot work.53
General Lee recognized that returning engineers to construction or buildup tasks should have high priority, with aviation engineers heading the list, as soon as the TORCH emergency passed. In the meantime, as the labor pool system functioned, engineers had to do the work of other services. They carried on the entire operations of many ordnance depots,
Hospital construction employing prefabricated concrete roof trusses
and they supplied a large part of the personnel for quartermaster depots. The labor pool system originally established for the TORCH emergency aided materially in getting the North African invasion on its way in time. But the system seemed to have expanded beyond reason. With only 105,000 troops in the entire theater, Colonel Moore could not understand why it was necessary to have 15,500 men (not all of them engineers) carrying on supply functions.54
In the spring of 1943, SOS abolished the labor pool system and engineer units returned to their normal jobs. Although necessary, labor pools had markedly affected ETO construction progress. ROUNDUP plans had to be thrust aside, and work on airfields, depots, troop accommodations, and hospitals was thrown off schedule. Some construction had continued, but on a greatly reduced scale. Morale dropped and disciplinary problems increased, because men were doing jobs with which they were not familiar and for which they had no training. Moreover, many units had to be divided into small groups, with a resulting loss of unit integrity and pride.55
The British continued to execute their part of BOLERO construction, largely by contract, but the future of the American program hung in the balance. Many doubted that construction on the scale of the long-range BOLERO Plan would ever be needed. The general agreement was that additional camp construction would not be necessary during the winter, but depot and airfield programs were not substantially decreased. The engineers could not cope with this construction program so they sought a clear statement of responsibilities. Lacking such a statement, they used General Somervell’s order of 17 November, which sharply limited materials and supplies to the new, short-term 427,000-man troop basis. But this order did not look beyond the spring of 1943 and placed the Americans in the awkward position of seeming to block preparations in the United Kingdom for a cross-Channel attack. The ETOUSA publication in mid-January 1943 of a modified construction program left this situation basically unchanged. The unqualified revival of the buildup had to await agreement on a strategic program for 1943-44.56