Chapter 6: Supply From the United States
Despite the fact that the South Pacific and the Southwest Pacific Areas continued throughout the war to obtain as many Quartermaster supplies from local sources as military specifications and the number and distribution of troops permitted, both commands as time went by were obliged to obtain more and more supplies from the United States. In the South Pacific at the end of 1942 it was calculated that during the coming year New Zealand would furnish about 45 percent of nonperishable food requirements, Australia about 33 percent, and the United States only about 22 percent.1 But the greatly increased number of soldiers in both areas prevented the degree of support anticipated from Australia, and at the close of 1943 it was estimated that in the following year the contribution of Australia would shrink to 10 percent while that of the United States would double and that of New Zealand remain unchanged. Actually, New Zealand did not provide more than slightly over 36 percent, and the United States made up the deficiency.2 In the Southwest Pacific, too, the United States supplied a growing share of area needs. By the last half of 1944 it was probably the source of more than 75 percent of nonperishable foods eaten by soldiers at and west of Hollandia, who then constituted about 30 percent of the theater troop strength. For the remaining 70 percent of the troops who were stationed east of Hollandia, it provided about 30 percent of nonperishables.3
From the outset both theaters procured post exchange (PX) articles—cigarettes, cigars, matches, razors, shaving blades, shaving cream, toilet soap, tooth powder, toothbrushes, candy bars, and soft drinks—mainly from the United States, for that country alone could provide the familiar type of articles preferred by most soldiers.4 As the war progressed, the percentage so obtained rose steadily. This was true, too, of clothing, equipage, general supplies, and petroleum products. The Central Pacific, unlike the other two areas, from the very beginning looked to outside sources for practically all its Quartermaster supplies.
Area Stock Levels and Requisitions
To prevent any one theater from securing a disproportionately large share of available supplies and at the same time give every
overseas area adequate stocks, the War Department determined for each theater the amount of reserve stores it needed to replace supplies that units brought overseas with them and to maintain a margin of safety. These reserves, varying from theater to theater with their diverse requirements, were expressed in terms of “days of supply,” one day’s supply being the amount needed to fill the replacement demands of a theater for one day.
War Department directives of early 1942 established a 90-day level for Quartermaster stocks in the Southwest Pacific. These instructions did not make it clear whether supplies on order or in the hands of troops were to be included in the authorized reserves. Headquarters, USAF IA, assuming that such supplies were to be included, found that under this interpretation the long delays in forwarding shipments of Quartermaster cargoes from the West Coast made Quartermaster supplies on order so large a part of the permissible stock level that stores actually in the Southwest Pacific were likely to be inadequate to furnish a suitable margin of safety. For that reason it recommended that the total of allowable Quartermaster levels be doubled to a 180-day supply. The War Department not only did this; it went further and definitely excluded from the reserves all supplies on order or in the hands of troops. It also divided the reserve into two parts: one, an “emergency or minimum reserve,” and the other, an “operating reserve.” The emergency reserve was composed mostly of supplies stored in ports and depots. In theory it was used to meet abnormally large replacement needs stemming from tactical operations, transportation breakdowns, or the depletion of the “operating reserve.” The latter reserve, stored in all echelons of supply, contained the items needed to fill routine replacement demands.5
In the Southwest Pacific each of these reserves consisted of a 90-day supply, and both together constituted what was called the “maximum reserve.” As the South Pacific Area’s greater proximity to the West Coast enabled it to obtain quicker deliveries than the Southwest Pacific Area, its operating reserve was only a 60-day supply and its maximum reserve only a 150-day supply. In both areas the distinction between the emergency and the operating levels became blurred in practice. The tendency, particularly in regions with few well-established bases, was to treat all stores as available for either routine or emergency issue and to make the maximum reserve the actual operating reserve. Insofar as the concept of an emergency reserve had reality, it was increasingly as a stockage held for the use of task forces in combat operations.
Until the last year and a half of the war, both emergency and operating reserves of Quartermaster items in the Southwest Pacific continued to be based generally on a 90-day level. Lower levels were set for items that were not issued regularly but only under unusual conditions. Thus field rations, consumption of which depended upon the varying conditions that governed the supply of regular A rations in the field, particularly in combat operations, were stocked in accordance with rough estimates of probable consumption during a 180-day period. The maximum reserve for B rations was a 144-day supply; for C rations, a 24-day supply; and for D rations, a 12-day supply.6 Some-
times special circumstances required the establishment of levels higher than those normally authorized. The seasonal character of the canning industry and the impossibility of delivering canned foods at a uniform rate throughout the year, for example, made it necessary to permit stockage of more than formally authorized amounts of these foods at peak production periods.7
During 1944 two factors—the vastly increased requirements brought about by the invasion of the European Continent and the growing shortage of supplies of all sorts throughout the world—compelled the War Department to lower authorized operating reserves for Quartermaster items. In January the build-up for the Normandy landings forced a reduction in the Quartermaster operating reserves in all Pacific areas to a 30-day level. In the Southwest Pacific and South Pacific Areas emergency reserves, which were becoming comparatively more important as the scope of tactical operations widened, were reduced only to a 75-day level for food and petroleum products, or two and a half times the operating reserves for these supplies. Emergency reserves for clothing, equipage, and general supplies were actually lifted to a 120-day level, this high figure being set because deliveries from the West Coast were often held up by low shipping priorities. In Hawaii the level for food and petroleum products was a 30-day supply and for clothing, equipage, and general supplies, a 60-day supply. For forward areas in the Central Pacific, the corresponding figures were a 60-day and a 90-day supply.8
The War Department at the same time formally redefined the emergency level as a reserve specifically designated for combat forces. Stockage of this reserve “in echelon,” it declared, envisioned “the assembly of adequate supplies immediately behind combat operations to insure a constant flow.”9 Under this definition the emergency reserve could no longer be considered available for any unforeseen needs that might arise except those connected with combat operations.10
As 1944 advanced, the procurement of supplies in the United States became more and more difficult, and in December the War Department again reduced Quartermaster stock levels. By this time Pacific quartermasters themselves considered a reduction of authorized stocks necessary, for materials consigned to advanced supply points could not always be stocked there and had to be diverted to rear bases where they were not needed and where storage space was already at a premium.11 In any event increased shipments direct from the West Coast to the island bases made further reductions of permissible levels feasible as well as desirable. In the Southwest Pacific the total reserve, operating and emergency, for food, clothing, and general supplies was set at a 90-day supply. As compared with January figures, this represented a 15-day reduction for subsistence and a drastic 60-day cut for clothing, equipage, and general supplies. The reserve for petroleum products was placed at an 85-day level, a decrease of only 20 days.12
Whether high or low, authorized area stock levels put a definite limit on the total quantity of supplies sought through local procurement and requisitions on the zone of interior. In establishing this quantity for a given period the initial step was to determine over-all area supply requirements. This was done by first multiplying the probable troop strength by the maintenance factor that represented the average daily or monthly depletion of an item and then multiplying the resultant figure by the authorized days of supply plus “order and delivery” time—the period between the consolidation of base inventories and the arrival of requisitioned materials. In the Southwest Pacific the order and delivery time was usually 120 days; in the South Pacific, 90 days. Once the figure for total area requirements had been calculated, the next step was to determine how much of the required items would be on hand at the end of the requisitioning period if no additional supplies were ordered from the zone of interior. These amounts were ascertained by first estimating how much would be available from local procurement, from base stocks, and from replacement supplies accompanying newly arrived units and by then adding these figures and subtracting the anticipated consumption and wastage during the order and delivery period. The difference between the total requirements and the quantity expected to be on hand in the area at the end of the requisitioning period represented the amounts that had to be ordered from the United States.13
The determination of requirements for Quartermaster items and the preparation of requisitions on the zone of interior were functions that, generally speaking, were carried out by the supply branches of the central Quartermaster organization in each theater. This arrangement was followed even in the Southwest Pacific during 1942 and 1943. All requisitions on the zone of interior were checked by higher echelons before they were submitted to the San Francisco Port of Embarkation for completion. In the Southwest Pacific in 1943 the Planning and Control Division of the OCQM checked all requisitions and then sent them for approval to the Supply and Transportation Section, USASOS, which in this respect acted essentially as a G-4 Section. Requisitions approved by that section were forwarded to GHQ SWPA, which in turn submitted them by air mail to San Francisco. When the Distribution Division was set up in the Southwest Pacific at the beginning of 1944, its Quartermaster Section took over the tasks of estimating requirements and preparing requisitions on the zone of interior. In the other Pacific areas these tasks remained functions of the central Quartermaster organization.14
The preparation of over-all area requisitions accurately mirroring Quartermaster needs required, above all, reasonably correct consolidated inventories of all stocks. Such inventories in turn depended on the availability of accurate consolidated inventories from the bases, which were supposed to take stock every month or two and submit the inventory figures to the
requisitioning agency. Unfortunately, bases seldom had sufficient qualified technicians to furnish this fundamental information. In the Southwest Pacific such personnel were lacking not only in new advance bases but to a considerable extent even in older and better organized bases. Writing to Quartermaster General Gregory in mid-1943, Colonel Cordiner said that “Property officers too often place their weakest men on stock record accounts, personnel who know nothing of nomenclature and who often have no desire to know anything.”15 In the South Pacific lack of an effective system of keeping stock records at SOS bases prompted the Quartermaster Section of Headquarters, SOS SPA, in the spring of 1944 to revise the existing methods of stock control. At that time an inventory team visited all South Pacific bases and examined bookkeeping methods and depot operations that affected accurate reporting. On the basis of the information obtained, the team helped each base prepare better inventories and better stock records.16 This development, though desirable, came at a time when the South Pacific was already rapidly declining as an active combat area. It was too late to be of much value.
Other computations used in estimating requirements were often as unreliable as inventory figures. Deliveries from Australian and New Zealand sources of supply could seldom be forecast correctly because droughts and other unpredictable natural hazards repeatedly lowered agricultural production and because labor and materials shortages in swiftly expanding industrial plants made adherence to production schedules almost impossible. Nor was it possible to do more than make a shrewd guess as to combat, shipping, and storage losses.17
In practice the requisitioning system provoked many differences of opinion between the Pacific areas and the zone of interior. The War Department, believing that units going overseas would be amply cared for by the replacement supplies that accompanied them and wanting the size of overseas reserves limited as much as possible, favored a troop basis for requisitioning purposes founded on the number of men actually in an area at the time requisitions were submitted. Since it often happened that freshly arrived troops were not actually accompanied by their replacement supplies and had to be provided for out of maintenance reserves already in the theater, Pacific quartermasters wanted projected strength as of the end of the requisitioning period to determine the troop basis.
G-4, USASOS, early in August 1942 directed that a troop basis of 100,000 men be used for requisitioning purposes. This figure represented approximately the number of troops then in the area, but new organizations were pouring into Australia, “sometimes without the knowledge of the supply branches, at a rate that would shortly bring the total strength to a substantially larger figure.18 Because of the rapid rise in the number of soldiers Colonel Cordiner insisted that the authorized basis was too low to insure adequate reserves. Late in August, G-4 appeared to accept this contention when it authorized a troop basis of 125,000 men until 1 October and of 150,000 men from
that date to the end of the year. Scarcely had it taken this action when it lowered the basis to 110,000 men for requisitions on the zone of interior but, somewhat paradoxically, retained the 150,000-man basis for procurement operations in Australia and for determining theater supply levels. Since these levels were based on a larger number of troops than were used for requisitions on the zone of interior, Quartermaster stocks often could not be built up to the authorized level and therefore appeared in “a rather bad light.”19 For this reason Cordiner suggested that the basis for procurement from the United States again be lifted to 150,000 men, a figure that would soon represent the actual strength of the theater. This change was made, but at the same time the troop basis for theater supply levels was raised to 200,000 men. While more supplies could thus be obtained from home sources, it was still frequently impossible to bring Quartermaster stocks up to authorized levels.20
In December the War Department directed that the ports of embarkation edit overseas requisitions on the basis of the number of men actually in the theater. This development led USASOS to direct that the troop basis for requisitions be set at 135,000 men, approximately the number then in the command, but 15,000 less than the figure set just a month before. Until authority was finally granted in the summer of 1944 for the inclusion in the troop basis of units ordered to proceed to the area, requisitions were based roughly on actual strength, but not without considerable discussion between the Pacific areas and the port of embarkation concerning what constituted “actual strength.” Whenever, as sometimes happened, the zone of interior and the Pacific areas used different troop figures, the editing and filling of requisitions became a longer process.21
Troop strength, whether current or projected, was only one element in the calculation of requirements. An equally important element was accurate replacement factors. These factors were simply numbers expressed in fractions or decimals, which represented the replacement need for a single issued article during a specific period of time. If it was desired to ascertain the replacements for the shirts of 100,000 troops, each of whom had been initially issued two shirts, and the replacement factor representing a month’s requirement was .20, total requirements were calculated merely by multiplying the 200,000 shirts in the hands of the troops by .20. Accurate replacement factors were particularly needed for clothing and general supplies, which were not consumed with the regularity characteristic of rations and, to a lesser extent, of petroleum products. But factors that mirrored wartime replacement needs with reasonable accuracy could of course not be obtained before the theaters of operations had developed a body of issue experience. Until well into 1943 both the Pacific areas and the San Francisco Port of Embarkation utilized OQMG factors based mainly upon the peacetime issues of the Regular Army in the United States, which, obviously, did not reflect combat conditions in the tropics.22
Fully alive to the need for more accurate factors, the Pacific areas after mid-1943 used their accumulating issue experience as a check on published factors and as a basis
for the compilation of experience tables. If these tables were to be accurate, a sharp distinction had to be drawn between replacement and initial issues, but such a distinction was often impossible since initial issues frequently came from the same stocks as did replacement issues and supply installations seldom distinguished between the two types in their stock records. Yet if the War Department was to work out its supply plans intelligently, it had to differentiate between recurrent and nonrecurrent issues. It therefore insisted that theaters of operations exclude initial issues from replacement statistics. But its efforts to apply this principle had slight success in the Pacific because the haste accompanying initial issues and the scarcity of qualified accountants did not permit careful bookkeeping. For this reason Quartermaster experience figures were never very accurate.23
Because of the many uncertain elements that entered into the preparation of requisitions—incorrect inventories, doubt as to the basis of troop strength, doubt as to the precise quantities procurable from local sources, inability to forecast combat, shipping, and storage losses, and lack of wholly suitable replacement factors—requisitions mirrored Quartermaster requirements only approximately. Yet, usually, they were not too far from the mark. Of more importance was the prompt shipment of requisitioned items from the United States.
Port-Depot System
The San Francisco Port of Embarkation, the agency charged with the task of filling Pacific requisitions, was authorized to utilize not only its own resources but also those of its subports—Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Port Rupert (British Columbia), and New Orleans—and of its supporting depots, which stocked supplies for movement to the Pacific on its call.
In the Overseas Supply Division (OSD) at San Francisco, as at other ports of embarkation, there was a Quartermaster Branch, which dealt directly on technical matters with the OQMG in Washington. That branch had functions analogous to those of a zone of interior depot, being responsible for completing Quartermaster overseas requisitions and for storing and inspecting supplies handled in transit at the port. In addition to editing requisitions to see that the quantities ordered complied with prescribed stock levels and allowances of equipment and supplies and that they were not excessive in relation to the prospective troop strength of the requesting area, the Quartermaster Branch ordered the needed items from the port’s “initial” or “primary” supply sources, which were ascertained from OQMG charts showing the particular installations that served as primary and secondary sources of supply for each major item required at San Francisco and its subports. These installations ordinarily were interior storage depots, but the port itself might be a supply source since it stocked limited quantities of Quartermaster items in constant demand. If an item was scarce, the source might even be a procuring agency, possibly the OQMG itself.24
For San Francisco and its Pacific coast subports the Utah General Depot at Ogden
or some other western installation usually served as the primary supply source. For New Orleans the sources were southern or middle western depots. The Quartermaster Branch instructed the supplying installation to forward the item to the port that it designated as shipper; it also indicated the date by which the item had to arrive in order to meet sailing schedules. If the primary source could not furnish the required item, it forwarded the order to a secondary source for completion.25
Throughout the war the Quartermaster Branch, like other technical service branches at the port, suffered from an organizational system that assigned to it not only too few officers in general but too few officers of field grade who could handle important problems with promptness and authority. In this respect the San Francisco branch was worse off than its sister branch at the New York Port of Embarkation. In June 1945, when the volume of supplies moving to the Pacific was fast nearing the peak levels earlier handled at New York, Quartermaster officers in the Overseas Supply Division at San Francisco consisted of only one major, three captains, and seven lieutenants. At a corresponding period in the activities of the New York Port the Quartermaster Branch, Overseas Supply Division, had one lieutenant colonel, three majors, six captains, and twelve lieutenants. Civilian employees at New York, too, were proportionately more numerous.26 The branch at San Francisco also suffered from the fact that its functions were not confined, as were those of the branch at New York, to supply policy, editing requisitions, and coordinating overseas problems but included such purely local operations as storing Quartermaster stocks kept at the port for overseas shipment, compiling stock records, and following up orders on supporting installations to see that supplies were delivered as promptly as possible.27 Owing to limited storage space, port stocks were confined to fast-moving items, of which a ninety-day working supply, based on both past and prospective shipments, was normally prescribed. The Quartermaster Branch submitted requisitions for the initial stocks of these items direct to the OQMG; once that office had filled these orders, it automatically replenished supplies on the basis of the port’s periodical stock status reports.28
Hampered by its small staff and numerous functions and the complications introduced by the receipt of requisitions from three major areas, the Quartermaster Branch in San Francisco could not always edit overseas orders promptly nor maintain as complete records of actions taken on requisitions as were needed for effective control over the supplies flowing into the port. Its follow-up action was sporadic. Generally speaking, it took no immediate action when a supplying depot indicated its inability to deliver items within the stipulated time; instead, the branch waited for thirty days after the deadline. Had a more aggressive follow-up system been feasible, it might have substantially diminished the number of tardy deliveries.29
The inadequate organization of the Quartermaster Branch was only one of several causes for slow completion of requisitions.
Railroad and storage deficiencies were also in part responsible. During 1942 most Quartermaster stocks for shipment through San Francisco were held in the Utah General Depot at Ogden, nearly 1,000 miles to the east. Because of the distance between the two installations and the fact that shipments to and from three other depots at Ogden congested the thin railway network leading to the West Coast, Quartermaster supplies could not always be delivered promptly. On several occasions this situation led to shortages in the food stocks at the port. When tardy deliveries continued into 1943, the newly built warehouses of the California Quartermaster Depot at its substation in Tracy, about 45 miles southeast of Oakland, were utilized for overseas stocks in order to bring them closer to the port, and the responsibilities of the Ogden installation for storing such stocks were substantially reduced.30
In the autumn of 1943 a special board of officers was appointed to study the problem of “delinquent” requisitions, defined as those which, after ninety days, were still not ready for shipment from San Francisco.31 It found that, in October 1943, 5.1 percent of the Quartermaster requisitions submitted since the preceding March were delinquent—a much smaller percentage than was shown for requisitions of most other technical services but one that included several fairly sizable orders. The board attributed Quartermaster delinquencies to two causes. One was the fact that stocks at supporting depots, though generally meeting prescribed levels, were still too small to match demands, and the other was the slowness of the OQMG in handling requisitions that the port had forwarded for assignment to eastern and middle western supply points. That office took, on the average, twenty-two days to assign such requisitions; it sometimes distributed an order for a single item among several depots. The board found that the completion of a specially assigned requisition took, on the average, 116 days, or 26 days more than the theoretical limit.32 Partly on the basis of the board’s findings the OQMG established a special organization for handling overseas requisitions and restricted as far as possible the dispersion of orders for single items among depots.
The provision of more space for Quartermaster overseas supplies posed serious difficulties, for there was hardly any unallotted storage space in the western third of the country. Eventually, 900,000 square feet were assigned to the QMC in Umatilla Ordnance Depot at Hermiston, Oreg.; 250,000 square feet in Navajo Ordnance Depot at Flagstaff, Ariz.; and a like amount in Pueblo Ordnance Depot in Colorado. To obtain still more space the missions of the western depots were modified. The major functions of the Mira Loma and the California Quartermaster Depots and the Quartermaster Section of the Seattle General Depot had originally been the storage and distribution of supplies for troops being trained in the domestic distribution areas of these installations, but during 1944 most of these tasks were transferred to the Quartermaster Section of the Utah General
Depot, and the other depots increasingly became feeders for the port of embarkation.33
These changes, while they made for more efficient use of existing resources, left untouched several factors that delayed the filling of orders. Even after Quartermaster supplies arrived in port, thus theoretically completing a requisition, they, along with many other military items, were often held up by the need for special loadings for impending tactical operations and by the difficulty of equitably allotting the limited number of bottoms to fifty or more receiving points located thousands of miles from the West Coast and at considerable distances from each other. Low priorities, assigned to Quartermaster items by Pacific area commanders, constituted another important cause for delayed movements of supplies. This factor, Colonel Cordiner asserted, was responsible for the fact that Quartermaster supplies often could not be loaded even when they were on dock awaiting movement. “By the time the next sailing occurs,” he added, “other high priority items roll in and Quartermaster supplies still remain [unloaded].”34 These unfavorable conditions affected clothing and general supplies in particular, and in November 1942 large quantities of such supplies requisitioned in early May were undelivered though most of them had by then arrived in San Francisco. Colonel Cordiner estimated that four to six months were required for delivery. In August 1943 Lt. Col. Roland C. Batchelder, an OQMG observer then in the Southwest Pacific, estimated that it took “from 120 days to infinity” to get Quartermaster supplies to that area. He found that as a result some Quartermaster stocks had been depleted.35 Deliveries to the South Pacific and Central Pacific Areas were slightly faster, taking on an average thirty to sixty days less than those to their sister area.
Early in 1944 several large Southwest Pacific Area requisitions were delinquent. In March only 5,000,000 of 12,000,000 rations ordered nine months before had been delivered. The delay was caused mostly by the high shipping priorities held by the European Theater of Operations, then busily preparing for the Normandy landings, and by the fact that the War Department, expecting Australia to fill most of the Southwest Pacific requirements for food, did not always have enough rations stored on the West Coast to meet large demands promptly. In May 1944 an order for 10,000,000 rations led the War Department to request that it be told informally well in advance if large orders were about to be submitted officially. Such prior information, it pointed out, would enable it to begin early planning for the shipment of the necessary supplies.36
It was not merely requisitions involving large quantities that remained uncompleted for fairly lengthy periods. Requisitions for small quantities, too, often remained unfilled. All these delays held up the supply of food from the United States. In December
1943, for example, expected shipments of fruit and tomato juice, dehydrated potatoes and onions, peanut butter, dried eggs, and lard had not arrived. Similarly, requisitions sent in November to San Francisco for a wide range of canned meats and vegetables had still not been received by the end of March.37
At this time there was probably an even larger number of tardy requisitions for clothing than for food—chiefly because heavy shipments to the United Kingdom had almost exhausted some clothing stocks. Col. Fred L. Hamilton, director of the Distribution Division, USASOS, warned fellow officers on his return from the United States in March 1944 that they must rely to an unusual degree upon the reclamation of discarded clothing to eke out their stocks. Delays, even longer than in the case of clothing, were being encountered, he reported, on deliveries of general supplies. Though the War Department was procuring a substantial volume of such badly needed items as laundry soap, insecticides, and insect repellents, the shortage of labor and materials had obliged it to reduce or halt temporarily its purchases of less essential items. Colonel Hamilton indeed reported that few general supplies were being procured that theater commanders had not certified as urgently required.38
Of all the factors retarding the delivery of supplies—long lines of communications, shipping shortages, the time consumed in editing requisitions, an overworked Quartermaster Branch in the Overseas Supply Division at San Francisco, railroad and storage deficiencies, low shipping priorities, and stock shortages—none was more important than the slow turnabout of vessels. This particular problem, common to all theaters of operations, was made more acute in the Pacific by the inability of vessels to discharge cargoes quickly at island bases. At these installations it was the shortage of floating equipment, modern unloading equipment, warehouses, dumps, trucks, and labor that in the main accounted for the inability to keep ships constantly moving to and from the United States. By mid-1944 vessels detained at congested bases and beachheads had become so numerous that Quartermaster cargo awaiting movement from the United States to the Southwest Pacific Area began a disturbing rise. In October, 35 percent and, by March, 65 percent of such cargo could not be transported because of lack of bottoms. Large though these proportions seem, they were less startling than the 53 and 85 percent shown at the same dates for supplies of the technical services as a whole. On several occasions the San Francisco Port of Embarkation pointed out that it could utilize ships more efficiently if the technical services in the Southwest Pacific correlated their requisitions more closely with the discharging capabilities of the ports in that command, but these services, overly optimistic about future improvements of handling equipment, continued to submit requisitions for more supplies than the ports could readily receive.39 The Pacific Ocean Areas balanced requisitions and shipping somewhat better than did the Southwest Pacific Area. During the period when half or more of the cargoes bound for
the Southwest Pacific Area were being held in interior depots for future movement, 80 percent or more of the Quartermaster supplies earmarked for the Pacific Ocean Areas were being loaded on schedule.40
On the whole, belated shipments resulted from causes beyond the control of either port or depots and often from causes originating in the Pacific commands themselves. Such shipments, it is true, contributed to the unbalanced stockages that characterized Quartermaster activities in the Pacific, but they constituted merely one of several factors that helped produce this troublesome unbalance. If food, clothing, equipment, and general supply stocks seldom attained more than a 120-day level and often fell below that figure, this state of affairs was attributable as much to failure of local procurement to reach anticipated figures, to unexpected issues of initial equipment to newly arrived units, and to the re-equipment of combat troops after an operation ended, as it was to tardy receipts of replacement supplies requisitioned from the United States. In most cases reserve stocks sufficed to meet urgent requirements before shortages reached a critical stage.41
Automatic Supply
In order not to oblige overseas areas to try to draw up accurate requisitions in the opening months of their activities—when they were undermanned and had few means of accurately estimating either stocks on hand or supplies necessary to maintain established levels—War Department procedures for replenishing stocks were at first grounded on automatic supply as well as area requisitions. Automatic supply meant, simply, that ports of embarkation at regular intervals shipped selected items in quantities derived from their own estimates of future overseas requirements. This system was confined in the main to articles consumed at a fairly constant rate. A reasonably accurate estimate of future needs for these articles could, it was thought, be prepared merely on the basis of overseas troop strength and the amounts already shipped.
Of all Quartermaster supplies food items were best fitted for automatic supply. Since menus were determined months in advance necessary shipments of subsistence could be easily ascertained by taking the components of the menus, calculating the amounts required to feed one soldier during the chosen period of time, and multiplying this figure by the estimated troop strength. Though other Quartermaster items were not well suited to this method of supply, all of them were at first provided automatically to the forces in Australia in order to help build up stocks as quickly as possible to the ninety-day level prescribed for replacement stocks. In February 1942, however, the War Department directed that after 1 March automatic supply of Quartermaster items would be confined to rations and petroleum products.42
Since the full directive did not reach Colonel Cordiner he was left in doubt whether clothing, equipment, and general supplies were to be shipped automatically. His efforts to clarify this question brought
conflicting information from Washington.43 A War Department radiogram of 28 April declared that automatic shipments of clothing, equipage, and general supplies were being made on the basis of 78,000 men in Australia and 17,000 men in New Caledonia. Finally, on 12 June, more than four months after the original directive had been issued, the War Department radioed that these supplies were being furnished only on requisition.44 Meanwhile, to be certain of receiving such items, Colonel Cordiner early in May had submitted requisitions based on the requirements of 150,000 men. This confused situation contributed to a delay of some weeks in building up essential reserves.45
By the late spring of 1942 it was obvious that automatic supply was not working well in the Southwest Pacific. Excesses appeared in some stocks and shortages in others. In part these imbalances resulted from the difficulties encountered at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation in calculating replacement needs correctly. Marked variations in actual troop strength figures from those used by the port distorted its estimates, and further distortions were introduced by unpredictable day-by-day fluctuations in the consumption rate and by the impossibility of forecasting losses from ship sinkings, air attacks, inferior packing, unsuitable storage, and widespread pilferage. Most of all, stocks were unbalanced because of increased deliveries of supplies bought in Australia and New Zealand. As the port of embarkation lacked complete information regarding such procurement, it could not adjust its shipments to reflect these purchases.46
By June the availability of more and more Australian food rendered the automatic system almost unworkable for that class of supply. The only ration components then needed in quantity from San Francisco were coffee, tea, cocoa, canned fish, tobacco, and a few other nonperishable elements of the B ration.47 The position of clothing and general supply stocks was less satisfactory because of the prolonged uncertainty as to whether these items were being furnished automatically and because shipments made in January and February were based on 78,000 men, whereas the area had actually supplied more than that number owing to its responsibility for furnishing many items to the South Pacific Area. For a time clothing and general supplies became so scarce that issues were adequate only because some units arrived with replacement stocks and distress cargo furnished substantial quantities of needed articles.48
In the South Pacific, as in the Southwest Pacific, automatic supply did not prove entirely satisfactory. The longer the system lasted the more unmanageable became the shortages and excesses. The fact that shortages were the same at most supply centers precluded the better balancing of stocks by using excess accumulations of one center for filling the shortages of another. In January 1943 the Quartermaster, SOS SPA, submitted special requisitions on San Francisco to bring all his stocks up to prescribed levels,
but several badly needed shipments did not arrive until July.49 Not until the following month did requisitioning wholly supplant the automatic system.50
Shipment of Organizational Equipment and Supplies
The movement of organizational items constituted a special form of automatic supply. According to established policy, units departing from the United States or from Australia—were if possible to be accompanied by the items needed for initial issues and by a sixty-day replacement stock of Quartermaster items. This method of supply was considered an indispensable safeguard against the unbalancing of stocks that would result if areas submitted requisitions covering the requirements of units under orders to proceed overseas and these units arrived in greater or less strength or earlier or later than expected.
In practice this system did not always operate in the prescribed manner. Frequently, in the hectic months after Pearl Harbor, the shortage of ocean-going vessels and the numerically inadequate gangs of stevedores prevented the movement of organizational supplies in the same convoy with the outgoing troops and forced the dispersion of such cargo among other convoys, some of which did not leave the West Coast for days or even weeks after the troops had sailed. The port was also often obliged to resort to “commercial loading” of organizational supplies—that is, the cargo was solidly stowed in order to secure maximum carrying capacity. Since solid stowing was the primary aim, items for different destinations and items of the various technical services were unavoidably intermingled. To make matters worse, overworked stevedores sometimes had to move cargo directly from incoming freight cars and hurriedly dump it into the holds of waiting vessels.51
These practices made the delivery of the proper organizational supplies to the proper overseas ports a hard task. Lt. Col. Joseph H. Burgheim, Task Force Quartermaster at Nouméa, New Caledonia, reported in late April 1942 that shipments were so mixed that whole cargoes had to be discharged in order to locate the supplies consigned to New Caledonia. Supplies consigned to Australia and New Zealand of course had to be reloaded. Colonel Burgheim estimated that improper stowage of supplies had damaged about 25 percent of the total tonnage. Organizational equipment, he added, seldom accompanied the troops. Truck companies lacked motor vehicles, bakery companies lacked ovens, and laundry companies lacked cleaning equipment.52 Continued inability to match equipment and units in Australia led General MacArthur late in May 1943 to inform the San Francisco Port of Embarkation that for the time being all unit-marked supplies would be stored and, like other supplies, be issued only on requisition.53
To Pacific quartermasters the ideal solution for this confused situation was “unit-loading,” that is, the transportation of all organizational cargo on the ship that
carried the troops, or at least in the same convoy, but this solution in general proved impracticable. The Transportation Corps directed the port of embarkation to apply this method of loading as far as possible, but variations in the carrying capacity of troop transports and in the amount of unit supplies and equipment were too great to permit it as a standard practice. Since relatively more troops than supplies could be carried in a convoy, complete unit-loading was usually feasible only if some organizations were left behind. Later in the war port conditions in San Francisco at times allowed “selective loading,” that is, the segregation of shipments by technical service and by general class of supply. Under this system of stowage, space was left in holds of vessels so that items could be taken off without moving the whole cargo. But the system was so time-consuming, tied up so many vessels, and so aggravated the shortage of bottoms that it could be used only sparingly.54
In many instances the large number of Pacific ports receiving supplies continued to force the shipment of consignments for two or more ports on the same vessel but with the whole cargo to be discharged at a single port. The latter procedure was particularly likely to be adopted if there was a large quantity of high-priority supplies for one port and a small quantity of low-priority supplies for another port. In that event all the cargo was likely to be discharged wherever the high-priority supplies were consigned. Quartermaster items destined for the Milne Bay base were repeatedly landed at Finschhafen; in this event, distribution of Quartermaster items from Milne Bay might be materially delayed. “The distribution situation being what it is in this theater,” declared Capt. Robert D. Orr, OQMG observer, “it is almost an impossibility that the men and the equipment would show up at the same port at the same time unless they are together.”55 This state of affairs, though exasperating to quartermasters whose stocks might be unbalanced, was under the circumstances unavoidable.
In the last two years of hostilities delays in the arrival of organizational cargo grew shorter, but some divisions and other organizations—from Australia as well as from the United States—continued to reach New Guinea without essential equipment.56 Frequently, even tents and cots, indispensable to the proper housing of troops, were not available for three weeks or more after units had arrived. In such cases, quartermasters in the base sections where the affected units landed issued these items from area replacement reserves. At times when many organizations were arriving in New Guinea, these reserves were indeed used mainly not for the replacement purposes for which they had been established but for initial issue to incoming units.57 Yet cots and tentage were always in heavy replacement demand because tropical mildewing hastened their deterioration. They were needed in the first place because of the absence of permanent structures and the necessity of protection from the torrid sun, torrential downpours, deep mud, and disease-bearing insects. When large initial issues were added to these normal replacement requirements, acute
shortages occasionally appeared. These would not have been particularly troublesome if units had returned the tents and cots when their own equipment finally arrived, but they seldom made such returns.58
Late delivery of other types of organizational equipment also inconvenienced units. Shortages of mess equipment, for example, impaired the ability of units to feed themselves properly, but it did not make as deep inroads on area stocks as did belated receipt of textile materials. In June 1943 the Base Quartermaster at Port Moresby reported that his stocks were “being daily depleted by initial issues of cots, mosquito bars, and other critical items to troops arriving from the U.S. and the mainland.” He added that “something drastic will have to be done to insure that troops either arrive here fully equipped or that our stocks be increased at once to meet their needs.”59
Since ships could seldom be totally unit-loaded at San Francisco, General MacArthur in October 1943 suggested that at least tentage and cots accompany troops departing from the United States. Maj. Gen. Charles P. Gross, Chief of Transportation, replied that converted passenger liners, which normally served as troop carriers, did not have enough cargo space to accommodate these supplies but that small transports, which had served as freighters in peacetime, could often stow these items for discharge with organizations. MacArthur then requested that, if cots and tents could not accompany a unit, they be forwarded before the troops embarked. Owing to the diversion of most tents to the ETO for its pre-invasion supply build-up, even this arrangement could not always be followed.60
Throughout most of 1944 units in New Guinea were staged with inadequate tentage or with tentage that would normally have been discarded as worthless. In the spring the arrival of a whole division and smaller organizations with but limited quantities of clothing and equipment materially complicated supply conditions. At Finschhafen stocks of tents, cots, jungle clothing, trousers, jackets, and socks were wholly exhausted. In early April the Base Quartermaster reported that shortages of clothing, equipment, and general supplies had reached “alarming proportions.” He added that it was “a physical impossibility to initially equip task forces or other units from maintenance stocks.”61
From the standpoint of the QMC, the most unfortunate result of belated deliveries of organizational cargo was the arrival of Quartermaster units without their operating equipment. This deficiency was especially serious in late 1944, when the campaign for the recovery of the Philippines was beginning and the support of Quartermaster units was badly needed. In December, for example, the 156th, 157th, and 158th Bakery Companies landed at Hollandia, but their baking equipment had been “shipped to an island in the Pacific Ocean areas and no equipment was available within the Theater for issue ... inasmuch as the activation of four Quartermaster bakery companies had depleted” all oven stocks.62
The three newly arrived units had been designated for early participation in the Philippine operations, but inability to carry out their assigned task obliged them to stay in New Guinea for several months.63 Another newly arrived bakery company proceeded to Leyte, but lack of standard ovens forced the employment of a discarded wood-burning type in use of which it had no training.64
Truck, like bakery, companies sometimes lacked essential organizational equipment. Only rarely could vehicleless units be equipped from area stocks, which were so small that few Quartermaster companies had even their full complement of 2½-ton trucks. The skilled services of these technically experienced units were thus often lost for weeks, and their members were in the main employed as laborers on port jobs. Despite their lack of training for such tasks, these troops carried out essential assignments that the Transportation Corps, suffering, like the Quartermaster Corps, from a shortage of manpower, could not always accomplish with its own personnel.65
With comparatively few Quartermaster units in the Southwest Pacific, most of those arriving in 1944 were assigned to direct support of combat forces rather than to rear-area activities. But when these units landed without the tools for carrying out their mission, it was taken over by organizations operating at busy supply bases. Quartermaster base functions were thus impaired just at the time rear installations were immersed in the important task of forwarding supplies to the troops fighting on Leyte and Luzon.66
Meanwhile, in March 1944, the War Department took drastic action to solve the problem of organizational supplies and equipment. It recommended the discontinuance of the shipment of a 60-day consignment of rations, clothing, equipment, and general supplies with troops going to the Southwest Pacific and the basing of area requisitions not only on actual troop strength, as was then the general practice, but also on the number of men under orders to proceed to the area. With these modifications of established procedures there would be, the War Department maintained, no need for supplies to accompany units. Insofar as the Quartermaster Corps was concerned, it concurred in these recommendations with reservations as to the movement of food. Because of internal distribution problems, springing from the shortage of intra-area shipping, it proposed that organizations continue to be accompanied by a 60-day supply of B rations, a 2-day supply of C rations, and a 1-day supply of D rations. The new system went into effect on 1 October. By making what were actually initial issue stocks of clothing, equipment, and general supplies part of the authorized replacement reserves, it appreciably eased the pressure on Pacific stocks.67
Block Ships
During the first half of the war, combat troops in operational areas received needed items, whether for initial or replenishment supply, chiefly from island bases. The
Admiralties operation illustrated how costly in both time and labor this method of support could be. Supplies for that offensive were loaded in San Francisco, discharged and reloaded at Brisbane and again at Oro Bay. Part of the cargo even underwent this wasteful procedure a third time at Finschhafen. There were two major reasons for all this rehandling. For one thing, since regular cargoes from the United States and Australia usually contained items for base reserve stocks as well as for combat operations, the two groups had to be separated. For another, the incessant pressure for prompt turnabout of freighters made some rehandling inevitable. Unloading could be averted only by keeping fully laden vessels in port for weeks and utilizing them in effect as floating warehouses—an unsatisfactory practice that intensified the scarcity of bottoms on the West Coast.68 In other respects, too, the system of supplying combat areas from Pacific bases was defective. Since bases did not have an adequate number of service troops, vessels departing for operational areas were seldom loaded in a fashion that facilitated rapid discharge. Classes of supply were mixed, and individual items were hard to locate because of the frequent inaccuracy of manifests and stowage plans. Among Quartermaster items such essential supplies as ration components and replacement parts for warehouse, bakery, and cooking equipment were often among those which could not be found readily. Worst of all, undermanned and overworked bases were often obliged to leave unloaded low-priority items, such as clothing.69
In an effort to correct some of these weaknesses in the logistical support of operational forces, the “block system of supply” was developed to simplify and standardize at least the provision of replenishment items needed by operational troops after the small stocks accompanying them on their first landings had been exhausted. This system was distinguished by use of West Coast ports, rather than inadequate Pacific bases, for shipments direct to combat areas without rehandling, and, above all, by the eventual development of various “blocks” of supplies. Each block consisted mainly or wholly of one general supply class, such as food or clothing. All types were based upon standardized lists of items prepared by the technical services, each service determining which of its items, if any, were to be included. The quantities of the individual items provided for each type were ordinarily expressed in terms of the requirements of 1,000 men for a given period of time and could thus be raised or lowered in line with the particular requirements of an operation. Once established, the types could be requisitioned from the zone of interior in support of one operation after another simply by submission of the numbers or code names assigned to the required types. The block system thus eliminated to a considerable extent the tedious process of determining precisely what items and how much of each was needed for the resupply of each new operation and of then requisitioning them from the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. In some respects the new system was indeed analogous to automatic supply. It had the further advantage of making possible the adoption of standard plans for the stowage of each type of block.
Block shipments enabled everyone “from the task force commander to the officer in charge of a warehouse or on duty at a dock”
to ascertain readily from published lists and stowage plans “what was on each vessel and where it was loaded.” This advantage, asserted Lt. Col. Fred W. Greene, whose activities in the Southwest Pacific were concerned largely with block movements, “is one which, notwithstanding repeated efforts, was not attained throughout the war by any other method of supply, and is of the utmost importance if efficient logistical support is to be provided.” Block shipments, he added, “assured new equipment and supplies to the combat troops, took the burden of loading hundreds of ships under adverse conditions and placed this task on United States ports and depots operating with expert personnel and the finest of equipment and facilities.”70
The block system was first employed in the Central Pacific during the Gilberts operation of November 1943 and in the Southwest Pacific during the Hollandia operation of April 1944. In the last year and a half of hostilities it served as a major means of replenishing combat supplies in the amphibious campaigns of both these areas. The old system of making shipments from Pacific bases was still utilized for provision of the initial stocks that task forces took with them and even for provision of some replacement supplies. For the latter purposes, block ships increasingly were employed. They were, indeed, often termed “resupply ships.” Some of these vessels were loaded in Hawaii and Australia, but most were loaded on the West Coast where the required items were obtainable in greater quantity and diversity. In June 1944 it was estimated that the new system had reduced transshipments in the Southwest Pacific by 70 percent and tonnage handled at USASOS bases by 15 percent.71
By then block ships had become so important in the replenishment of Quartermaster items that they were described as “the backbone of Quartermaster supply of operations.” They occasionally even supported troops at points remote from ordinary sources of replenishment.72 Since the OMC carried more items consumed at a predictable rate than any other technical service, it was the service most affected by the new system, which by the time plans were drawn for the proposed OLYMPIC assault on Kyushu in November 1945 was expected to furnish about 90 percent of Quartermaster replacement stocks.73
In the Southwest Pacific similarly loaded “standard block ships,” several of which were ordinarily utilized in an operation, constituted the major type of block ship. These vessels transported two “standard blocks,” based at first on those which had been employed in the Gilberts and Marshalls operations but afterwards substantially modified in line with tactical experience. Each block, set up to meet the requirements of 10,000 troops, embraced most of the articles that combat soldiers needed during the thirty days normally required to consolidate their positions. Since Quartermaster items made up about 85 percent of the cargo, standard block vessels were often termed “Quartermaster resupply ships.” Their food cargo was usually broken down into 500,000 B rations and 100,000 packaged combat rations, but exact quantities varied with time and place. The
petroleum cargo consisted principally of oils, greases, kerosene, and range fuel. At first motor and diesel fuel oil were included, but as considerable amounts of these items were shipped with the initial assault troops and dispensed in bulk by shore installations, they were eventually eliminated.
Sixth Army experience early revealed a need for larger quantities of some items than had been originally carried in standard blocks. At Leyte it was found that more petroleum products and more shoes and clothing should have been provided. There was even need for such prosaic articles as pencils, ink, typewriters, and writing paper. To meet these proven requirements, a thirty-day replacement stock of scarce items of clothing, footwear, and general supply items which helped promote individual morale or organizational efficiency was added to the cargo.74
In terms of bulk, petroleum products constituted from the outset more than half the standard block. Rations formed the next largest class of supply while clothing and general supply items made up a considerably smaller part. In June 1944 petroleum products totaled about 4,800 measurement tons; rations, about 2,500 tons; and clothing and general supplies, only about 250 tons. By the following February the need for larger loadings of the latter category was more fully recognized, and it in general constituted a substantially larger proportion of the cargo. Such variations were unavoidable in view of the experimental nature of block movements and the inability to develop immediately a wholly acceptable listing of the most essential supplies.75
The standard block vessels in any particular operation carried the same items, an arrangement known as “spread or balanced loading.” This method of shipment had the virtue of distributing risks, for if one vessel was sunk, all supplies of the same type were not lost. For this reason standard block ships were utilized mainly for resupply movements during the opening stages of an operation, when danger from the enemy was greatest. Actually, they were “assault stage ships.” Leaving the United States on a staggered schedule, they reached their destination at more or less regular intervals during the first month or two of a campaign. If conditions were favorable, they landed their cargoes at once; if unfavorable, they lay offshore until called forward for discharge.76
After standard block ships provided initial replacement stores of the most commonly used items, “solid block ships,” so called because they usually carried only one class of supply, brought in most of the items needed for resupply. Twelve types of these vessels were developed for Southwest Pacific Area participation in the planned OLYMPIC operation. Type B, for example, was to carry B rations, combat rations, and PX articles; Type C, all kinds of petroleum products in drums, which would be landed early in the operation, when bulk-dispensing installations would not yet be functioning; Type D, discharging its cargo after the landing had been secured, was to carry petroleum items not handled by bulk installations; and Type E, clothing and general supplies. Altogether the Southwest Pacific Area developed more than 100 blocks,
which, if properly distributed among the various sorts of resupply ships, would give almost any desired loading.77
The Pacific Ocean Areas also developed a large number of blocks, but they did not employ a standard block vessel under that name. They did obtain, however, the equivalent of this vessel by carrying on identically loaded freighters all classes of supply except petroleum products, which were handled by the Navy. Blocks were based at first on the requirements of 1,000 men for 20 days, but as the magnitude of operations grew, a 30-day period was applied. In Pacific Ocean Areas operations from the Gilberts to Iwo Jima the principal Quartermaster blocks were those designated A, AA, A-1, A-2, A-3, A-4, B, and C-1. Block A consisted of individual and organizational equipment; block AA, of B rations, combat rations, and ration accessory packs; block A-1, of a wide selection of clothing and general utility articles; block A-2, of laundry supplies; block A-3, of shoe repair supplies; block A-4, of field range repair parts; block B, of B rations; and block C-1, of PX items.78
On the basis of combat experience the Tenth Army and the Central Pacific Base Command thoroughly revised Pacific Ocean Areas blocks for the impending Okinawa campaign, which was expected to be a more formidable undertaking than any previous offensive against Japanese forces. Old blocks were combined to form new ones, and the listings of items and quantities were drastically modified. The new blocks included four for subsistence—a Q-1 block, composed entirely of B rations, of which about 170,000 were carried; a Q-2 block, consisting of 90,000 rations of the 10-in-1 type, 54,000 C rations, and 36,000 K rations, or 180,000 combat rations in all, enough to fill the demands of 6,000 men for 30-days; a Q-3 block, made up of 100,000 special twenty-ounce rations, based on the customary Okinawan diet and intended for civilians made destitute by battle damage; and a Q-4 block, composed of emergency supplies, such as D rations, flight rations, hospital rations, and salt tablets, and of a few items always in heavy demand, such as bread and coffee. Four blocks were set aside for clothing, footwear, and general supplies of all sorts—a Q-5 block, providing clothing, tentage, laundry supplies, and shoe repair equipment, all of which had formerly been furnished by A-1, A-2, and A-3 blocks; a Q-6 block, devoted to field range repair parts; and two special blocks, consisting, respectively, of PX items and miscellaneous spare parts.79 Enough supplies to last 30 days were to accompany the assault troops going to Okinawa, but in computing replenishment needs a 30-day safety factor, designed to compensate for combat and other unforeseeable losses, was provided by assuming the total loss of initial supplies and calculating replacement requirements from L Day, the date of the first landings, rather than from L plus 29. Block ships would thus carry enough materials to take care of emergency as well as ordinary replacement requirements.80
In previous operations resupply ships, coming from the United States at intervals of five to ten days, had arrived offshore shortly after an operation started. In the
Okinawan campaign it was planned to obtain greater flexibility of shipping movements by assembling the vessels at regulating stations on Ulithi in the Carolines and at Eniwetok in the Marshalls and calling them forward as supplies were needed on shore. Because provision of normal field rations was expected to be difficult during the first few weeks of the operation, twice as many combat as B rations were to be brought in by the first set of resupply vessels. Twenty-three Q-2 blocks of C, K, and 10-in-1 rations, representing a 20-day supply for 205,000 men, were to be shipped as compared with only twelve Q-1 blocks of B rations, representing a 10-day supply. Eleven Q-4 blocks of specialized types of emergency rations were also included in the early shipments. Since it was assumed that tactical conditions would allow the provision of more field rations after the lapse of 30 days, the second set of resupply shipments was to carry an equal number of Q-1 and Q-2 blocks, each containing a 10-day supply.81
Troublesome operational conditions during the opening days of the Okinawa campaign precluded the execution of this plan in its original form. Interruption of unloading activities by sharp air raids and heavy storms, the hurried opening of unscheduled supply centers for immediate support of the attack, and the cluttered state of the beaches caused shipping to pile up at discharge points and kept vessels from unloading according to schedule. Food dumps on shore contained only scanty stores, and rations could not always be issued in desired quantities. These unfavorable developments were not attributable to want of block ships but resulted from unforeseen obstacles to speedy discharge of cargoes and from poor transportation conditions on shore.82
The proper stowage of cargo, especially rations, was perhaps the most vexatious problem connected with the block system. The QMC was concerned primarily with easy accessibility of supplies for rapid discharge according to established unloading priorities. But the order of loading was not a mere matter of preference or convenience. An improperly loaded vessel might roll over or break in two in a storm, and the port of embarkation had to consider, first of all, the safety of the ship. Next it had to consider the maximum utilization of scarce cargo space by the stowage of supplies according to their intrinsic nature as bottom cargo, between-deck cargo, or top cargo. These considerations were often difficult to reconcile with the desire of the QMC for easy accessibility to its supplies. The Corps particularly objected to the stowage of low-priority items on top, for this arrangement made it necessary to discharge these items first in order to reach food and other supplies. From its standpoint the best method of loading rations was directly on top of vehicles and other heavy equipment in not more than two hatches, but such stowage was not consistent with quick loading or with the most efficient utilization of space, which demanded that rations be put on the bottom with heavy equipment on top in hatch squares directly under the ship’s loading gear. Bottom loading of food was therefore adopted for most block movements. If care was exercised, this type of stowage could be used without injury to rations, which were, in fact, seldom damaged. The problem of prompt discharge of food in
operational areas remained, however, largely unsolved.83
In the Leyte operation standard block ships arrived with heavy deck cargoes and with miscellaneous equipment placed in the holds on top of Quartermaster supplies. This method of stowage, it was estimated, held up the discharge of rations by as much as five days.84 Worse still, some of the ships arrived without the expected packaged rations. In large measure this omission was responsible for the shortage of emergency rations during the Leyte operation.
During the drive on Manila in January and February 1945 the base at Lingayen Gulf reported that although standard block ships, just in from the United States with 1,525 tons of rations, were “having deck loads and top loads discharged, they are not capable of producing any Class I supply while once solid rations are reached it is possible to discharge 500 tons of rations per day from a single ship.”85 Though an average of 795 tons of rations a day was unloaded from all vessels between 19 January and 24 February, or 95 tons more than the average daily requirements of 213,000 men, the rate of issue fluctuated because of the irregular rate of daily discharge, and occasionally fell a good deal below the desired amount. In both the Southwest Pacific and the Central Pacific wider utilization of block ships loaded solidly with rations was suggested as the proper solution.86
In addition to the difficulty of discharging specific kinds of supplies promptly, other problems were also involved in the use of block ships. Though helping to furnish items not obtainable from frequently unbalanced base stocks, they furthered the unbalancing of stocks in Pacific commands as a whole. Inclusion in the ration components loaded in block ships at San Francisco of those items obtainable in Australia and New Zealand created on the area level excess supplies of flour, sugar, and other foods heavily procured in these countries. For a time in the summer of 1944 standard block ships therefore ceased to carry these components and filled the space thus left vacant with several hundred tons of cargo so stowed as to be easily discharged at bases in New Guinea. On arriving at these installations the general cargo was taken off and the missing components added.87
Some officers charged with the distribution of food in the Southwest Pacific believed that this attempt to solve the problem of area stock levels did not go far enough. They even doubted the wisdom of block shipments direct to operational areas. Col. Fred L. Hamilton, director of the Distribution Division, contended that these shipments gave his agency too little latitude in controlling the supply of food. He recommended that all rations from the United States be sent to Australia and placed in subsistence depots, which would assume full responsibility for providing complete rations to all consuming centers. This would mean that block cargoes leaving the West Coast for combat zones would contain no food.
Maj. Gen. James L. Frink, Commanding General, USASOS, maintained that this plan would cause delay and unnecessary rehandling in getting food to consuming troops.88 Accordingly, it was never put into effect. Partial loading in New Guinea was itself feasible only so long as that island was the center of combat activity in the Southwest Pacific. As operations shifted to the Philippines, where there were at first no fully functioning bases, it was abandoned and ships departed from the United States completely loaded.
There was still another objection to block movements. If used indefinitely for resupplying operational areas, they created shortages and excesses in these areas as well as in the theater as a whole. Colonel Greene estimated that three months—at the maximum, five months—constituted the longest period for which they could be profitably employed. By the end of that period unpredictable requirements and losses—the bane of all forms of automatic shipment would throw stores out of balance. Normal requisitioning would then be necessary to adjust stock levels.89
Rations shipped direct to consuming centers were naturally fresher than food stocks built up at established bases by the slow processes of ordinary requisitioning and held in warehouses for many months. Block shipments in consequence often created a divergence in the age of food eaten in forward and rear areas. As early as August 1944, Captain Orr noted that stocks at and west of Finschhafen were fresher than those in areas east of that base. As operations moved northward, this contrast became more marked.90
Finally, block movements had the disadvantage of increasing the workload of the already heavily burdened San Francisco Port of Embarkation. That installation had to handle alterations made in block components by the ordering areas and assemble the blocks as the supplies came in from the depots. Resupply movements, in fact, transferred from Pacific bases to the West Coast ports much of the paper work required to get replenishment supplies into the hands of operational forces.91
Despite its disadvantages the block system materially alleviated the difficulties encountered in the supply of combat troops and in the handling and storage of materials at inadequately equipped bases. The value of block ships was attested by Col. James C. Longino, Deputy Quartermaster of the Sixth Army during its most active combat period. They were, he declared, far superior to the ordinary vessels from Australia that supplied operational forces before the advent of the block system. As many Quartermaster items, unavailable at Australian bases, were supposedly stocked in New Guinea, these vessels had often been routed to advance bases in order to complete their cargoes. But the bases, according to Longino, “either couldn’t or didn’t balance the cargo as contemplated.”92 Nor were materials always unloaded at the designated points; sometimes, because most of the supplies were consigned to one service at a single point, the entire cargo was discharged there. This practice added to shortages and
excesses existing at advance installations, and meals became unbalanced. “Protests from long suffering troops,” declared Colonel Longino, “brought replies that the bases had been supposed to do thus and so.” But there was “little or no improvement,” he continued, “until we began to receive balance loaded resupply ships from the U.S. If credit can be given to any one individual for that, he should certainly have a DSM.”93
Similar in some respects to automatic supply, block loading was superior to that system in that it “permitted theaters to control quantities and the rate of flow by ordering blocks forward as needed.”94 It thereby corrected in part the most flagrant weakness of the older system, the absence of overseas control over the incoming stream of materials. Though block loading unbalanced theater stocks, it did not do so quite as rapidly as automatic supply. For several months it was a reasonably efficient tool. This fact led some observers to believe that it might solve the problem of supplying newly established overseas areas during the period when they were still too unorganized to secure stocks by normal requisitioning. Colonel Greene suggested that block loading might also be employed to stock isolated army or division supply points far from distribution bases. “Unless,” he added, “our concept of war is completely changed, supply by the block-ship system will be among the first of our new developments to be utilized in the event of another conflict.”95
In evaluating the work of the zone of interior in supplying Quartermaster items to the Pacific areas, the most important fact is that despite the difficulties encountered in the movement of cargoes from the West Coast the Army in general had been satisfactorily supported. However exasperating the delays met in completing requisitions and in handling automatic supply, organizational shipments, and block movements, supply accomplishments compared favorably with those of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I. This was especially true, once American industry had been fully geared to peak military production and more ships had become available. Logistical troubles in the Pacific resulted more from internal problems than they did from supply deficiencies at home. Insofar as weaknesses appeared in support from the zone of interior, they had been produced largely by incomplete preparedness for war waged simultaneously against two powerful and widely separated foes who had so strongly intrenched themselves in vast conquered territories that their home citadels, the main sources of their military strength, could not be reduced without first liberating distant lands in protracted and difficult campaigns. In part, too, supply failures resulted from planning and organizational defects inevitable in an untried army just learning in the hard school of experience what the problems of amphibious warfare were and how they ought to be dealt with.
The vast volume of supplies shipped to Pacific destinations attested to the vigorous support the zone of interior rendered the forces fighting Japan. From the beginning of 1942 to the close of that year, Quartermaster cargo shipped from the United States to the Southwest Pacific amounted to 353,023 measurement tons, or 47 percent of total Army movements of 767,589 measurement tons. Quartermaster shipments in 1943 came to 466,763 tons, representing only
about 16 percent of the 2,802,877 tons of Army cargo—a marked decline in the Quartermaster proportion, probably caused by increased reliance upon Australian production. In the following months, as troop strength soared and local procurement fell in importance, Quartermaster cargo reached much higher levels. In 1944 it amounted to 1,863,654 tons and in 1945 to the end of June to 1,354,658 tons, representing nearly 30 percent of all Army cargo.96 From the standpoint of the QMC the most serious drawback in the movement of its cargo was that a large part of it had low shipment priorities and was consequently often held in port for days. But the most important consideration was that, whether speedily or slowly, Quartermaster supplies and equipment were made available to the Pacific areas. Valuable though local procurement became in the Southwest Pacific, it furnished from the outset of hostilities to the end of June 1945 only 1,704,389 measurement tons of Quartermaster supplies as compared with the 4,038,098 tons shipped from American ports during the same period.97 Quite obviously, Quartermaster support in the Pacific largely depended on supply from the United States. Without it, the Corps could not have carried out its mission.